BURRIS-HARRY

From my retirement ceremony held 18 October 2003 at the Navy Memorial.

Good afternoon. Captain Cannan, Chaplain Taylor, and honored guests. It is indeed an honor to have so many of my family, friends, and shipmates be here today.

Ever since June when I decided to retire, I have been thinking about what to say. How can I summarize nearly 38 years of service in five minutes? First I thought about how I got here. I had just turned 19. I had a car, a job, and a girlfriend…..but no thoughts of joining any service….however Uncle Sam thought otherwise and when I got my draft notice, I followed in the steps of my older brother by enlisting in the U. S. Navy. After boot camp at Great Lakes, I was selected to the GMT rate and attended schools in Albuquerque and San Diego before I was stationed in Japan, first at Iwakuni Marine Corps Air Station and then Atsugi Naval Air Station. Great duty! I spent the rest of my enlistment there and a number of friendships were forged which still endure till this day.

I can honestly say that active duty was a positive experience. But in the 60’s things were crazy, the war in Vietnam was getting bigger, back home there were the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, civil unrest and anti-war sentiments. We needed a laugh. To lighten things up a practical joke was played which today would probably now border on terrorism and certainly would not be tolerated in today’s navy. The joke went like this. We sailors in the Weapons Department were of mixed rates, (pause) you know, gunnersmate, torpedoman and mineman but the majority was aviation ordnancemen, or AO's as they were called. They thought of themselves to be superior to us blackshoes. For those not familiar with these navy terms I'll explain. Because of the color of the shoes they wore, the aviation folks are the brown shoe navy and the seagoing sailors are blackshoes.

Anyway, my shipmates and I came up with an idea to test the AO's. In our part of the base using some scrap material, I put together a device using a heating system air relief valve, which looks like a small bathroom toilet float; inside I put some solder to give it weight and some sand to make it sound like grains of gunpowder. On to it I soldered a stem and placed on it a split ring, similar to a key ring. I painted it flat black, scratched what I thought were Japanese characters, packed it into dirt and made it look like a hand grenade just dug up from the excavations that were being done near the AO's shop. I went into the senior chief's office swinging it around my finger. He says, "quick, put it down and whatever you do, don’t pull the pin". Well, before we knew it, it was sent to the hill, where Commander Fleet Air Western Pacific, a two star admiral worked. His assistant who was Japanese looked at it and declared that it was not of Japanese origin but Korean. (pause) oh… if this only was the end of it. The same week we all went to an army facility nearby to get some explosive training and the chief took it along so the explosive ordnance disposal experts could identify it knowing that they had manual upon manual of every type of explosive and weapon ever made. Two weeks later we heard that after an extensive research, it was determined to be a French Indochina foot-mine. To this day it might be sitting in a museum labeled that way. Needless to say there is a moral or two in this story……..one of which might be 'Don't even think about it'.

But one point that I see clearly, is that the world has changed and the armed forces, especially the naval service has changed with it. All of us in uniform whether active duty or reserves are being called upon to do more and more.

I am sure that every one of you also has a story that you remember and that you fondly recall the camaraderie of the service. Whether you serve a full career on active duty, a reserve career, one period of obligation or enlistment, or if you are a spouse or family member of one of the above. We all share the common thread ‘that we are, and always will be . . .shipmates.’

I think that of my two careers, the other one being the I. T . profession, that I hold my navy career as the most rewarding. I truly believe that our service in the defense of liberty and our freedoms is what makes it possible to have the other career. At least one of you here today defended us in World War II,( he is my Uncle Joe), some in the Korean War, several in the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the Gulf war. And now we are in a war against that which has threatened our very way of life. To all of our comrades in all the wars and operations other than war, we remember that 'Freedom Is Not Free' and thank them immensely for their sacrifice.

I have also learned a lot about life while in the service, much of which I got from a Chief Petty Officer. For example, the first night in boot camp, I was introduced to new combinations of old four letter words. But that tradition has also changed in the navy. Alas …it’s the softer side now. But what I really learned from them was leadership. They keep the ship on course. They train the new sailors. They motivate. Many an ensign thought he out-ranked a chief but he was lucky if he realized quickly that chiefs run the navy !

A matter of fact if it hadn’t been for a master chief who was a recruiter for the reserves, I wouldn’t be here. I was being separated from active duty and he took me aside and said "Burris, I see you were selected for first class petty officer. Tell you what. You come into the reserves, you can put that chevron on, and we'll put you on a ship where you should have been. Then if you don’t like it, then you can quit." What a deal! Well, that was June 1970. I reenlisted two more times and made chief myself. I think that I have returned the leadership to those who have been in my care. I truly consider, yes I truly believe that my being an enlisted member for 15 of my 38 years was just as important as my subsequent career as an officer.

This past Monday the navy observed it's 228th birthday. It's hard to believe that I have been part of it for one sixth of those birthdays.

But there is the cycle of renewal and I am ready to retire, to make room for those who have come after me.

I will now read my orders.