“When We Drank To The Foam”

“What shall we do with a drunken sailor?” Still an Oldie but a Goodie! For the Good ol’ Canoe Club, it was business-as-usual to look the other way. Now, the days of the drunken debauchery and a girl in every port are here no more … a thing of the past.

Since the dawn of the Alcohol Deglamorization Program and a Wally Cleaver picture perfect Boy Scout in every uniform, being the ‘Drunken Sailor’ has fallen out of parlance. The work hard so we can play hard mentality has gone to the wayside for a more politically correct version of a Squidly Diddly Squared Away Shipmate.

Jimmy Buffet put it best … “I’m a Pirate Two-Hundred Years Too Late!” The marvels of crackerjack shore leave most  regarded by shitfaced, brawling and womanizing sailors chasing barmaids and shore whores dates back to the days of iron men and wooden ships, even after the good ol’ U.S. Navy banned alcohol on ships!

Back in those days, the U.S. Navy functioned on the British rum ration system, which stipulated that all sailors would receive a frankly enormous quantity of hard liquor per day, served from an ornate oak tub emblazoned with the words “The Queen, God Bless Her.”

Since the turn of the Century U.S. ban of drinking aboard ships, excessive drunkenness on shore leave was still unconstrained as reparation to keep new recruits coming after all the hard work underway came to an end. I suppose the ol’ Canoe Club figured that monitoring behavior on shore during liberty resulted in fewer recruits signing the dotted line. In liberty ports the world over, crackerjacks lit up the town like the ‘Fourth of July!’ When they left the ship it was a sailors’ right to do his best to drink the town dry in flotsam and monger the women accordingly.

Liberty is as short as a day in those foreign exotic ports, so it’s best to make it as perfect and memorable as one could make it … hence the making of great “No-Shitter Sea Stories!” It was typical to do what we pleased in every tavern, bar, lounge, soi, and nightclub with swagger and fervor. “Like a caged animal let out into the wild, we spent money like drunken sailors, and as drunken sailors … mostly on liquor and whores, maybe some gambling and all because we were just that … Drunken Sailors!!!

Favorite ports like Subic, Pattaya, Puerto Rico, Rhota Spain, Naples Italy and Greece made an industry of satisfying the consumption of decadent sea fairs and their indulgence of excess and desires. But it wasn’t always fun and games as we found in places like France and Japan where some of the locals had no appreciation of our senses for debauchery! Crackerjack Sailors were often found in the confines of the local Constable cited for anything from soliciting prostitutes to starting beer brawls and pissing in alley ways.  Ours is renown the world over as our rag hat collective sometimes got us in a bit of trouble in our fever pitched alcohol induced enthusiasm.   

The aggressiveness of sailors has persisted over the years in spite of more than a few incidents from across the pond worldwide. In Japan a twelve-year-old schoolgirl was raped and Japanese locals began to riot calling for the removal of our bases altogether. The same happened in other ports like the Philippines, Spain and France as demonstrations often intensified. In the day and age of Political Correctness and the lack of a good old Cold War Enemy, it became increasingly clear the Navy was concerned with the threat to international relations.

Suddenly there was an irreversible shift in the Navy’s thinking. The Ol’ Canoe Club suddenly changed its drunken and iniquitous ways. It became a professional consortium of Choir Boys and Prudent Young Ladies with iron clad chastity! The Big Brass was no longer willing to turn a blind eye to the unruliness, and worse for wear days of old. “The Alcohol Deglamorization Program” came into effect impacting all Naval Personnel while expecting more responsible behavior in its alliance with other worldly nations.  The stakes had been readjusted, and the boys in brass were not kidding around. With that, the shore leave culture of a drunken sailor with a girl in every port was poised to go down the hatch of history.

But the vestiges of that history and culture are forever written in our annals as a testament to the work hard play hard sailors of the past. The term “binge drinking” comes from the task of binging on a naval ship, or rinsing the empty liquor cask with water. Cargo was loaded onto ships through an opening on the ship deck known as a hatch, as the liquor, too, goes “down the hatch.” And never forget that we are the only service to reference alcohol in our fight song as we “Drink to the Foam” on our last night ashore! So I sound off on this little hitch with a hardy “Anchors Aweigh my boys … Anchors Aweigh!” It was fun while it lasted!!!