‘Sweepers Sweepers Man Your Brooms’ A Memoir by Jeff Zahratka
Jeff Zahratka recently wrote us with a synopsis of his new memoir Sweepers Sweepers Man Your Brooms:
Sweepers Sweepers Man Your Brooms; Dogear Publishing
From the author
What compelled this old salt to write a memoir about my twenty- six years of naval service? After all, minus a few accidents I was never really in harm’s way. My personal saga pales in comparison to the perils of the many heroes you often read of on this site and others. In the beginning I created my book Sweepers Sweepers Man Your Brooms in order to educate those who chose other pursuits, and to inform the young of what our accomplishments entailed in the last quarter century prior to this new Twitter-paced millennium. Yes that is certainly factual, but what actually developed in the process was an overwhelming desire to pay tribute, a lasting salute if you will to my peers and mentors, those wonderful people that made my career such a personably enjoyable journey.
One can’t go from high school drop-out to command master chief of a navy man of war without a tremendous number of kicks in the …. Or shall I say mentoring; and mentoring evolved as the underlying theme of this story. The book seizes moments at every turn to commend those who mould, demand, and discipline. In my book I referred to those efforts as calibration. All too often I found myself in need of timely calibration, and I discovered an a list of experts throughout my entire career.
Sweepers Sweepers Man Your Brooms is a light hearted tale. I left writing of heroics and spectacular explosions to those much better qualified than I. Mine is a memoir laced with humor that commences on an airplane ride to Great Lakes in 1972, sails the reader on descriptive adventures throughout the world, and culminates with a retirement ceremony blasting the Pittsburgh Steelers Polka through Norfolk’s pier twenty-one waterfront twenty-six years later.
As the back cover advertises Sweepers Sweepers Man Your Brooms has the right amount of history to educate and enough political opinion to cause debate, but above all it reminds Americans of why they love sailors while reminding sailors of why they love the navy.
Warm Regards
EMCM(SW)Jeff Zahratka
U S Navy (Retired)
Visit SweepersSweepers.com and buy the book.
