It turned out, however, that these three men didn’t deserve the blame. The basic price of the ashtrays had been set by the Navy supply system via agreement with the contractor. Lehman’s actions were unjust. The affected officers never had a chance to present their side of the issue or to appeal the decision handed down by the secretary.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
MISSION COMPLETE
With these events, coupled with my inclination—some call it drive—to give 100 percent to the Navy, I had entered into the terrible danger zone of burnout.
IN FEBRUARY 1985 I FLEW TO PENSACOLA for my annual “ex-POW” physical. Those of us who had been incarcerated were part of a research program led by Capt. Bob Mitchell, a wonderful doctor who really worried about and took care of us with respect to what happened to our minds and bodies in prison. I’d been “BuPers” for two years at the time. I got high marks on my physical, and I felt really good despite the frustrations I was encountering in my job.
A month later, however, I started feeling ill. My energy was sapped, I had difficulty concentrating, and I was bewildered by what the cause was. I figured time would take care of it and pressed on with the multitude of my responsibilities.
This was the wrong decision. I got progressively worse. I made a huge mistake in not going back to Pensacola to see Doc Mitchell. I felt I could “gut this situation out.” Months went by, my energy level never improved, and it became more and more difficult to concentrate. One thing driving me was that Adm. Jim Watkins, then CNO, told me I was to become the next vice CNO, the number two post in the Navy and a four-star assignment. Furthermore, he said I would be his first choice to succeed him as CNO.
I checked in at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, for evaluation. I stayed at Bethesda for two weeks and was described as in a state of depression, but no one could specifically identify the cause for this. I later learned that I had suffered what is call clinical depression and psycho motor shutdown. Admiral Watkins, the CNO, visited me several times at the hospital. I knew everyone was pulling for me to make a complete recovery. I also realized my recovery might take a long time. The CNO’s executive assistant, my friend and former executive assistant Mike Boorda, kept track of how I was progressing via communications with my aide, Lt. (later Capt.) Ray Donahue. It became apparent that a new chief of naval personnel was going to have to be brought in.
Admiral Watkins telephoned me at the hospital and explained that because of my medical condition and the pressing matters at hand, he really had no choice but to bring in a replacement for me. This was incredibly difficult for him to do because we had had such a great relationship and were solid friends who deeply respected each other. This decision was as devastating as it was necessary. I told the CNO that I understood completely and it was time for me to retire.
Diane was waiting in the hall outside my room at Bethesda with my aide, Ray Donahue. Both were obviously shaken by the event and did their very best to console me. Diane stayed with me for many hours before driving back to our home.
Exacerbating this reality was the supreme disappointment—and embarrassment—of not being able to do what the Navy wanted me to do. I believed I let down many who had supported me all these years, Adm. Tom Moorer in particular.
Rear Adm. David Harlow, commander Naval Personnel Command, ably held the fort at the Bureau of Personnel in my absence, with help from my deputy, Rear Adm. Larry Burkhart. My eventual relief was Vice Adm. Dudley Carlson.
I thus retired from the Navy in February 1986, and we settled into the home we had purchased while I was superintendent at the Naval Academy, a large, lovely, two-story house overlooking the Severn River in Crownsville, Maryland. Some remodeling was needed, so Diane and I sequestered ourselves in a couple of rooms upstairs, even doing some cooking in a bathroom, as the carpenters did their thing. The pressures of the job had dissipated, but in my morose condition, I was operating at no better than 50 percent efficiency. My loyal friend, Ross Perot, an American patriot of unparalleled devotion to our country and particularly to all POWs, took an intense interest in my well-being. He arranged and endowed a “Chair of Leadership and Ethics” at the Naval Academy, and I was installed to fill it. It primarily entailed giving lectures to members of the senior class on aspects of leadership and ethics. This was a godsend, because it gave me something to do and kept me close to the school that I loved. Frankly, I wasn’t capable of doing much else.
I continued medical treatment, with mixed results. I thought I was getting better in the summer of 1988. But Ross felt I needed even more help and insisted I visit the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, renowned as the top mental health facility in the country. It was not a short visit. I was there for nearly a year and seemed to get better. I developed better control of my mind, enough so that I tried to analyze what triggered the breakdown.
I recognized that my difficulties with John Lehman may have been a contributing factor to my illness. Conversely, frustrations are part of any job, at any level in the chain of command. I worked up a tabulation of the number of “days off” I had throughout my Navy career. There was a paucity of them. Of course in the POW camp there is no day off, and when I returned to the United States, I was fortunate to be assigned great jobs with challenging responsibilities that precluded taking much time off. Indeed, from the early 1960s to 1985, I don’t think I took more than week or so leave, total. In retrospect, I considered what had happened to me—the incarceration, the divorce, having to take charge of the kids, and the Navy’s generosity in putting me on the fast track toward great and challenging duty assignments that entailed favorable possibilities of promotion despite my six-year hiatus. With these events, coupled with my inclination—some call it drive—to give 100 percent to the Navy, I had entered into the terrible danger zone of burnout.
