The Navy is quite good at finding dropouts with the potential for learning the volume of technical information necessary for the safe operation of a nuclear power plant. The search for such men could have enormous consequences because placing them in the nuclear program is a high-stakes gamble. The Navy, effectively, is betting that they can successfully finish the long years of nuclear training and eventually be able to operate a complex reactor system safely, in spite of their previous academic records.
For me, the process began in 1965 at the U.S. Navy recruiting office in Pasadena, California. I had wandered there shortly after receiving a letter, from the Glendale Junior College administration office, informing me that because of my abysmal performance as a student, I no longer could be one.
"I wanna fly jets," I told the pleasant chief petty officer recruiter in a uniform covered with an incredible amount of gold.
"Okay," he answered with a smile, as he studied my nineteen-year-old face. "The Navy can put you in jets, no problem. However, you have to join first and then apply for flight training later. Also, there is no guarantee that you would ever be accepted. How much college training do you have?"
"Oh, about one year," I answered hesitantly, wondering if D's and Fs allowed me even to count much of that time. I decided not to tell him that I had talked over the matter of my grades with my parents, and it was at their suggestion that I was standing before him. I also decided not to tell him how much I disliked the long and painfully boring lectures about Chinese objects of art and Plato's concepts of life, which had filled my abysmal college experience. I had felt like I was sitting on a train, with no destination, as I watched the mundane scenery passing by. During my entire freshman year, I could not wait to escape and set my own course, one that would include as much adventure as I could find. Finally, I hoped that the recruiter would not ask any questions about my college grades.
"Good!" he exclaimed. "That's very good! However, the Navy has a special program that allows me to guarantee you, in advance, before you even sign the papers, a special training program that is only for intelligent and highly motivated men."
He gave the impression that he was going to share the greatest secret of all time with me. Reaching into his desk, he pulled out a large color picture of a nuclear submarine control center and held it up in front of me. I studied the images of periscopes, the clusters of red and green lights, and the group of enlisted men who looked like they were ready to attack everything in sight.
"You could be a part of this team!" the chief exclaimed excitedly and pulled out a stack of papers. "Just read about this great program. We'll give you a simple test, and we'll soon know if you have what it takes to be guaranteed a future with nuclear power! It is a very challenging program."
I sat down next to his desk. After confirming that I had no interest in either the Communist Party or overthrowing our government, I passed the test, which seemed remarkably simple, with flying colors. Intent on becoming a nuclear-trained submariner, I quickly signed the enlistment papers that obligated me for the next six years of my life. One week later, feeling the challenge of a fresh future and new opportunity for adventure, I boarded a Greyhound bus with six other new enlisted men. In a cloud of black diesel smoke, we headed toward the boot camp at San Diego and wherever that would lead us.
I soon discovered that the real test for nuclear candidates was not given in the recruiter's office but at Camp Nimitz, in between running across acres of asphalt known as "the grinder" and tying square knots. The test was designated the GCT (General Classification Test). Actually, it was an extremely difficult and comprehensive IQ test. If the Navy confirmed that an applicant did have adequate brains, then he moved ahead in the system. On the other hand, if the applicant did badly on the test — well, there is a tiny, seemingly innocuous statement in the previously signed enlistment papers that says something about "the needs of the Navy come first."
"Too bad you didn't do well on the test, sailor, too bad you're not going to get nuclear training, but we can always find a place for your skills, doing manual laborlike things. We have this big ol' aircraft carrier with hundreds of decks that need to be swabbed…."
The new sailor who did extremely well on the test, however, would be, finally, absolutely guaranteed nuclear power training (but not necessarily submarine duty). If he did all these things and was unlucky, he could be assigned to a nuclear surface ship and spend the next several years wondering where, in the long process of taking tests and signing papers, he had gone wrong. For the 3 percent of Navy enlisted men who were very lucky, the ones for whom the "needs of the Navy" matched the desire of the individual, submarine duty would beckon.
During the nearly three years following boot camp, the Navy flew me around the country to one training program after another as I completed courses in electronics and nuclear power. The courses were as tough as anything I would later face at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine; most important of all, I learned to study, I grew up, and, by the time I started submarine school beneath the dreary clouds of New London, Connecticut, I was fully prepared to become a nuclear star.
As the Viperfish moved across the Pacific in the direction of the Hawaiian Islands, I worked day and night to learn the theoretical details of the nuclear propulsion system. While a student in nuclear power school, I had thought the study of nuclear fission and the physics relating to the transfer of heat to steam generators to be relatively uncomplicated. The reactor produces heat; the heat boils the water to create steam; the steam spins a turbine to generate power; and, when the screws begin to churn, the submarine moves through the ocean! The reality of the unique system within the actual submarine was quite different, however, because of the complexities associated with controlling the system and the variances among the many submarines in the fleet. The engine room generated a tremendous amount of heat and power, and with the power came an enormous responsibility of the reactor operator to keep the nuclear genie under control. Also, the feeling of being surrounded by so much raw power, the roaring noise of steam, the screaming of turbines, the pounding of pumps, all in the setting of the vibrating hull from the rotation of the Viperfish's powerful screws, tended to focus one's concentration far more than any experience in the classroom.
The pinnacle of the engine-room qualification system was the process of learning to control the nuclear reactor. Locked out of sight under yellow lead glass windows, the reactor required precision control mechanisms to maintain a steady-state nuclear fission process that would produce the right amount of power without overheating or leaking radiation. The design of the entire system was based on extraordinary safety considerations to minimize risks to the men working in the engine room and to the environment. Even with a safe design, however, the need for safe control was continuously hammered into our minds.
The psychological pressure during this time was extreme, not only because of the timetable for qualifications and the continuous pressure from Bruce Rossi, but also because of the enormous responsibilities associated with control of the reactor. For a twenty-one-year-old man, barely three years out of boot camp, who had flunked out of college, just sitting in front of a panel that controlled millions of watts of thermal and nuclear energy driving a propulsion engine with two shafts that delivered six thousand horsepower was, in itself, a most awesome responsibility.
The seat facing the panel was in a cramped area at the back corner of the engine room. When I sat in the chair, I faced hundreds of lights, meters, control switches, and audible alarms that shrieked out various abnormal conditions when a drill was under way and everything seemed to be falling apart. The electrician in charge of all the electricity generated and used throughout the Viperfish was also seated in this area (the maneuvering room). As the reactor operator and electrician sat side by side, facing their panels, the engineering officer of the watch (EOOW) sat on the edge of his chair or paced back and forth behind them and watched all of the panels. Working to put everything together, he often hollered orders through the loudspeaker system to other men stationed around the engine room. Next to the EOOW, squeezed in the same tiny area, was yet another man, the chief of the watch, who also oversaw everything and worked to determine what might be going wrong at any given moment.