Page 41 - The History of Veterans at Highland Springs

JOHN BURHOE HIGHLANDS SPRINGS RESIDENT, NAVY
My military experience began with the awarding of a Regular Naval ROTC Scholarship to Yale my senior year in high school. This status is the equivalent to being accepted as a Midshipman in the Naval Academy as we shared the same curriculum, summer cruses and received a Regular, rather than Reserve commission upon graduation. The day after graduation I was on the USS Shadwell (LSD-15) enroute to the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean.
Highlights were going to Christmas Mass by Pope John and spending New Years at La Scala in Milan. Later transferred to the USS Liddle (APD-60), a World War II Destroyer Escort that had been refitted to carry Marine Recon and Navy Seals on clandestine missions in the Caribbean. I was Operations Officer and third in command.
In October 1962, while anchored off Vieques between Puerto Rico and St. Croix, I was awakened late one night by the messenger saying that we had received a ”Flash” encrypted message (Flash is the ultimate priority only used in war time). I rushed topside to decrypt it. It read; backload all Navy Seals (Frogmen) and Marine Special Forces which were on Vieques, get underway, steam due west at flank Speed (Flank is wide open) and await further orders. The next day we received another Flash message to steam to Guantanamo Bay, the US Naval base on the southern tip of Cuba, but we were “high jacked” enroute by the flagship of a massive invasion. We joined the destroyer screen operating in radio silence and at darken ship (no lights) doing figure eights over “unidentified” submarine contacts. Simultaneously, we were preparing to mark the line of departure for the initial waves of troops to the landing, as “D day” was scheduled in thirty-six hours.
Then, suddenly, it was over, Khrushchev blinked. The reaction on the ship was mixed between we dodged a bullet, plus we would finally get to use our training and wonder how we would have done. Our captain would always have a tag line to the Orders of the Day which became the Liddle’s moto, “Press on Regardless!” I still use it, as I am sure many others do as well.
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