33 Black Frog: An American Story

Today, Navy Seals stand as living legends, the embodiment of strength, courage and unwavering determination.

Their stories of valor have been woven into modern folklore.

Participating in missions ranging from counterterrorism to humanitarian assistance.

Tonight.

I can report.

To the American people and to the world.

The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda These modern day warriors face challenges that push the limits of human endurance.

Enduring, relentless training, clandestine missions, and a brotherhood like no other.

Against this modern backdrop, we return to the story of Eddie Ferguson, whose journey began in the segregated south of Fort Myers, Florida, nearly a lifetime ago.

Little did he know that the Navy Seals of today would be a reflection of his own unwavering determination, passion, and adaptability.

In the midst of the Second World War.

It had become painfully obvious that old warfare tactics needed to be updated.

It would take more than just battleships to control the seas out of the need for a new type of warrior.

The Navy frogmen were born.

Navy frogman is a term that was used to describe their predecessors to the modern day Navy Seals.

During World War Two, the Navy formed several specialized units, including the Naval Combat Demolition Units and the Underwater Demolition Teams, also known as UDT's, to conduct hydrographic reconnaissance and demolition operations.

However, a house divided cannot stand.

The U.S. military was desegregated by president Harry Truman in 1948 by Executive Order 9981.

There is no justifiable reason for discrimination because of ancestry or religion or religion or color.

But the country was still a long way from walking together in unity.

A fractured fighting force can never effectively defend a nation.

One thing it's important to remember is that throughout World War Two, the military was racially segregated and that segregation really made no sense.

It meant that the military had to do everything and duplicate that have separate barracks, separate latrines, separate dining facilities, and someone's job to make sure all of those things remained separate, both in the United States but then also, once stripped of troops deployed.

They went so far as to even segregate blood from blood donors and the Red cross, even though there's no scientific basis to do that.

It was a point of real frustration for Black Americans during World War two, because they felt like their their patriotism wasn't being respected.

They were literally being treated as second class citizens even while they were fighting, in some cases dying for their country.

At the end of the war in 1945, the integration of the military is a huge deal.

This is one of the things that civil rights activists have been fighting for since the late 1930s, and it remains a real hot button issue at the end of the war.

In 45, 46, 47, those protests continue and they become enhanced.

Finally, in 1948, President Truman signs Executive Order 9981, which officially desegregated the military.

President Truman signs that executive order because he recognizes that black voters are going to place an even more important role in terms of the future of the Democratic Party.

So it's a really a political calculus on President Truman's Part.

Stateside.

The early 60s were marked by an earth shattering shift in the social fabric of the country.

Civil rights challenges and social unrest threaten to tear the country apart.

Racial segregation was deeply entrenched.

And it was legal to keep black people out of public schools, public transportation, restaurants and other public facilities.

Black people face significant obstacles to vote, and many municipalities would go to great lengths to disenfranchize them.

Police brutality was rampant and offending officers were rarely held accountable.

Black Americans faced institutionalize housing discrimination and were unable to access mortgages and homes in various neighborhoods.

Opportunities for people of color in the United States were extremely limited.

The reason Black Americans were overrepresented in the military is that the military presented a lot better economic opportunities than they could find in a lot of the civilian world, and even the specific kinds of work that black troops sign up for was often determined by the rates of pay.

So there are a number of instances where people said they sign up for special forces or signed up for being paratroopers because they would earn an extra 20 or $25 a month.

It was the kind of economic determinants that you just didn't see for for white troops in the same time period.

So for someone like Eddie Ferguson, the fact that he was a frogman and really broke down barriers there was really important for the larger culture that people could point to him and be able to say, this is someone who did it.

He was one of the first people to blaze that trail.

It was important in the larger black military history.

And that's exactly what Eddie Ferguson did.

Eddie's early years were marked by the racial divisions of his time.

I was born in 1944, in Jacksonville, Florida.

White folks section was segregat from the blacks by a railroad track.

So it was just racially divided.

And that was the plan.

You know, that we should be kept separate.

We couldn't live on the other side of a railroad track.

