The U.S. Navy is the part of a nation's armed forces that floats on the 70% of our planetary home's surface that is covered by water. A navy can also be non-military, as a merchant navy is the sum total of a nation's traveling fleets - the ones that carry trade goods from port to port and make our modern way of life possible. It can also include fishing vessels, which keep our people fed. Sometimes a ship may belong to one country but register itself elsewhere in order to get around certain tax or legal regulations - but the people who built it it will know that really, it always belongs to the place it came from.

Much has been written about the seafaring life. After all, many a man and woman has run away to join the navy. Some of them head out to the sea to make their fortune. Others do it in order to serve their country and protect it against enemies foreign and domestic. Still more go simply to get the heck out from whatever little town they would happily never see again. The good news is that many of them had something interesting to say about it. Let's see how well you remember the things they said!