Robert Smith

My story, I don’t think there is room here for too many details, I am 62 years young. I was born in my grandfather’s farmhouse in a feather bed. Well parts of it were made of feathers and as a young kid when I would visit my grandparents I would sleep in that very same bed. I am named after my father Robert Dwain Smith and my Grandfather James O. Smith. My aunt Arlen through in the name Lee, after Robert E Lee. So that’s how I came to have four names.
I spent all my school years in Ohio and the first 5 were very poor. No one seemed to care much about my education and like most kids I did not. I was passed on D’s and F’s from one grade to the next. I just thought I was dumb and could not learn. We moved to a place called Leavittsburg, Ohio when I was in the 5th grade. That was the year everything in my life started to change. My teacher failed me, she told me that I would do better and one more thing happened late that school year everyone had an eye exam. I needed glasses I didn’t know that everyone could not see the chalkboard. I passed the next year with C’ and my grades kept coming up until I was in the 10th grade and was getting the teenage move-on antsy.
A friend had an appointment with a Navy Recruiter and asked me to go with him. I went and liked what I heard. My mom and dad said I could quit school and join the Navy if I promised to get my GED.
I joined up; the ironic part is my friend could not pass the entrance exam so he did not get in tell some time later. Now I’m not bragging because I was never sure if they were telling me the truth or not, but when I took the entrance exam they told me that my score was higher than most college graduates.
I should mention that my first five years of school made a lasting impression on me that has been hard to overcome most of my life. They taught that I was dumb and could not learn. Not smart enough to do new things. You know that is a terrible thing to do to even a retarded child. Are school systems and teacher don’t know the power they have to mold the future of people.
I am a very lucky man, my recruiter did me right, he got me a guaranteed “A” school, that was three months of training right out of boot camp. After my training I was station at Whiting Field Fl. For shore duty, I was going to spend my whole enlistment on shore duty.
To be continued: