No excuses allowed

📓 This volume is a sequel to NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED wherein I traced my boyhood bumblings from age zero to eighteen. But there comes a time, too soon perhaps, when one is expected to grow up, to become responsible, to be accountable. Hence the title of this book: NO EXCUSES ALLOWED.These Navy memoirs are written some sixty years after my graduation from the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Recording them has been like looking through binoculars from the wrong end. To recount my Navy years has required a long look backward. However, I am now at an age when I can remember what happened a half-century ago better than I recall what took place last week.Actually I have spent only one fifth of my life in the service, but I have dredged up these memories because they comprise, for me, a special story. The Navy fifth of all my experiences has been the unique fifth.Why is it that most of those who have served our country in the military do more reminiscing about their time in uniform than about any other period?I am not sure I can properly answer that question but I am certain its premise is true. Former service people constantly recount unusual adventures. Their assignments have not been nine-to-five jobs. Their motivation has not been the amassing of a monetary fortune. Often their work has required impossible hours and has taken them to strange places, far from home. Some call the military life demanding and extreme. No doubt it often is. But that translates into adventure which, when cou...