Navy Shoes

Realizing that I was an equal partner in the Navy and not just on the outside looking into someone else’s organization.

I am walking an a warm September evening in the pitch black, I have my runner’s “glow in the dark” vest on to prevent an unintentional mishap on a curb as I plow through the streets. It’s not that late, just dark, there is no moon tonight. It’s become a ritual in the past couple of weeks after 9/11, Rose and I take an evening walk and absorb the situation around us and contemplate how we “are” and at the same time “are not” involved in the events flashing before us on the television, radio, and newspapers. Rose suddenly says with passion, “What do you mean you have to wear the same shoes?” With shock, Rose is astonished that when I wear my Navy uniform I have to wear the same shoes as everyone else, and a purse too – for that manner if you are female!

As simple as it may sound, that statement made me realize how far we have become separated from those that have served in the military and those that have not had the military touch any part of their lives. I am a 22 year veteran, plus four years in Navy (Reserve Officers Training Corps) ROTC at the University of Illinois. 26 years of wearing those black oxfords, though the style has changed, and even the color – sometimes white and even brown depending on the uniform.

Rose had known that I was in the military. We discussed some matters slightly, but the fact that Rose could not even fathom that I had to wear the same shoes as everyone else was a shock to me. Why do we wear the same shoes? Uniformity of purpose, so they fit on the peddles of the cockpit, on the decks of a ship, tradition…