United States Navy People

"On the front of my arm, I had a crusader cross inked in, I wanted everyone to know I was a Christian. I had it put in red, for blood. I hated the damned savages I’d been fighting. I always will. They’ve taken so much from me."

"Savage, despicable evil. That's what we were fighting in Iraq. That's why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy 'savages.' There really was no other way to describe what we encountered there."

"Our third reunion, in 1986, was inspiring. After a banquet, each shipmate gave an account of his life after he left the Barb. The first one to speak reminded us all that we had been close friends in the Barb, whether officers or enlisted men. Each man had been born again by the Barb and love. She enriched our lives and gave us our philosophy: We don't have problems, just solutions."

"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of the U.S.S. Barb during her 11th war patrol along the east coast of China from 19 December 1944 to 15 February 1945. After sinking a large enemy ammunition ship and damaging additional tonnage during a running two-hour night battle on 8 January, Comdr. Fluckey, in an exceptional feat of brilliant deduction and bold tracking on 25 January, located a concentration of more than 30 enemy ships in the lower reaches of Nankuan Chiang (Mamkwan Harbor). Fully aware that a safe retirement would necessitate an hour's run at full speed through the uncharted, mined, and rock-obstructed waters, he bravely ordered, "Battle station[--torpedoes!" In a daring penetration of the heavy enemy screen, and riding in five fathoms of water, he launched the Barb's last forward torpedoes at 3,000-yard range. Quickly bringing the ship's stern tubes to bear, he turned loose four more torpedoes into the enemy, obtaining eight direct hits on six of the main targets to explode a large ammunition ship and cause inestimable damage by the resultant flying shells and other pyrotechnics. Clearing the treacherous area at high speed, he brought the Barb through to safety, and four days later sank a large Japanese freighter to complete a record of heroic combat achievement, reflecting the highest credit upon Comdr. Fluckey, his gallant officers and men, and the U.S. Naval Service."

"To [crewmember name], As Captain, it has been an outstanding honor to be your representative in accepting the Congressional Medal of Honor for the extraordinary heroism above and beyond the call of duty which you and every officer and man in the Barb displayed. How fortunate I am, how proud I am, that the President of the United States should permit me to be the caretaker of this most distinguished honor which the Nation has seen fit to bestow upon a gallant crew and a fighting ship, the Barb. Sincerely, Eugene B. Fluckey."

"The Barb was never in competition with anybody but herself. We were determined on each patrol to do better than the last one."

"What was I most proud of as commanding officer of the submarine Barb during World War II? My answer is simply this. No one who ever served under my command was awarded the Purple Heart Medal for being wounded or killed, and all of us brought our Barb back safe and sound- ready, eager, and willing to fight again after unparalleled patrols, lauded by naval seniors and authors. No submarine can or should claim to be the greatest, particularly if her crew is lost. There were many great patrols during the various phases of the war, some probably unknown."

"Then it dawned on me that the men in the Barb who gave her life and taught me the most valuable philosphy for my life. Regardless of all the dangers they accepted at my command, and without the knowledge that was available to me, a reciprocal trust glowed. I find it applies totally for success in life, love, marriage, and business. Simply put, "I believe in you.""

"While you may have your initial success, due to timing and surprise, the time will come when you too will have your losses, but there will be this great difference. You will not only be unable to make up your losses, but will grow weaker as time grows on, while on the other hand we will not only make up our losses but will grow stronger as time goes on. It is inevitable that we will crush you before we are through with you."

"My wife hates this, but it's a fact. I was originally written up for the Navy Cross... I was thinking it would get pushed down, maybe to a Silver Star. But instead of getting pushed down, it got pushed up. And I've often wondered why. You've got four dead corpsmen, and if I don't get the medal, there'd be no live corpsmen out of the Korean War... I don't know. It's just a thought."

"If you're a commanding officer and you have a Medal of Honor recipient who comes to work with you... Of course they kind of view you a little different. They think, 'What am I going to do if he's a real foul ball?' But after they found out I'm not different, and that I'm a good corpsman, and fairly dedicated, I should say, I never had any problems. None."

