The Ticonderoga remained in the Gulf of Tonkin until September, Hawkins said. The Navy's role in the war was to knock out bridges and fly air cover for the ground troops, Hawkins explained, working in conjunction with the Air Force. ![]() military became involved in the Vietnam War. In August 1964, while aboard the Ticonderoga in the Gulf of Tonkin, the U.S. Stockdale was a Medal of Honor recipient and the highest-ranking naval officer to be held as a POW during the Vietnam War. "Commander (James) Stockdale was my skipper," he said. He then went to Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego to join an F-8 squadron assigned to the USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14), Hawkins said. ![]() When the mission was over, he took his mandatory discharge and quickly re-enlisted, he said. "I woke up one day and I had 30 days and the next day I woke up I had 90 days left," he said. ![]() "Back then, if you went in at 17 you had to be let out before your 21st birthday."īut just as his birthday approached, the Roosevelt was deployed to the Dominican Republic, where there was unrest over the election of liberal Juan Bosch following the assassination of longtime dictator Rafael Trujillo. "I was supposed to get out the day before my 21st birthday," he said, sitting on the couch of his Desert Hot Springs home.
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