I stood before my bookcase today looking for some suitable reading material. A small tome, one I remember from my childhood, beckoned. The date on the cover was 1944. Its title was “The Bluejacket’s Manual.”This book was the written instructional manual given to new recruits to The United States Navy. My father, Harry Musselwhite, Senior, was its owner and now I have possession of this historic book of instructions. It is essentially “how to be a sailor.”My dad, the son of a Cordele, Georgia, barber, volunteered for service in the dark days of World War II. It’s ironic that he served the Navy before finding his adult career near Augusta, Georgia, as a civilian employee of The United States Army. He was transported to the west coast where he received basic training, and then assigned as a Signalman Striker on the U.S.S. Cunningham, D.D. 752.I know the latter because he proudly wrote (in pencil) this information at the front of his naval student notebook. His florid handwriting fills each page with codes, procedures, flag etiquette, and more. He had to stand on the bridge, receive orders and then communicate with other ships at sea. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in error in a war zone.The first few pages of “The Blue Jacket’s Manual” are interesting and then chilling. The opening page is a copy of The National Anthem. I find it comforting that this book of the seafarer at war begins with a song. The next couple of pages illustrate the flags of what the book calls the seafaring nations.Dominating the flag page is, of course, The Stars and Stripes. On the opposite page sits the flags of Germany with their black swastikas prominently featured. The rising sun of Japan does the same. Both images send a chill down my back. My dad, a young man with a south Georgia high school education, sailed west into the Pacific Ocean toward a nation that was at war with his homeland. He did it willingly, and dare I say it, proudly.On page four, the manual outlines the qualities of “a good navy man.” It lists loyalty, obeying orders, initiative, be a fighter, be reliable, keep a clean record, be fair, honest, and cheerful, and finally, be neat.Clothing, personal hygiene, first aid, and physical fitness occupy approximately thirty pages illustrated with diagrams on applying bandages, administering morphine, and even packing one’s sea bag.I don’t know if my dad had ever visited the ocean before volunteering for service. Cordele, Georgia, isn’t far from the coast. I do know that he loved to fish Lake Blackshear and roam the South Georgia swamps. How must this young man, still, really a boy, felt as the seas rolled beneath his feet on that steel navy deck? He probably had never seen as many stars above his ship as when a farm boy in Crisp County, Georgia.On one of the rare occasions that he talked about his war service. He mentioned the deafening sounds of the big Dreadnought battleships as they hammered a shoreline in the South Pacific. Again, these were sounds and sights far, far from the plains of Georgia.Another section in the sailors’ manual is entitled “Anchoring, Mooring, and Docking.” Phrases like “Heaving a line” “Mooring to a buoy” and six types of anchors are given paragraphs of information.Another section details how to use an “Abandoned Ship Signaling Kit.” Thank God my father never had to use that particular set of tools aboard The U.S.S. Cunningham.Unfortunately, dad didn’t get to come home on two feet. Sometime during the Battle of Okinawa dad was severely injured when either an explosion or an enemy shell ignited oil stored on the deck, and he was caught up in the conflagration. Dad never spoke of the event. I do know that he was unconscious and transported to a hospital ship. My childhood is filled with memories of my father’s stays at the Veterans Hospital (called universally, “The VA.”) in Augusta, Georgia. He endured many operations on his severely wounded legs.Miraculously, he never lost the ability to walk, but his entire life I watched him struggle to his feet due to his war injuries.I like one set of rubrics on page 279 of The Bluejackets’ Manual: “Never skylark, loll, or otherwise act in an unseamanlike manner.”I am not sure what these terms mean, exactly, but it seams to me like a fine way to conduct oneself.Anchors Away, dad, you were proud of your service to our country, and rightly so. We honor you and your fellow veterans as best we can, whether hoisting the Stars and Stripes, or singing your songs. We salute you.