"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action against enemy aggressor forces during the early morning hours. Participating in a fierce encounter with a cleverly concealed and well-entrenched enemy force occupying positions on a vital and bitterly contested outpost far in advance of the main line of resistance, HC3c. Charette repeatedly and unhesitatingly moved about through a murderous barrage of hostile small-arms and mortar fire to render assistance to his wounded comrades. When an enemy grenade landed within a few feet of a marine he was attending, he immediately threw himself upon the stricken man and absorbed the entire concussion of the deadly missile with his body. Although sustaining painful facial wounds and undergoing shock from the intensity of the blast which ripped the helmet and medical aid kit from his person, HC3c. Charette resourcefully improvised emergency bandages by tearing off part of his clothing, and gallantly continued to administer medical aid to the wounded in his own unit and to those in adjacent platoon areas as well. Observing a seriously wounded comrade whose armored vest had been torn from his body by the blast from an exploding shell, he selflessly removed his own battle vest and placed it upon the helpless man although fully aware of the added jeopardy to himself. Moving to the side of another casualty who was suffering excruciating pain from a serious leg wound, HC3c. Charette stood upright in the trench line and exposed himself to a deadly hail of enemy fire in order to lend more effective aid to the victim and to alleviate his anguish while being removed to a position of safety. By his indomitable courage and inspiring efforts in behalf of his wounded comrades, HC3c. Charette was directly responsible for saving many lives. His great personal valor reflects the highest credit upon himself and enhances the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service."

"[Regarding his Medal of Honor citation] It says I removed my bulletproof vest and put it on somebody... I did not take off a bulletproof vest. I had a jacket, and I was treating the guy for shock, and what I did was put my jacket on him. And somehow that got misinterpreted and whatever."

"To Charette, it was never a matter of whether he was brave or not, heroic or not. It always ended up being a matter of degree. "Each man has a breaking point," he remarked. In the hospital, on the submarine, in Korea, he had seen men past their breaking points. He's just someone whose breaking point has never been reached."

"I once said you can tell they're doing good because you can point to their signs: 'American go home.' In other words they're pretty free to do what they wanted to do politically. I have a cousin who was killed over there. And he was my aunt's only son. So when you think about that for a bit, you think well, was it worth it? And after many years I've come to the conclusion: yes it was."

"The next thing you know I was called to another area and platoon... I don't know what happened to their corpsman, but I was in amongst them and it was decided they were going to be the frontal assault unit... When they told us to start going forward I thought, "I'll wait until my platoon catches up." But the sergeant stood up. He had a machine gun and his words were very encouraging: "Okay men, move out, because if they don't kill you I will." So with those words of encouragement I moved forward with his platoon."

"They had a big thing about World War One, World War Two, and then they skipped right over to Vietnam... I don't understand that, because 54,000 Americans lost their lives in Korea... So your odds of getting killed in Korea are a hell of a lot greater [than in Vietnam]... And there's still eight thousand missing from the Korean War."

"When we got to the rear, there must have been five acres of dead people. And I think I read somewhere that you feel guilty to be alive when you are among the dead. It struck me that that is very true."

"I don't consider the Medal my personal property. As a recipient, I feel I am wearing it to represent all the men and women who have served over the years with the same dedication and courage. Having said that, it did make me very awre of my responsibilities as a recipient, talking to kids, trying to instill the values of service, courage, honor, and duty, so it's been a very good part of my life. Personally and professionally it added a dimension. I certainly don't dwell on events of thirty-one years ago. That was thirty minutes out of my life and it came and went and life goes on. I've led a wonderful life since then."

"Okay, Mr. Kelley, everything looks good. We'll send this package to Boston, and you should be hearing from us in a few days." I thanked the sailor and walked out with mixed emotions. What had I gotten myself into? Was my dream of being a sailor and my desire for naval service, after many setbacks along the way, finally going to be realized? I could now tell my parents I had an opportunity to serve my country, and they'd be proud of me. I was ecstatic. Finally, a week or so before graduation, the door opened for me, and a path lay ahead. Life gave me a second chance, and I took it."

