US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

The First Tbir~y Years 19
“Darn a hammock, they are about the awkwardest things to sleep in that
I ever struck.” 50
The 1908 Lucky Bag recorded a different event for making one decide for
the Navy:
The event of plebe year, however, that remains most vivid in our minds
today was the Army game; it was then we first felt the call of the Navy and
realized that we were in it and for it. How we cheered and yelled and, yes,
cried as the Army defeated us 11–0 in a hard fought game.
YOUNGSTER YEAR ( 1905-1906)
According to the 1908 Midshipman yearbook, “Our Youngster Year saw
the death of the old Naval Academy life and the birth of the new.” Richmond
Turner in a letter to his mother reported: “The Sup is trying to bilge all that
he can, as he can’t handle so many [midshipmen] easily.” “
In 1905, the Navy continued active in Santo Domingo, and the Navy
received a new Secretary of the Navy, Charles J. Bonaparte.
The increase in the naval power of the United States was not without its
critics, who believed that an increased Navy would merely drag us into
wars. The previous Secretary of the Navy thought it desirable to meet this
criticism in his Annual Report to the President by remarking:
. . . while doubtless, we shzll always be in the lead in every international
movement to promote peace, it is much better for us to be at all times so
well prepared for war that war will never come.52
The new Secretary, since his last name had strong military connotations,
thought to quiet the critics by taking yet another tack, foreseeing quite
erroneously:
It is reasonable to anticipate that their numbers [of ships in our Navy] will be
reduced, and even reduced materially, within the next five years.
Perhaps to temper this unhappy thought as far as his subordinates in the
Navy were concerned, he added:
Without giving our NNy undue praise, it may be fairly described as of great
promise.’3
M(a) Turner; (b) RKT to Mother, letter, 1 Jun. 190>.
m (a) Lucky Bug, 1908, p. 274; (b) RKT to Mother, letter, 7 Jan. 1906.
= SECNAV, Amwal ~@O?t, 190 f, P. 4.
‘Ibid., 1905, pp. 23, 25.