It's January 1, 1926, 0300 hours aboard USS Idaho (BB 42) anchored in San Pedro Harbor, California. The night is dark, the midwatch duty, from midnight to 4 a.m., is long and lonely. A young ensign, E. V. Dockweiler, the Officer of the Deck, must enter the ship's deck log, an essential record that contains a chronological record of the ship, information about the ship's condition, its location, movements, and any significant events surrounding the ship.

Deck logs can by mystifying to the untrained eye, a string of compass headings, military acronyms, and maritime jargon. But Ensign Dockweiler knows what many in his place do not—an obscure US Navy tradition allows him, on the New Year's midwatch and no other time, to deviate from protocol and apply creative license to the task. He launches into a poetic rendering of the ship's record, a deck log in rhyming verse. Line after rhyming line, he includes the essential information, then ends with this: That's all the dope this morning / Except, just between us two / If the Captain ever sees this log / My gawd what will he do?

The Watch Stands as Written examines the Cold War era and the spirit of the times—the space race, fear of nuclear annihilation, the communist threat, 1960s counter-culture—through the eyes of the young officers serving their country in troubled times.