Navy Tales: Fun in the Water Redux.

After , and looking again at the pictures, I thought of something else that is interesting.

If you look at the color picture ("nowadays") you will see several things that could use an explanation. First, there are females as well as males training together! At the time I was there, female sailors trained on a different base halfway across the country. Now both sexes are not only on the same base, but actually train together! In fact, I believe that Great Lakes is the only boot camp the Navy has now. What will they think of next!

The other thing you may have noticed is that the people jumping off the platform have their legs crossed, and their arms folded across their chest. (Or they should have.) Why are they doing that you might ask? Good question!

If you did have to jump off a sinking ship, it might be a small ship with five or 10 feet to the water, or something like an aircraft carrier with 50 or 60 feet to the water.

Now imagine you jumped off, and too late you found out there was a log, some other floating debris, or even a fellow crewmember that you straddled...and that you dropped 60 feet! Now all the jokes have this happening to males, but I have to believe that if a female dropped 60 feet and straddled a floating object, it would hurt a lot too!

Now for the crossed arms. The navy always has life jackets for all the crew, made so you can move your arms, but not slip out of it. Now think about dropping 60 feet. If you were not holding tight to it, you would look like a giraffe!

If you had your arms, and legs apart, you would wind up a giraffe that could not reproduce!