| Chuck Stevens 2006-06-17, 7:55 am |
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"Pete Dashwood" <dashwood@enternet.co.nz> wrote in message
news:4eli6aF1ek529U1@individual.net...
[color=darkred]
> I heard it is ONLY gays and women... (but it was an Air Force guy who said
> that...:-))
Well, the US military doggerel that came to mind at the time begins "This is
my rifle; this is my gun ..." and I think that was pretty much
service-independent.
And among the other branches of the military, the Navy has often and long
been the target of jokes about guys being cooped up alone together for long,
long periods of time ... which bears some relationship to the ancient wisdom
of the sea "Any port in a storm ..."
Given all that, it does lead me to wonder whether the images that sprang to
mind for Gilbert when he penned "When the balls whistle free o'er the bright
blue sea / We stand to our guns all day" would necessarily be those that
would spring to mind today for your average (American, at least) swabbie
hearing these lines for the first time, regardless of the gender or
orientation of said swabbie ...
-Chuck Stevens
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