enant-Colonel he was made.

The regiment, which will always be affectionately known as the Rough
Riders, was "raised, armed, equipped, drilled, mounted, dismounted,
kept for two weeks on a transport, and then put through two victorious
aggressive fights, in which it lost a third of the officers, and a fifth
of the enlisted men, all within a little over fifty days." Roosevelt
began as second in command, went through the battle of San Juan Hill as
Colonel, and ended the war in command of a brigade, with the brevet of
Brigadier-General. The title of Colonel stuck to him all his life.

When he became President, his instinctive commitment to the necessity of
being prepared had been stoutly reinforced by his experience in what he
called "the war of America the Unready." His first message to
Congress was a long and exhaustive paper, dealing with many matters of
importance. But almost one-fifth of it was devoted to the army and the
navy. "It is not possible," he said, "to improvise a navy after
war breaks out. The ships must be built and the men trained long
in advance." He urged that Congress forthwith provide for several
additional battleships and heavy armored cruisers, together with the
proportionate number of smaller craft, and he pointed out the need for
many more officers and men. He declared that "even in time of peace a
warship should be used until it wears out, for only so can it be kept
fit to respond to any emergency. The officers and men alike should be
kept as much as possible on blue water, for it is there only they can
learn their duties as they should be learned." But his most vigorous
insistence was upon gunnery. "In battle," he said once to the graduates
of the Naval Academy, "the only shots that count are those that hit, and
marksmanship is a matter of long practice and intelligent reasoning." To
this end he demanded "unceasing" gunnery practice.

In every succeeding message to Congress for seven years he returned to
the subject of the navy, demanding ships, officers, men, and, above all,
training. His insistence on these essentials brought results, and by the
time the cruise of the battle fleet around the world had been achieved,
the American navy, ship for ship, was not surpassed by any in the world.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, ship's crew for ship's
crew; for it was the officers and men of the American navy who made it
possible for the world cruise to be made without the smallest casualty.