Tag: Patrick Bowman Gordy-Stith

Good Luck

When I came home from the Navy in September 1962 to go to school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill my father and mother gave me $100 to buy civilian clothes — and wished me good luck.

That $100 was $100 more than I expected.  I was 20 years old.  I had been to sea.   I was engaged to be married the following June.  I was full grown.

Donna, Bo, Pat
Donna, Bo, Pat

I had saved most of my pay while I was in the service.  After we were married, Donna, my wife, worked full time as a secretary in the UNC School of Nursing  until Bo was born 11 months later.  She worked all day the day before he was born. After Bo arrived she typed term papers and babysat to earn money.

 I worked up to 30 hours a week at the UNC Office of Sports Information after class and on weekends. The School of Journalism gave me a scholarship my junior and senior years.

My senior year we borrowed $450 from Brother Dave so I could quit my part-time job to get experience that would help me when I graduated — I took a pay cut from my $1 an hour job so I could work after class for the school newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel.

All in all, we did OK moneywise — we finished in four years with three babies and no debt other than what we owed Dave.

Still, I don’t recommend that plan. I wonder sometimes what it would have been like to have spent the afternoon in Louis Round Wilson Library studying just for the joy of it instead of studying for a test, to make a grade.

Or maybe even taking an afternoon off and throwing a Frisbee.

Coming Friday: Lost in Moscow

Navy Propaganda

Bo and Vicki
Bo and Vicki

When our son, Patrick Bowman Gordy-Stith, was a midshipman [1982-86] at the U.S. Naval Academy my wife, Donna, and I went to Annapolis, Maryland, a number of times to see him and Midshipman Vicki Lynn Gordy, his girlfriend then, his wife now.

On Sundays we usually worshiped at the Naval Academy Chapel. Beautiful place,  but it never seemed like church to me.

John Paul Jones
The  21-ton sarcophagus of John Paul Jones. When a battle with a British frigate seemed lost Jones refused to surrender and shouted, “I have not yet begun to fight!”  He fought on, and won.

One problem was the sermons preached by Navy chaplains.  The kindest word that comes to mind is “bland.”  But it was more than that, a lot more.

For one thing, there is a crypt beneath the chapel in which the body of John Paul Jones, a Revolution War hero who is regarded as the Father of the U.S. Navy, is interred.  Isn’t that a little creepy, or is it just me?

For another, in that 2,500-seat chapel all souls were not equal. High ranking officers came in last, marched down the aisle to their reserved seats, and left first while everyone else waited.

Midshipment trooped the colors down this aisle.
Midshipmen carried the American flag and Navy Marine Corp flags down this aisle.

There’s more. I didn’t like seeing midshipmen parading the American flag  in and out of the chapel. I love the American flag and served it at sea, but it doesn’t belong in a church.

And the stain glass windows are, how shall I say — different.

One depicts Sir Galahad, a knight of the Roundtable, in other words, a fictional character sort of like, well, Donald Duck.   Another depicts a recently graduated midshipman based on the likeness, I’ve read, of Tom Hamilton, a Navy football hero, an All America halfback on Navy’s undefeated 1926 team.   But the stained glass window that really got to me showed the Archangel Michael guiding Admiral David G. Farragut’s ships through a mine field at the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864, helping him kill Southerners.

I sort of doubt that.

Archangle Michael
Archangel Michael helped the U.S. Navy at the Battle of Mobile Bay, according to the U.S. Navy.

Am I anti-Navy or anti-military?

No.

I served in the Navy and my three brothers, too. My father was in the Army. Two brothers-in-law served in the Air Force.  Bo and  Vicki graduated from the Naval Academy and served five year hitches.

I just don’t believe rank matters inside a church, at least it ought not matter.  I also believe the government ought not try to run a church, and a church ought not try to run the government.

Coming Monday: A Lesson Learned