Sharp Rubber Duck

If all blacks had the qualities of Carl M. Brashear,
there would be no Niggers!

July 29, 2006

Of course if all whites did, we would have no Neo-Nazi SkinHeads either

OBITUARIES

Carl Brashear, 75;
Navy's First Black Deep-Sea Diver Inspired Film

By Jocelyn Y. Stewart, Times Staff Writer
July 27, 2006

After enduring threats from white shipmates and efforts by Navy officers to sabotage his final exam in diving school, Carl Maxie Brashear emerged as the Navy's first African American deep-sea diver.

So he had no intention of giving up that hard-won position in 1966, after injuries suffered while recovering a bomb from the ocean left him an amputee.

In the months after the accident, Brashear put himself through grueling physical training and held fast to an attitude, learned from his father, that worked in the face of racism as well as disability.

"It's not a sin to be knocked down," Brashear told the Salt Lake Tribune in 2002. "It's a sin to stay down."

Brashear went on to become the first African American master diver in the U.S. Navy, and the first amputee to be restored to full active duty as a diver. Brashear, whose story was told in the 2000 film "Men of Honor," died of respiratory and heart failure Tuesday at the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth. He was 75.

"The movie could well have been called 'Man of Courage,' " said Paul Stillwell, former director of the history division of the U.S. Naval Institute at Annapolis, Md. "The amount of determination and persistence he had and the pain that he put up with was amazing."

Actor Cuba Gooding Jr., who played Brashear in the movie, called him "the strongest man I have ever met."

"He is a symbol of inspiration … a true example of greatness not only to the African American community but to any race today that aims to achieve in the military," Gooding told The Times.

Brashear's story began in 1948, the year the U.S. armed forces were ordered integrated by President Harry S. Truman. Brashear, the sixth of his parents' nine children, was a 17-year-old son of a sharecropper from Sonora, Ky. He enlisted in the Navy and, always drawn to a challenge, set his sights on becoming a diver. That the Navy had no African American divers did not stop him from trying.

"I told them they were about to get one," Brashear told the Virginian-Pilot newspaper in 2000.

>By law the Navy's doors were open to African Americans, but in reality Jim Crow was firmly entrenched in the service.

Even though some black men had been commissioned as officers during World War II, early postwar integration mostly meant black men cooking for white men and cleaning ships. Diving, an elite undertaking, was, in the minds of most, reserved for whites.

After several attempts, Brashear was finally allowed into diving school in Bayonne, N.J. Brashear, who entered the Navy with a seventh-grade education, not only had to master the physical requirements of diving but the science behind working in deep water.

"The big obstacle was the attitudes of his classmates, some of whom did not want a black sailor in their presence and issued threats," said Stillwell, who interviewed Brashear for a Naval Institute oral history. Notes were left on his bunk, threatening to drown him.

But in the midst of the hostility there was an island of support, Stillwell said of a few who encouraged him to continue. " 'Those notes are not hurting you. Show them you're a better man than they are,' " Stillwell said, recounting one man's words of support.

In 1953, after Brashear succeeded in becoming the first African American diver, he set about to achieve even greater heights as a master diver, the highest level in the Navy diving hierarchy, obtained by special training and an examination process. In 1966 he was well on his way to achieving that goal when two U.S. Air Force planes collided off the coast of Spain and a nuclear weapon fell into the water.

The salvage ship Hoist, to which Brashear was assigned, was sent to retrieve the weapon. A large pipe being used in the attempt to lift the bomb "came loose, flew across the deck, and it struck my leg below the knee," Brashear told Stillwell. "They said I was way up in the air just turning flips."

By the time he arrived at a hospital hours later, doctors thought he was dead. He was about to be sent to the morgue when one doctor found a faint pulse. Brashear recovered but his injuries were severe. Eventually a portion of his left leg was amputated.

Such an injury guaranteed retirement, but Brashear still wanted to dive.

>He refused to appear at a hearing where he would be evaluated and found unfit for duty. Instead he set out to prove he could dive with his prosthetic limb. Eventually, he was allowed to return to duty, but after a year he was to be evaluated.

