In The Navy

I apologize in advance for the departure from the normally humorous nature of this blog. But, I really felt like this story needed telling. So, just a warning.....

Looking back, as a teenager, I didn't give my parents much to be proud of. I suppose I was an o.k. kid throughout my elementary school days. I made good grades and mostly stayed out of trouble. The High School years, however, were my most challenging....so to speak.

Freshman and Sophomore years at St. Mary's were academically challenging, as I was immediately thrust into advanced courses due to my outstanding entrance exam scores and my GPA throughout parochial school. I believe they overestimated my abilities, since this was the last time I saw an "A" grade the rest of my High School career. As a Freshman, I was taking Latin, Classic English Literature, Algebra 2, etc. I was most certainly not up to the task, as I barely escaped these classes with passing grades, let alone the A's I'd become so accustomed to. Sophomore year was more of the same, as the educators clearly couldn't take a hint from my earlier performance. Latin 2, Advanced Trig, you get the point. Although I had great difficulty in these advanced classes, I managed, once again, to eke out passing (barely) grades in all subjects. Then the bomb went off.

After a failed attempt at running their own business, my parents informed us that we would be moving......again. Contrary to the childhood of my older siblings, mine was decidedly more stable at the time. We had lived in the same house for 5 whole years!; a nice little bungalow in the St. Louis Hills area. The older siblings had all lived in at least 5 different homes, and the number of different schools they attended was in the double digits. But I digress, I wasn't used to being uprooted. So, off we went to House Springs MO, where I was set to attend Northwest High School for Junior and Senior years. Coming from a strictly private/parochial school environment, a large public high school in Jefferson County was quite a shock. And I didn't handle it well. I was like a kid in a candy store. I couldn't believe what you could get away with in a public school, and believe me, I tried to get away with all of it. I had just been attending an all boys Catholic high school, and now this!! Do the math! This place even had a student smoking area, for crying out loud! In order to avoid further incriminating myself, I'll leave the details up to your imaginations. Let's just say, if there was a way to get in trouble in high school, chances are pretty good that I managed it at some point.

The reason for the lengthy set up above, was to clue you all in to the fact that I was not always the upwardly mobile, clean living, example of modern male Christianity, you all know and love today. O.k., that was a joke. It's o.k., you can laugh! The point is, at the end of high school I could easily count more times I had disappointed my parents, than anything else. Part of it was the fact that I was set up to fail at St. Mary's, but Northwest was all on me. So, looking for anything I could find to make them proud, I stumbled across the U.S. Navy, and enlisted before the recruiter even knew my name.

I'll never forget the look of terror on my Mother's face and the sheer joy on my Dad's when I broke the news. Mom was scared to death, and Dad looked as though I had just hit a grand slam in the World Series! Several months went by before I left for boot camp, most of which my Dad spent trying to learn all he could about the modern Navy, and Mom spent praying that I would get a safe assignment. Come on, Mom! What Navy assignment is NOT safe, these days? I had chosen the safest branch of them all.

The day finally arrived for my indoctrination and my recruiter arrived at the homestead to drive me to the Processing Center downtown. As we were pulling out of the drive, I heard my Dad yelling my name. I turned around to peer through the rear window of the recruiter's car to see him clapping and waving a small dime store American Flag. This was the last time I saw him truly alive.

I still have the first letter he sent me in boot camp. He went on and on about how proud he and Mom were, and how honored he was that he had a son serving in the Armed Forces. He said he was praying for me every day, and that he knew that now, I was going to be okay. (He had is doubts the last few years, and rightly so!) 

Boot camp was certainly a change of pace for a 19 year old punk, who was used to getting away with everything, but all in all, wasn't as tough as I thought it would be. At least not until I was pulled out of a drill by the chaplain. He was there to give me the news that Dad had suffered a heart attack and stroke and wasn't expected to survive. Within a couple of hours, I was on a plane for St. Louis, unsure about my future in the military, unsure about my family, unsure about practically everything.

When I arrived at the hospital, the mood was grim. My older siblings had told me that the doctors had declared Dad "brain dead", and it was now just a matter of time. I couldn't go in to see him. I couldn't bear it. The image embedded in my mind of him waving that little flag was the only image I wanted to see. However, at the urging of my Mom, I mustered up the strength to go in and say goodbye. I was surprised to see his eyes open, although the doctors had said he was not responding to basic commands. As I neared his bedside in my dress blue uniform, I was overcome with grief. I was barely able to speak, but managed to get out an "I did it, Dad", and an "I love you". At that moment, this supposedly brain dead man reached up with his left hand, smiled and gave me a "thumbs up". I knew at that moment that I had made him proud of me, and that whatever else happened, he and I would always have that moment. Dad passed away several days later, and was at peace. So was I. I knew that I had accomplished what I had spent all of my teenage years trying to do, make him proud. I eventually returned to boot camp, and went on to serve in Operation Desert Shield, and five more years in the Navy. And, even though I may have enlisted for the wrong reasons, I still look back at that decision as one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. I grew up a lot during that time. I still made some stupid mistakes, and I learned a lot of valuable lessons. But none were greater than the one I learned the day my dad passed away.

Those last few moments I got to spend with Dad, were precious. They let me know that despite all the doctors had said, they were not in control. I truly feel that God gave my Dad just a few more minutes of conciousness that day, so we could have that last moment. It was a hard way to learn a lesson, but Dad taught me one last one from that hospital bed. It's a lesson we all need to get a hold of. With God, ALL things are possible.

Thanks for reading.