We had to live in an area provided for black folks as long as we stayed on the other side of the track, we were okay.

There were people doing basically Why wouldnt you be ok if you cro the other side Well, if we went on the other side, there were there were white people over there that might do bad things to black people.

So it was kind of like, in those days, there were things happening, racial on a racial scale, that we were just not permitted or not told not to go on the other side.

And so I never intermingled or even talked to white people growing up.

They weren't painting white people as bad people were.

But they were, you know, I had vision of being hung as a child or castrated or all that other stuff that was going on outside, in Florida.

All this stuff was going on in Florida.

Florida was the most one of the most corrupt, states in the South.

Our schools were, segregated as well.

The only, contact we had with, white schools is that we would get their books, hand-me-down books in our schools.

If you know anything about segregation at that time, you know, the old saying was, you know, don't be caught on the other side of the tracks after, you know, sundown, things of that nature.

Know where you know your place when you go downtown and do that and walk your head down and move around and, you know, things of that nature, you had to be cautious of where you went and, and how you, were when you went.

if you went somewhere, they had a place where they call colored.

they had white only then had a place where they call colored.

Some places you couldn't even go in.

You had to go to the back to get whatever you wanted.

Like, one of the restaurant or somethi You couldn't go inside.

And what they did, they gave us used up from Fort Myers Senior High School that our school like the books and the desks and chairs and everything, they were all used, but they gave us over at Dunbar Senior High.

We were in the last class to graduate from this high school in 1962.

After that time, it was turned into a community school, and a new school was built on Edison Avenue.

This school was turned into a technical school, which gave Fort Myers citizen good opportunities for job.

They could also get a GED if they didn't complete high school.

They would be given an opportunity to go to this school to get a G.E.D..

I remember.

Daddy George and Aunt Jo said they were going to get some kids.

They were going to adopt.

And when they brought them back and was Josephine, Ed Lee And Mary.

We were under, the custody of the state.

We were like, foster care, if you will.

And, my mother had a lot to do with that because, she she got custody of us.

And so the only way they would give custody to her is that, you know, she would be in a, nice, family oriented mother father children relationship.

My foster parents knew that we were the products of, of a brother.

That was that was in there.

I didn't know all of this during the time, but.

Yeah.

So they went to court to.

Because they knew the, that we were in the same, same family heritage, if you will.

Because of, my foster mother's brother and she had two other older brothers, and they were they were getting kind of busy in those days.

And so they they knew what was going on.

So and we were the product of that.

And so they gave up, custody to, of us, to them.

And we moved to Fort Myers.

Eddie's journey begins as a foster child, a reality all too common for African-American families in the 1940s.

Quite often in the realm of injustice, women were unfairly accused of neglecting their children and found themselves entwined in the unyielding grasp of institutionalization.

There was another thing going on in Jacksonville, in Florida, too.

And, the health department was in charge of, People who, unruly, it was calling insane asylum.

And that is where my biological mother ended up.

When you take a child from her mother, then thing could get out of control.

And, you know, with the mother, the biological mother, and she she kind of lost control over herself and in the course.

So that maybe it was because of partying too much, partied too much, drinking or whatever.

The the biological parents were doing it were it wasn't fit for us to live in that household.

And so my foster mother, I would say, would took advantage of that situation?

She could make a salary by keeping us.

The chapters of Eddie's life were written in the pages of Fort Myers, Florida.

He felt a yearning to revisit the place he once called home.

Returning to the echoes of his youth.

Driving by the familiar grounds where friends, dreams and hardships intertwine as the memory of his childhood home emerged.

We bear witness to his remarkable journey.

The houses changed Our house used to.

Yeah, Uncle Ben's house was here.

And our house was in the this open.

lot there.

Oh, wow.

Well, they knocked it down.

Yeah.

It was a old home and you just r your new home right there.

It was a shotgun house.

Right?

Yeah.

We were always to Aunt Jo's hous peeping through the window, in it leaves room, which we weren't allowed to go in.

And she said he had his airplanes, and.

