The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1911-03-16
Cruising With Uncle Sam
By G. II.


to young man with brains, and wht
cares to use them. If he takes al
interest in his work, at the end o
his first enlistment, of four years, hi
pay is nearly doubled. And in or
der to induce him to stay, any time
he comes back within three months
after his discharge he receives the
three months pay on re-enlistment
and an extra dollar and thirty siz
cents for his enlistment stripe
Many have | seen with seven such
stripes and they count up at the end
of the month outside of your regu-
lar pay. During war, if you happen
to be with a crew that captures a
prize, each man. gets a part of the
prize money, from the captain down
to the humblest man before the mast
and according to annals the higher
you are the more you get, and the
wise heads in Washington, D. c.,
see that you getit, too,
Ny first cruise started from the
Brooklyn, N. Y, navy yards and as
we were short of men to make up
-
the whole ships company, we had
to go to League Island navy yard
in Philadelphia, Pa, and have over
one hundred men drafted to our
ship and make up the balance at the
Norfolk, Va, navy yard. After a
short trial trip at Hampton Roads,
Va. where the government tries it's
ships when in that part of the states,
after being put into commission, to
see that everything is just so before
starting for foreign ports. AS it was
my first trip across the big pond, l
want to state that I was sick man
for the first few days, tuntil / got
what they call in the navy, your
sea legs" and after that | became
used to it and no matter how much
the ship would roll, it would never
make me sick. There were hundreds
of others on the ship who were sea
sick, few old sea dogs among them,
and the navy has only one cure for
it, that of hard work and plenty Of
it, and then you forget what ails
you.
Going down the Atlantic coast
one day the weather was SO rough
that it was impossible to swing our
mess tables, SO we had to put them
down on deck and sit on our ditty
boxes to eat our supper. The Of
ficers have frames to hold their
dishes in such weather. All of
sudden we heard a loud report and
they had their suppers all over their
and we did not get through
laughing until we were running af-
ter our own meal across the deck,
and nothing could save us at the
moment as the ship was rolling at
about forty-five degrees, but that
does not occur very often. My
memory fails me as to just how ma
ny days it took to reach Fayal, in
the Azore Islands, but I do know
we did not break any records as we
were only making about fifteen knots
an hour, and Uncle Sam always takes
his time during peace to give his
men the benefit of it.
In Fayal rybody who could be
spared from the ship were given
twenty four hours shore leave and
those who had no money were given
one pound sterling, as it did not hap
pen to be pay day when we reached
there. That was done more for en-
couragement as we were mostly new
men in the service and we were all
warned before we left the ship that
if we abused our liberty or came
aboard intoxicated we could get no
leave at the next port, which was
Gibraltar. The Azors being in the
tropical climate, raise plenty of