it’s the enemy who decides how you’re going to fight. But at the end of the day, if you take the long view of it—and being a history major from Elon College, I do—you know that there’s never been peace. There’s really only a violent peace. And as long as we’re a global superpower, we’re going to be engaged in things that are not predictable. No one predicted Libya. No one predicted the Arab Spring. Three months before 9/11, we weren’t planning for 9/11. We weren’t thinking about that. What do you expect will be the fallout from these unpredictable events in the Middle East? Directly as the result of the Arab Spring, there’s going to be great crisis in the future as the Arab people decide what kind of nations they want to be and how they want to be led. There’s going to be a great deal of instability and it’s going to take a steady hand by somebody to work our way through that. I predict a lot of crisis, and the Navy and the Marine Corps sail to crisis. I will tell you that our allies overseas are concerned that we will become isolationist; that we will withdraw and won’t be in it with them. Many of them are hedging their bets. But if we’re going to continue to be the leader of the free world, it takes leadership, responsibility and a level of engagement. What would you say to young Americans to encourage them to join the military? I’d say do it. The armed forces are going to give you an opportunity. I teach the people who work with me that it’s an implied task that the American people give us, to grow these kids up. There are a lot of kids out there who come in and have never had a sense of purpose, discipline or mission. We take very good care of them. We treat them well. We give them responsibility at a very young age, and they like it and they thrive. If you go on an aircraft carrier, the average age is about 19 or 20. I can go up to my airplane and there’ll be a young airman, maybe three years out of high school, who knows everything about that airplane. I ask him if it’s ready to fly—if it’s safe to fly—and he says, “Yes, sir.” I’ll usually do a cursory look around the airplane to see if there are any issues that have prevented me from flying before, but he’s already looked at it all. I get in, I go fly, I give it back. It’s his airplane. It’s amazing. Be very proud of the youth of America. Looking back on the 34 years of your career, what would you consider your biggest accomplishment? My kids. My son (Billy) and my daughter (Stephanie). It’s that simple.
Back in the day…
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early 40 years ago, Bill Gortney chose to rush and pledge the Lambda Lambda chapter of Kappa Sigma fraternity at Elon. It’s a decision he considers one of the most important of his life. “I wanted to get involved with a different group of people, and Kappa Sigma provided that. It was such a diverse mix of people— you can look at any picture of that group and see that we weren’t your stereotypical fraternity,” he recalls. “Throughout my 35 years in the Navy, that friendship has endured.”
Several of Gortney’s closest friends from Kappa Sigma shared their favorite stories about him for this issue of The Magazine of Elon.
His ability to plan ahead was extraordinary. He had this little Karmann Ghia and when he drove, he’d always let the gas tank go all the way to empty—but not before he got to his destination. I remember pushing the car from the street into the fraternity parking lot because, even though he’d just passed a gas station, he knew he could make it back on what he had. He told me stories about times he was flying jets and would do the same thing and would land on fumes. His ability to live life on the edge and make those kinds of decisions always got him home safe. – Les Hall ’77 I remember Bill being instrumental in getting Fido, the Kappa Sigma dog. It was out of the clear blue—one day, we had a dog. Everyone on campus knew Fido and where she lived, and she and Bill were inseparable. – Tom Ponder ’76
{ Bill Gortney and Fido in the 1976–77 Phi Psi Cli. }
One of the earliest memories I have of Bill is when we went to an old rock quarry near campus with some other friends. There was a cliff about 60 feet above a pond. It took a lot of daring to dive off it, and it took me about 20 minutes before I got up the nerve. But Bill was there and was full of encouragement—he kept saying “You’ve gotta do it! Go for it!” He was always somebody you wanted to be around, not necessarily because he was the most popular, but because there was an air of confidence about him without being cocky. He knew what he was doing, he knew what he was all about, and he inspired people to be associated with him. – Steve Leach ’78 When he returned to the U.S. and came to Global Forces Command in Norfolk (Va.), I hadn’t seen him since 1976. He had just become an admiral, had just put on his one-star, and it was a thrill to see him walking down the hallway for the first time. I saw that gold stripe on his sleeve and I just couldn’t have been any prouder of someone than when I saw Bill that day. I know as a Marine, I shouldn’t say this, but it almost put tears in my eyes that day when he came and gave me a bear hug. – Lt. Col. Zene Fearing ’76, USMC (Ret.)
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