And his room was always clean, and, we mostly stayed outside.

And I got my first boxing and lesson from Ed Lee because he had boxing gloves along with all his weight lives.

And he also, was, health buff and he a nut rather.

I called it and he, would mix all this stuff up in the blender, and we had to drink and and we thought that was the nastiest stuff we ever had.

Eddie Ferguson, ha thats, thats, thats quite a memo Parents were great, friends, and, mothers had kind of the same name.

My mother's name, Josie.

And his mothers name Josephine And Eddie He was always kind of a unique G He was very different.

He was always into something.

The Tarzan type, you know.

The outdoors you know, the body building.

We had a very small class, and they were whispering.

Don't mess with Eddie Eddie's hope for a better life led him to join the United States Navy.

The UDT's of the time laid the groundwork for a specialized force that would go on to operate in some of the world's most dangerous environments.

Job opportunities for a young black man like Eddie were scarce, and he saw the Navy as his ticket to a brighter future.

It was his call to adventure, a path to a world he could scarcely imagine.

As.

As I observed the, the neighborhood, the neighbors, the older generations, they were they were getting out of school and they were joining other parts of the military, like the Army.

And I didn't particularly like the army.

And so I had conversation with other older generations, my uncle, my Uncle Leonard, my Uncle Ben, my father, even had some say about it, what I was to do after high school.

And that started around 10th grade, and I start thinking about what I was going to do in Fort Myers.

There was no career opportunities in Fort Myers at that time.

I worked as at a on a watermelon farm.

We were picking, watermelons.

So what would happen is the truck would come down on the corner.

So I stand on the corner in the bottom, and, flatbed truck would come by and and look for workers for that day.

And so they would look at the people standing on the corner if you if they looked healthy, strong, young, healthy and strong, they would pick that person to get on the truck.

And then we were headed for the watermelon field.

And work all day.

It was so bad that I can't even remember what I got paid for working for one day.

I just knew that it was hard work.

I didn't take lunch.

I didn't think about it.

I didn't take hydration.

I didn't take water.

And I'm working in a watermelon field all day.

And so the I got school while I was on the watermelon field, you know, it's just I didn't have lunch.

They say, well, you got to accidentally drop a watermelon, right?

And then you could instead of just kicking it aside, you would have the watermelon for lunch.

And it was not a career, so I had to look for something that was more substantial.

I was looking for, 20 year career somewhere.

I was attracted to the water.

Absolutely.

If anyone has ever scuba dobra, been in the ocean on the water, for some reason, I was attracted to the ocean.

To the sea.

I seen it in National Geographic's, seen it on Sea Hunt on TV.

And so I was I was kind of drawn to, maritime stuff.

Yeah.

I wanted to be involved in adventure at Sea.

About 11th grade, I went to see a recruiter downtown Fort Myers.

And he, wrote me up and put me in the system.

And the first thing he wanted was my birth certificate to prove my age.

He never got that birth certificate for various reasons.

I didn't have one.

And my parents wouldn't release it to me.

Apparently, they didn't have it either, but he went ahead and did his job of, recruiting, people into the Navy.

And he managed to process me through by giving me a train ticket to Jacksonville, Florida, where I was inducted into the United States Navy.

It was sort of like jumping from the frying pan into the fire, because I didn't have any access to talk to white people or know anything about, integration, because we weren't integrated then.

We were segregated.

So I had to, experience what it was to converse and socialize and get along with white people.

But I started to group.

It started at the recruiter.

In fact, if I was to think that he would be the only white person I spoke to in my hometown.

And he didn't care about race.

He just wanted bodies in the Navy.

You know, that was that was his job while he was there.

And so he even bypassed, my birth certificate not having my birth certificate.

For some reason.

I was able to get processed into the Navy without a birth certificate.

You would think that years later would come back and bite me, because years later, I had to get background investigation.

I also, my birth certificate would have been necessary during those times, but I managed to go through the whole Navy career and also had a top secret background investigation.

And I was approved for top secret information.

And when I arrived in Jacksonville, there was no taxis able to take me to the recruiters to the place where I was inducted.

