Relieving the stress

This wasn’t your fathers WWII Navy.  This was a new Navy where you could grow your hair and beard out, didn’t worry about polishing shoes, wore your peace sign with your dog tags, head bands but yet still followed the orders given to you.  Of course it wasn’t this lax stateside, I’m talking about being in a war zone and under combat conditions.  I think our superiors just wanted us to be focused on the job at hand.  You kept your moral beliefs about being here and what your mission is, to yourself and just did your job, knowing that it wouldn’t last forever.  There was an attitude of “Not sweatin’ the small shit.”  Actually, a lot of this freedom and morale boosting came from way up the chain of command; from Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr.  He