"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in the afternoon while serving as commander of River Assault Division 152 during combat operations against enemy aggressor forces. Lt. Comdr. (then Lt.) Kelley was in charge of a column of eight river assault craft which were extracting one company of U.S. Army infantry troops on the east bank of the Ong Muong Canal in Kien Hoa Province, when one of the armored troop carriers reported a mechanical failure of a loading ramp. At approximately the same time, Viet Cong forces opened fire from the opposite bank of the canal. After issuing orders for the crippled troop carrier to raise its ramp manually, and for the remaining boats to form a protective cordon around the disabled craft, Lt. Comdr. Kelley, realizing the extreme danger to his column and its inability to clear the ambush site until the crippled unit was repaired, boldly maneuvered the monitor in which he was embarked to the exposed side of the protective cordon in direct line with the enemy's fire, and ordered the monitor to commence firing. Suddenly, an enemy rocket scored a direct hit on the coxswain's flat, the shell penetrating the thick armor plate, and the explosion spraying shrapnel in all directions. Sustaining serious head wounds from the blast, which hurled him to the deck of the monitor, Lt. Comdr. Kelley disregarded his severe injuries and attempted to continue directing the other boats. Although unable to move from the deck or to speak clearly into the radio, he succeeded in relaying his commands through one of his men until the enemy attack was silenced and the boats were able to move to an area of safety. Lt. Comdr. Kelley's brilliant leadership, bold initiative, and resolute determination served to inspire his men and provide the impetus needed to carry out the mission after he was medically evacuated by helicopter. His extraordinary courage under fire and his selfless devotion to duty sustain and enhance the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service."

"It may sound as though I joined the Navy on a whim because I didn't have any other career options, and that wouldn't be entirely false, but it's not entirely true either. My love of the sea began in early childhood, and a sense of adventure had pushed me to join the sea service even before college. I'd been imbued with the importance of service by my parents and church my entire life. This was simply the inevitable coming to fruition."

"Eventually Tom and I found our way to one another. We married in 2005. I moved to another agency. Temporarily, Tom moved into my house, but we both yearned for our own single-family home. Cambridge was too expensive, so after our marriage, we looked next door in Somerville and found a lovingly cared for Victorian that needed a little work. It's where we live today. We have great neighbors, and the gentrification that's taking place ensures a happy future with more young families moving in. Not even a winning lottery ticket could take the place of the life Tom and I now lived. Home, marriage, even my new job were blessings. We were a team. We thought alike in many ways, yet respected each other's differences. We were determined that nothing would get in the way of our new happiness. We planned to keep the stress out of our lives by realizing that certain events were beyond our control, looking for silver linings, keeping a sense of humor, and focusing on the gift of our great love. Unfortunately, large dark clouds were gathering that would negatively impact us both. But life never stays the same. Nothing is forever. Change is constant and all we can do is adapt."

"A couple of years after high school is a good time, and it should be mandatory. In the Vietnam era there were so many ways to avoid service, college deferments, this, that, and the other thing, so that notion of service fell on the shoulders of those who were less advantaged and were unable to do college and things like that. I just don't think that's the way it should be. I like to think back to the way it was when this country was formed. When people like John Adams and George Washington led the way, men of substance, means, and intellect. Yet they were the ones who sacrificed the most to make this country what it is today."

"Before me stood a Marine recruiting poster come to life. Tall and with an athletic build and a dozen medals pinned to his chest, Marine Corps Major Kelly oozed confidence. Even his firm handshake and the way his eyes locked onto mine conveyed a no-nonsense attitude. I was about to graduate from the College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Massachusetts, with an economics degree and no clue how to use it. I was looking for the next step. Several of my classmates who had been in the Navy ROTC program spoke with such reverence about Major Kelly, I was sure they'd stake their lives on his ability to walk on water. One day I bumped into him on campus and decided to introduce myself. My heart skipped a beat as Major Kelly uttered the words that would ultimately change the course of my life. "It's a shame that you couldn't be one of us," he said, referring to my failed attempt to get into the ROTC program due to my poor eyesight. Major Kelly congratulated me on my forthcoming graduation, wished me luck, and disappeared from my life. But his words stayed. They created a picture in my mind of a team that I knew I wanted to be a part of."