There weren't that many black taxicab drivers either.

And we got no respect from the white taxi drivers.

So I had to walk, everywhere I went.

Once I got off the train, it was getting late in the day, so I had to find a hotel.

So I had the per diem and stuff, the money to get hotel.

And so I walked into this one hotel, not knowing those were the days of integration, segregation, whatever you want to call it.

And I was told by the white guy behind the desk that I was in the wrong hotel.

And so Danny explained to me that I was to go down the street to this other hotel, which was a colored hotel, which which is which smell like Jim Crow to me.

As Eddie faced racial disparities on his journey entering the Navy, UDT's were transforming into the Navy Seals, adapting to new challenges in a ever changing world.

Eddie's journey in the Navy was not without his own challenges, and some of those challenges mirrored the larger societal struggles against racial disparities.

I thought of him as a strong minded person.

He had great ideas about what he wanted to do.

While he was in the military.

He was, a little bit unhappy with being on a ship.

So he was talking about how he was thinking about going into UDT.

I was a helm operator.

Helmsman is a person that steers the ship when given orders from the officer of the day or the commanding officer, he'd tell you which direction to steer ship.

And you cannot be more than two degrees off while you steer the ship.

So you're at the helm going right, left, right, left, and you're watching a compass, and you're supposed to keep that.

If I go off course, they would see that.

And they would announce and she goes, when she is steady, she goes, I cannot deviate more than two degrees left or right.

So it was pretty kind of.

It was tight on the bridge.

You you had to really pay attention for four hours when the watchers is releaved.

It's normally 15 minutes before the hour.

And it was customary that that was done.

So this the white guy, didn't like me for whatever reason prejudice.

I don't want to call in a card playing prejudiced card.

But he did not relieve me.

He would leave me 15 minutes late every time.

And so I was getting tired of that, and I reported it to the department head.

We were in the same department and they did nothing about it.

He continued to lead me 15 minutes late and I was about to, Fisticuffs with him because, and that would have gotten me in more trouble than not.

During this turbulent time, Eddie's friend Lamont King, a dedicated Navy diver, faced his own battles against discrimination at a naval base.

Lamont's experience shed light on the broader issue that echoed through the military, bringing to the forefront the need to change and promote unity among servicemen.

If you talk to anybody of color that is in this specialized community, we all have our unique stories.

I went to dive school in the early 70s or, excuse me, middle 70s in Hawaii.

The minute I walked in, I was an anomaly.

I was the first African-American to walk through the doors to be a diver.

One of the first individuals I ran into says, I've never had a nigger dive school before.

I'm like, interesting.

Now the Chicago, Lamont could have just beat the hell out of me.

But I did not because I was raised better than that.

I know I can't be as good.

I have to be better.

I have to be smarter.

The same individual that accosted me at that time ended up working for me years later.

That is the power.

That is the strength.

That is the beauty of God to allow us to make bright out of wrongs.

And this individual, he was wrong at that time, but I was able to do that.

He worked for me later on.

Biases.

Yeah.

We've had a lot of biases throughout my career.

Being a first walking into a wardroom.

You're not expected to be there, walking into a meeting.

You're not expected to be that subject matter expert.

I was not getting along racially with the ship's company because they thought they were better than me, and actually told me that.

And so I wasn't getting along, and I did not anticipate being in the fleet for 20 years.

So I had made up my mind.

I wanted to do a 20 year career, but the attitude of certain folks, didn't agree with me.

And I couldn't fight my way through, all those personnel on board the ship.

So my exit was when a recruiter came by and introduced a program called Someone Special, which was a video, someone special, which was a Naval Special Warfare UDT seal program.

So they announced that this person was coming to interview and to give, you know, appointments for a screening test, on the mess deck at 1300.

And so I heard the, announcement.

So I reported to the mess deck at 1300 to meet with this person who's going to introduce the program, and out of a company, a ship's company of 600.

I was the only one to show up on the mess deck.

He heard about Seals, Eddie jumped and says, I want to be a seal.

Well, guess what?

