Cameron Knight

cknight@enquirer.com

Segregation may have kept retired Master Chief William Goines from using Lockland's only public pool, but it didn't stop him from learning to swim and eventually joining the first teams of Navy SEALs.

Goines was a junior at Lockland Wayne High School when he saw a film that depicted Navy frogmen, who performed underwater demolition operations during World War II.

"My fate was sealed right there. That's exactly what I wanted to do," Goines said. Soon after, he headed to a Navy recruiter, who said he should graduate before he enlisted. Goines said this was fine because he knew his mother would never let him drop out of school.

After receiving his diploma, Goines enlisted in the Navy in 1955. The list of his achievements while serving the country for 32 years includes the Bronze Star, the Navy Commendation Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, a Combat Action Ribbon and the Presidential Unit Citation.

However, Goines' life had humble beginnings. Born in 1936 in Dayton, he moved with his family to Lockland as a young child.

"My mother was strictly a home wife," Goines said. "My father worked in the automobile industry. He worked in Oldsmobile doing menial jobs. He didn't have any engineering skills, but my father could pass for white."

His father also worked in a pool hall as a second job and at one point was co-owner of a gas station, but Goines said he often got fired from jobs.

"Not because they thought he was black, but he was married to a black woman with three children," Goines said.

Despite this, Goines said his father was an excellent provider, especially for a man born in 1897 about 30 years after the end of the Civil War. During the era of his childhood, Goines said the war still echoed through the country and segregation was the norm.

"When I was growing up, I never knew there was a public swimming pool in Lockland. ... We were never allowed to swim in that pool," he recalled. "When integration came to the area, the way I understand it, they filled the pool in with rocks and gravel so nobody could swim in it."

Goines learned to swim — a skill that would be crucial when he joined the Navy — in a nearby creek and the Little Miami River. However, he did remember occasionally traveling with his family to a pool in Hartwell.

"They allowed black kids to swim there on Saturdays only from 8 o'clock to 12 o'clock," he said. "At 12 o'clock the whistle blew, and we were out of the pool, and they would drain it and get it ready for the white kids."

Goines said he found a more-even playing field in the Navy, but race still held many African-Americans back.

"They tracked all African-Americans to go into the steward rating, which was waiting on officers, cooking for officers," he said. "They tried to track me into that, but I had a guy in my hometown in Lockland who said, 'Whatever you do, don't accept a school for stewards because all you're going to be is a servant for officers.'"

With that advice, Goines took a different path, and he said once he started serving in the Navy, his skills were recognized and rewarded.

After being promised training in his dream field of underwater demolition, Goines' plans were changed by his superiors and he was sent to Malta. After 11 months in what he called "a paradise," he was sent back to begin the hardest training of his life.

Goines began frogman training with five Army Rangers, two foreign Naval officers, four U.S. Navy officers and 85 other Navy enlisted men. After three weeks, Goines said all the Rangers and one of the foreign officers had dropped out. By the end, he was one of the 13 men left standing, graduating from training in 1957

Then in 1962, President John F. Kennedy had begun to form the first two SEAL teams: SEAL Team One on the West Coast and SEAL Team Two on the East Coast. After individual interviews with superiors, Goines was one of 40 men chosen to join SEAL Team Two. He was the only African-American on either team.

It's worth noting that Fred "Tiz" Morrison is often also given the honor of being the first African-American Navy SEAL. According to Navy records, Morrison served on the Navy's underwater demolition teams during World War II. While Morrison's service pre-dates Goines, it appears that he wasn't actually a part of the first official SEAL teams in 1957.

"It was so secret back then, they wouldn't even tell us what we were going to do," Goines said, but he decided to join what was destined to become one of the most well-known special forces teams in the world.

In the infancy of the SEALs, Goines said the emphasis was on combining all the best training from all the branches of the military. He completed 43 different training schools.

From the Air Force, SEALs learned Judo, Aikido, and skills for escape and evasion. From the Army, they learned jungle warfare, kitchen table demolition, skydiving and weapons training. The Marines taught them reconnaissance, how to capture enemies and how to rescue fellow seamen. The Coast Guard showed them how to escape from plane and helicopter crashes over water. SEALs attended the Ranger School, as well.

