The Culture of the Navy

The Culture of the Navy

Language is one of the things that immediately set us apart from one another. Often times, it is the way we can tell where a person is from around the world, simply by listening to that person speak, whether they are speaking Spanish, Japanese, Russian, English, etc. Not only does it often tell us where someone is from around the world, it can also tell what part of a single country that individual may be from. For example, in the United States alone, although the common language is English for the most part, there can be different accents broken down by region such as Northern, Southern, Eastern etc. and then broken down even further into local accents that may sound completely different in the same region. Take for example Boston and New York, which are only two states away from each other. A Bostonian may pronounce coffee with an “ah” sound, like cahfee, whereas a New Yorkan may pronounce the same word, yet with the “aw” sound, cawfee. Language is such a huge part of our lives that it’s not just the words we speak, but the root of our culture, while distinguishing something as simple as a different lifestyle.

Growing up in South Carolina, I was able to experience these different languages to a degree, given that I lived near a huge tourist town, but for the most part, I was a product of that South Carolinian country accent that everyone I knew had and most of those I didn’t, didn’t understand and we were ok with that. All of that completely changed when I joined the Navy when I was 19. It changed in two different ways. First of all, the Navy took people from all over the world and all over the United States and put them all together like a huge melting pot. Secondly, they threw a bunch of new terminology at us all and expected with our different backgrounds, languages, and accents to forget all of that and learn this new way of talking. That in so many ways makes what I am a part of so special.

All of the different...