United States Navy

The United States Navy is presented through Joe Williams’s experience rather than through an account of the institution’s structure or operations. His service ends after a confrontation with a petty officer, prompting him to seek work in the Merchant Marine; the Navy nevertheless remains a point of reference as he argues over American involvement in the war and later claims exemption from draft registration as a merchant seaman.

Joe Williams’s service and departure

Joe tells Maria that he has been in the United States Navy and describes a fight with a petty officer. He says that he knocked the officer unconscious and received a black eye. In his account, the incident leaves the Navy with no place for him, and he declares that he is finished with service there. The episode is evidence of his own explanation for leaving, not of a formal discharge or the Navy’s official response.

Joe’s next aim is a different kind of seafaring. He asks Maria about obtaining forged able-seaman certificates and says he intends to enter the Merchant Marine. The transition does not take him away from ships or maritime labor; it changes the form of his work and the military status he claims. Another seaman later remarks that Joe looks more like a naval sailor than a merchant seaman, suggesting that his earlier service remains legible to others even after he has changed occupations.

Service and arguments over the war

Aboard a merchant ship, Joe’s former Navy service is part of a broader argument about the United States and the war. After the crew hears that German submarines are operating off the Lizard, sailors grow tense and begin blaming Joe for America’s not being in the war. He argues with Tiny and Haig, an older sailor from Glasgow, maintaining that the United States has no business entering the conflict. The dispute nearly turns into a fight. In this scene, military service and national allegiance overlap: Joe has served in the Navy, yet opposes the war and resists the assumption that the United States should join it.

Military status beyond the Navy

Later, in New York, Joe presents his merchant-seaman employment as a reason he has not registered for the draft and says he is exempt. A police officer does not accept his explanation as decisive, telling him he will have to make the case before a judge. Joe is then among a group marched down Broadway while onlookers jeer and boo. The episode does not establish whether his claim is legally valid, but it shows that leaving the Navy has not removed him from military classification and public scrutiny: his status is still contested through official procedure and the question of draft registration.

Narrative significance

The Navy’s limited but recurring presence marks a tension in Joe’s life between maritime independence and state-defined obligation. He leaves naval service after a personal conflict, seeks to continue working at sea under a merchant identity, and rejects American participation in the war; later, however, a police officer’s demand for his registration card makes clear that a change of occupation does not settle how the state classifies him. The evidence focuses on these consequences for Joe rather than on the Navy’s internal organization, policies, or institutional response to his departure.