He didn't even know how to swim.

That's incredible.

When you think of a man that did not know how to swim, jumped into a pool, damn near drowned and survive just to prove how he wanted to do this.

Eddie's determination led him to the Navy UDT / Seals team, a force that continue to evolve and adapt.

Eddie's rigorous training was a challenging environment in which the units prepare for their missions.

During training, bonds form among diverse trainees.

They share a common purpose to protect their country.

Shaping them into formidable warriors.

The name of the organization is UDT / Seal.

BUD's like on the West coast.

It also involved BUD's mean UDT / Seals, but before the operators who were called scouts and raiders.

And then it became UDT.

And later on in 1962, when Seals were born, it became UDT and Seal team.

The mission of a UDT is called hydrographic reconnaissance, which we are, which means that we are maritime.

We work in the water primarily during the time I went in, it was called UDTRT which means Underwater Demolition Team, Replacement training.

All right.

And during that time, the Seal team, was not apparent, so frogmen preceded Seal teams.

Okay, so during the time I went through, and after training, we had a decision to make whether we wanted to go advanced training and hydrographic reconnaissance in the frogman mission or that we wanted, some of my classmate became Seal because they got advanced training in Seal mission.

But basic training included both missions.

Both UDT and Seal missions.

I had to pass the drowned proven test where they tie your feet, your hands, and you're supposed to maintain or navigate through the.

Water.

On your stomach while kicking on your stomach.

We also had to, do a test of a 50 yard underwater swim in the pool.

I had a particular challenge, doing training, doing the underwater swim.

I was to step in the water on the deep end, remain underwater, do not break the surface of the water.

And I was to swim 20, 50 yards underwater, headed toward the shallow end.

Turn around underwater, come back toward the deep end.

Everything was going pretty good on the way back.

Until I had a problem.

I had no no more air left.

I tried to do internal breathing that didn't work.

And before I knew it, I really didn't know it.

I had passed out, and the instructors were standing on the surface, and they noticed that I was going down instead of coming up.

So one of my instructors jumped in the water, grab a hold of me, pull me up to the surface, where I got some air and I came to.

I was literally passed out.

I got out of the pool on my own, and, I was told to sit on the pool side, and, and they announced that I had to repeat the swim because I didn't I didn't pass, I didn't hit the wall.

So that's what I did.

But before I did it the second time, for some reason, the instructors wanted me to inhale water through, from a face mask.

And so I had never done that before in my life.

In fact, I had never done an underwater swimmer in my life.

And so I had reached down in the pool film a face mask full of water, put it on my face, got a suction on the mask, and they told me to make the water disappear so that I digested.

that statement they made to me.

I want you to make the water disappear.

As I lean my head back a little bit, I relaxed somewhat and I commenced to inhale water from the mask through my sinuses, and it went down my esophagus and into my stomach.

The entire face mask was empty, and so I accomplished that.

After that, they told me I would have to do the underwater swim again.

And so the same thing I did, I took a couple of breath.

I stepped into the deep end, pushed off, headed for the shallow end, just like I did before, and turned around underwater, headed back for the deep end again.

It was that same nine feet from the wall.

I had nothing left.

I tried to in.

Inhaled.

Or not inhaled but breathe internally, which is impossible, and to the point where I passed out the second time, they pulled me out of the water again, sat me on the pool side, and after that evolution I was taken to Boon's clinic to see a doctor.

I was given a neuro and they would tell the instructor what what problem was I having during that time, and he announced to the, instructors that I had no problem, and they insinuated I didn't have sense enough to surface.

I knew if I had surfaced, I would have failed, and that is the very reason why I didn't surface.

So was, I had to do it.

And now I don't want to say die, but I had to get it done, and I wasn't going to give up.

As we moved back to the roots of Eddie's journey, Eddie and his comrades overcome countless challenges, reaching a point of no return, a place where they become true UDT / Seals the challenges they face, tested their determination and unity.

The kicker of UDT / Seal was going through hell week.

Hell week is one week, seven days.

Nothing but moving.

We get very little sleep.

