From a Navy guy:

The phrase “spending like drunken Sailors” is archaic, ignorant and disrespectful, especially in time of war. While some service members may have behaved this way in the 1940s, this type of behavior is now highly discouraged in the U. S. Military, and has been for quite some time now. Get with the times and find a new analogy.

From my dad:

The term Spending like a drunken sailor, comes from the days of the British Empire—the sailing warships would be at sea for weeks and weeks, and when they made port, the sailors would go ashore and spend all their pay on booze and women. It was semi-encouraged as it kept them broke and dependant on the Navy to get home.

From an anonymous guy:

Sir -

I find your article offensive and inaccurate -

Drunken sailors have the decency to be spending their own money, not that of the taxpayers!

I think drunken sailors deserve more respect than those in government.

From a retired Naval officer:

I think you could have used another analogy other than “Drunken Sailors”. I spent almost 23 years in the Navy and I can honestly say that the U.S. Navy has taken great strides in changing that perspective.

By the way, how do you know how a drunken Sailor spends? Did you do any time in the Navy? If not, maybe you should write about something you know about, not some damn stereotype!

From a regular reader:

As a former sailor (US Navy, 1991-95), I can say that yes, despite the tut-tutting/moral superiority of others, druken sailors spend lots of $$. It’s a fairly classic pattern - at sea for weeks/months at a time, with nowhere to spend your $$, when you hit a port where you can let off some steam, you do. You drink (to execss sometimes), buy lots of stuff, gamble and “socialize” with the ladies. It has nothing to do with the US Navy in particular, nearly all sailors are like this….I remember partying with Russian merchant mariners in Pusan, South Korea and they were spending as crazy as I was.

Former Drunken Sailor (former sailor, not former drunk, I’m still drunk occasionally

As I say, I don’t write the headlines. But I do think it’s funny that most of the email I’m getting is about drunken sailors, not arrogant Republicans.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 25th, 2005 at 11:56 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.