It takes 30 knots of wind
Down the carriers deck...
Even with the catapults,
To launch a Skyhawk jet

From Norfolk to the Tonkin Gulf,
We sailed across the sea,
To fight a war our leaders said,
Threatened you and me.

You don’t question your orders,
When you set out to sea,
My mom and dad sat at home,
And watched it on TV.

The nightly news at 6 o` clock,
Counted bodies that were found.
While we hammered them with ordnance,
And counted every round.

The havoc that we rained upon, an ancient weary land,
They’d kicked the froggies ass,
We didn’t understand.

Napalm, five hundred pounders,
It looked like science fiction,
With 20 mm cannons,
We called it interdiction.

We bombed them and we strafed them.
And waged war with rage,
If they couldn’t be defeated,
There’d be a new stone age.

The crewmen and the pilots,
That sailed so very far, showed the Russians and the Chinese.
That we had the guts for war.

The history of a ship,
Is the story of the men,
Who sailed on her and fought her,
And brought her back again.

In all wars our country’s fought,
On land and on the sea,
The sailors of our nation,
Helped keep our country free.

Robert L. Baverstock