It was pretty simple for me. I was a writer, and I wanted to do that for the military. I talked with the Air Force; in fact, I had been in the Civil Air Patrol for a short period. Then I talked to the Navy, and the Navy offered twice the amount of schooling to get me ready for this duty. Funny thing is, I talked to the recruiter several times about not going out to sea, which looking back on it was a pretty silly thing. He assured me that I would not go on board a ship, saying, “What do we need journalists on ships for?” Of course, after extensive training at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Ind., my first command was a ship out of Little Creek, Va. Later, I served on board USS Saratoga for three years, and my final twilight tour before retirement was aboard USS John C. Stennis.

I went on to use those journalism skills in business for about eight years, and then I went back to serving the nation by working in VA public affairs doing the same thing the military taught me back in the late '70s. Hopefully the government got its money’s worth.