And what happened?
He composed a very nice letter to the President and I sent it to the White House. Never received a response, but that wasn’t the point.
At the nine month point into his car-washing detail, as I was rotating out of that command, I spoke with our Petty Officer First Class in charge of that station. The young man had shown up every Saturday to that point (he lived a few hundred yards away). He was even bringing his younger brother with him; the guys would feed them lunch and spend a lot of time talking with them after washing the vehicles. I do not know if they joined the Navy, but would be surprised if they hadn’t. At any rate, I knew they had some of the best ‘father figures’ and mentors they could ever have hoped to have.