I’ve been giving a good deal of thought about 2024 being the 50th anniversary of my college graduation, which also marked the start of my life’s big adventures.
But as I learned over a number of years, an excess of nostalgia can create blindspots behind which we hide our past disappointments and failures – and that is a trap to be avoided.
In any case, my adventure started a month after graduation when I entered the US Navy, starting with Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Newport, Rhode Island, in June 1974.
A flight, with multiple stops, on Allegheny Airlines – for those who remember it – took me from St. Louis to Providence, Rhode Island. From there it was a short commuter hop on the Newport Aero that flew me down to Newport.
I vividly recall my view out of the seat window. Narragansett Bay lay beneath me, with its small towns and islands – and with the Atlantic Ocean reaching beyond into the far misty distance.
It was my first view ever of an ocean and I had the feeling of coming home. My future felt as thrilling and unlimited as that distant horizon.
After landing, I caught a taxi and was soon dropped off at the entrance to King Hall on the Naval Education and Training Center.
After my orders were reviewed, I found myself in a waiting room and was told I’d be assigned to a company in short order. A few moments later, a shorter stocky man came in. He was wearing a suit and lugging a very large suitcase.
We looked at each other – he seemed to be of similar age; we nodded a greeting, and then sat like the two babes in the woods we were.
A senior Officer Candidate came in and told us to follow him.
We were to be roommates assigned to Echo (E) Company of Class 7408. As Officer Candidates, our titles through training, we were assigned two to a room – unlike the communal barracks used for enlisted boot camps.
As we settled in over the first weeks, we started to get to know each other.
His name was Steve, and he was from Tulsa, Oklahoma. He had joined the Navy to be commissioned as an officer in the Navy Supply Corps (informally called Pork Chops because of their branch insignia) – think finance, logistics, etc. (Unrestricted line officers, like I was, have stars on our shoulder boards or sleeve cuffs, as opposed to branch insignia; gold stripes for rank are the same).
Steve was married, and he frequently talked about his wife, Cathy; it was apparent even to me how much he loved and missed her. Thinking back, it seems obvious they hadn’t been married for very long before he flew to Newport.
He often said as a Navy Supply Officer they would never be apart once he graduated from OCS. She would be with him at his training at Navy Supply School (at that time in Athens, Georgia) and then at a shore-based assignment.
After a first tense week of settling into the routine; being frequently yelled at for messing up required formal responses or just for no particular reason; and getting all required uniforms, we were fully into the training: military courses; practical navigation and seamanship exercises in trainers or on the local waters in yard patrol craft; weekly formations and parades; watchstanding; and physical training – all those would consume most of our time.
We were busy, but most of it was relatively straightforward – except for the weekly uniform inspections that consumed many hours in preparation – starting with gleaming shined shoes and trying to avoid even a loose thread on our inspection uniforms.
A number of our classmates had significant military experience as prior enlisted sailors, and had ribbons to go with that service; a class in front of ours had former Navy SEALs and other sailors who had fought in Vietnam and had multiple rows of combat ribbons, including Bronze and Silver Stars, and Purple Hearts – those intimidated many of the commissioned officers during uniform inspections (which was a real source of amusement).
Weekends – unless our duty section was assigned – were free.
Newport in that summer in 1974 was basically a playground.
The finals of the 1974 America’s Cup yacht race were held that summer on the waters off Newport – with the crews and supporters from the various racing yachts taking over different bars. I seem to recall Ted Turner (yup – that Ted Turner) and his crew frequently being in The Black Pearl.
There were large numbers of tourists; restaurants were everywhere to find lobster and other seafood; the Newport mansions of the Gilded Age, the ‘summer cottages’ of that era’s super-rich, were open for tours; and the beaches were always a place to spend hours – scoping out women.
On Saturday nights, the junior officer’s club – The Datum – was a place for live music and potent mixed drinks. It was on the other side of the base and was a good walk – if you didn’t have a car (which we were free to have on base; I got my Plymouth Duster with its 318V8 while in Newport – that car could almost fly).
One weekend in July, Cathy flew in to see Steve; I got to meet her very briefly. She was a bit reserved, but cordial. He was so excited in anticipation of her visit, and then as expected, so depressed after she flew home to Tulsa.
But Steve joined with everyone else in the activities – including the trips to the Datum.
One thing that was inspiring both to me and others about Steve was that he would do additional physical training on his own – consistently going out in the early evening. He told me he wanted to slim down by our commissioning date so Cathy and his family could see the changes; and he thought a Naval Officer should be trim and fit.
And he made great progress on his goal; once, he held up the suit pants he had worn on his arrival and they appeared to swallow him up.
That was how I spent the summer of 1974.
Unfortunately, it reinforced a somewhat naive understanding of what military service actually was; which was corrected, with a good deal of difficulty in the assignments and months that followed.
By late September, I had been promoted to the regimental leadership staff of my class and moved down to the regimental staff hallway – the five of us each had our own rooms that weren’t subject to room inspections, which was a very welcome privilege.
Then came a tragedy on the first Saturday in October (the 5th – the same date this year) – and just four weeks before we were to be commissioned.
I had gone up to the Echo Company area to see who was going over to The Datum. Steve was in his workout gear, and as he headed outside, he said he’d be over later.
