Sweepers Sweepers Man Your Brooms: An Enlisted Man's Story

The humor and innocence of the United States Navy Sailor is captured in the unique and sportive tales of a salty master chief set in the final quarter of the twentieth century. Sweepers sweepers man your brooms is a phrase readily recognized by any Sailor who ever woke up on a United States Navy ship. In his Navy memoirs Retired Navy Master Chief Jeff Zahratka, a twenty six year veteran chronicles rich adventures that carry the reader to exotic settings from Karachi Pakistan to Severmorsk Russia. Sweepers Sweepers is a colorful story with uncanny notice of the odd occurrences that take place between the life lines of Navy ships and isolated shore establishmentsnot a story about bombs, battles, or spectacular explosions, Sweepers Sweepers Man Your Brooms is his story about how people of great diversity coexist in eighty-man bedrooms while living out of devices known as coffin lockers. Consistently found in the effectuation of extraordinary events, the ubiquitous American Sailor may be found crawling through garbage in an equatorial Shellback initiation or baring their derrieres at a Soviet aircraft carrier while traversing the Cape of Good Hope. He may be discovered in hand to hand combat, not with a human enemy manned up at a fire control console on an Aegis cruiser, but with a toilet brush in a Greek hotel room, fighting to the death with a mutated species of an ancient Hellenic centipede. The author fails miserably at camouflaging his affection for the city of Pittsburgh and his long time devotion to their high powered sports teams. He provides many insightful moments relating to being a fan from afar through some of the greatest years in Steeler and Pirate sports history. The storyis a rich and historically accurate account of a caste of characters from seaman recruits with attitudes honed on tough urban streets, to brown juice spitting good ole boys that learned to love the sea. There are associations and first hand opinions on the actions of young naval officers who today are among the top ranking leaders of the force. Sweepers Sweepers Man Your Brooms is a tapestry of the social morays, historical events, and military technologies that define the character of the Navy for the last thirty years. The reader will experience sufficient history to educate, and an infusion of personal opinion which will serve as a catalyst for debate. Above all; however, the story will remind Americans why they love Sailors, and remind old Sailors of why they love the Navy.