Deeds, not words!
I reported for my first day of indoctrination and training at the United States Merchant Marine Academy on July 15th, 1975. It was warm, wet and rainy that summer morning on the North Shore of Long Island, and frankly, I had no idea as to what to expect as I was being driven from my sister-in-law's parent's house in New Hyde Park towards the academy at Kings Point. The last time I had been to this place was in June of 1970, when I had sat in the parking lot in front of Tomb Field by the Main Gate in a Taxi cab with my family for what seemed like hours waiting for my brother, then a Plebe, to get permission to spend fifteen minutes to visit with his family before the rest of us caught a flight out of Kennedy and headed to Des Moines. We had all just disembarked from the SS Santa Rosa in the port of New York, my dad having just retired from the USAF after twenty-five years, and we were on our way back home to California and my older sister's wedding after spending four years attached to the USAF Mission in Venezuela. Needless to say, that was then and this was now. What lay behind that gate then, as now, remained a mystery.

The mystery, however, was quickly dispelled once we drove through the gate and stopped in front of OOD's office. I jumped out out of the shelter of the car and lurched into the rain to pull my father's old worn-out B-4 bag from the trunk. My sister-in-law's father rolled down his window and offered his hand and wished me well. I perceived from his rather somber expression that he was feeling sorry for me. He had been a WWII veteran, and perhaps knew better than I what was forthcoming. I believe it was at that point, looking into the expression on his face, that I realized that my life, as I had known it, was over forever. After shaking my hand, he hurriedly rolled his window up and drove off.