Then, Goines said, the work continued. After attending a school, they returned with their new knowledge and formed lesson plans for their fellow SEALs. Now, Goines said, SEALs have the benefit of learning their skills in-house, but in the early days, they pulled knowledge from wherever they could.



"SEAL Team was formed to collect information, then act on it itself," Goines explained.

Once in action, Goines' story makes Forrest Gump look lazy. In the early '60s, he found himself in the middle of the Cold War.

"I was selected to be one of the first to go into Cuba during the Cuban Crisis," Goines said. "We were on ships just sailing around the Cuban country waiting to make a landing there."

A full-scale invasion never took place, which Goines said he thought was the right choice.

"I spent three tours in Vietnam with SEAL teams. I went twice with platoons," he said.

Goines explained SEAL platoons were made up of 14 men but didn't go into the specifics of their missions there.

"I went one time by myself where I was in charge of gun-carrying Vietnamese. Some of them had deserted from the VietCong," he said. "All I had around me were Vietnamese and translators."

Though fluent in French and Spanish, Goines said the combat situations made it hard to learn Vietnamese.

"But, I did teach some of my Vietnamese interpreters how to speak Spanish so we could talk over the radio and, hopefully, none of the Vietnamese communists could understand Spanish," he said.

As Goines was preparing to go on a fourth tour in Vietnam, he was pulled off by his superiors.

"I was yanked out of the platoon at the last minute because they needed a Spanish-speaking person to go to a different country that spoke Spanish," he said, leaving out the name of the country and any other details about what happened next.

During all of his missions, Goines was never seriously injured; however, his doctors have said Agent Orange may be responsible for the prostate cancer he endured. He said he also contracted some diseases in Vietnam.

"I had a fungus on one of my fingers and they thought they were going to have to take one of my fingers off during my first trip to Vietnam," he said. "I was blessed and got back safely from all of those."

The worst injury Goines suffered was in the United States. In 1976, he was selected to become part of the Chuting Stars, a U.S. Navy Parachute Demonstration Team. He performed 640 jumps during his five years on the team. During one jump in Pennsylvania, he landed wrong on a hill and "smashed all the cartilage" in his knees.

Goines found his love for parachuting earlier in his career. He attended HALO training, which stands for high altitude, low opening. He said in those days there was a lot of experimentation. He and his fellow SEALs jumped from dozens of planes that soared as high as 30,000 feet and flew as fast as 300 mph.

"We jumped out of everything," he said. "We even jumped out of balloons in France and Belgium, just experimenting."

In 1987, Goines retired from the Navy as a Master Chief Petty Officer.

"I got out of the Navy after 32 years. I could have stayed longer, but I couldn't really keep up with everybody else," he said. "They didn't really expect me to keep up since I was Master Chief, but peer pressure will make you hurt yourself."

After leaving the Navy, he went on to become the chief of police for the school system of Portsmouth, Virginia, where he now lives. He said this job was a harder than combat.

"I tried to get some SEALs that were retiring to come and work for me and most of them said, 'If you're carrying a weapon or a billy club or handcuffs or pepper spray, I'm not coming over there,'" he said. "It was interesting work, though."

After another 14 years, Goines retired from that job and began doing recruiting for the SEALs to attempt to improve diversity. He said few minorities go in the Navy, and few try out for the SEALs.

At 79 years old, Goines is now the oldest member of his family. This Memorial Day, he returned to Lockland with his wife of 51 years, Marie Davis. He was joined by nearly 170 family members, though he has no children of his own.

Looking forward, Goines is excited about opening Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture.

On Sept. 24, two weeks after his 80th birthday, Goines will be honored at the museum on the day it opens. He said President Barack Obama is scheduled to cut the ribbon. The museum has been in the planning and construction process for 13 years. Goines was told he would be honored two years ago.

"I'm excited to go up and celebrate the opening. I've enjoyed my life immensely," he said. "Of all the things that I've been through, I don't regret anything."