"He has been through mortar attacks,” Bousfield said. “He’d jump and get scared liked the rest of us. He is kind of like one of our own.”

During artillery attacks, soldiers tucked Hammer inside their body armor for safekeeping. Hammer’s main duty was mouse patrol. “He kept the mice out of the mess hall,” Bousfield said. He also chased away the blues. “He was a stress therapist,” he said. “The guys would come back in tired and stressed. Hammer would come back and bug the heck out of you. He wiped away some worries.” A shipment of 300 cans of tuna came in handy because cat food wasn’t on the supply list. Flea collars were easy to come by, though — the soldiers wore them around their ankles.

The cat was named after the unit, Team Hammer.

Like his comrades, he had to earn rank. He was “promoted” to private first class after nabbing five mice.

“He should have been major,” Bousfield said. “He caught a rat as big as he was.”

ST. PETERSBURG - When Maggie Rogers spotted something bobbing in the water three miles into the Gulf of Mexico while on a scalloping trip with friends, she assumed it was a turtle, or a piece of sea kelp.

But as the boat got closer and slowed down, she found it was a tiny, apricot-colored kitten. Nine inches long and screaming at the top of its lungs, the cat was paddling furiously.

"We scooped him up and he sat on the boat with me for eight hours," said Rogers, who is the finance director at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

"He was exhausted and stressed," Rogers said. "His heart rate was high."

The boaters on the 17-foot Scout Current Drift did not know how the kitten arrived in the Homosassa Bay. There were at least 40 boats in the crowded area where he was found, they said.

On Tuesday, three days after he was found, a veterinarian found the 10-week-old, 1-pound kitten had worms, but was otherwise healthy.   He was adopted by Rogers' sister-in-law -- and named Nemo.