Fred Ames, CTM2 USN, 1963-1967 How did I become a CT? It is an easy answer – because of a lying Navy recruiter! In the spring of 1963 I was attending Alfred University in New York state, studying to become a ceramic engineer. It was a course of study chosen by my father, a rather dictatorial electrical engineer, who told me it was engineering or I could hit the road – no liberal arts majors in HIS family, thank you! I did not like engineering much, so I spent more time in non-academic endeavors than in scholarly activities, and by the time I was a junior at Alfred my GPA was a mess. That spring, when I went home for the break, I was informed that I was not going back to college and that I already had an appointment with the local Navy recruiter. When I met this gentleman we went over my options. My grades were not the best in college, but I did very well on all their tests and he offered me a position as a nuclear technician on a nuclear submarine. Unfortunately, my eyesight was terrible. When I went to take the physical exam and they had me remove my glasses to read the chart, I couldn’t even see it. Since I was a volunteer and not being conscripted, they assumed (correctly) that I would not object when they said my eyesight was 20/400 – the minimum acceptable. It was an outright lie, but what the heck. I was in! What they and the recruiter did not tell me was that the fact that I needed glasses, and really strong ones at that, eliminated me from consideration from any tours on a nuclear submarine. The recruiter reviewed my testing and exam results, and pronounced me ready to go. After I took the recruiting oath they THEN told me that the rating I had been promised was no longer an option. They offered me some other alternatives. ET was one, CTM was another. I chose CT over ET because I figured that only a fool would pick a rating that risked spending half a year at sea every year, when the alternative as a CT pretty much assured me shore duty someplace where there were bars, girls, and motorcycles. So that is how I became a CT, spending two blissful years at Kami Seya, time marred only by the fire in the tunnel. Which I firmly believe (if I may be permitted an aside) was caused by the improper installation of an incinerator not long before the fire occurred. The incinerator was vented to the outside through an improperly insulated pipe running through the wall, and to this day I think that this overheated pipe started the fire in the wall, and the official report saying it was an electrical fire was just so much CYA. Fred Ames Raleigh, NC