THE NAVY AS A CAREER[ToC]
A young fellow reading all this stuff about the doings of our destroyers might be inclined to look on the navy as pure adventure, which would not be to get it quite right. The adventure is there, but there is something more.
The navy will take a young man, feed and clothe him, give him a good all-round training, and while he is yet in middle age retire him with at least $60 a month for the rest of his life. No matter how low his rating has been, that $60 a month is certain after his thirty years of service; while, if he has shown moderate intelligence and ambition, he can count on close to $100 a month, and this without his having ever been a commissioned officer. The years after his retirement he may spend as he pleases—go into business, get another job, and make another wage on top of his pension. He can go to jail if he prefers: whatever he does, always there is that sheet-anchor of a pension to windward.
Apart from the fighting end of it, most of us possibly do not know just what navy life means to-day. We all know that man-of-war's men no longer lie out on rolling yard arms to reef salt-crusted sails in gales of wind; but in what else lies the difference? Some of us, possibly, do not know that.
The navy still wants men with the seagoing instinct—men who can sailorize, who can hand, splice, and steer; but more than ever the navy is looking for men who can do other things. The navy wants ship-fitters, blacksmiths, plumbers, electricians, wireless operators, carpenters, boiler-makers, painters, printers, store-keepers, bakers, cooks, stewards, drug clerks; even as it wants gunners, boatmen, quartermasters, sailmakers, firemen, oilers, and it will take clarinet, trombone, and cornet players and the like for the ship's band.
If a man has no trade the navy will teach him one. There are navy schools for electricians, shipwrights, ship-fitters, carpenters, painters, coppersmiths, ship's cooks, bakers, stewards, and musicians. There are schools where yeomen (ship's clerks) are taught all about departmental papers; there is a Hospital Corps school; an aeronautic school; a school for deep-sea diving. (There are no schools for blacksmiths or boiler-makers; these must have mastered their trades before enlistment.)
When a young fellow enlists he is sent to one of several naval training-stations. Here they are quartered in barracks—well-aired, well-lighted, well-heated buildings. At one place, where the climate is mild, the boys sleep in barracks in bungalows with upper sides of canvas, which are rolled down to let in sun and air in fine weather and laced up against bad weather.