December 02, 2021
Volume 51 - No. 48
By Friedrich Gomez
I hated school with a passion when I was growing up. No, I really mean that.
For me, school was like a bottomless bowl of beet soup, or root canal without the anesthesia.
I would rather gargle with a throat full of piranha than sit in class. But then, one day, things abruptly changed. The Paper - 760.747.7119
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I remember as if it were only yesterday. I was 10-years-old, in 4th grade class, wishing I were somewhere else. I was watching the wall clock, just waiting for school to end.
Then, one fateful day, we learned about Pearl Harbor. That moment in history that, somehow, changed my life.
I HAD A SECRET. There would be other battles in our elementary school history books, but, this one . . . was strangely different for me.
For reasons secretly known only to me at the time, the reign of terror at Pearl Harbor hit me in the gut as a small child and that pain of remembrance continues to this very day. For me, the reason was simple.
As a small child, I was raised with the U. S. Navy all around me. Our neighbors who lived on both sides of us, as well as directly across the street, were all either active or retired U. S. Navy officers. To our port side lived Chief Petty
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Officer, Ray Kilmade, to whom I became deeply attached and learned much about U. S Naval history.
And Master Chief Petty Officer, James Lair, to our starboard, taught me to recite all the ranks of the U. S. Navy from Seaman Recruit to Fleet Admiral, in precise transmission order. I even memorized the various types of warships, past to present. All of this I learned and internalized at the tender age of six.
