0:05 Who are [music] you? And where are you going? What [music] do you want?
0:18 >> [music]
0:21 >> Hello and welcome to this special edition of the Way to Wow shows for Navy Day, October 27, 2026. I'm your host Kevin Bemel and I do the special editions from time to time to recognize dates during the year when we can come together as Americans and celebrate the history and heritage of our country. So you can see I'm wearing my my Navy tie sort of. It's it's blue and gold and silver, which are the three colors that
0:56 signify the Navy. And as those of you who have watched the show before know, I myself am a veteran of the United States Navy. I I take a great deal of satisfaction in having had the opportunity both to serve with my shipmates in the Navy and the Marine Corps as well as service members in the other service branches at the time anyway, the Air Force and the Army and the Coast Guard and and also to have served at a time
1:31 when our fellow Americans were so supportive of military service. Frankly, unlike what it was like when I was a child in the 1960s and 1970s. And so I hope that like me, you're flying your flag today for [snorts] Navy Day. It is authorized by the US Flag Code as I'll talk about in a few minutes and you'll take maybe just a little bit of time to think about what this day means. Uh maybe even go to a Navy Day celebration uh in your city or
2:07 town. So, uh I I want to start out by uh explaining a distinction. So, today's show is celebrating Navy Day. That is not the same thing as the Navy's birthday. The Navy's birthday, official birthday, is on October 13. And the distinction between the two is the Navy's birthday commemorates the date in history when the Navy was established in 1775. Uh Navy Day was created primarily as a
2:42 public observance honoring the Navy and her personnel and emphasizing the importance of naval service to the country. Uh so,
2:54 >> [clears throat]
2:54 >> I'm going to I'm going to be talking primarily about Navy Navy Day itself. Um I'll I'll mention um the Navy's birthday uh again in a in a few minutes. So, Navy Day begins in 1922. The Navy League of the United States, which is a civilian organization, sponsored the first national observance of Navy Day on October 27, 1922. Uh and and just as a little aside, I am the uh president of the Los Angeles
3:31 chapter of the Navy League of the United States. Um we're forming that now, and if you have interest in being involved in the Navy League here in the greater Los Angeles area, uh please feel free to get in touch with me. So, its purpose The purpose of Navy Day from the Navy League's perspective was to bring public attention to the Navy and the importance of sea power. The date was deliberately chosen because October 27th was the birth date of Theodore Roosevelt, who
4:08 was born in New York City on that date in 1858. So, President Theodore Roosevelt has always been closely identified with the United States Navy and naval power for a number of reasons. First of all, he wrote a wonderful book called The Naval War of 1812 when he was a young man. I've read the book. It's it's a great history of the War of 1812. If you don't know a whole lot about what happened there, it's a good place to start. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy before becoming president.
4:45 And interestingly enough, his cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also served as an Assistant Secretary of the Navy before before becoming president. As President of the United States, he strongly supported building a modern navy. And in fact, he was he was the president who sponsored what became known as the Great White Fleet in its round-the-world cruise in 1907 through 1909, demonstrating both that America had naval capability and also America's
5:20 growing international presence. So, Navy Day became a major national observance thereafter um it because the first Navy Day was so successful. And the Navy herself participated by sending ships to American ports where the public could see them and learn more about naval service. So, uh celebrations included things like ship visits and open houses, uh parades and ceremonies, uh speeches, naval demonstrations, school programs,
5:58 um and public recogni- recognition of sailors and officers in naval service. Uh here in Los Angeles, the uh battleship Iowa, I believe, is ported in San Pedro. The ship no longer is in active commission. I I think it remains in commission as a museum and the museum of the surface navy is now the the USS Iowa is part of the museum of the surface navy. And and there are other ship museums like that in other ports
