Audio
Carlos Hurston Interview
Transcript
[Male and female talk in a quiet indoor setting. Male is very soft-spoken.] Carlos: So, I’m Carlos Hurston, United States Navy. My dates of service was September, 1988, to January, 2001. Back in 1988, I felt like it was an opportunity to get out and travel and see some of the world. I have a brother who is 2 years older than me who got a football scholarship to college. It was still a lot going on for my parents, you know, with the lab fees and I remember him always having to go to different functions and need a suit and stuff like that. I said, “Mom, I’m gonna go to the military and let them pay for school. Go see a little bit of the world. I’m not gonna put this on you.”
Susan: Where were you geographically? Where did you live?
Carlos: West Point, Georgia, which is about an hour and a half out. So, that was my mindset. I don’t know. I used to always watch Gomer Pyles growing up. I just wanted to be in the military.
Susan: Why did you choose the navy?
Carlos: I wanted to be in the marines, but the marines told me I had flat feet. So, they thought I would have a problem getting in. So, I went to the navy recruiter. Well, let’s send you up and see what they say. And they passed me. I don’t have any issues with running or anything like that. So, that’s how I got started.
Susan: So, where did they send you?
Carlos: Well, I started off…I went to boot camp in Orlando, Florida. I left there in…I went straight overseas. I went to La Merenda, Italy. I was right off the boot.
Susan: So, were you on a ship?
Carlos: Yes. I was on the U.S.S Orion. It was a submarine tender. So, the sub would pull up and we would go on the sub and clean the sub. I was the main machine, so I would go down below deck and kind of fix whatever needed to be fixed, do whatever work orders they had for us. So, that’s what I did for the first 2 years.
Susan: Had that been your first time out of the U.S.? How was that?
Carlos: Yes. It was a little difficult. To be honest, the only place I’d ever been outside of Georgia was Florida. That was our vacation. Georgia’s week vacation is Florida. That was basically going to Jacksonville, going to the beach, something like that. For me, going overseas at 18 years old, I was a little…especially with it being such an isolated place. It wasn’t like Italy. I mean, you had to fly to Rome which was a 12-hour flight.
Susan: That’s what I was going to ask…how did you get there?
Carlos: I had to fly into Rome from New York….a 12-hour flight. From Rome, I had to catch a flight to a little town called Olbia. Then, Olbia, I had to catch a 45 minute bus ride to Palau. Then, Palau, there was a ferry to La Merenda. So that was kinda the travel we had to do. There was a big rock, there was a 3 lane bowling alley, it had a little small gym, and that was pretty much it.
Susan: So, were you stationed on there or were you on the ship?
Carlos: I was on the ship. That’s where I boarded it right there. So, whenever we went out to town, we had to catch a ferry to La Merenda then to Palau. Those were the 2 little, small islands. A lot of the sailors were rowdy. They were obviously homesick. So, a lot of the locals was told stay away from them, stay away from them, those guys were bad news. So, it was like, there wasn’t a lot of communication with the locals. So, it was a rough 2 years. But I kind of like, just worked on my professional development. Taking a lot of courses, doing a lot of things. We didn’t have internet and stuff back then.
Susan: How did you communicate with your family? Did you miss them?
Carlos: It was rough. Yeah I did, big time. We were a big family. We did big family things, you know, Sunday dinners, get togethers, birthdays, stuff like that. So, when I would call home and everybody would be having a good time and stuff, it was kinda sad.
Susan: What could you do, did you have things on the ship to do for fun?
Carlos: Not really. The people that was married, they would sometimes invite us over, out of town, like little get togethers. That was okay. It wasn’t much. We did do a little runs around, like we went to France. We went to Naples, Italy. We went to a couple places around there and those were some good get-aways.
Susan: Is that when you called in port? Were you in uniform when you got off the ship? What was the tone about the Americans?
Carlos: No, civilian clothes always. It was not a good, never good back in those days. I don’t know. I found that some of the places I went to I got good…. Like Israel. Israel really treated me great. Italy, not so much. I don’t know. They just had a thing about Americans. France, I went to Toulon, France, they was okay. Egypt, not so much. Turkey, was okay. Yeah, it just depended on the culture back then and what we were going on.
Susan: What was going on? What was the tone or conflict? Was there major tension with America at that point?
Carlos: Um, I can’t remember right off hand. I think that back in the late 80s, early 90s, I remember Jimmy Carter being the president. Then, Regan took over. I just remember they had the hostages situation going on. I just think we were looked on as arrogant. I think a lot of other people from other countries looked at us and viewed us as such.
Susan: Was that kind of a revelation for you? Was that difficult? Do you remember what was going through your head?
Carlos: It was. To be honest, I always felt like I got treated different than a lot of others. Just being a black man over in the country. I think a lot people kind of treated me different. I think they actually liked me. If that makes any sense.
Susan: Yeah, it does. What was the mix of male/female and ethnically on your crew?
Carlos: Oh it was no. It was 6 female officers, that was it. At that point, it was not an integrated navy. It was 88. I think right after that, like maybe in the nineties is when they start doing that. No, there was no females on the ship whatsoever on the ship. As a matter of fact, when I left there in 90, I went to a smaller ship in Charleston, South Carolina, called the U.S.S Bradley, it was a fast frigate. That’s right about the time they got ready to start integrating women on the ship. So, I think when I left there, I went to the U.S.S Yellowstone in Norfolk, Virginia. That was my first ship were there were females actually onboard. Back then, there was no fire ship. It could only be like submarine tenders, destroyer tenders. No combat ships at that time. That’s kind of the transition in women on the ship.
Susan: When you said like in Israel and in France, you felt like they treated you better cuz you were black. How did you know that? Was it questions they asked?
Carlos: No, I just see like the interactions. For instance, there was this bar [cough] excuse me. There was this bar in this place called Haifa, Israel. And when I go there, I used to talk to the owner and talk to one of the other guys. I was actually getting ready to leave, my ship was to be stationed somewhere else. They found out about it, I guess from my other friends. When we were go in port, we would pull in port for 2 to 3 weeks, and we would tend the ships that were out there in that area. They would pull up and we would tend. So, we kind of got to know some of the locals and some of the favorite hang-out spots and stuff like that. So, when I got ready to leave, they gave me a bottle of champagne, they handed out sparkly, lit up.
Susan: Just for you?
Carlos: Yeah. Everyone came around and stuff. I just felt like, you know, I had such a good connection with them. They really liked talking to me and I felt like, man, even the girls, the locals, they were just very nice to me. Maybe they’ve heard stories about the movement or whatever and they know what we’ve been through. I just think they looked at us different. I don’t know.
Description
Susan Caolo interviewing Carlos Hurston
Duration
10 minutes, 24 seconds
Credit
Susan Caolo
Date Created
02/04/2018
Copyright and Usage Info