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Eastham
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his Navy flight training. Thus, I was confident that the father was mentally checking off each step of the account 1 gave as a true one).
“Mr. Spurlin,” I told him, “please don’t believe that the Navy let your boy down in any way. The Navy provides the best and most thorough training for its pilots of any service in the world.” I believed this then and I believe it now — 45 years later.
But I was still facing an unconsoled. heartbroken father whose only son was gone and for whom all of his dreams had been shattered. My young mind could now read his thoughts: “If the Navy is not at fault, then the fault must have been in my boy — in whom I had found no fault, no weakness”. I interjected at once to stop this awful train of thought, “Mr. Spurlin, it was an accident! An accident, for God’s sake! Don’t blame your son. It just hapj>ened to him; it could happen to me next week!”
The older man had heard what I had blurted out. Slowly a tearstained smile came over his face and getting up from his barber’s chair, he grabbed my Ensign’s blue uniform in his arms and, for a few moments I was content to substitute for his lost son.
As he released me, he seemed to look clear through me and now there was a full smile on his face. Recov
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