... it was a place where ability and achievement were recognized and rewarded. One got encouraged to grow and move up. If one got stuck at a certain level, they weren't allowed to re-enlist.

I remember having to submit monthly letters that ADM Rickover personally reviewed. It was said that COs and Reactor Officers could get called for a "personal" appearance if the punctuation was wrong.

... people in the US who were taught how to get the most out of a slide rule. You know who Hyman was, so you have to be an old coot like me!

and one of the first he selected was a peanut farmer from Georgia named James Carter.

I wanted to honor and remember JFK on the anniversary of his assassination, and thought this quote was appropriate.

Went into electronics instead, not realizing there was a rating abbreviated ETN (Electronics Technician, Nuclear). I’m not sure my career path would have ended up all that much differently had I’gone nuclear’. I do know that the electronics training was top-notch and that I developed troubleshooting techniques that I use to this day.

... training guys and US companies stealing them so the USN has no certification accepted by civilian reactor users. The Scandinavians, particularly the Norwegians liked USN trained operators and they didn't need certificates from ex-Navy nukes.

I like sunshine and temperate climes.

I have that timeless passage framed and on display in our home. That picture has a glorious aura about it.

My best friend did and it changed him for the better. He was proud to have served.

I was in High School when JFK was assassinated, at that time, we only had 4 TV stations, CBS, NBC, ABC and the local KTLA, for the next 3 days, that's all that was on all 4 stations.

One year later, I enlisted in the Marine Corps.

I often wondered what he could have accomplished if he hadn't been murdered.

Left as a man.

Not just a job.

the Submarine Service for over two decades and I feel a special bond with the service. I sold my business and they sent me a nice plaque.
The people I worked with were the best.

Several days on a LST on a trip from Japan to Taiwan. We hit the tail end of a typhoon to add interest to the cruise.

They gave us large empty coffee cans to puke in.

On my LSD, we used to try to make the Marines puke when the ship started rocking. A tin of Smoked Oysters was usually all it took.

I din;'t puke but I didn't eat much. We were all joyous to fly back to Japan.

Yep. Marine 18 years old in 1962.

Best decision I ever made. But I’m glad I don’t have to do it again. 😂

Project ANVIL/Project APHRODITE cost his brother Joseph’s life.

And all Americans live in freedom today thanks to them, the United States Navy, and all the men and women who have fought to keep our nation since 1776.

ETA: Thanks to you, too, maxrandb!

They politely rejected me.

My mom and her family were pacifists and she always feared me and my brothers would be drafted. She would have gone to any lengths to prevent that, including moving our family out of the country. My dad would have gone along with that, she was his muse and they were inseparable.

Trying to join the Navy was partly an act of rebellion for me. I'd been groomed to be a conscientious objector. Mostly I was seeking some sort of order in my life.

My dad was an Army medical clerk during the Korean war but by the luck of the draw he never went to Korea. He was a nearsighted klutz who didn't like guns which is how he ended up as a clerk. If you asked him about his military service he'd say the Army taught him how to type.

... cold beer, so he was never rotated. When his enlistment was closing they wanted him stay, but he was tired of not getting past PFc, so he got a corporal's stripe and did two more years.

My father was a fireman on Paris Island (though he did get sent to Italy and Lebanon in '49 for a couple of months).

My dad was good man and willingly served, my father was a Marine because he was given a choice when he got caught running numbers in Tiffin, Ohio.

... a lot of my father's mother's family cut glass at Tiffin Glass. They were from Belgium and Holland originally, leaving as the German army showed up in WWI.

I left Ohio to see the world. I touched every continent during my Navy career, including Antarctica.

Standing on deck in the morning, and seeing nothing but water in every direction, is the closest I've ever been able to come to explaining what it feels like to be a Cleveland Browns fan.

... of the new stadium Cleveland built with tax dollars just a few years before and tearing down Muni (the largest pro venue at the time).