"I downplayed the fact that I was a Medal recipient until recently. I was too busy being a naval officer, and I certainly did not want to let having the Medal of Honor give me any special advantage when it came to accomplishing certain things, okay? I bent over backward to avoid that, so I ended up downplaying the Medal completely. But now I found that it does permit me to have doors opened here in the state of Massachusetts to help veterans, and for that reason alone I am probably more active than I used to be."

"College Lesson Number Two: It's dangerous to step outside of your comfort zone, particularly when mobsters are involved."

"[About September 11, 2001] We agreed earlier that this was a wakeup call, but I think the pain is being felt by other people. The American public is not going to have a sense that hey're at war. We still have an all-volunteer force fighting our wars, so different from the way it was during World War II whene very block had sons and daughters overseas. I'd love to see not necessarily a return to the draft as much as some sort of national service involving everybody. I think that would give us all a sense of sharing and belonging to the crisis we're in right now. I mean, it's almost business as usual: People are inconvenienced, revenues are down because of dot-com companies going out of business, but nobody is really feeling the pain yet except those who lost loved ones in the events of September eleventh and now overseas in Afghanistan."

"College Lesson Number One: You find out who your true friends are when you stop doing favors for them."

"There's a tradition in Massachusetts, starting with the North Bridge in Concord, with U.S. history starting here, a history of service. We take care of our own. When you think of John Adams, people like that who just embody service. Abe Lincoln's family was from here, right out near where Tom Hudner lives in Concord. There's a tradition here. The first Vietnam veterans' memorial in the U.S. was built in South Boston in 1982. The towns here seem to have paid more than their proportion in sending sons off to war."

"I've found in this job something I never stopped to think about before: Someone who serves in the military has no control over whether there's a war or no, so this state and all states treat their wartime vets different from how they treat their peacetime vets, which I think is fundamentally unfair. I'm trying to get that changed, so that anybody who serves is treated the same way when it comes to benefits. The Cold War was won by men and women who were not considered wartime veterans, tracking their subs, doing sonar, playing cat-and-mouse type of games."

"Had I gone to my other option, Boston College, this opportunity wouldn't have come my way, because there was no Navy ROTC program there and, consequently, no recruiter to goad me into following my dream. As mentioned, the U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and the Massachusetts Maritime Academy had all rejected me. Backing up a bit, while attending one of those schools had been my dream, I chose Holy Cross over B.C. partly because of what the school's symbol and nickname- the Crusader- meant to me. The Crusader image is that of a knight mounted on an armored horse. Imagine having beliefs so strong- religious beliefs or otherwise- that you would sacrifice the daily comforts and security of ordinary life. Imagine having beliefs so strong that you would be willing to give your life to uphold them. Of course, the early Christian martyrs also gave their lives for their faith, but knights held a special pull on me. They drew strength and courage from their beliefs, but also from miliary service. Would I ever have that kind of courage? Becoming a modern-day knight appealed to me as a way to stand up for what I believed in, even if it was unpopular and resulted in personal sacrifice. Serving others and doing unto them as you would have done unto yourself seemed like a good life motto."

"College Lesson Number Three: If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

"As I stared at the grass under which my great-grandfather was buried, a single question ran through my mind: Was it worth it? The same question strikes me every time I visit the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., that honors the 58,000 who died in one of the longest and most controversial wars in the history of this country. Although 620,000 lives were lost in the Civil War, it brought us the emancipation of slaves and the preservation of the Union. There is no similar weighty statement I can make for the Vietnam War."