During hell week, we're participating in physical activities during hell week, we're swimming in the pool, and we're exercising on the grinder.

We're we're just moving every single day.

And what they're trying to do is weed out the weak ones or the ones who cannot make up their mind if they want to be there.

Hellweek was usually the the third week of training, and that's why they, you know, they put everything all the hell that that they can think of, put it in a one week so that, they, they try to make a sweat, they, they make us miserable.

We know we were soaking wet and cold and freezing and they make you roll into the sand so you're wet and you have sand all over the place.

They make us, everywhere we went, we had those boats on our heads.

Those those, rubber boats and, we had to carry them everywhere we went.

And of course, one of the places that we had to walk through it was called a mud flats.

We were going on a 18 mile force march and we had to is a force march.

Is is like sort of like a run it, walk in fast or jogging with boots and uniform and everything.

And you would go 18 miles through, a what they call what we call is, it's it's a quagmire.

It's an area where there's mud.

And we would go through that.

It's almost like quicksand where your feet sink down in the mud.

But you got to keep going through it no matter what.

And my boot came off.

It's 32 degrees and I'm running with one boot.

Back to the command.

The instructor asked me if I knew that I only had one boot, and I responded, yes, instructor.

That's where we we heard, I guess the first time we heard about Eddie Ferguson, then a mud flats, because, you know, you lost 1 to 1 of his shoe.

And of course, he didn't want to take the time to stop and look for it.

And, you know, so we kept on going.

And so what he was looking at was that I was supposed to identify my foot was frozen, so I didn't feel anything anyway.

So he was he was looking to me to see if I wanted to ride back to the command, or to the barracks.

So, I couldn't do that.

I couldn't volunteer to get in the vehicle to ride back.

So I continued to run with one boot.

Some of my classmates noticed that.

Some of them didn't, but that's just what happened.

So I did not quit.

Even if that happened.

And so I continued, training.

And from there, after one week, that type of treatment finished hell week.

And that's when training seriously began.

But it wasn't any easier.

The rest of the training either.

Because they continued to pound us or were physical activities for for runs and all of that in the same.

There was a total of four African-Americans in my class.

There were all also over 200 personnel who started.

All right.

So they whittled down people day after day.

Maybe some a dozen people would quit and leave, for various reasons.

But I stood in there and I hung in there, and I was not one of the ones that rang the bell.

You ring the bell?

That saying you want to quit?

During training, Eddie found mentorship in the ranks and comrades who helped guide him to his true potential.

I did want to mention my my instructor instructor, Waddell.

He was an instructor during the time I went through, and he helped me along, by encouraging me to swim faster because he wanted me to be in the middle group.

Rather, I wasn't going to be in the fast group because I didn't swim that well and he didn't want me to be in the slow group either, because that would just hinder me.

That would be more of a problem for me.

He wasn't he wasn't supposed to be in that phase or swimming around a peer.

He would look at the water, he would see me swimming, and I'm doing a side stroke, and I'm actually passing people, to get my time better.

So I could be in the center group and he would look down and call my name and Ferguson jazz instructor say, do you know your position in the swam?

I said, no, instructor.

He said, well, you are last you better put out you.

Last and I just passed several people and so I knew I wasn't last, but his intention was to get my my time up high enough to be in the center group.

So I swam even harder and passed more people.

And that enabled me to get into center group.

During Eddie's journey, where the challenges of Seal training missions were not just physical and unforeseen equipment malfunction tested Eddie's resilience and adaptability during a night dive.

It was at that moment the true strength of UDT Seal brotherhood, shown.

During my experience in the Navy, I've dove with many type.

Rigs.

To include, scuba rigs?

Which has an air medium nitrogen air as we breathe, in the air, I breathe, semi close.

Circuit rigs, which means that some of the exhaust gases are expelled, and and then I breathe the closed circuit rig, which, 100% oxygen and, had a malfunction with this particular rig.

I was on a three man parrot on a night dive, and we were swimming into the target, and I had a problem, it is called, a 02 hit, I was on the surface.

