BTTT
Pretty good read this AM.
For me, it was two things. We visited my cousin who was in the Navy in San Diego when I was five years old. He took me on a tour of his ship. My mother bought me a subscription to National Geographic every year while I was growing up. I never wavered from wanting to join the Navy to see the world.
As with all younger brothers, I pestered my older sister to distraction. She started saying she was going to forge my name on a Marine Corp enlistment contract when I graduated high school. I beat her to it. When I turned seventeen at the beginning of my senior year of high school, I joined the Navy Reserves. I graduated high school on Friday and was on active duty on the following Monday. Later that Fall, we had the Tonkin Gulf Incident.