I had received my Army draft notice. Vietnam was no longer something happening to somebody else. I had to make a decision. Rather than wait to be inducted into the Army, I volunteered for the United States Navy Reserve. I joined the Submarine Division. At the time, that must have sounded like a good idea. Then I went to sea on one.
Maybe Submarines Weren't for Me
I went on a weekend submarine cruise out of Charleston, South Carolina. That experience taught me something very quickly. I didn't want to spend my Navy career underwater in a steel tube. I attended Submarine School in New London, Connecticut, but I eventually transferred out of submarines and into the Surface Division. That was much more to my liking. For approximately the next year, I trained every two weeks aboard the USS Howard D. Crow (DE-35) out of Galveston.
My service took me from the USS Howard D. Crow (DE-35) to the missile frigate USS Richmond K. Turner (DLG-20). Our travels included San Francisco, San Diego, Hawaii, Midway Island, Guam, Subic Bay in the Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Sasebo in Japan, Australia, and American Samoa before returning through Hawaii to San Diego.
That list might sound like a vacation cruise, but we spent thirty to thirty-five days at a time off Vietnam. We rescued downed pilots who made it back over the Gulf of Tonkin and served as plane guard for the aircraft carrier America while its pilots flew bombing missions.
On the way home, several of us were walking through downtown Sydney when we smelled fried chicken but could not find its source. A passerby directed us to Chicken in the Basket, a club in the basement of a furniture store. It served chicken, mixed drinks, and beer, with a dance floor and live band. We spent the rest of the day there.
The owner was from New York. He had come to Sydney for rest and recreation during World War II and stayed. My shipmates persuaded him to let me sing with the band. I sang “Long Tall Texan,” which was a big hit. I don’t remember paying for our drinks after that.
Growing Up
The Navy gave me another kind of education. There were responsibilities. There were expectations. There were things that had to be done correctly whether I felt like doing them or not. That was different from the young man who had gone away to college without knowing how to discipline himself academically. I had already proved that I could work. What I had not proved was that I could organize my life around a long-term goal and stay with it. That test was still ahead. In September 1969, I decided to go back to college.
There was one major difference between the young man who had first entered Lamar and the one who returned. This time, I was ready.