The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1895-05-01
Waiting Orders i'm the Navy.

When the ordinary citizen meets a
naval officer in New York, the for
mer usually has some curiosity as to
what ship the man-of-war's man be-
longs to and is often a little aston
ished to learn that he belongs to
none. The idea that a sailor is al
ways at sea, or just ashore, or about
going to sea, is strongly rooted in
the public mind, and the landsman
is even more astonished to learn that
a naval officer may be neither at sea
nor on shore duty but unemployed.
There are all sorts of reasons why
men should be unemployed, and the
record of every commissioned officer
shows that considerable percentage
of his time was thus occupied. The
naval orders from week to week re-
port this or that officer on leave, with
permission to leave the United
States, which means nine times out
of ten that the officer in question is
about to take vacation in Europe.
Much of every naval officers time
of idleness, however, is involuntary,
or at least not directly sought on his
part. After every cruise or tour of
shore duty an officer usually has a
period of waiting orders. This may
be with a view to giving him
chance to catch his breath, as the
phrase is in the navy, it being sup
posed that mans respiration on
duty is a bit hurried through the
eXigencies of the service. Such time
of idleness may endure for ten days
or for six weeks or more, but the
waiting officer must never be out of
reach of orders, and must be ready
if need be 10 start for his new post
in "a hours. He always keeps open
his lines of communication with
Washington, for a failure to respond
promptly to orders may mean ii
court martial, and will certainly do
him harm at the navy department.
Few naval officers court a long term
on waiting orders, for it means re-
duced pay and always the haunting
sense of responsibility resulting from
the necessity of being ready to go at
once when the summons comes. No
positive engagement can be made "a
hours ahead, and the officer must al
ways keep pretty close to the skirts
of civilization and telegraph office
The department must know of his
movements if they carry him far
from his recorded address.
Waiting orders are not so frequent
or so long enduring as they once
were, now that the navy has begun
to catch up with the size of the Off
GERS list. But it is not always easy
even now to assign man to new
duty. There are occasions, however,
when an officer just relieved from a
post is seized and packed off to for.
eign parts in As hours. If the need
be really pressing, the new assign
ment is accepted without grumbling,
but if it seems to be something short
of essential there is likely to follow
cautious protest and a strong effort
to escape from it. The trouble at the
New York navy yard to find a cap
tain for the ship that was to take
Frederick Douglass to Haiti is his
toric Mr.. Douglass, by the way, was
extremely popular in the wardroom
of that ship,
There are in the navy, as in the
army, men who are able constantly
to secure pleasant posts ashore in or
about Washington or New York.
There is some bitterness on this score
in the navy, though the thing hard
ly amounts to a scandal.-New York
Sun.