Knowing when, and where, Carl Brashear grew up might make you pause when you learn he became the first Black master diver in the U.S. Navy.
But Brashear never let adversity stand in his way.
Born in the 1930s in rural Kentucky, Brashear’s parents were sharecroppers in the area around Larue and Hardin counties in the middle of the Jim Crow era — known for its segregation and discriminatory treatment of Black people in America.
Though Carl only had a middle school education and spent much of his early life tending to farm duties such as milking cows and chopping wood, he had his sights set beyond the agricultural world of Kentucky.
“My father wanted to get away from sharecropping the farm, so he joined the Navy,” Carl’s son, Phillip Brashear, recently told the Courier Journal.
In 1948, after meeting with military recruiters, 17-year-old Carl packed his bags and joined the U.S. Navy, which had only been desegregated two years before his enlistment. At the time, many Black soldiers in the Navy only held lower-level roles such as messmen, cooks and stewards.
Carl helped change that. A few years after joining the Navy, while on a trip to Key West, Florida, he got his first glimpse of Navy divers and knew that was what he wanted to do. But wanting it was easier said than done.
One of the trickiest parts of Carl’s journey, even before he put on any diving gear, was getting his application accepted.
“He put in a lot of applications which were denied automatically because they didn’t want a Black man going to Navy dive school,” Phillip said. “But eventually one went through, and he was sent to Navy dive school.”
Through “hard work and determination,” Phillip said his father graduated from the dive school and became the first Black and amputee Navy master diver in U.S. history, earning the highest qualification possible for divers in 1970.
“I can honestly say that I reached my goal in the Navy. It was an exciting career, it was a rewarding career, but then it wasn’t a bed of roses either. I had my ups and downs in the Navy, but I would do it over if I could. I enjoyed the excitement of being a deep-sea diver. I think the Navy was the best place for me to grow up and find myself,” a quote from Carl Brashear on the United States Naval Undersea Museum website states.
In 2006 at the age of 75, Carl passed away from respiratory and heart failure, but the legacy he leaves behind is one of grit and perseverance.
“I never want my dad’s name to become a myth … he’s going to remain an American military legend,” Phillip said.
Here are five things you don’t know about Kentucky’s war hero Carl Brashear.
The ‘Men of Honor’ movie is based on Carl Brashear’s life
“Men of Honor,” a film starring Cuba Gooding Jr., that details Carl’s life and journey, was released by 20th Century Fox in 2000. During the production of the film, Phillip said his father spent lots of time on the set as a technical consultant.
The film showcases the racism and discrimination Carl faced and how he overcame it all to become “the best” in the U.S. Navy.
“On premiere night, getting out of the limousine with my father and getting to walk the red carpet with the spotlights and cameras is an experience I’ll never forget,” Phillip said.
Carl Brashear lost his left leg in an accident but continued diving
During a mission in 1966, two U.S. Air Force planes accidentally collided off the coast of Spain,…
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