7 Years of Salt

It’s 1962, I’m in the western Pacific on a 6 month cruise on the Tang. I have previously decided to get out of the Navy, again, and give college another try. I have written the VA and asked if I can get my G. I. Bill benefits back, and to Indiana University asking if I can be readmitted. We get back in from our 57 days submerged “patrol” and I have three letters awaiting: first, I.U. says I can go back to school; second, the VA says I can use my GI Bill again; third, I have a letter from my sister. I honestly don’t remember what the letter said-I do know that it contained a typed copy of the Persistence quote by Coolidge [see below]. In May of 1963, I got out of the Navy, went to summer school at Bloomington, then two more years and another summer and I graduated. As I have told lots of college students since then-it was amazing-the answers to the tests they gave were in the books they made you buy! Anyway-I give full faith & credit to my sister for sending me the quote-I think it was just what I needed. The picture, by the way, is at Great Lakes & has to be when I was finishing boot camp-I never wore the flat hat again after that. The quote: “Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” Calvin Coolidge [30th President of the US: 1872-1933].