When war actually came, Roosevelt could not stand inactivity in Washington. He was a fighter and he must go where the real fighting was. With Leonard Wood, then a surgeon in the army, he organized the First United States Volunteer Cavalry. He could have been appointed Colonel, but he knew that Wood knew more about the soldier's job than he, and he insisted upon taking the second place. The Secretary of War thought him foolish to step aside thus and suggested that Roosevelt become Colonel and Wood Lieutenant-Colonel, adding that Wood would do the work anyway. But that was not the Roosevelt way. He replied that he did not wish to rise on any man's shoulders, that he hoped to be given every chance that his deeds and his abilities warranted, that he did not wish what he did not earn, and that, above all, he did not wish to hold any position where any one else did the work. Lieutenant-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.