And then as I dove, I experience a feeling of not enough, air or oxygen.

During that time, my swim buddies detected that that I was not swimming or acting normal because it was a night dive, could not see me.

But we are tied together with buddy line.

So when they detect something unusual, they have to bring that person to the surface.

So they brought me to the surface, and I came off, the circuit, the oxygen circuit.

Breathe air, on the surface.

Inflated the lifejacket to keep me on the surface of the water.

And then I was okay.

Usually when a person has a problem, with the rig or themselves, the dive would be aborted.

But it was the conclusion of my other two swim buddies that I was okay to resume the dive.

And therefore, we completed our mission.

As the UT seal Brotherhood solidified, an unspoken understanding of duty prevailed.

Yet in the shadows, a narrative unfolded.

The enigma of Eddie Childress, a fellow African American Seal Chose divergent course, stepping away from the elite ranks to join the Black Panthers.

Eddie Childress and I were the two, before African Americans to finish training.

There were 36 of us total that made it through, and we were divided into two teams.

Some of us went for advanced training through UDT 21.

Eddie Childress went over to UDT 22, and some of my classmates went to Seal Team Two.

That's what the instructors felt like doing.

They want to put one black in 21 and another black in 22.

They had already decided to do it that way.

Eddie Childress was not getting along with some of the people.

At 22, because they kind of had the attitude against black folks as well, Eddie Childress decided that he not want to pursue a career.

So I stayed with UDT 21 for the next 18 years.

Eddie Childress got out after about four years, and he went back to Chicago, Illinois, because he was getting along that badly.

At 22 goes my team.

Some of my teammates didn't want to even consider him.

After he got out.

He got in trouble.

They wanted to forget him.

But when I detected that, I started looking at his history where he's from, found out he was interred a buried in the Veterans Cemetery in Chicago.

And he, he passed away on a subway train from a drug overdose.

So I believe that he somehow got hooked up with the Black Panthers.

He started doing drugs, alcohol or whatever.

And so he actually just messed himself up pretty bad.

He did complete training with me, and so I had to track him, make sure they did not forget him, regardless of where he went or what he did.

The departure of Eddie Childress.

Mark, more than just a physical exit, it was a solid declaration against injustice, leaving an indelible mark on the fabric of the UDT / Seal journey.

Amid the triumphs, there were those who questioned Eddie's mettle rumors circulated that he closed his eyes during airborne jumps.

It was ignorance, on this person's part.

It's.

This guy had been in the Navy for a long time.

He'd been a frogman for a long time.

He was not even jump qualified during those days.

So frogmen were all not always jump qualified.

So when I came in and went to Fort Benning, became a static line jumper, he was putting out the word.

This chief petty officer was putting out the word that Fergie closed his eyes every time he jumped.

And he he's never been on an airplane.

So how can he make that comment in the first place?

But he was putting it out that I was scared to jump.

So when a billet came available for free fall, it was at the Halo Committee at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

I volunteered for the free fall, class, and I went through, once I finish, I had 23 falls.

Guaranteed.

My eyes were open because we had to see where we're at in the air.

We had to have air awareness, and we have to watch our altimeter, so I didn't have to prove it to this guy, but, I went ahead and went through a freefall, committee.

Anyway.

Determined to dispel any doubt, Eddie joined the Navy Parachute Team East, also known as the Chuting Stars, soaring the skies to prove a point.

Years later, there was a parachute team called the Chuting Stars that existed before I was qualified.

Chuting Stars were disband because of, their conduct on liberty.

They were a bunch of rowdy guys drinking, rowdy, womanizing, parachuting everywhere they went.

They thought they were better than everybody else.

And Congress, disbanded them because they were.

They were supposed to be good for, recruiting.

And they're supposed to be good for the Navy.

But their actions on liberty was undesirable.

When I came along, they renamed it after they had been disband for a number of years, and they were called Navy Parachute Team East.

The West Coast Parachute team was called the Leapfrogs, and they have always existed and they exist today as well.

And being on the parachuting team, I was relieved by Master Chief Goines, I don't think many people know that, but they were looking for diversity.