"My first contact with a Medal of Honor recipient didn't take place until 1957, long after I'd returned to civilian life and resumed my career in broadcast journalism. By that time, I was doing a weekly interview show on ABC, and one night the object of my scrutiny was a U.S. Army veteran who'd been getting a lot of controversial attention- as well as the Medal of Honor- for his heroic exploits during World War II. His square name was Charles Kelly, but to those familiar with his story, he was mainly known by his colorful nickname- "Commando" Kelly. (In our interview that night, I called him Chuck.) In introducing Kelly to our viewers, I marveled at his various feats of valor, especially at the Battle of Salerno, where, single-handed, he'd killed 40 German soldiers in a span of 20 minutes. But the controversy about Kelly dealt with his failure to flourish in civilian life. During the postwar years he had tried his hand at a number of jobs and business ventures, and nothing had panned out very well. There were reports that his booze problems had ben at the root of his problems, and we talked about that. And as I would later discover, Kelly was not the only Medal of Honor recupient who had the melancholy experience of going from war hero to washout."

"General George Patton once said that he would have given his immortal soul for the medal, and at least two occupants of the White House- Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson- told recipients they would rather have the medal than be president. Incidentally, when the presentation ceremonies are held at the White House, it is customary for the President- the commander in chief of our Armed Forces- to salute the recipient, who then returns the salute. That tradition extends throughout the chain of command: When a recipient is wearing the Medal of Honor, he is generally the one to be saluted first, regardless of how low his rank may be."

"Clinton's an unusually good liar. Unusually good."

"You are among the two or three most talented people I have ever met in politics."

"Since the Vietnamese continued to resist the US-imposed dictatorship in South Vietnam, the United States invaded Vietnam in the early 1960s, beginning a devastating campaign of bombings, atrocities, chemical warfare, and torture, leading to the deaths of 3.8 million people, according to a study published in the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal). According to Nick Turse in Kill Anything That Moves: [T]he stunning scale of civilian suffering in Vietnam is far beyond anything that can be explained as merely the work of some “bad apples,” however numerous. Murder, torture, rape, abuse, forced displacement, home burnings, specious arrests, imprisonment without due process—such occurrences were virtually a daily fact of life throughout the years of the American presence in Vietnam. … [T]hey were no aberration. Rather, they were the inevitable outcome of deliberate policies, dictated at the highest levels of the military. Turse’s investigations of US war crimes (spurred by his discovery of the Pentagon’s Vietnam War Crimes Working Group) lend credence to the various displays and photographs one will find in the museum. One example is a sewer pipe present at the Thanh Phong massacre, used by three children to hide in before being killed by future Senator Bob Kerrey and his cohorts (ten other civilians also died)."

"I read War and Peace from cover to cover last summer, and what I found remarkable was how Tolstoy was able to bring his own philosophy of life into the story without distracting you from it. His big theme was that history was not the sum of actions of 'great men.' It was the sum of actions by lots of individuals. It is true that your actions get hemmed in by contingency but there is no great 'master plan' up there. There is no inevitability. You choose. The moment comes. You choose."

"When I was, say, fifteen years old in 1958, I could have gone and talked to a veteran of World War I or World War II and said, 'Tell me your story.' They could have taught us with these men who had experience in war, instead of giving us a dry history book. I think that to understand history, to be excited by history, a human being needs something. You need the capacity to feel sympathy for the people you're reading about in the story."

"Today we are much closer to a general acknowledgment that government must encourage business to expand and grow. Bill Clinton, Paul Tsongas, Bob Kerrey and others have, I believe, changed the debate of our party. We intuitively know that to create job opportunities we need entrepreneurs who will risk their capital against an expected payoff. Too often, however, public policy does not consider whether we are choking off those opportunities."

"I don't think we prepare young people very well to make the tough decisions. The thing we do with children- and it was done when I was raised- is we remove them from the adults when the adults are making decisions, and so we don't show them that adults make bad decisions. And that's what you have to figure out in life. You have to figure out how to make good decisions. You're going to make good ones, and you're going to make bad ones, and they get tough. The toughest ones are the ones that come very quick and that are connected to ethics."

