Thanks Steven-
Just a comment of how much the USN has changed over the years.
I am an ancient dinosaur from the Post-Korean Conflict Era.
During Boot Camp we were supposed to have a day of fire fighting but it was cancelled due to other training priorities. That was the closest I ever came to any fire fighting training.
During a stay at the then Long Beach Naval Shipyard, our liberties would often be to Los Angeles via the then popular Pacific Electric Railway interurban "Red Cars."
An elderly gentlemen joined us on one trip.
He showed us a photo of him in his dress whites, complete with lanyard and bo's'n's pipe and regaled us with his ''sea stories'' of how '' I served under Admiral Dewey during the Spanish-American War.,"
This old gentleman looked very much like an actor of our times - Charles Coburn -after.he got off train somewhere along the line, we all had sort of a ,"double take ".
We wondered if it might have really been Charles Coburn and he had an idea to take his act for the morale of the troops ?
I wonder if our generation would seem as ancient to the present generation as this gentleman did to ours ?
About the same number of years in the age span . LOL
Not to be critical of any other members of these forums - I'm just as guilty as anyone - but I think some of us are looking at these year 1912 incidents and problems with sort of a 20-20 hindsight year 2012 viewpoint.
Cheers !
Robert