I described my father once as a “war hero” and he said he was hardly that. I pointed out that he volunteered for the Navy, they didn’t have to come and get him. He went where they told him to go and did what they told him to do the best he could. When the captain said he should go to OCS he went although he really didn’t want to and once they made him, as he used to say, “an officer and a gentleman by act of Congress,” he did the best he could there.

That, I said, was heroic enough.