He came here with not a thing (he borrowed money to buy the Browns). Cleveland made him.

wiki

As Municipal Stadium landlord (1973–1995)

Modell took control of Cleveland Municipal Stadium in 1973, which had been owned by the City of Cleveland but had become too expensive for the city to operate or maintain. Modell had started the idea of buying land in Strongsville and building a stadium in the Cleveland suburbs. He worked out a 25-year lease deal with the city whereby his newly formed entity, dubbed Stadium Corp., would rent the stadium from the city for $1 per year, assume all operating and repair costs and would sublease the stadium to its two primary tenants, the Browns and the Cleveland Indians, Cleveland's franchise in the American League of Major League Baseball.[10]

As head of Stadium Corp., Modell was also the landlord of the Indians organization. This was a sound business decision even though the Indians played poorly and drew small crowds throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s. The Browns who were paying rent to both themselves and Modell, by constructing loges in the ballpark, generated significant cash flow from the loge rentals not shared with the Indians. Modell later claimed the loge rentals were not profitable as he had financed their construction at the prevailing high interest rates, although he did not explain why the rental income that was earned was not used to offset the debt. [citation needed] The Indians organization became dissatisfied with Modell's Stadium Corp. as its landlord. Modell did not share the loge revenues earned from baseball games with the Indians. Eventually the Indians persuaded City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County voters to fund a new ballpark (which became known as Jacobs Field, later renamed Progressive Field) through new taxes. In turn, Modell was dissatisfied with the Indians' new ballpark because Stadium Corp.'s suite rental revenue decreased once Jacobs Field opened. Many suite customers switched their business from Cleveland Stadium's older suites to Jacobs Field's newer suites, due to the Indians' new-found success and popularity in the mid-1990s and because Modell's Stadium Corp. refused to decrease the annual rent for the suites even though the events for which the suites could be used decreased substantially (81 home games) with the loss of the Indians as a tenant. [citation needed]

In 1979, Stadium Corp. and Modell were implicated in a lawsuit brought by Browns minority shareholder Robert Gries of Gries Sports Enterprises. He had owned 43 percent of the team. He successfully alleged that Stadium Corp. manipulated the Browns' accounting records to help Stadium Corp. and Modell absorb a loss on real property that had been purchased in the Cleveland suburb of Strongsville as a potential site for a new stadium that had him claiming it was worth more than when he had sold the land to Stadium Corp. The lawsuit eventually ended in favor of Gries (he would later sell his family interest upon the move to Baltimore).[31][10] Modell was offered a place as a tenant in Cleveland's new Gateway Sports and Entertainment Complex. However, he instead asked for improvements to Municipal Stadium. Because Modell's Stadium Corp. still controlled Municipal Stadium, it may have made more business sense for Modell to try to keep the Indians at Municipal, particularly as the baseball team began to show signs of improvement both on the playing field and at the box office. Modell made attempts to make money with the stadium any way he could, which even included a deal to have the Stadium host Northwestern versus Ohio State on October 19, 1991. The game itself, referred to as "The Modell Bowl" was a dud for Northwestern, but they reaped the benefits moreso than Modell, as the game was thousands short of a sellout.[32] Meanwhile, the Indians went on to play in the World Series in 1995 and 1997, and sold out 455 straight games at Jacobs Field from 1995 until 2001. The City of Cleveland agreed to make the improvements to Municipal Stadium which were to be funded through an extension of the sin tax, which was instead used to provide funding for the Gateway Sports and Entertainment Complex.


He was an ungrateful piece of shit. No one in Cleveland cried the day he died.

but somehow, the NFL (who probably has more investigators than the FBI) approved fraudster Jimmy Haslim to buy the Browns.

I am convinced that the NFL is punishing Cleveland for suing them over Modell's move to Baltimore.

1965-71 USS Sampson, DDG 10 out of Norfolk, Virginia.

I was drafted, served as a cook on that tin can. Even though most of my shipmates were also drafted, we were comitted to serving honorably, and we did just that, in the tradition of President John F. Kennedy and so many others then and now.

Or is it? Anyway, Dad was Army, would have disowned me for that.

I've just been trading insults with my Grandson in the Marines - I need to aim my insults more carefully.

He’s on a destroyer out of Naval Base Everett. It’s been a very good thing for him. I’m an Army veteran, but his grandfather and great grandfather were both Navy so I didn’t argue much.

Army for me , dad and brother Marines all my uncles Navy

That was without a doubt the stupidest thing I’ve done in my life. My dad was a Navy veteran of WW II and was deeply disappointed by my decision. What the hell was I thinking?