---

Carl Brashear, 75, first black Navy diver

Friday, July 28, 2006From wire reports

Richmond, Va.- Carl Brashear, a son of Kentucky sharecroppers who in 1970 became the U.S. Navy's first black master diver, and whose story was told in the 2000 movie "Men of Honor," died Tuesday in Portsmouth, Va. He was 75.

The cause was heart and respiratory failure, said his former wife Junetta Brashear.

Starring Cuba Gooding Jr. as Brashear, "Men of Honor" chronicled its hero's struggle against seemingly insurmountable odds: rural poverty, a threadbare education and the racism that pervaded the armed forces from the late 1940s, when he enlisted, until long afterward.

The movie also portrayed Brashear's grueling fight to return to diving, and to attain the coveted designation of master diver, after he lost a leg as the result of a shipboard accident in 1966.

A 31-year Navy veteran, Brashear retired in 1979 as a master chief boatswain's mate, the highest enlisted rank in the Navy. He was also the first person to be returned to full service as a Navy diver after losing a limb.

Brashear, who was a consultant on "Men of Honor," called it a mostly faithful depiction of his life. But there were aspects of Brashear's story that the movie did not examine, including treatment for alcoholism toward the end of his career.

At 17, he tried to join the Army in early 1948, but the Army did not want him. The Navy was more welcoming, and he enlisted in February 1948.

Like most black Navy men of the period, Brashear was placed in the stewards' branch, which did chores for officers. Assigned to the naval station at Key West, Fla., he prepared meals for white officers in the officers' mess.

In 1950, Brashear was assigned to the aircraft carrier Palau. One day he watched, fascinated, as a diver slipped into the ocean to recover an airplane that had rolled overboard. Here was the adventure he had sought.

He wrote to the Navy diving school, asking for admittance. He wrote more than 100 times before being admitted in 1954.

Few of Brashear's classmates were pleased to see him. He sometimes found threatening notes with racial epithets on his bunk.

He graduated in 1955 and spent the next several years as a Navy salvage diver. But he longed to be a first-class diver, carrying out missions deep undersea.

He graduated in 1964 as a first-class diver, third in his class of 17.

In 1966, Brashear was aboard the Navy salvage ship Hoist off the coast of Spain, helping to recover a hydrogen bomb that had plunged into the Mediterranean after the plane carrying it crashed. As he supervised from the ship, a line broke, sending a heavy steel pipe hurtling toward the men on deck.

Brashear pushed his men out of the way, but could not avoid the pipe himself. It crushed his left leg. He lost so much blood that he was initially pronounced dead.

After being transferred to Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Virginia, Brashear was told that his leg could be repaired enough to allow him to walk with a brace and cane. The process would take several years.

"Go ahead and amputate," he told the doctors. "I can't be tied up that long. I've got to go back to diving."

---

Pioneering Navy diver Carl Brashear dies in Portsmouth

Carl Brashear was the Navy’s first black deep sea diver, the first black man to attain master diver and the first amputee to be restored to active duty. Brashear is pictured in 2002.

By Jack Dorsey and Jim Washington, The Virginian-Pilot, July 26, 2006

PORTSMOUTH — Retired Master Chief Carl Maxie Brashear, the Navy’s first black deep sea diver, whose refusal to quit despite racism and grueling physical trauma inspired the movie “Men of Honor,” died Tuesday of heart and respiratory failure at the Portsmouth Naval Medical Center. He was 75.

It’s the same hospital where he recovered from a shipboard accident in 1966 that cost him his leg.

And it’s where doctors, who took a personal interest in Brashear’s resolve, fitted him with an artificial leg and designed an exercise program that allowed him to return to diving for the Navy.

Brashear’s son Phillip took emergency leave from his duties as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot serving in Iraq to be with his father at the end.

“I would say he was a great educator,” Phillip Brashear said Tuesday. “Just by the way he lived his dreams he was an example, and maybe he changed some viewpoints for the better.”

Phillip said his father never thought of himself as a hero.

