What is a 'Shipmate'?

FORCM (SW) Thomas J. Snee, USN, (Ret)

This question has often been expressed and shared with me. The 'white hat', as we were so often called, 'halfcocked' on the back of our heads, defined us as persons, who were always searching and looking out to sea for a new life. The right foot on the lines, not to jump or surrender, but a 'leg up' on life's challenges in thought and ideas by persons we call, SHIPMATES!

You see, most of us 'signed on as young men', for the seas and a new adventure. We left our hometowns to create, make, and hopefully aim our 'shot line', into new friendships and ports of call. No, we did not forget our hometown friends, but rather, rediscovered a whole new world. Some may think, that when our 'brows' were pulled up, we departed, but to move on, from those anchored pasts. These valued bonds were left for other gangplanks in another life. We moved on to make new and bigger bow waves for smoother wakes, in life's high seas. We did not sign on to organizations or associations to be forgotten, with titles or positions, but as persons of dignity, value, and self-worth, or simply, as SHIPMATES.

So, when you meet that casual friend, remember, they too are persons on a sea detail away from home. They were searching for a bonding as SHIPMATES for a new life. Sometimes lonely, but always, just a bonding in friendship, from the many sea tales of the past, as a SHIPMATE. We are not just another name on the rolls, but real persons, who have feelings, emotions, and needs to reconnect those shot line crossings to each other's bows. We are, after all, and always will be, SHIPMATES, in LEADERSHIP!