New York City requires a certain level of panache to wear white. Khrzielle Vargas was a 21-year old seaman apprentice from Fremont (Calif.) and was seen walking through Times Square in her white trousers, white jumper, and white sailor’s hat.
“When you walk around the city in your uniform, you look like you’re glowing,” Ms. Vargas said.
Ms. Vargas was part of the 3,000 Navy and Marine service members who flooded the streets of New York City to celebrate Fleet Week. This Memorial Day tradition has returned for a second time since 2019.
The seven-day festival features a parade of ships, public tours and demonstrations of aeronautical and naval prowess by Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy members.
And, of course, the service members take advantage of their shore leave to explore the city’s many diversions.
In decades past, the concept of sailors letting off steam called to mind distinctly male rituals of carousing, as idealized in the 1949 musical “On the Town,” which starred Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly as two Navy men in search for love while on leave in New York City.
However, the Fleet Week pack seen in Midtown Manhattan on Thursday evening tended to include both men as well as women. Many were confined to window shopping, museum-hopping, and lunch at Hard Rock Cafe, just like other tourists.
“I’m mostly seeing museums, looking at stores,” said Chelsea Acevedo, 26, a sailor from Austin, Texas, who was taking in the parade of people at the red steps in Times Square with another female sailor and two male shipmates.
Ms. Acevedo, who is not familiar with the city, said that she made it a point to travel alongside fellow male sailors to ensure safety. She claimed that New Yorkers often mistook her for one the men.
“From the front, people don’t really see your hair, so they’ll say, ‘Thank you guys for your service,’” Ms. Acevedo said. “And then you turn around and they’re like, ‘Oh, O.K.!”
Although Manhattan has seen its fair share antiwar protests in the city, several female sailors were shocked to receive salutes by passers-by. (One Marine female said that a woman in Times Square gave them the middle finger.
Around 4:30 p.m., at West 46th Street and Seventh Avenue, clusters of sailors mingled near the statue of George M. Cohan, the Broadway luminary whose life inspired the film “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” They found themselves becoming tourist-bait, like the people who dress up as Minnie Mouse or Elmo for tips.
“Everyone wants to take pictures with us,” said Anna Rodriguez, 21, a crew member of the U.S.S. Bataan is an amphibious assault ship. “They say, ‘Thank you for your service.’ Little kids smile really big.”
Ms. Rodriguez hails from Waco Texas and said she was proud of her summer whites that she wore to patrol the city. She praised the modernized navy blue piping on the jumper flap collars and sleeves.
The New York grime is a challenge, even though. “It’s going to get dirty,” she said. “But our ship is offering free dry cleaning at night. Drop it off at 2 a.m., pick it up at eight in the morning.”
Brianna Crigger, 20 years old, is a U.S.S. Bataan shipmate, West Jefferson, Ohio was enjoying a break in her job refueling fighter aircrafts. For one thing, the uniform “is just cool,” she said. “This is going to sound conceited, but I just like the way I look in it.”
More than that, she was proud to wear the uniform.
“It’s a uniform you put on to show that you’re doing this for your country, you’re doing this for the people who died for your country, you’re doing this for the people back home,” Ms. Crigger said. “It just shows that you’re more than what you think you are.”
As for shore-leave high jinks — the crowded bars, the flashy nightclubs — Ms. Crigger had more modest plans for her time in New York.
“I want to go see the Trump Tower and the Statue of Liberty because I know my mom would want a picture,” Ms. Crigger said. “But I’m not of age, so I’m not going out. I usually just go back to the gym on the ship, shower and go to bed.”
Source: NY Times
