Here is my father, Robert Knight, circa 1958. He was nineteen years old at the time, serving in the United States Navy aboard the U.S.S. Northampton (at that time the flagship of the Seventh Fleet).
I've sometimes wondered about what it must have been like for him then, at that age, leaving the family farm to serve in the armed forces. It couldn't have been easy for him. Dad volunteered for the Navy because he knew there was going to be a great chance he would be drafted anyway, and he wanted a measure of control over his life. I think Dad also saw the Navy as being more "hands-on" technically than other branches, in terms of maintaining machinery, as that's what much of his life experience had already entailed. Much of his time in the Navy was spent in the engineering area of the Northampton. And he must have impressed the right people because he was offered a chance to get involved in computers just as that technology was coming to really develop. But Dad was really happiest when he worked with his hands as well as his mind, and coming up with punch-code would have been too stifling for him. So he wound up honorably discharged and came back to North Carolina and got into dairy farming as his family had long been involved with.
But for a few years, Dad was a sailor. And he saw more of the world than a lot of people likely get to see, all while serving his country.
So here's a hearty tip o' the hat to all who have served in America's military.
