And then Uncle Sam came calling.
Vietnam was raging, and because I was not in school, I got a draft notice from the army. Uncle Sam was looking for more cannon fodder. I volunteered for the Navy Reserves, Submarine Division. It was a decision shaped by not wanting to be drafted into the infantry and by a determination to take control of my own future.
After one weekend cruise out of Charleston, South Carolina, I knew I did not want to be a submariner. Even so, I still had to attend Sub School in New London, Connecticut, a long way from Texas. After graduating, I told the Captain I wanted to transfer to the Surface Division. He wasn’t happy, and he made that clear with a few well‑chosen explicit words. But submarines were voluntary, and he had to release me. For the next year, I trained every two weeks aboard the USS Howard D. Crow DE-35, a destroyer escort out of Galveston.
Those years were a mix of searching and surviving, trying to find my place while everything around me kept shifting. I didn’t know then how far the Navy would take me or how much those choices would shape the rest of my life. But I was beginning to understand something important: growing up isn’t a single moment. It’s a series of decisions — some made out of hope, some out of fear — that slowly carve a path forward. Mine was beginning to take shape.
After transferring to the Surface Division and settling into the routine of training aboard the USS Howard D. Crow DE-35 every two weeks, life outside the Navy began to change as well. During this time, I met the woman who would become my first wife. Her name was Cecilia (Cece) Waldner, and she was from Houston and attended the University of Houston. We met through mutual friends, and the relationship developed steadily.
We dated for about six months, spending as much time together as we could. My life became predictable: working at Dow Chemical, drilling with the Reserves every two weeks, and seeing her when our schedules allowed. She came from a very large Catholic family and had attended Catholic schools all her life. As time passed, we talked about our future and decided to get married before I went on active duty. I was twenty-one and she was 20 years old.
The wedding was large, with three priests on the altar — one performing the ceremony, one handling communion, and one explaining to my side of the family what was going on. She was Catholic, and I was Protestant. One night, while discussing religion, she blurted out that Catholics had their shepherd and asked where mine was. She knew as soon as she said it that she had made a mistake and started back‑pedaling. That alone should have told me something about what our future held.