Battleship

"You sunk my battleship!"

This four-word yelp was a regular part of my childhood conversations.

"Battleship," introduced in 1967 by Milton Bradley, is a peg and grid game of hide and seek. Each player sets their ships on a platform out of view of their competitor. Players then guess the coordinates of the battleship hoping to get a strike. When the entire ship has been discovered, the losing captain must announce defeat using the moniker above. 

Raised as an army brat, and not a navy brat, my knowledge of warship maneuvers is understandably limited. But I got a peek behind the curtain when a recent trip brought me to the Maritime Conference Center, located just north of Annapolis. 

There, surrounded by buzz cuts and broad shoulders, I shared space with naval officers preparing to guide our nation's largest ships. While I was holed up with my fellow chaplains, all of the other meeting rooms hummed with chatter about ocean currents and navigation protocols. There was even a simulator of a ship's bridge, complete with a video rendering of various waterways across the globe.

My version of "battleship" was just child's play. But for a select few, it's far more than a game...

"Any man who may be asked what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: 'I served in the United States Navy.'" - President John F. Kennedy, August 1963