Retirement Speech for a Navy Master Chief Petty Officer

At the end of a military career, it is customary to honor the one departing. Recently, Neptunus Rex, as he is known on his blog, had the honor of being the one asked to be the speaker when a shipmate retired. I for one, asked if he might be able to post the text of what he said, in order to share an example of what is said, when a sailor leaves active service. He has, and, like the rest of his writing, it is a powerful testimony of a man who trusted another man to keep he and his pilots alive. In civilian life, there are precious few relationships like this. Not only will you find a piece of history, and understand words such as these have been spoken for many, you will find many first person accounts of life in the Naval Aviation arena by an active duty Navy Captain, who has been around the block in peace and war. As a side note, you will find in Lex's speech, the same theme I have had in two of my posts (here and here) about Chief Petty Officers and their importance to the Naval serivice, in days gone by, and today.