They were looking for African-Americans to be on.

The parachute team and I was one of the first ones to to go on to the, Navy Parachute Team East.

During a quiet moment of retirement, Eddie felt a pull to revisit the first home he purchased for his family during his UDT / Seal service.

First house.

To get the $25,000 first class petty officer and, barely met the budget for that house.

Yea.

But that was it was a good deal.

1972.

That house was about uh?

72 or 7 I think I remember it because 71.

Right.

But I got the Studebaker out there that that blue Studebaker, at 72, I remember that, yeah.

So it was 71, $25,000.

We had a problem, with, I don't know whether or discrimination to, they didn't they didn't like to sell houses to black folks back in those days.

So what I mean was.

How did what did they do?

Well, this is not the first house we looked at.

We'd just get turned away from other houses until we get to a, builder that would deal with, low paying.

When I was in the Navy, I was in E6, but I wasn't making that much even with hazardous duty pay and I think hazardous duty pay did help out a lot because it was $110 more than I wouldn't have had if I wasn't in the teams.

So that help.

So anyway it was just the way they did Folks back in those days.

They yeah, they thought you couldn't afford it.

They wouldn't look any further i they looked at you skin.

And they say you can't afford it.

And how do you know you never looked into it.

Right.

But they make judgments.

And just because of the skin color.

Eddie's journey was not only about becoming a UDT / Seal, it was about building a family.

He married the woman he loved, creating a life of love and dedication.

I met Eddie in Norfolk in 1966, I believe I was staying with my mother, and he came over one evening with a friend of my mother.

People usually came around to play cards or whatever.

It was kind of fun going to my mom's house.

Everybody kind of congregated to come over there and have some fun.

And I guess Eddie heard about it through his friend and decided to come with him one day.

He did come.

He came over again, and he started talking to me.

And then he told me that he liked me.

Then we kind of hit it off, talking and everything.

And so we just continued to date for a number of years.

In fact, we dated for a five years and one day we decided to, thats after I set We decided to be a family.

So she had two sons, Andre and, Antonio.

And I was about ready to settle down and buy a house and start a family.

And, and so I did.

So every time Eddie had to go out to sea, that's where I would hear over my mom, so.

And we would go over there, and that would make me feel better, make me feel a little bit comfortable because he was gone.

There was kind of hard from the beginning, cause we didn't get a lot of income at that time, so I had to make everything count.

as far as feeding.

The kids and taking care of the home.

In Eddie's well deserved retirement.

He continues to live life to the fullest.

He enjoys the freedom of the open road.

Riding his motorcycle.

And even amazing folks with his unicycling skills.

His visits to the UDT Navy Seal Museum are moments of reflection and inspiration.

Yes, we have canine doge.

What do they do?

They were used primarily in Vietnam.

That's when the program started.

Okay, these dogs do everything seals do.

And sometimes they do it better.

Yeah.

This is this is this is my class right here.

All the way down to to here.

So, this is class 33.

Yeah, that right there.

Oh wow look at that.

Whose that guy?

Whose that guy?

Still kicking.

In the memory of seals that passed on, we are reminded the heroes are not confined to the battlefield, but can also be found in the resilience of an ordinary life.

Eddie's journey continues, reminding us that heroes are not.

Born.

But forged through life's most challenging trials.

Yesterday.

The only easy day was yesterday.

All my dreams are trying to fade But I believe I'll make my way painfully.

It's my color not the man they see.

Trials and tribulations Never feeling right How I'm fighting for my country.

And we still trying to divide.

Timmy said we multiply like cattle but we fighting your battles, Stuck under all the challenges tackled, Rare recognition when they got u up on em shackl only recognition a brotha get is when we be dying, that's a lie cause most of us really forgotten only sea in me is seeing me you challenge Poseidon, Navy blues singing blue leave you cluesless now I'm kraken, pull up in a sub like a crip wha whats crackin, Take em out, take em down under water demolition hope you drown, ain't no beep u can't hear a sound, Demo found, light em up, fire in the hole boom,