Herb Smith, a 77-year-old Marine veteran, was marching in place outside City Hall, keeping time with the Navy band passing by in precise lockstep.
“Don’t get no better than this,” he said. “Tight. Everything is tight. This is the Navy and Marines. I wouldn’t miss this for nothing in the world.”
The Navy started 250 years ago in fits and starts. In 1775, the rebel Continental Congress was divided on whether to launch a navy at all, worried about the expense and the inexperience of a colonial armed force at sea.
Its main champion was John Adams of Massachusetts, the future president, who admitted he really didn’t know what he was doing.
“It is very odd that I, who have never thought much of the old ocean or the dominion of it, should be necessitated to make such inquiries,” Adams wrote at the time.
