I was driving in to work this morning, past the carrier piers, where USS JOHN C. STENNIS and USS NIMITZ are parked.
I was running a little late, and turned the corner by the carrier pier just at 0755. Just in time for morning colors.
[..]
Now this sort of thing either warms your heart or it does not. But it is one of those small ceremonies that is so very commonplace, yet means so much to me. It has gone on in precisely the same way for over 225 years, day after day. It forms a direct link to the earliest days of our Republic, and a link as well to the unbroken chain of Sailors that have served our country so honorably for all of that time a sturdy chain that has never yet let the Republic down.
The oldest, most grizzled Master Chief, up on that flight deck, watching the color ceremony with a gimlet eye and brass in his voice, a veteran of two desert wars and perhaps Vietnam was once a seaman recruit. His leading chief had fought in Korea, and perhaps as well in World War II. That chief as a seaman served with a man who had sailed around the world in the Great White Fleet. His chief had sailed up the Mississippi at full speed, damning the torpedoes. And so on, back to the infant Navy of 1775, the fighting men who sailed with John Paul Jones, and David Farragut and Hopkins who first flew that Navy jack, and by flying it meant to clear the decks and prime the guns for combat. These are our fathers and our grandfathers. [Neptunus Rex]