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CUBA GOODING JR. ON DEATH OF CARL BRASHEAR: Actor portrayed the late U.S. Navy diver in the film “Men of Honor.”
*Cuba Gooding Jr. took time away from the promotion of his new film “Shadowboxer” to say a few words about Tuesday’s passing of Carl M. Brashear, the nation’s first black U.S. Navy diver that he portrayed in the 2000 film “Men of Honor.”
"The African-American community lost a great leader today in Carl Brashear," Gooding said. "His impact to us as a people and all races will be felt for many decades to come."
Brashear, 75, died at the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth of respiratory and heart failure, the medical center said.
The son of poor sharecroppers in Sonora, Kentucky, Brashear joined the Navy in 1948 at the age of 17, shortly after its desegregation by the U.S. military.
"I went to the Army office, and they weren't too friendly," Brashear told The Associated Press in 2002. "But the Navy recruiter was a lot nicer. Looking back, I was placed in my calling."
After boot camp, Brashear set his sites upon becoming a deep-sea diver. In 1954 he was accepted and graduated from the diving program, despite daily encounters with discrimination, including having hate -notes left on his bunk. He went on to train for advanced diving programs, but an accident occurred in 1966 that caused a major setback.
He was assigned to recover a hydrogen bomb that dropped into waters off of Spain when two U.S. Air Force planes collided. During the mission Brashear was struck below his left knee by a pipe that the crew was using to hoist the bomb out of the water. Brashear was airlifted to a naval hospital where the bottom of his left leg was amputated to avoid gangrene. It later was replaced with a prosthetic leg.
The Navy wanted to retire Brashear from active duty, but he soon began a grueling training program that included diving, running and calisthenics.
"Sometimes I would come back from a run, and my artificial leg would have a puddle of blood from my stump. I wouldn't go to sick bay because they would have taken me out of the program," Brashear said in 2002 when he was inducted into the Gallery of Great Black Kentuckians. "Instead, I'd go hide somewhere and soak my leg in a bucket of hot water with salt in it -- that's an old remedy I learned growing up."
Eventually, Brashear became the first Navy diver to be restored to full active duty as an amputee. He finally retired from the Navy in 1979 after more than 30 years of service. His first wife, childhood friend Junetta Brashear, said his health began to decline about three years ago, but that he had experienced problems ever since the amputation.
Brashear married Junetta Wilcox in 1952 and had four children -- Shazanta, DaWayne, Phillip and Patrick -- before their divorce in 1978. He later married Hattie R. Elam and Jeanette A. Brundage. Funeral arrangements are pending.