Perhaps an hour or so later, one of the women Officer Candidates came into The Datum and said they found an Officer Candidate on the field near the parking lot, and she thought it was Steve.
I ran to my car with a few others and rushed back. On the quarterdeck (the formal entrance area to the building), I found Ed, the regimental staff duty officer – who was the leader of his duty section, looking more pale than I recall ever seeing anyone.
Ed had been an Atlanta cop before joining the Navy (he was also going Supply Corps) and he confirmed it was Steve who was dead. Two members of the duty section on roving patrol, which provided some semblance of security around our building and parking area, found him; and Ed had gone out to confirm their report before the base security staff arrived.
We were told later the cause of death was pulmonary aspiration – Steve had choked to death on his own vomit. Whether there was something more beyond that we never learned – not that it really mattered.
Just like that. From “see you later”, to gone forever.
The Echo Company commissioned officer (every company had a staff commissioned officer) arrived late in the night and explained that a Navy Casualty Assistance Team would be visiting Steve’s family and Cathy to tell them of his death and provide assistance.
The commissioned staff determined the Echo Company Commander (Norm) would accompany the body home, as he was in Steve’s direct chain of command.
I guess, looking back, I felt relieved it wasn’t me going,
I really liked Steve after all the time we had together and wanted to be there for his journey home, but wasn’t sure I would keep my emotions in check and face Cathy and his family in their time of grief.
I could have argued to go, but held back. What seemed to be a lack of responsibility and emotional maturity on my part long lingered as a regret.
Norm was also a bit reluctant but he did as ordered, and on his return said the family was very considerate and kind, and grateful for someone bringing Steve home.
On base, we held a memorial service, closing with the Navy Hymn. I doubt there were any dry eyes that night – mine weren’t.
I closed our time together with one intimate action related to his death, and that was inventorying Steve’s personal items. With a commissioned officer and one other Officer Candidate, we went through everything going into the box to be sent to Cathy; it was a standard procedure in the Navy to provide a correct inventory and ensure nothing embarrassing or painful was returned to loved ones.
I was struck by how ordinary the things were that we put into the box. With the exception of his uniforms, including the dress blues that would have soon had the single gold stripe of an Ensign; the rest was unremarkable: his civilian clothes and shoes; a wallet; a watch; some keys; a book of poetry (that I never knew he had); and a stack of letters from Cathy.
It all seemed so inadequate as physical reminders and a testament of who he was and what he meant to those of us who knew him.
But as I’ve learned over the years, the everyday items that mark a person’s life are important only as a reminder of the person loved.
Life proceeded on after that difficult week and we returned to preparing for commissioning as Naval Officers and the next stops on our Naval careers.
We were commissioned as Ensigns in the U.S. Navy on November 1st, 1974. I felt a sense of pride and anticipation as I took the oath of office, along with the 150 or so others in my class.
I suppose we all thought – even with the hints dropped by those with prior enlisted experience – we were prepared for our next assignments and our responsibilities as junior officers.
But our real educations soon started – none of it based on a ceremony, event, or promotion.
It began almost immediately for me in a brief training assignment that didn’t go as well as planned – given my self-important position at OCS. It was humbling.
From there, I went through an intensive year of nuclear propulsion training – where there were increasing demands and stresses in the fast-paced training program, with rigid academic and performance standards we had to meet.
And then the demands and expectations increased exponentially still more when I reported to my first submarine (some of which I related in a previous post).
It was on that first sea tour, I began slowly to understand that maturity, responsibility, and self-discipline could only be learned through a long process – frequently accompanied by doubts and failures, and a few well remembered instances of being chewed out by my senior officers.
That was my real education as a Naval Officer.
I assume, to varying degrees and with the diverse paths everyone had, that’s how it went for most of us who were commissioned on that first Friday in November 1974.
As the years went on, I thought of Steve less often – primarily only when I read something, or heard mention, of Tulsa or Oklahoma.
Then, I got a bit pensive and would think of how his journey ended – and Cathy, and hoped she had moved on past her grief and had a good life.
But, given this 50th year since the start of my naval adventure and the year of his death, it finally seemed time to write the coda for this chapter.
And that meant one final acknowledgement of blind spots that had colored some memories of that time with doubt or regret.
The regrets for the life Steve never had.
The disappointment that not everything turned out the way I dreamed on that flight down Narragansett Bay.
The costs of conceits and self-deceptions.
But in the end – confronting and understanding the negatives finally enabled me to hold my most precious memories only for what they are.
Those first steps at OCS and my time in the Navy were a seminal phase of my life that that was the foundation for the many successes, with far fewer failures, that have filled my journey.
Newport in 1974 still retained much of its authentic past, with a slightly seedy and run-down ambience that added to a sense of its long history. Inevitably, that was sadly to be lost, apparent even a few years later – with the corporate and cultural homogeneity already spreading coast to coast. But for me, Newport, as it was that long ago summer, will always be my Brigadoon.
All the magnificent people I met at OCS. While our time together was relatively short, I learned much about life and myself from knowing them.
Even though they are all only spirits of that far distant past, I treasure my individual memories of Randy, Tom, Bill, Vince, Cindy, Ed, Jan, and especially – Andy, and Ruth.
And finally, remembering Steve only for who he was, and what he represented of us all – young and full of life, and with dreams of a future as far as that misty horizon.
