THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 11, 1995 TAG: 9509110058
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: SONORA, KY. LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
A Virginia Beach man who became the Navy's first black diver said he hopes a movie being made about his life will inspire others.
Carl Brashear, who overcame his humble beginnings as an eighth-grade dropout and a son of sharecroppers, said he hopes the movie Bill Cosby is producing will ``show the American people you should never give up. Anything you set your mind to, you should be able to do.''
The Sonora, Ky., native retired from the Navy in 1979 and lives in Virginia Beach. He returned to his hometown Saturday to serve as grand marshal of the Bucksnort Festival Parade.
Members of the Sonora Lions Club gave Brashear, 64, a plaque and a festival T-shirt. Mayor Larry Copelin gave him the key to the Hardin County community of 295.
Afterward, several people approached Brashear to say hello and shake his hand. His relatives, the only black people in the crowd, looked on with pride.
Brashear is noteworthy as the first black Navy diver, the first amputee Navy diver and the first black Navy master diver. He's been featured on several television shows, including ``20/20.''
He had to struggle to get the doors opened to his becoming a diver.
In 1952, in his fourth year in the Navy, he was a 21-year-old boatswain's mate on the Tripoli. He was one of the sailors responsible for keeping the aircraft carrier's exterior painted and clean.
One day he saw a deep-sea diver suit up and jump into the sea. Intrigued, Brashear, who enjoyed swimming, applied for diving school. But the Navy tried to make him a steward - an attendant to Navy officers. Superiors kept ``losing'' his diving school application. Finally one officer told him there had never been ``colored'' divers in the Navy.
But Brashear persisted, and in 1953 was accepted to a diving school in Bayonne, N.J. The people there thought he was a cook and were shocked when he told them he was the first black diving student.
The school was as demanding as its reputation and included a ``hell week'' to test the students' mental toughness. Brashear got an extra dose: Someone left notes on his pillow with a threat and a racial epithet.
Brashear said he tried to ignore the notes and stay focused. ``If I would have gotten angry, maybe punched someone, see, they would have been winning,'' he said. ``That's not the way to fight. You've just got to look through it.''
Nearly half of the 31 students in Brashear's group washed out. But Brashear found the work suited him, and he went on to a career that included more than 6,000 dives, spending time equal to 1 1/2 years underwater.
In 1966, Brashear was on deck during a salvage mission in the Atlantic when a deep-sea cable pulled loose a heavy metal pipe. While pushing several sailors out of the way, Brashear was struck on the left leg by the pipe. After five months of treatment, doctors amputated it below the knee.
The Navy awarded Brashear its top peacetime award - the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. But he faced a new round of discrimination.
The Navy assumed that Brashear wouldn't be able to walk or climb a ladder wearing a 290-pound diving suit. That he'd have no equilibrium. That the loss of the leg, and its blood vessels, would lead to problems with the bends, a decompression condition that occurs on deep dives.
Brashear was determined to keep diving. When he got his artificial leg, he chose to walk a quarter-mile back to his room. He avoided using a cane or crutches; he didn't go through rehabilitation. He handled his recovery by himself, he said.
To seek help, he said, would have killed any chance to continue diving.
A year after the accident he went to Washington to reclaim his career by repeatedly doing demonstration dives at another Navy school.
``I had a goal to reach, and I stayed focused on it,'' Brashear said.
Three years later, in 1970, the Navy named Brashear a master diver, and he received a polished silver pin that features two seahorses and the deep sea diver's helmet. It glinted Saturday on the crisp dress white uniform that he wore to the parade. by CNB