United States Naval Academy - Lucky Bag Yearbook (Annapolis, MD)

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' iO a group of young men repre n!if% all tl!e States and TerritSf SgPlhis Nation, took an oath to ...well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office... on which they were about to enter. Having taken that oath, they became Midshipmen in the United States Na y- the class of ' 43 was born. Slightly bewildered, a little puzzled by regulat roand discipline to which they were unac- customed, this group — -now plebes — progressed from day to day in knowledge of the Naval Academy and the Navy. We had taken a big step, perhaps the most im- portant step we were ever to take, in choosing the Navy as a profession, a career, a life. We set out upon a four-year voyage into academic and naval training, to terminate on a similar June day in 1943. But Destiny, in her ruthless manner, took a hand. Clouds of war darkened our horizons to East and West, and we found our voyage foreshortened — we were to reach port in 1942, a year early. On June 19, 1942 a group of young men united in thought and spirit, took another oath, another office. Scattered to the seven seas by the Service we have chosen, the Class of ' 43 no longer exists as such. Although we are no longer together in a body, the class will live in spirit until the very last member has started on his last, his greatest voyage. But until that day, whenever two of us meet, we will relive in thought and word those three short years at the Academy. We will recount tales of those years — reliving them Day by Day. umM