An old salt is a sailor who has been in the Navy for a very long time. These are normally persons who have been in the Navy for 15 or more years and have spent almost all of that time at sea. Some old salts will do anything to stay away from shore duty. They love the ocean and love being Haze Grey and Underway.

Old salts are also said to have stood fire watch when God lit off the sun. Or they were in deck division onboard the Ark with Noah. Some others are said to have brought Nelson his lemonade or been on the barge with Anthony and Cleopatra.

One sure way to tell true old salt apart from one of those wanna be, they never will tell you how long they have been around or where they have been. They will tell sea stories of way back when, but you never know when that was. They have spit in every body of water in the world and probably seen more sunsets at sea than some members have seen in their lives.

Old Salts hardly will lift a finger and do any real work, but they have earned that. They have something much more important to do, teach the new generation of sailors and hope that one of them will one day become an old salt. My own journey toward old salt was cut short, but I did know a couple while I was in the Navy. They are special men and they will always be needed in the Navy.