“He was a humble man,” he said. “He just thought that he did what he wanted to do and never let anyone stand in his way.”

Brashear had four children. The family had not finalized funeral arrangements Tuesday.

In 2000, actor Cuba Gooding Jr. portrayed Carl Brashear’s struggles onscreen in “Men of Honor.”

“He is the strongest man I have ever met,” Gooding said.

“He really was a pioneer, and his accomplishments continue to impact today’s sailors,” said Master Chief Petty Officer Kent Robarts, a master diver at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base.

Born in Kentucky in 1931, Brashear joined the Navy in 1948 at the age of 17.

For years, he endured daily struggles with racism in a recently desegregated military to become the first black diver in Navy history in 1953.

On March 23, 1966, the salvage ship Hoist was attempting to recover a nuclear bomb lost off the coast of Spain after a collision between two Air Force planes, according to news accounts.

Brashear was aboard when a stern mooring line of a landing craft pulled a steel pipe out of the salvage ship’s deck. As the pipe flew across the deck Brashear pushed another sailor out of the way, but the pipe struck Brashear’s left leg.

Doctors at an Air Force hospital in Madrid attempted to save the leg, as did doctors in Germany. When he arrived at the Portsmouth hospital in May 1966, an infection had grown worse.

Doctors gave Brashear the option of fixing the leg with pins and braces, which would take years.

According to a 1989 interview published by the U.S. Naval Institute, Brashear refused the treatment and asked instead that the leg be amputated.

“I can’t be tied that long,” he is quoted as saying in the interview. “I’ve got to go back to diving. They just laughed. 'The fool’s crazy. He doesn’t have the chance of a snowball in hell of staying in the Navy. And a diver? No way! Impossible!’ ”

Rear Adm. Joseph L. Yon, then commandant of the Portsmouth facility, took a personal interest in Brashear and worked out an exercise program for him.

Brashear, fitted with an artificial leg, had to walk up and down a flight of stairs with 114 pounds strapped on his back to simulate scuba tanks.

Yon was impressed and recommended Brashear remain on active duty.

Brashear first had to convince the Bureau of Medicine in Washington, which he did, diving every day for five days in simulated depths of more than 200 feet.

In spring 1967, he returned to active duty and became executive officer of the Navy’s diving school barge. He advanced to the rank of master chief petty officer and became the Navy’s first black master diver. He retired in 1979.

Brashear was awarded the Navy-Marine Corps Medal for heroism for shoving the sailor out of the way of the pipe aboard the Hoist – one of almost a dozen decorations and medals he received in his career.

Work began on the “Men of Honor” movie in 1998.

Originally titled “Navy Diver,” it was heralded at the Toronto Film Festival, where it received a standing ovation, and at the White House, where Brashear watched with President Clinton and his staff.

After his retirement, Brashear lived in Virginia Beach and became a pen pal to numerous amputees, some of whom would write or call him seeking solace.

His advice to them was simple: The limbless need not be listless .

---

Navy diver who was subject of movie dies

By Margalit Fox, New York Times News Service, July 27, 2006

Carl M. Brashear, a son of Kentucky sharecroppers who in 1970 became the U.S. Navy's first black master diver, and whose story was told in the 2000 movie ``Men of Honor,'' died Tuesday in Portsmouth, Va. He was 75.

The cause was heart and respiratory failure, said his former wife Junetta Brashear.

Starring Cuba Gooding Jr. as Brashear, ``Men of Honor'' chronicled its hero's struggle against seemingly insurmountable odds: rural poverty, a threadbare education and the racism that pervaded the armed forces from the late 1940s, when he enlisted, until long afterward.

The movie also portrayed Brashear's grueling fight to return to diving, and to attain the coveted designation of master diver, after he lost a leg as the result of a shipboard accident in 1966.

A 31-year Navy veteran, Brashear retired in 1979 as a master chief boatswain's mate, the highest enlisted rank in the Navy. He was also the first person to be returned to full service as a Navy diver after losing a limb.

