Enlisting in the Navy
Q: You said served in the Navy, what company or battalion, and how long did you actually serve overseas?
When I ended up as an enlisted man in the reserves, there was a thing called the Two by Six Program. You had to do two years active over a six-year period, and the other four years were what they called the Ready Reserve. The Ready Reserve, you had drill, at either one night a week or one week a month, depending upon what kind of unit you were in. I did not want to go into the military as an enlisted man, because I knew that being an officer was far better and a more productive way to serve your time. So, I applied at OCS, Officer Candidate School, both in the Coastguard and the Navy. And it was lucky that I had enlisted in the reserves, because two weeks later, I did get a draft notice. But because I was already in, the Army couldn’t get me. January, or February, I can’t remember which. I remember it was Friday the 13th, I reported at Officer Candidate School, in Newport, Rhode Island. That was a twenty week program, and when you graduate, you got your commission as an officer. So I graduated USN, and then, because you graduated high, you were guaranteed your dream sheet. And your dream sheet was what you fill out, where you wanted to be stationed, what specialty you wanted, and what type of ship. And I had filled out that I wanted to be the diving officer on a new construction ship, homeported in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. And I got orders to the USS Brunswick, which was under construction in Lowestoft, England. I was going to be going over after diving school and weapons school. I would go to England, and I would be in the pre-commissioning crew which would write the manuals and the instructions and the crew organizational charts for a new ship.
Q: And I know you ended up being a Navy SEAL, was this training for that?
No. In fact SEALs came to officer candidate school. Various specialties came to officer candidate school and did a little presentation to see if these officer candidates were interested in those naval specialties, like engineering, the civil engineering corps, or seal team, or dive school. Those kind of warfare specialties, nuclear power school. They would come and give a presentation to see what officer candidates were interested in. And SEAL team came and did a little video and then set up a little table down in the auditorium. And of the 2,500 officer candidates that saw that presentation, not one went down to sign up, because nobody wanted to go to Vietnam at that point in time, nobody in their right mind.