But He Still Stood The Watch

This weekend, Joe attended his brothers retirement ceremony from the Navy. Joe read a beautiful poem from it, but be prepared and have a tissue ready for this one.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I had quite the amazing weekend of travel and family
visiting and ceremonies. As longtime listeners have heard me mentioned
many many times through the entire history of the show
or darn near it, that my brother is an active
duty naval officer and he retired, essentially his retirement ceremony

(00:24):
and change a command ceremony was this weekend, and it
was one of the most amazing moving things I've ever seen.
I'll try to get through this without blubbering. I'll probably
be unsuccessful, but I'll skip to the punchline, both the
ceremony and then the reception afterward, then the party at
his house, and I was talking to a bunch of

(00:47):
his contemporary officers, retired and active duty, and the amount
of sheer brilliance, training, expertise, dedication patriotism among these guys
is awe inspiring. I mean, the idea that the military

(01:09):
is for people who can't find other jobs or whatever
idiotic cliche you've had spend ten minutes with these guys,
stand humbled and awed by what unbelievable humans they are.
And I left out disciplined among my descriptions, and is
just so incredibly impressive, but anyway, So the retirement ceremony,

(01:34):
and each branch has its own retirement ceremonies and they
each have their own greatness, I'm sure. But the Navi's
is so cool. They know there are speeches given, and
the keynote speech was actually delivered by the chief of
boat of one of the subs, actually the sub my
brother commanded for several years, who is the senior enlisted

(01:56):
guy talking about my brother and his leadership style. It
was very very cool, and I was very very proud
of him some of the stories because he's too humble
to tell him himself. I mean, he'll make reference to
some of the things that happened, but to hear it
from another perspective was pretty cool. But after twenty nine
and a half years of serving the country, he's now

(02:19):
he's still active duty because he had some leave accumulated.
But he said no, essentially, other than picking up the
phone or helping out if somebody has a question, he said, no,
I'm pretty much done, although he said, we go to
war with China, all bets are off. Oh really back
in uniform. Yeah, anyway, but I thought I would read
this to you, and this was incredibly moving. This is

(02:41):
the poem essentially that they read at the end and
they change it depending on your year's of service. But
here's the way it went. For twenty nine years, this
sailor has stood the watch while some of us were
in our bunks at night. This sailor stood the watch
while some of us were in school learning our trade.
This shipmate stood the watch. Yes, even before some of

(03:02):
us were born into this world. This shipmate stood the watch.
In those years when the storm clouds of war were
seen brewing on the horizon of history, this shipmate stood
the watch. Many times you would cast an eye ashore
and see his family standing there, needing his guidance and help,
needing that hand to hold during those hard times. But
he still stood the watch. He stood the watch for
twenty nine years. He stood the watch so that we

(03:25):
are families and our fellow countrymen could sleep soundly in
safety each and every night, knowing that a sailor stood
the watch. Today we are here to say, shipmate, the
watch stands relieved, relieved by those you have trained, guided
and led. Shipmate, you stand relieved. We have the watch.
And then they blow the pipe and ring the bell,

(03:45):
and off he goes surely quite amazing. And then you
see these kids who he's training, and then in the
little slide show of his career, you see that he
looked like a kid when he started. And these youngsters
are built into these amazing people through the traditions of

(04:06):
the United States Military, and to you can almost not
express how incredibly important that excellence is without resorting to
cliches that everybody claims they understand about. You know, it's it's,
you know, our military that preserves our freedom and protects
us from from those who would end it and that

(04:28):
sort of thing. But when you see the beginning, middle,
and end of that process, you understand these are not
people who'd merely do a job. They dedicate their lives
to a purpose and and it's just it's.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
It's really really cool and not an academic exercise either,
as like I'm watching the news up there, China warplanes
flying over where we've got those exercises going on. You know,
it's it's it's it's for real for that stuff.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Well, and the military is not a laboratory for social
experiments either. You know, they can try stuff, absolutely, that's fine,
But to have anybody other than those in charge of
military preparedness deciding what the military should do is it's folly.
It's suicidal, honestly. And the one final note, maybe in

(05:26):
talking to a lot of these guys, is that if
you've ever heard of the cases where there's some weapons
system or boat or whatever that the military says, we
don't need this boat, we don't want this boat, this
boat doesn't work, but the congressman from the district where
the boat is made insisting on we keep spending billions

(05:47):
of dollars on this boat. That stuff happens a lot,
and it sucks and it's awful.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
You know, I was thinking as you're reading that, I
was thinking. I mentioned I went to Oppenheimer over the weekend,
and so I has doing some reading about the should
we have dropped the bomb or not? And one of
the articles that I came across from the pro we
should have dropped the bomb, which Truman did. If you

(06:17):
don't know that, then you are so not a student
of history. You probably don't enjoy the show. But the
last island we took Okinawa, which, if you know anything
about World War two history, lots of movies, lots of
books written about Okinawa. We lost twelve five hundred men
in that battle. The Japanese lost two hundred thousand people,

(06:38):
half of them civilians. And it would have been many,
multiple times that obviously to take the big island of Japan.
And the argument was so, if it had cost two
hundred thousand US servicemen, how you making the argument why
all those lives were worth it, you know, spending rather

(07:01):
than dropping the bomb. What's your argument for that? If
you're Harry Truman, how do you explain to the parents
of the dead soldiers that, no, this was so, we
wouldn't what, Yeah, we.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Let hundreds of thousands of ours died die to prevent
them from being killed by a bomb. Yeah, and even
a successful invasion of the Japanese mainland would not have
ended the war immediately, would have dragged on and on.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Well, I was just thinking about that as you read that.
I mean, you know, people are dedicating their lives or
at least you know, chunks of their lives to serving
in the military. You can't throw away those lives over
some sort of grand pronouncement of we shouldn't use this.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Weapon right right. Once the war begins, the chief aim
is to end it as quickly as possible. Oh, and
one more thought. I'm sorry, my closing thought was intended
to be the following, and this was reflected so clearly
in you know, the address my brother gave and then
the address of the gent who is assuming his command,

(08:10):
and a couple of other people. I think it's safe
to say every single member of the United States military,
all the branches, their families are serving with them. Oh yeah,
the spouses, the children, the moms, the dads, the brothers,
the sisters. No doubt about family sacrifices, the family worries.

(08:33):
That that part of the uh, you know, the traditional
the watch as it's called. That many times he would
cast an eye ashore and see his family standing there,
needing him essentially, but still he stood the watch. That
is true. And you know, if you appreciate our military,
by God, appreciate our military families.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah. Yeah, whether it's you're moving around a lot and
pulling kids out of school and that sort of thing,
or if you're in an active war zone, as so
many people have been over the last twenty years, just
you know, tours of duty where you're gone, gone for
months at a time. Dad is gone. Orman. Yeah, that's

(09:12):
an excellent point there,