Sport of Reading - Yellow 05

What do Brenda McLeod, Debra Haas, Linda Weiss, Cindy Rivers and Shirley Tazelaar all have in common? They are all in the same line of work, a type of employment which is a bit unusual for young women, at least until recently. They are all in the Navy together. What makes their work unusual is that they are all members of a deck crew for a Navy tugboat.

The tasks of a tugboat deck crew add up to lots of hard physical work. Tugboat sailors work outside in all kinds of weather. The heavy, nylon tug line that crew members must pull and toss all day is not easy to handle.

The young women on the Navy tugs have a job to do that is not easy under and conditions. This job is especially difficult in cold and nasty weather. The winter of 1978 was not a pleasant one for any tugboat deck crew. The tug's job of HAULING or pushing other Navy vessels up and down a river can not wait for warm sunny days.

Did the young women in this story get more than they had bargained for when they joined the Navy and ended up on tugboats? Brenda McLeod, for one, can't wait to get out of the service. She hates boats, can't swim, and just doesn't like what she is doing. Shirley Tazelaar, on the other hand, thinks that tug duty has its value. She feels that lots of the jobs in the Navy are worse, especially some of the ones she had before she was sent to the tug crew. Both Cindy Rivers and Linda Weiss joined the Navy for the benefits and the training. Debra Haas hooped for a nice office job but ended up on a tugboat instead.

All five of these young women do complain about the very hard work, particularly in the wintertime. These complaints, however, are not limited to female crew members. Young men with the same jobs also complain about the cold and the hard work.

	Quiz Log In Username: Password: