[70SATMan]

There are several I served with on the E that didn’t make the return trip under the Golden Gate. I didn’t know them personally out of the 5500 or so that served at any one time but, I think about them often and not just around this time of year.

There was the F14 Pilot and RIO on my first trip out to sea after reporting aboard.
There was the young man that backed into the prop of a C2 on the flight deck working night ops.
There was the Plane Captain that went overboard inside a plane being backed into the starboard elevator during a storm in the Aleutian’s when the tow bar broke. He was not recovered, and this one bothers me the most. He knew he was fuched for several minutes till the pressure and cold took him.

There was the WO that went missing in that same Aleutian cruise. Never figured out if he jumped or if something nefarious happened. He turned up missing during a man overboard drill.
There was the Nuke that died from heat stroke during Reactor Drills in full Rad gear.
There was another EA6 pilot and EW crewman that were ejected into the water at launch when the plane lost an engine and started to invert. We actually ran over that plane. Two of the four survived.

Those are the few that stick out and I know that we lost a couple more during my 4 plus years aboard.

Wasn’t combat, wasn’t war time but, they volunteered to serve and paid the price for those of us lucky enough to come home to those waiting on the pier.