6:34 on both coasts and and the Gulf Coast of the United States. The observance helped connect a service that operated really largely beyond the sight of most Americans with the civilian population it served. It's It's interesting. I I I didn't remember really thought about this until I was putting this presentation together, but of course, most people or a lot of people anyway don't live on the in the coastal areas of the United States and so they don't have any contact with the navy
7:09 and so the idea of having a navy day even in states like Iowa and Indiana, which are landlocked basically, it it it brought to life this service that unlike the army, they had no, you know, little or no contact with it. And it it is interesting to note that in World War II, which I'll talk about in a minute, a higher percentage of sailors came from these interior states than the coastal states. Not exactly
7:44 sure why, but it's just a interesting little footnote to history. So, Navy Day provided an opportunity to explain why a country protected by two oceans nonetheless needed a strong navy. So, it it reflected the importance of sea power. The United States has always depended heavily on the sea throughout her history. Um, oceans carry international commerce, of course, uh, and naval forces protect maritime
8:19 trade. That is one of the, uh, um, um, most important purposes of the Navy to this day. And, um, ships provide military force with transportation and logistical support. So, naval forces can maintain an American presence far from the continental United States, and we see that, again, even today. So, uh, there is an aircraft carrier strike group that is home ported in Japan. That is a forward military presence for the
8:55 United States with respect to the Western Pacific. And typically, there is at least one aircraft carrier in or around the, uh, the Persian Gulf, um, home ported in Bahrain. I I I um, was fortunate enough to make a port call there when I was on deployment. Right now, I believe there's two and a third one on the way, or maybe the third one is a third aircraft carrier strike group, um, is is in the Gulf. So, a much heavier presence there, of course, because of the war in Iran. Um, so, the Navy also serves as an
9:33 instrument of diplomacy and deterrence without necessarily going to war. That, of course, is the purpose of the naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. It is to put diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran without actually flying combat missions, for example, in for example, in, you know, bombing targets inside the country. So, [snorts] Theodore Roosevelt, as kind of the, um, titular father of Navy Day, um, understood this
10:08 this connection, uh, between naval strength and diplomacy. His Great White Fleet was sent around the world um, not to fight, but to demonstrate to the world and remember this is 1907, '08, '09 that the United States had come of age as a naval power even though it was still it was recognized still at that time that that the United Kingdom, Great Britain had the most powerful navy in the world. Uh, and so uh, this was a way
10:44 of of demonstrating American muscle without actually fighting. Uh, and um, Navy Navy Day therefore um, celebrated more than ships and sailors. It helped educate the public about why naval power matters to a maritime nation which the United States was and still is undoubtedly forever will be. World War II um, gave additional and extraordinary
11:19 significance to Navy Day. So, especially in the Pacific theater of operations, the United States Navy was the dominant military branch along with her sister service uh, the Marine Corps. So, the Army uh, was part of the fighting in the Pacific theater uh, but unlike the European theater where the Army was the dominant uh, military service branch in the Pacific again it was the Navy and the Marine Corps. And World War II demonstrated the importance of naval
11:55 power on an absolutely unprecedented scale. There had never been the kind of worldwide fighting um, that that especially on a naval basis um, that happened during World War II. So, there were enormous distances that made ships absolutely indispensable. So, aircraft carriers projected air power, battleships provided tremendous naval gunfire support, submarines attacked Japanese shipping and really were
12:30 instrumental in bringing about the surrender of Imperial Japan, even though we don't hear a whole lot about the submarine war in the Pacific as compared to the North Atlantic. Uh amphibious ships transported uh forces so that they could invade contested islands um and supply ships kept the fleet afloat operating, you know, thousands of miles from American bases bringing fuel, food, equipment, et cetera um to to the to the forces in the field.
