Forging

Everything I’ve done in this life has been an attempt to get ahead — financially, personally, socially. When I left Louisiana the first time, I had nothing. After a year in Manhattan, I came home with little more than memories and the realization that I had failed as a performer. I knew it too. Somewhere between that chapter of my life and the moment I finally called the recruiter, I was desperately searching for direction.

At this point in my life, I was approaching 26 years old and didn’t have much to show for it. I was coming out of a terrible relationship with a girlfriend who had stopped loving me, carrying the weight of a DUI, and living with a pattern of drinking and partying that I didn’t yet understand was really escapism.

I can still remember my grandfather telling me that his time in the Navy had been the most memorable chapter of his life. I would look at the tattoo on his leg — a ship under full sail — and imagine the journeys he had been part of and the oceans he had crossed. Growing up, I used to stare across the lake near my home and pretend it was the open sea.

The only sport I ever truly excelled at was swimming, and I loved everything about the water. Some of my earliest memories are from long summers spent at the local pool, competing in swim meets or diving into the deep end to retrieve quarters my grandfather would toss in. As a child, swimming twelve feet down and holding my breath long enough to explore the bottom felt like absolute freedom. My mother spent countless hours sitting poolside waiting for my races to begin. At the time, she never could have known what she was helping create.

I knew the military wouldn’t be easy. I was too skeptical to let a recruiter simply sit me down and tell me what I wanted to do with my life, so I spent time reflecting on what I had genuinely loved as a kid. The answer always brought me back to the water.

It took me a while to realize what I actually wanted from the Navy. At the time, I was heavily into photography, so one of the first questions I asked was whether they needed photographers. And despite being raised in the deep South of Louisiana, I was never particularly interested in guns — or getting shot at, for that matter.

After getting a firm “no” on combat camera, the recruiter asked me what I was good at.

The truth was, at that stage of my life, I hadn’t done much besides wait tables, party too hard, and work in some of New Orleans’ finest restaurants. Looking around the recruiting office at the photos on the wall, I could tell none of my existing skills really translated into the world I was stepping into. Being able to distinguish a California Chardonnay from a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc wasn’t going to get me very far in the Navy.

I sat there quietly for a moment and reached back to childhood — to the pool, the lake, and those moments underwater where I had always felt most at peace.

“I’m a really good swimmer,” I finally said.

The recruiter mentioned something called Air Rescue Swimmer. The words “rescue” and “swimmer” immediately stuck with me. I figured if I was rescuing people, I probably wasn’t charging into combat situations. It checked every box in my head.

Then they told me it was a challenge program, and that not everyone who tried made it.

Challenge accepted.

Anything felt better than the direction my life was headed at the time. I could sense that this decision was bigger than going to a vocational school to learn a trade or continuing my “promising” career in the restaurant business — sarcasm fully intended. This was the United States Navy, and I knew I wanted to be a part of it. Once I made up my mind, there was no turning back.

I started casually mentioning my plans to coworkers and bartenders at places I frequented. The reactions were rarely encouraging.

“You’re a little old for that.”

“Do you really want to work for the federal government?”

That was the point in my life where the “crabs in a basket” analogy started becoming painfully clear. The people doubting me were revealing more about themselves than they were about me. At the same time, they were showing me exactly how they viewed my potential.

What they didn’t know was how many wrestling matches I had won as a kid, how many first-place ribbons in freestyle swimming I had earned, or how deeply fueled by defiance I truly was.

The final push came from the people closest to me. My girlfriend at the time told me I wasn’t smart enough to understand gas laws. My father said I would never make it because I smoked too many cigarettes.

I quit smoking that same day.

I started running the levees and doing hot yoga daily. Every ounce of doubt people threw at me became fuel. I fed off dismissal, criticism, and skepticism. The more people questioned me, the more determined I became to prove them wrong.

My sights were locked in.

What I didn’t know at the time was that a single conversation would soon change everything — and that my path would shift from Air Rescue Swimmer to Navy Diver.

To be continued…