21 Years of Learning

Story By Tucker Massey

With just short of 21 years of service under his belt, James Henderson of Opelika has dedicated much of his life to serving both his fellow servicemen and his nation.

Henderson joined the United States Naval Forces in 1980 and worked as a Navy hospital corpsman for most of his career. He eventually worked his way into a senior chief hospital corpsman by the end of his enlistemnt and retired in October 2000. He settled back in Opelika, where he grew up.

Henderson said that he followed in his father’s footsteps. With his father having served as a medic in the Army, he decided he would do something similar in the Navy to avoid copying his father too much.

“I followed in my dad’s footsteps to some degree,” Henderson said. “He was a medic in the Army, but I couldn’t be exactly like my dad, so I chose the Navy.”

Among notable tours that occurred while Henderson was enlisted, Operation Desert Storm was one of them. However, he was stationed at the time in New Orleans, where his job was to assign other hospital corpsmen to different ships involved in the operation.

“I was enlisted during the Desert Storm era, but I didn’t get deployed,” Henderson said. “In my position at the time, I was pulling from different hospitals to get hospital corpsmen to place them in different marine units and hospital ships.”

While stationed in New Orleans, Henderson was in the running for Sailor of the Year within the entire Navy. In fact, he was one of the final four contestants. And with someone like Henderson, he is slow to mention this feat, yet said he is very proud of it.

Henderson said he was also grateful for his time with the Navy because it allowed him the opportunity to see so much of the world. He said he had “been around the world a couple times over” while enlisted.

“The only continent I haven’t been to is Antarctica, and I volunteered to go there several times,” Henderson said. “But there were many places I traveled to that I really loved.”

Despite all of his travels, he said his favorite area to have been stationed was right here in the continental U.S. — San Diego, California. He described the area as crowded, yet simultaneously

peaceful.

Among some of the more exotic places he had been to, Henderson detailed his time in Africa. There, he was able to go on a safari where he said “you could see forever” and that there was complete silence all throughout the area.

Despite venturing into peaceful areas throughout the world, not all of Henderson’s travels were easygoing. One such story took place under Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi reign during the 1980s.

As the ship that Henderson was on made its way across the Gulf of Sidra, which Gaddafi claimed to be Libya’s, several missiles were shot their way. The area that Henderson’s ship was crossing was dubbed Gaddafi’s “Line of Death,” and Henderson noted that one of the ships that was nearby sank during the attack.

Henderson also told of his trips to the Persian Gulf in which they were tasked with escorting tankers in and out of the gulf.

While aboard USS Ticonderoga, on which Henderson spent three years, he was able to sail throughout the Mediterranean, the Arctic Circle and all throughout the seas that surround Europe.

However, as Henderson sailed across the world and saw amazing things and faced very serious struggles, he said he grew more grateful for what he had. This came after seeing areas of the world that were poverty-stricken, which he described as much harsher than American poverty levels.

“We think we have poverty in this country, and we do have it, but we don’t know poverty until you’ve seen poverty in Africa or some of the Southeast Asia countries,” Henderson said. “Or just go into South America, then you’ll see poverty.”

Henderson said that after he retired from the Navy, it took some time to really understand what it meant to be a veteran. While others thanked him, he often found it difficult to find the right response.

“I used to be embarrassed sometimes when people would say, ‘Thank you for your service,’” Henderson said. “It was like I didn’t know what to say. But one day it clicked in my head that sometimes you say, ‘Thank you,’ but now I just say, ‘It was my honor.’”

Henderson said that what he did for this country was voluntary and that it was simply his honor to serve his country. His service allowed him to see what most civilians don’t: that he volunteered to fight for his country and that those who also do so deserve respect.

While he is thankful for how people around him have responded to his service throughout the years, Henderson said he hopes that people will always continue to show that level of respect to all veterans.

He pointed to the response of civilians to Vietnam veterans and said he prayed that this nation never has to deal with that kind of disrespect towards people who have put their lives on the line for others ever again.

Even though Henderson said he went into the military to get away from Opelika at the time, he is grateful to be back and settled here now. He said that his time with the Navy allowed him to grow up and see so much of the world, both the good and the bad in it.

Henderson learned some of life’s greatest lessons while with the Navy. But through it all, he developed a deeper appreciation for his nation, his fellow servicemen and the work it takes to serve this country.