Brashear, who was a consultant on ``Men of Honor,'' called it a mostly faithful depiction of his life. (The brutal diving instructor played by Robert De Niro was in fact a composite of several men, he said.) But there were aspects of Brashear's story that the movie did not examine, including treatment for alcoholism toward the end of his career.

Carl Maxie Brashear (pronounced bruh-SHEER) was born on Jan. 19, 1931, in Tonieville, Ky., the sixth of eight children. He left school after seventh grade to help his father work the land, but dreamed of adventure. He did not want to spend his days behind a plow.

At 17, he tried to join the Army in early 1948, but the Army did not want him. The Navy was more welcoming, and he enlisted in February 1948. (The military would be officially desegregated in June of that year.)

Like most black Navy men of the period, Brashear was placed in the stewards' branch, which did chores for the officers. Assigned to the naval station at Key West, Fla., he prepared meals for white officers in the officers' mess.

In 1950, Brashear was assigned to the aircraft carrier Palau. One day he watched, fascinated, as a diver slipped into the ocean to recover an airplane that had rolled overboard. Here was the adventure he had sought for so long.

He wrote to the Navy diving school, asking for admittance. He wrote again. And again. Curiously, as Brashear later recounted, his letters kept getting lost. He wrote more than 100 times before being admitted in 1954.

Few of Brashear's classmates were pleased to see him. He sometimes found threatening notes with racial epithets on his bunk.

He graduated in 1955 and spent the next several years as a Navy salvage diver. But he longed to be a first-class diver, carrying out missions deep undersea. In 1960, after earning his high school equivalency diploma, he entered the Navy's deep-sea diving school.

Brashear failed the course, unable to pass its rigorous science component, which included physics, medicine and mathematics. For the next three years, he studied every moment he was not on duty, and in 1963 was readmitted. He graduated in 1964 as a first-class diver, third in his class of 17.

In 1966, Brashear was aboard the Navy salvage ship Hoist off the coast of Spain, helping to recover a hydrogen bomb that had plunged into the Mediterranean after the plane carrying it crashed. As he supervised from the ship, a line broke, sending a heavy steel pipe hurtling toward the men on deck.

Brashear pushed his men out of the way, but could not avoid the pipe himself. It crushed his left leg. He lost so much blood that he was initially pronounced dead by the Spanish hospital to which he was evacuated.

After being transferred to Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Virginia, Brashear was told that his leg could be repaired enough to allow him to walk with a brace and cane. The process would take several years.

``Go ahead and amputate,'' he told the doctors. ``I can't be tied up that long. I've got to go back to diving.''

He was fitted with a prosthesis, and the Navy sent him his discharge papers. He did not sign. Instead, he quietly signed his own orders for a transfer back to diving school. He dived with his new leg, had pictures taken and showed them to Navy officials. They did not believe such a feat was possible.

The Navy finally agreed to put Brashear through a series of tests, including climbing ladders with barbells strapped to his back to simulate a diver's staggering load. For the final test, in a scene dramatically reproduced in the film, Brashear was required to walk 12 steps unaided, wearing nearly 300 pounds of equipment. He took the steps, and was returned to active duty as a diver.

In 1970, after more grueling tests, Brashear became a master diver, the highest designation a Navy diver can attain. Brashear's first marriage, to the former Junetta Wilcoxson, ended in divorce, as did his two later marriages, to Hattie Elam and Jeanette Brundage. He is survived by three sons from his first marriage, Dawayne, of Newark; Phillip Maxie, a helicopter pilot currently stationed in Iraq; and Patrick, of Portsmouth; three sisters, Florene Harris, Leatta English and Norma Jean Moore, all of Elizabethtown, Ky.; two brothers, Douglas, of Elizabethtown, and Edward Ray, of Indianapolis; 12 grandchildren; and 2 great-grandchildren. A fourth son from Brashear's first marriage, Shazanta, died in 1996.

Despite a lifetime of hard-won achievement, Brashear spoke about ``Men of Honor'' with something approaching awe.

``Not in my wildest dreams did I think this would happen,'' he said in an interview with CNN in 2001. ``Even after I lost my leg I was just doing my job.''

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