When Navy veteran and television star Bill Cosby was asked if he had been a good sailor back in the day he gave a frank reply –”No,” the comedian said. Cosby explained why, using a single example.
When he was sailing from Virginia to Guantanamo Bay, he didn’t even make it through a fire drill.
“I was told, because it’s a drill, to go over where the dead people were because I had walked through the fire,” Cosby said laughing. Nevertheless, on Thursday the United State Navy made the entertainer an Honorary Chief Petty Officer in a ceremony at the United States Navy Memorial and Naval Heritage Center on Pennsylvania Ave.
“This gives me a chance to go back in my life to my Navy days and pretend that I stayed in,” Cosby told reporters during a morning press conference.
Cosby then celebrated the distinction with a military-themed stand-up act in front of a packed audience of sailors. “Because of the Navy I amazed my staff one day, the people we hire to clean up our house,” Cosby explained. “The lady was mopping —didn’t know how to do it — ‘give me that thing,'” Cosby said, miming that act of proper mopping. “As you can see I’m becoming more comfortable in my uniform,” he added, proudly wearing a new Navy officer’s jacket and hat.
During the routine, the 73-year-old entertainer also boasted about his abilities to buff a floor, make a bed and keep things tidy. “You don’t know what you’re doing, you’re a civilian,” he said.
But he also recognized the impact that the armed forces had on straightening out his path in life. “I don’t think my mother could have done it, I don’t think my father could have done it.” Cosby served in the Navy for four years.