"I think for the most part they're ordinary guys who did an extraordinary thing and most of us recognize that, you know, there but for the grace of God goes somebody else. And most of them feel that they received it for others and that their own actions were not especially heroic."

"Cynicism is poisonous to the person who feels it. It's actually less poisonous to the person who's on the receiving end. It's the person who becomes a cynic- and I would guess that's where I was in 1970- who says I doubt any human being has the capacity to do good. The thing that cynicism does is it closes you off to receipt, and you shrivel up in a hurry. Your heart becomes a walnut. It's better to recieve than to give. I don't think you can give unless you're able to receive and say, 'You are a good person for giving that to me.' There are times when you're given something by somebody you don't like and you don't want to like. And it's inconvenient for you to like them. Skepticism is good. The skeptic merely comes and says I want you to prove it. I'm doubtful. But cynicism is poisonous. Also self-indulgence, which I think is the worst sin, in some ways the only sin worth worrying about. It's the sin that produces bad things. It's self-centeredness that causes you to say, 'I'm the most important thing on earth- my safety, my security, my health, my wealth- you become a slave to all these fears that you're going to lose something."

"In general, all human beings have harsh experiences. It's the great voyage of human life to suffer losses."

"I didn't feel like I was a hero when they presented me the medal. I didn't go to Vietnam for any other reason than it was my duty. I went over there, and I was there a relatively brief time. I didn't come back feeling that I was a hero. I don't today. I did my three years in the Navy, which was enormously beneficial to me. I loved the Navy, I loved SEAL Team One, but I came back, hung up my uniform, put on my civilian clothes, and became a civilian again. And I received the Medal for people who got nothing. I don't say that with any false modesty. I say that genuinely and sincerely believing the action warranted no recognition beyond, you know, it's just anither guy going over and doing what he's told to do."

"Today, the oldest living recipient of the Medal of Honor is John Finn, who was decorated for action on Pearl Harbor Day. Born in 1909, John joined the Navy in 1926, and, loquacious as we all tend to be when we findally grasp that we have too many stories and not enough time, he will transfix anyone who cares to listen with tales of what it was like to grow up before the First World War and to ply the Yangtze River as a young sailor aboard an American gunboat. In 1941, he was stationed in Kaneohe Bay, with a squadron of Navy patrol planes. Rudely rousted from bed by the cacaphony of the Japanese bombs destroying the fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, John raced from his quarters, sped to the hangars that housed his aircraft, and manned a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on an exposed section of a parking ramp. For the next two hours, Finn, in the open and suffering from more than twenty shrapnel wounds in his back and stomach, blasted at the attacking enemy planes, hitting many of them and not relinquishing his post until the attack was over. Even when we were young, those of us who were raised on stirring John Wayne war movies assumed there was more than a little hyperbole and cinematic license in them. But for forty years I have known a man whose real-life exploits render the movies limp, pallid, and ineffectual in contrast. Art can often approximate life, but it has a hard time doing it justice."

"For extraordinary heroism distinguished service, and devotion above and beyond the call of duty. During the first attack by Japanese airplanes on the Naval Air Station, Kaneohe Bay, on 7 December 1941, Lt. (then A.C.O.M.) Finn promptly secured and manned a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on an instruction stand in a completely exposed section of the parking ramp, which was under heavy enemy machine-gun strafing fire. Although painfully wounded many times, he continued to man this gun and to return the enemy's fire vigorously and with telling effect throughout the enemy strafing and bombing attacks and with complete disregard for his own personal safety. It was only by specific orders that he was persuaded to leave his post to seek medical attention. Following first-aid treatment, although obviously suffering much pain and moving with great difficulty, he returned to the squadron area and actively supervised the rearming of returning planes. His extraordinary heroism and conduct in this action were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service."

"Not long ago, I asked John what he was doing at the precise moment when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. "Truth be told, my boy," John said, "I was in bed with a good-looking gal." I asked if he ever saw her again. "See her again?" said John. "She was my wife for sixty years!" Then he slapped his knee and bellowed with laughter."