The fleet is in here in NYC.  I didn't get to see the whole parade of tall ships, working girl that I am now, but I was under the Verazanno Narrows bridge at 8 o'clock to see the first one sail by, and to get a shot of some of them "sleeping" out in the harbor.  That's the USO Liberty Bells and Katy Perry rocking the troops on the Brooklyn pier Wednesday night (the concert will be broadcast on July 4), and another tall ship tucked in for the duration.  (I was fifteen minutes late to work and couldn't call, but my boss was so cool about it.  I said I thought I could get from Bay Ridge to Bensonhurst in 45-minutes, but it didn't.  "Did you see the thing, though?" she asked.  I said yes.  "Sometimes you just have to see the thing.")

You'd think service people would get sick of patriotism, but they don't seem to.  When Michael, the Liberty Bell, sang "Proud to be an American", those tough guys threw their arms around each other, swayed, and held up cigarette lighters. 

At the pier party, there were a lot of other corporate sponsors, Pepsi, Microsoft, Budweiser, etc., and we got good free eats as well as the free show.  I saw a USO Mobile Canteen, of which there are 3, that travel to events all over the country.  They had a table with some give-aways and a poster to sign.  Someone wrote, "Thank you USO, you have no idea."  Which made me grateful I'll never have to have any idea, thanks to them.

People my age associate the USO with Bob Hope shows, and we still do those, but the USO centers around the world are more likely to just offer coffee, something to eat (one WWII guy told me his USO in Italy served spaghetti and going there was his only happy memory of the war . .  . spaghetti?) and a friendly ear, possibly an opportunity to email home.  (Which reminds me, when Americans on business travel, generally the employer pays for calls home.  Not so the Department of Defense.  AT&T sells the USO steeply discounted phone cards to send to service members.  In movies, it seems like soldiers are always Skyping their families.)  At my center at Port Authority, you never saw people so excited over free hot dogs.

Speaking of which, it's back to the center today and tomorrow for the final push of Fleet Week 2012.