13:06 So, American industrial production uh created an enormous war fleet, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of ships uh as well as thousands of merchant ships. Um and also, of course, a tremendous amount of material that was transported in those ships both to the Pacific and the European theaters of operation. So, by the end of World War II, the US Navy had become the world's dominant naval force
13:42 by far. No other navy was even close. Uh most of the Japanese navy had been destroyed by then. Uh Bri- a lot of Britain's navy had been destroyed. Germany had started out with only a small navy to begin with. Most of it was gone. Russia did not have a particularly large navy, neither did Japan. So, the the United States came out of World War II a dominant it really it doesn't describe it. It's really it was really the only naval force um that that was left. And so, that made Navy
14:18 Day 1945 particularly significant. So, October 27, 1945 came less than 2 months after Imperial Japan surrendered aboard the USS Missouri on September 2nd. So, the Navy had an enormous celebration in New York. President Harry S. Truman himself reviewed the fleet in New York Harbor, and among the ships that participated in that naval review were some of the
14:55 most famous warships, including the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and the battleship USS Missouri, which had high-tailed it back from Japan to get to New York in time for the Navy Day celebration. And there were numerous other ships, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, all kinds of naval vessels. So, um on October 27th, President Truman was welcomed aboard the USS Missouri with a 21-gun salute,
15:32 the official salute for the commander in chief of the United States armed forces. And the the celebration um became both um a Navy Day uh observance and a public recognition of the sailors and officers and ships and naval forces that helped achieve victory in World War II. So, however, things changed. So, after World War II, the United States military establishment was reorganized. The
16:08 National Security Act of 1947 created a unified national defense structure under a single department called the Department of Defense. And the Department of the Army and the Department of the Navy became kind of sub departments to the DOD. In 1949, Secretary of Defense Louis Jordan announced the creation of Armed Forces Day. And beginning in 1950, Armed Forces Day
16:43 became the holiday intended to celebrate actively serving American service members. So, as a result, the Department of Defense ceased to officially promote the traditional Navy Day as its kind of principal military celebration in favor of uh this sort of joint uh celebration. Now, also under the National Security Act of 1947, the Air Force was created as a separate service branch from the
17:19 Army. And so, you had personnel from four different uh military branches who are recognized on Armed Forces Day. Um however, since the Navy League is a civilian organization, it was not bound by what the Department of Defense was doing. And so, it continued to recognize October 27 as Navy Day. So, it did not disappear.
17:45 >> [snorts]
17:46 >> Um I want to go back for a moment to the Navy's official birthday, October 13th. So, this another distinction emerged in the following decades. So, historical research established October 13, 1775 as the date associated with the creation of or the establishment, really, of the Continental Navy, which is what the first US Navy was called. So, on that date, the Continental Congress authorized a vessel carrying 10 carriage
18:23 guns and 80 men to cruise against British supply ships. So, in 1972, uh the con- um I'm sorry, the Chief of Naval Operations, um Admiral Elmo Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., uh formally authorized recognition of October 13 as the Navy's birthday. So, if you've ever been to a Navy ball, um those typically happen around October 13, commemorating the
18:58 Navy's founding. However, the um Navy League of the United States continue to continues to recognize October 27 as Navy Day, recognizing the Navy's service to the the Navy and her personnel's service to the nation. So, there's kind of an interesting little uh historical twist, I guess we would call it, with Navy Day. So, um although Navy Day no longer has governmental prominence, um
19:35 uh you know, that it enjoyed before 1950, it retains official recognition. So, in 4 U.S. Code Section 6D, the U.S. Flag Code, it specifically names October 27 as Navy Day, and in the Flag Code, it says that the American flag should be displayed on all days, and especially on a list of designated occasions that include Navy Day. So, that's why I asked if you're flying your flag right now. So, Navy Day therefore
20:10 remains a part of the federal laws tradition uh traditional calendar of patriotic uh um uh observances. So, today, um Navy Day provides an opportunity to recognize more than naval warfare. So, the Navy has, as I mentioned earlier, um, performed many functions over the centuries, including defending the United States, protecting maritime commerce, maintaining freedom of navigation, deterring conflict, responding to crises, conducting
20:47 humanitarian and and assistance and disaster relief, and uh, maintaining an American presence around the world. So, it also recognizes, uh, sailors at sea and ashore, uh, as well as officers, aviators, submariners, Seabees, which are construction battalion people, medical personnel, engineers and truck technicians, intelligence personnel, reservists, and the civilians and families that support them. So, Navy Day ultimately represents the relationship
