| Officers | Men | |
| Regulars | 10,590 | 218,251 |
| Reserves | 21,618 | 278,659 |
| Coast Guard | 688 | 6,101 |
| Total | 32,896 | 503,011 |
It is interesting to compare the above enlistment for the World War with those who served in the Navy in previous wars:
| War of 1812 | 20,000 |
| Mexican War | 7,500 |
| Civil War | 121,000 |
| Spanish-American | 23,000 |
The Navy was called upon to perform many new tasks—to man troop-ships and cargo transports, to furnish guards for merchant ships, to maintain forces ashore, in Europe as well as this country, and to render other services that no navy had previously contemplated. All this required personnel in large numbers. But no matter what the service or requirement, when the call came the Navy was ready with officers and men, regulars or reserves.
During the entire war "we never had a delay of a vessel on account of not having the officers and men," said the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation. "The personnel were actually ready at seaports to put on vessels before the vessels were ready."
Few of the recruits had any previous sea experience. Most of them were from the interior, many had never seen the ocean. But the enthusiasm and energy of teachers and pupils would have surprised Dana, who in his "Two Years Before the Mast," said: "There is not so helpless and pitiable an object in the world as a landsman beginning a sailor's life." They knew they were woefully ignorant of the sea, but they had a stimulus Dana's landsmen lacked—the eager desire to fit themselves to fight. That sharpened their capacity so that in a few weeks they learned more than, without such incentive, they could have mastered in a twelve-month.
At training stations naval terms were used for everything. The barracks building was the "ship"; the floor was the "deck"; offenders were tried at the "mast"; requests for leave were to "go ashore," and returning the men "reported aboard." Meals were "chow" and there was slang for every article of food—stews being known as "slumgullion," salt as "sand," coffee as "Java," and bread was called "punk." Recruits soon picked up the lingo of the sea, and found their "sea legs."
Every feature of life at sea was simulated as closely as possible in the stations, and when sent into service, the men felt at home aboard ships. It was no new experience for them to sleep in hammocks. They had slept in them while under training. "Hit the deck, boys," was always the morning order in station as it is on shipboard. Before they had so much as seen a man-of-war or transport, their motto was, "for the good of the ship."
"Do your bit," never found favor in the Navy; we had a better term. As the commanding officer of one station passed a squad at drill, he heard ringing out the words: "Don't just do your bit. The men on this station do their best."
Serious as was the work, recruits, with the spirit of eternal youth, enlivened it by fun, humor and pranks. This was always in evidence. No hardship could dispel it. A story is told of a young Texan, just enlisted and being inspected at Great Lakes. All the recruits were ordered to fall in line and strip for inspection. Sans shoes, sans shirts, sans pants, in fact sans everything in the way of clothing, the boy marched past the doctor. The Texan, with utter lack of the awe which a gold-striped surgeon is supposed to inspire, had secured a paper stencil, used to mark clothing, and using black paint had lettered his bare stomach with the words, "Good morning, doctor."