The U.S. Navy is maneuvering to sink a whole herd of cows.
Aye, aye, sir. Right full udder.This is little known to the public, or probably to most of the Navy, and certainly not to the Army, but there is an unwanted but nevertheless official naval herd for the midshipmen here in Annapolis.
U.S. Naval Academy A&M?
"Ah, ha, ha, ha," replied a spokesman at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., when asked if the cadets, too, have something unusual like, well, cows.
"They do? They really do? No, we don't."
The Naval Academy wishes it didn't have to keep cows on an 865-acre farm located about 15 miles from campus. But, so far, Congress in its wisdom won't let the sailors stop being farmers.
No, middies don't get up before dawn to milk cows and muck out barns. They seem hardly aware that the academy enrolls, as well as 4,000 plebes, 321 Holsteins.
They do, though, drink milk exclusively from their own cows.
The U.S. First Cow Fleet dates to 1911. An outbreak of typhoid fever back then was traced to milk from a commercial supplier, and Congress, and the president, wanted to make sure of a safe supply of milk for the Brigade of Midshipmen. So they ordered up a farm.
Why the president and the Congress didn't show the same concern for the cadets at West Point isn't known, but the midshipmen aren't surprised.
The trouble is those cows today are costing the middies serious money. The herd produces from 700 to 1,000 gallons a day, and every gallon costs more than the academy would have to pay commercially. The academy figures it might save $260,000 in a year just by going out and buying milk.
The last time the Navy tried to dump it's herd, in 1967, a crusty old man wouldn't let them. L. Mendel Rivers of South Carolina, then chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, as the academy now puts it, "recommended strongly that the dairy be continued in operation as it is a morale building asset to the Naval Academy."
Moo, middies.
Well, Rivers is gone to his rewards and the Navy is proposing legislation again to repeal language in the Military Authorization Act of 1968 that prevents the academy from ceasing its milking.
It's likely the measure will pass, and in a year or so another fine old naval tradition, of squeezing teats, will stop. Sure.
Any money saved won't go back to taxpayers, though. The way it works, Congress provides about $5 a day to feed each officer and midshipman in the Navy. The Academy's milk operation is included in that allocation.
"The savings just means we can buy better cuts of meat for the middies," says academy spokesman Capt. Tom Jurkowsky.
The academy could make a fortune selling its beautiful, sprawling farm in Gambrills, Md., to developers. But local feelings preclude that. The Naval Academy Dairy Farm is much loved hereabouts by generations of 4-H Club members who have been allowed to run their projects on its grounds. So, the Navy is proposing to turn the land into some kind of green space.
"Quite simply," says the academy's superintendent, Adm. Charles Larson, "this is the right thing to do."
So will pass into legend, along with Bull Halsey, bossie.
While it yet lasts, the herd does give a unique flavor to the term "guns and butter." And all who know of the noble service of the cow fleet will never feel the same about a sea chantey.
Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of milk?