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Sailor Poets Take over U.S. Navy Deck Logs on New Year's Day
A longstanding tradition allows watch standers to use poetry to log their ship's activities in the wee hours of a new year.
But in the earliest hours of New Year’s Day, during the mid-watch from midnight to 3 a.m. or 4 a.m., the OOD can let their respective poetic prowess shine through, and write their deck log entry in poem form. But as writing increasingly takes a back seat to the phone and other electronic mediums, this Naval tradition has been in decline, and fewer than 20 ships in the nearly 300-ship fleet penned a mid-watch verse as of 2017. “This entry is dedicated to the unknown, unrated and unnecessary yeoman at NavPers who so faithfully and capably reads, notes, files and forgets my continuing and constant efforts through the year,” Lyman wrote.
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