The importance of “esprit de corps” hit me recently as I was watching the workers on the sewer construction job now being built north of Stow on the west side of the lake. These French words refer to team spirit, to people respecting each other and working together for a common purpose.

The construction workers on this job work as a team without a lot of shouting or being “bossed” around. They just do their jobs and expect those around them to do the same. It is obvious that they respect each other and like their jobs.

One may be on a backhoe, another laying out the route of pipe for the next day, another restoring areas disturbed as the new sewer system is installed–but their effort is quite seamless. It is inspiring to watch.

In looking back at my own life experience, it made me recall my first duty assignment as a new Ensign in the U.S. Navy back in 1967. I was assigned to be the Operations Officer on a small ship homebased in Sasebo, Japan.

It truly was a small ship by Navy standards…60 men with 6 officers were its contingent. In reflection, though, what really made its smallness significant is that we usually operated alone, not in the company of other ships.

Our mission required us to work with other allied Navies in that part of the world, so we would travel to places like South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, etc. to do our work…and we would travel alone.

We didn’t think much about it then, but the fact that we could travel such long distances without significant help close by was a testament to the commitment of members of the crew to each other and to our dependence upon each other. People knew their jobs, respected each other, and trusted in one another.

Here I was…a greenhorn, boot Ensign right out of Officer Candidate School and while underway was assigned as an Officer of the Deck on the bridge responsible for the safety and movements of the ship for four hours at a time, often in the middle of the night.

But, it wasn’t just me up there on the bridge, there was a duty section consisting of one third of the crew up and working at the same time all over the ship doing their jobs. We were a team. There was an “esprit de corps” in what we were doing.

I remember one time on that ship when we were caught in what were close to typhoon-force winds while enroute from Taiwan back to our homebase in Japan. The seas were so high that they had the power to roll the ship over. We had to keep the bow of the ship into the oncoming waves to avoid this.

The bridge was about 25 ft. above the waterline, and the waves were about 30 ft. in height. Sometimes, for a second or two, the sea would sweep over the bow, and then we would lurch up with the bow nearly out of the water as the ship headed over the crest and then pitched down into the following trough as the next wave approached. It went on like this for about two days.

It wasn’t much fun, but we were not alarmed. Everyone was doing their job as a team to ensure that the ship got through. Finally, the storm subsided, and we headed home for Japan unscathed.

It only takes about one such time in your life going through something like this to make you realize that your life is dependent upon the lives and work of others. “Esprit De Corps” is real. It is necessary. It is what makes the world work, and we need more of it.

Rolland Kidder is a Stow resident.