CANE HILL — Ed Marshall was a teenager who not only got into trouble from time to time, he wasn’t interested in school and wanted to quit, so his dad signed for him to go into the U.S. Navy when he was 17.

“The biggest mistake I made was quitting school,” Marshall said, however he admits the Navy turned his life around.

Marshall went to Beeville, Texas in October 1961 forbasic training. He remained there for a couple of years until he was transferred to a squadron with what then was the latest jet aircraft made, the F-4 Phantom.

Marshall had to train for aviation ordnance and learn the seven dift erent systems, which included bomb systems, rockets, fi ghter jets, other planes, helicopters and more at Key West, Fla.

From Florida he boarded the shipUSS Independence and shipped out to war. The ship was 14 stories tall with seven above and seven below, according to Marshall.

“I was a 19-year-old kid who woke up on an aircraft carrier in Vietnam,” Marshall said. “I was having to maintain the systems on the Phantom aircraft.”

The ship was stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin, which borders Vietnam.

Marshall said doing combat operations meant 24 hours on with four hours oft, which gave the crew time for a shower and a couple hours sleep. Sometime that was changed to 36 hours on with six hours oft with no sleep.

“We were bombing the hell out of North Vietnam,” Marshall said. “Fatigue was your enemy, you got bone tired.

There were 80 aircraft on the flight deck with jets coming and going. “We had to try to keep from getting blown over or caught on fi re from the jets. It happened to some people,” Marshall said, adding there were about 200 men on deck with planes landing and launching constantly.

War-Time Diploma

Marshall’s routine was broken up somewhat when one morning he was told he had to get in his dress uniform and report to Lieutenant JG Porter Halyburton.

“I got into my dress whites and went to see what was going on,” Marshall said.

“After being told to ‘enter’ I was asked, ‘do you have a high school diploma.’”

I told him, “No, sir.”

The officer then asked for his liberty card, which Marshall gave him.

“I asked why he took my liberty card, because it was the only way we could get off the ship,” Marshall said.

“I took your card because you’re stupid,” he told me. “You went to a public school with a free education and quit, so you’re stupid,” said the oft cer.

“He told me I would get my card back when I got a GED and I was to go see the education oft cer.”

Marshall was given a GED (General Education Development) test and failed math by one question and English by two questions. He was told he would have to take a correspondence course in both.

Much to his dismay the correspondence courses had 37 assignments in math and 41 in English. He was given books to study and told to get it done.

“I went back to work taking the correspondence courses I was given with me,” Marshall said “If I had just a few minutes, I would work on the assignments.”

Marshall was working in an area where bombs were stored and between launches he would sit on top a 500-pound bomb fi guring math problems.

“I was bone tired but would get one or two assignments done and turned in. All this time I was thinking - why didn’t I just stay in school.”

It took two months before he finished the correspondence courses. After retaking the math and English again and passing them, he asked when he would get his GED.

The education oft cer told him he didn’t know, because he would have to send off to Arkansas for it.

“I told him, I’ve been on this ship a long time, sir.”

The oftcer said he would call Halyburton to let him know Marshall had passed the GED exam so he could get his liberty card back.

Halyburton made him promise he would “do something with the high school degree” before giving the card back.

He got it and after 62 days, his feet touched soil again.

Marshall chuckled, “I must have been stupid because I found out much later that Halyburton didn’t have the authority to keep me on the ship more than three days.”

He gives the lieutenant credit though for making him get the GED. “The man changed my life.”

Lost And Found

Marshall wasn’t through talking about Halyburton. A sad day in his life came when Halyburton, also a pilot, was shot down over Vietnam.

“We lost 5-7 pilots that day, Oct. 17, 1965,” Marshall said. “We also had some wounded.”

Marshall went on to do two tours in Vietnam. In 1973, he was stationed at the Naval Air Station in Dallas, Texas as trainer for reservists.

He and others were watching TV on the day North Vietnam released American Prisoners of War in January 1973.

“We were all watching and all of us knew some POW,” Marshall said. “It was a big moment. They were let out according to when they were captured.”

Suddenly a name caught Marshall’s attention - Porter Halyburton.

“They did a close up and it was him, walking toward his wife and kid. It was him. And I felt like crying like a baby,” Marshall said. “He was captured and no one knew it.”

Marshall said Halyburton remained in the navy and became a professor at the Naval War College.

Degree, Second Career

Marshall, too, remained in the navy, later being stationed at Delgado Collegein central New Mexico. He worked as an assistant editor for the publication Conventional and Nuclear Weapons.

“We had to be able to write detailed instructions on how to load, download and all else on 32 diff erent aircraft,” Marshall said. “It was a very interesting job.”

Through the years, he would take an occasional college course - “taking a few hours here and there.”

He was married to his wife Mary Jean and they had two children during most of his naval career.

At Delgado he was able to add to his college hours due to college professors being flown in from the University of Southern Illinois, Carbondale, to teach those who wanted a degree.

Marshall wanted a college degree. He said after receiving his GED, he thought about getting a college degree so he did though it was years later.

He received a bachelor of science in occupation education. “I could teach shop,” he said.

He had advanced to master chief status by the time he arrived in New Mexico - as high a rank as an enlisted naval oft cer could go.

Finally in November 1983 after 22 years and four months, Marshall decided to retire. Since his wife was from Cane Hill, Ark., that is where the family headed.

“I spent five years building our house,” Marshall said. “Then Lincoln Principal J.T. Babb and Frank Holman, who was a coach and became principal, talked me into substitute teaching at Lincoln Middle School.

“I fell in love with the process of teaching,” Marshall said.

He went to the University of Arkansas to take 57 hours in social studies. “I wasn’t interested in teaching shop. I was interested in history and geography.”

He became certified in secondary education and taught at Lincoln High School for 20 years.

Babb and Holman joined Halyburton as men who Marshall claims changed his life for the better.

“I’ve been fortunate,” Marshall said. “I’ve had two

News, Pages 1 on 11/07/2012