 It took me a little longer than a lot of other people to figure out that that's what I needed to do. But I feel like kind of in a way that it was sort of my destiny, you know, just for lack of a better word. Like, I think I was meant to do it. I just didn't realize it until much later in life. Professions are handed down from generation to generation all the time. I mean, you have generations of mechanics and this guy was a mechanic because his dad was a mechanic. Well, he was a mechanic because his grandfather was a mechanic. It's the same thing in our family. It's just that our chosen profession happens to be serving in the military. All my uncles on both sides of the family were in the service if they were old enough and able to go. My father was a Marine. He was the only Marine I think out of the group. I followed in the late 50s when I went to Marine Corps, which I knew I would always go into Marine Corps after seeing my father come home in World War II. My son from my first marriage was in the Marine Corps for six years. My daughter, Jennifer, is in the Navy at the moment. And that's probably the extent of the military involvement other than on my wife's side of the family. My father-in-law was a retired Navy aviator. We're about 23 years in. My mother-in-law had been a Navy officer in World War II. And I definitely upgraded, shall we say, when I got involved with those folks. I joined in 1943. I was a senior in college and signed up in Raleigh, North Carolina. I was called up in September and sent to Smith College for 54 days where I became an ensign. Well, I joined the Navy when I graduated from college, which was May of 1969. And, of course, we were in the middle of the Vietnam War at that point. I received my nurse's pen, was commissioned into the Navy, and graduated from college on the same day. I joined the Navy in May of 2005, and we were at war at the time. We were responding to and probably still recovering from what happened on September 11th. It was the thing to do. In that time, we had been attacked by the Japanese, and everybody was extremely patriotic. And women were doing things that they had never done before. They were driving trucks and buses and working in airplane plants and all sorts of factories. When my dad told us that he was going to retire, and being, I think I was about 14 or 15, so I decided that, well, if he wasn't going to be in the Navy, I was going to be in the Navy. So I decided that after my graduation from nursing school that I would join the Navy, and I did. And I'm thankful that my mother was in the Navy too, so I had no fear of going into the Navy. I mean, she did it. I can do it. Well, they could hardly miss military values in their childhood. But I may have been a stricter parent than many parents, because I did have certain responsibilities. I had all the responsibilities. I think they were more disciplined than a lot of their peers were. I don't think they were military values that I tried to instill in the children. I think they were just traditional values. The values are traditional. I think the military just compliments those. I felt that the military experience helped me raise my children better, because I had a broader base of experiences to share with them, that I could help them see a wider world. You know, the standards that I was taught and had to adhere to, I tried to pass on to them. And I did pass it on, I'm sure, because all my children have just done fantastically well. Not perhaps in the figures on their 1040 forms, but in being good, solid citizens who are happy with what they're doing. You can't ask for more of that. We were raised with military values without even realizing that that's what they were. You know, when I got to boot camp, and it seemed like some people had to be taught those basic things, like accountability, like responsibility. And I don't want to give the impression that we were perfect at it, and that, you know, the Blake's and the Staley's are models of, you know, on our courage and commitment and those sort of things, because of course we're not. But it's just something that is sort of innate to us, to our family dynamic. I don't ever remember saying, you know, you really should go into the Navy and try that life out. Both of my children were expected to go to college and get a degree in whatever field they wanted to go into. But as far as actually, you know, doing any recruiting, I don't think we did that. Except by example. I didn't encourage my children to join the military as they were growing up. I did encourage my daughter to join after she had graduated from college and had at least one job and wasn't very happy. And I thought she needs to be in the Navy or the Marine Corps. My family was very supportive of me joining the military, you know, in particular the Navy. And, you know, even my dad didn't give me too much of a hard time, you know, being a sailor, coming from a Marine. But yeah, they were very supportive of it. You know, how could they, how could they not? I think that the children, my wife as well as my children, both recognized the real value in the military association and the quality of people that we associated with. I could not have asked for anything better than my associations with folks in the military. I mean Navy and Marine Corps. It probably helped me do right in my life, I think. I'm proud that my family has been willing to contribute to the common good, as you might say. I use the word proud a lot, but I am proud of the Navy and I'm proud of our family role in it. I'm sure that other families have people in the military. I don't know, and I'm sure maybe even more than we do. But I'm very proud of our participation in the military and both branches of the service. You know, 70% of the last three generations of my family joined the military. You know, how does that happen? Well, I'm proud of that, I really am. And I probably don't give it as much appreciation as I should, simply because it fits in with the rest of our family culture. It really probably deserves more appreciation from me. It's great, it's just super, unusual. I mean, you know, my mother-in-law wore combat boots, what can I say? I think it's unique in the fact that three generations of women have been in the Navy. I'm sure there are lots of three generations of men who have been in the Navy. We're all different in our military occupations, but we each provided service to our country, whether it be for two years or four years or a lifetime. Well, they're unique in the first place simply because the family serves the country. And there's only a very small percentage, I can't quote you figure, but only a very small percentage of families that do provide sons and daughters to protect it. I hope that future generations of our family will look back on our service and be as proud as we are of doing it. We'll want to do that too and have the advantages of being in the military that we had. You know, maybe I don't think much about it and can't verbalize it simply because that's what I've lived and that's what I expect. I wouldn't have it any other way. I have some nieces and nephews that are not old enough to join the military yet and I don't know if they're going to. But I hope whether or not they join the military, I hope that they look back and see that everything that everybody else has done that it's something to be proud of and that it's something to be admired, whether they choose to do it or not. You have to have an association with it to fully appreciate it and apply the right value, but I think that for us it's become just essential. I mean it's just part of the character of our family anymore and I do hope that continues because I see it does such great things for young people. Well, I hope in the first place that they will be proud of it and that they will in some way or another emulate it. Perhaps they will, perhaps they won't. That'll be up to them. I won't be here to gig them along. Of course there are other ways of serving and doing things rather than joining the military. But if they do that, more power to them. I hope they enjoy it as much as I did.