First night in Gaeta, searching for a place to eat. After looking for longer than we should have, especially had we bothered to look at a map, we found our way to the older part of town, around the port.

We found an open restaurant, and we could see a large group inside being served. It was 7 p.m., long before the locals even think about eating dinner.

We parked, walked back to the trattoria/pizzeria, sat across the aisle from the busy table (the only other occupied in the resto) … and almost immediately we realized that seated there were nine young Yanks from the U.S. Navy, perhaps the only other people in the city who wanted to eat so early.

They all appeared to be in their 20s. The sort of pleasant, mannered, beefy group of small-town/rural guys with bad haircuts you might associate with the modern U.S. military.

As we ate our pizza, we listened to them talking. We picked up on one guy, maybe 25, telling the others how smart he is. “I just don’t test well,” he said, to the inevitable amusement of his messmates.

They were not loud. They certainly were not profane or boorish. None were drinking anything stronger than a Coke.

We discussed the notion of rural/small-town American boys seeing the world, once they had committed themselves to the military, and especially the Navy. Would any of them been able to eat pizza in a charming Italian town at the age of 25 had they not enlisted? Would they have been able to order dinner from a waitress who spoke only Italian?

Probably not.

After dinner, we saw where they had come from: The USS Mount Whitney, which was docked in Gaeta harbor, its home port as the command ship of the U.S. Sixth Fleet. The Mount Whitney is by no means one of the bigger ships in the Navy, but it seemed to take up half of the old harbor, a big gray mass.

As you can see, above, the Mount Whitney has odd dimensions. It is not really for fighting, clearly; it is about controlling the other ships and people who are fighting.

It also is an old ship, launched in 1971. It has been around and about, in the 40 years since.

Later, we saw a couple of guys in a bar, about a block away, and on the patio of another restaurant, a few older guys who might have been officers. We also saw the steel door in the tall fence they passed through to get back to the ship.

A night later, we saw an officer with three Italians in a second restaurant, and he mentioned the Mount Whitney would be sailing in the morning.

That led to a reverie about the notion of sailors on shore leave in a foreign port, and how often does that happen, anymore?

A century ago, ships from all over Europe and the U.S. might circle the globe, calling here or there, and putting the crews ashore, often wearing their uniforms, strutting up and down the streets in groups, spending money like … drunken sailors.

Does that happen, anymore? Does anyone have a navy worth talking about, other than the U.S.? Do they often put in at foreign stations to gawk and be gawked at?

I think most of this is over. It’s not like a Russian or Chinese ship is going to dock at Gaeta. Nor a British or a French one, either.

I’m sure the city derives economic benefit from having the Mount Whitney call it home. Stores purchased, restaurants frequented, some beers sold, some locals employed to help maintain the ship.

I grew up in Long Beach, and it was a naval town for the first decade of my life, and the station was a major economic presence … until it left, creating a void.

Gaeta may be in for the same, if the U.S. avoids getting involved in, say, Syria, and the “peace dividend” ever kicks in.

It also prompts a bit of musing over the U.S. military presence over most of the globe. The Sixth Fleet here in the Mediterranean, the Fifth in the Gulf, the Seventh in the western Pacific.

Is there a point to it, anymore? Does the U.S. gain economic advantage from operating and maintaining a still-large navy, and staffing it on the other side of the world? Just in case? Is it handy for fighting terror? For opposing a second superpower — which no longer exists?

It was nice to see the young Yanks here, and to listen to the various accents (the guy with the big hat had to be a Texan), and to watch, sorta from the outside, how Americans of their age and background behave and how, yes, they do behave a little differently than other visitors. (Not as self-aware, maybe a bit louder than others, younger than tourists.)

I imagine Gaeta is happy to see them, too, just for the money they spend. I wonder how much longer their country will keep sending them back.