21:23 between the Navy and the American people. And so, um, while the the Navy birthday asks us to remember when the Navy began, today Navy Day asks us to remember why the nation has a Navy and uh, and um, and how the people who serve it serve us as Americans. So, as is my practice on these special editions, I have a reading uh, appropriate for the day. In this case, it's a poem called The Men Behind the Guns. It was written by John Jerome
22:01 Rooney, and it was published in the New York Sun on May 18, 1898, during the Spanish-American War. So, just 17 days earlier, on May 1st, Commodore George Dewey's US Asiatic Squadron had destroyed the Spanish Pacific Squadron at the Battle of Manila Bay in the Philippines, and the American victory created a tremendous amount of public enthusiasm for the Navy. So, the poem was inspired um in this sort of
22:37 immediate back uh background of the remarkable naval US American naval success at Manila Bay. So, uh Dewey's squadron destroyed or captured the Spanish squadron while suffering remarkably light American casualties. And newspapers celebrated Dewey who quickly became a national hero. So, Rooney's point makes a uh Rooney sorry, Rooney's poem makes a different point, and that is victories attributed to famous commanders and
23:12 impressive warships ultimately depend upon the sailors who operate them. And that really is the meaning of this phrase, the men behind the guns. So, Rooney was arguing that um the with the the through the beginning of the poem being this sort of public spectacle of a warship, crowds see the ship um the it it they admire its um its imposing appearance, and and of course attention naturally goes to the captain and the officers um in their
23:49 impressive dress at the time they had the um epaulets and all that sort of thing, right? So, the ship itself becomes a symbol of national power. And then Rooney redirects our attention to the inside of the ship. And the real fighting capability comes from the sailors. So, the men loading and firing the weapons, the crews working below decks, the engineers maintaining the machinery, and the sailors continuing their jobs amid noise and injury and
24:24 smoke and danger and even death. So, the uh the basic argument is therefore it's broader than naval gunnery. It's really that technology is only as effective as the people who operate it. And I think that this is a message, although the poem was written over 125 years ago, this message resonates today as we look at ever greater um mechanization and automation of the Navy and the other service branches, still
24:59 uh people matter. And so, I'm going to read this poem now. And I I invite you uh to uh uh to share your thoughts uh afterwards. Let's drink a toast to the admiral, and here's to the captain bold, and glory more for the commodore when the deeds of might are told. They stand to the deck with the battle's wreck when the great shells roar and pound, and never they fear when the foe is near to lay their
25:35 orders down. But off with your hats and three times three for every sailor's son, for the men below who fight the foe, the men behind the guns. Oh, the men behind the guns. Their hearts a-pounding heavy when they swing to port port once more. With never enough of the greenback stuff, they start for the leave ashore. And you'd think perhaps the blue-blouse chaps had better clothes to wear. For the uniforms of officers could hardly be compared.
26:11 Warriors bold with straps of gold that dazzle like the sun outshine the common sailor boys, the lads who serve the guns. Oh, the men behind the guns. Say not a word till the shot is heard that tells the The is on, and the angry sound of another round that says God must be gone. Over the deep and the deadly sweep, the fire and the bursting shell where the very air is a mad despair, the throes of a living hell.
26:47 But down and deep in a mighty ship unseen by the midday sun you'll find the boys who make the noise, the lads who serve the guns. Oh, the men behind the guns. And well they know the cyclone blow loose from the cannon steel. They know the whole of the enemy ship will quiver with the peel. And the decks will rock with a lightning shock and the shake with a great recoil while the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and swallows up her spoil.
27:24 But not until the final ship has made her final run can we give their rest to the very best to the lads who serve the guns. Oh, the men behind the guns. Let's drink a toast to the admiral and here's to the captain bold. And glory more for the commodore when the deeds of might are told. They stand to the deck with the battle's wreck when the great shells roar and pound. And never they fear when the foe is near
27:59 to lay their orders down. But off with your hats and three times three for every sailor's son for the men below who fight the foe the men behind the guns. Oh, the men behind the gun. I'd be ever so honored to hear your thoughts about this poem and Navy Day. Right down below the screen you'll see links to social media. Share your thoughts. I'd love to respond. And as I started out this special edition
28:35 by hoping that you're flying your flag. If you If you aren't, maybe you'll go put it out now. And reflect this day on the brave men and women who keep us safe at night and during the day as part of the United States Navy. I wish you a meaningful day. Perhaps some time spent with loved ones, family, and friends. And look forward to seeing you on another episode of the Way to Wow shows. Courage at all times, my friends. Marie Darling,
29:10 you