Fixing breakfast better than submarine duty

Robert Gregory, a Korean War veteran, with his wife of 62 years, Gardenia.

“A friend of mine, he graduated high school a year before I did. He came up to school one day and said, ‘They’re fixin’ to draft me. Let’s go and join something.’

“There were four of us who went to the Naval Reserve place in Houston. We all signed up for submarines and took their knowledge test. But because my friend walked in his sleep, the Navy wouldn’t take him.

“So instead, he went and joined the Air Force. They were looking for somebody to be a mess cook for General (Curtis) LeMay, who was head of the Air Force back in that time, the whole works. After he took their test, they came over to Crosby to check out everything about him. He passed and they sent him straight up there to Washington.

“He ended up staying in the Pentagon for four years and never did a darn thing except get up in the morning and fix LeMay’s breakfast. That was all he did, while we were down in those submarines.”

— Robert Gregory