In retrospect, I accepted the fact that I always worked harder than was necessary, a costly deficiency.
My depression was more difficult to handle than those years in Hanoi. I was subject to various medications, some of which did more harm than good, but eventually my mental health improved. Still, no cause could be found for what ignited my illness, and I still wasn’t up to full battery. Back home after the Menninger experience, I had a cyst cut off my tongue at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Unfortunately, this led to a condition called subacute bacterial endocarditis, exacerbated by a lack of antibiotics. This led to intravenous antibiotic treatment at Bethesda for five long weeks, which didn’t do my depression any good.
I thank God for Diane, who has stood by me with what she calls her “Pennsylvania girl toughness” through this whole ordeal. Her strength is amazing. Her patience endless. Which brings up a philosophical matter that in recent years has held special meaning for me. I’ve given many speeches and done considerable writing during my retirement. I’ve had numerous occasions to address midshipmen at the Academy. I believe love of country and love of God are critical. In those talks I also presented four components for happiness. The first is a proud, close-knit family. The second is solid friendships. The third is a good reputation fortified by self-esteem—and you can only acquire a good reputation and self-esteem by doing worthwhile things. The fourth is good health. Easily said, not so easily achieved. Please note; money didn’t make the list.
I feel immensely lucky in that I have struggled against and defeated severe bitterness born of a divorce while in captivity and a professional career cut short as I was approaching its zenith. Had I remained sullen and angry over these setbacks, I would consider myself a loser. We live near my beloved alma mater and root for all of Navy’s athletic teams, particularly the football squad, with a fervor as great now as when I played many years ago. I couldn’t ask for better, more loving, and more accomplished children. Diane is at my side as the greatest partner anyone could hope for. I look back on my Navy experience with undying pride. And I am convinced I did the very best I could to serve my country.
EPILOGUE
By Diane Wilcox Lawrence
MY LOVE STORY WITH BILL LAWRENCE really began in the spring of 1973, when our Vietnam POWs returned home to their families. Some knew they had lost their wives and children because of divorce, remarriage, or alienation. Others did not know their marriages had ended until they were officially told the devastating news when they reached the Philippines, the first stop on the way home. Bill Lawrence was one of these men.
I volunteered my services as a physical therapist to help John McCain, a well-known returning POW, restore movement in his severely injured and essentially immobile knee, shattered during bailout of his aircraft when he was shot down over Hanoi. John was a wonderful, witty patient, who withstood unrelenting, aggressive treatment during two-hour sessions twice a week. We became close friends, even though John delighted in telling all who would listen that I was his “physical terrorist.”
In May 1974 John took his physical exam in Pensacola, demonstrating to the flight surgeons that after nine months of rehab, his formerly frozen knee now had the mobility required for him to fly. He passed, and I cried.
A few months after repatriation, John and Bill received orders to the National War College in Washington, D.C. Although the two had been cellmates for a time in Hanoi, they became even closer friends while at the college. John knew about Bill’s divorce and was hell-bent on becoming a matchmaker. He thought Bill and I would be perfect for each other.
“My physical therapist is just the lady,” John told Bill.
To me he coaxed, “Hey, Honey, you’ve got to meet Bill Lawrence. What more could anyone want than intelligence and Boy Scout character?”
Because of professional commitments, both Bill and I resisted meeting. In addition to working at the National War College and pursuing a master’s degree at George Washington University, Bill was traveling to Nashville every other weekend to supervise his children’s school performance and to continue to reestablish his bond with them, which had been interrupted during his six years in captivity. My business partner and I were expanding our physical rehabilitation business in Northern Virginia.
Bill and I finally agreed to meet at an evening dinner party on December 19, 1973, at John and Carol McCain’s home. Several other POWs and their wives were guests. Not a chatty guy, Bill expressed his thoughts intelligently and succinctly. I was impressed that whenever he did speak, his friends seemed to want to listen. In return, Bill showed a special kindness toward his comrades—most of them younger than he.
The evening went wonderfully, and as we walked to our cars during the heavy snowstorm, I demonstrated to this Tennessee boy some Yankee know-how by extricating his blocked car from a snowdrift. Romance and love blossomed and led to our marriage in August of that year in Lemoore, California. John McCain knew what he was doing. Bill and I were right for each other.
When, not by choice, my husband had to step down from duty in the naval service he loved for more than forty years, he nevertheless kept active. He was a part-time senior consultant for the Carlyle Group. He became president of the Association of Naval Aviation (ANA), and he served in that capacity from 1991 to 1994, boosting ANA’s membership by persuading a large number of active-duty officers to join this organization. ANA (the title of the organization was changed in 2005 to the Naval Aviation Foundation) educates the public, Department of Defense, and Congress on the value and importance of Bill’s beloved naval aviation.
In the mid-1990s, Bill and journalist Frank Aukofer wrote a well-received book titled The Relationship between the Military and the Media. Since the coauthors were a journalist and a military officer, they were dubbed “The Odd Couple.” Frank later wrote, “Among other things, it recommended the embedding of reporters with military units which is practiced to this day.”
Bill did a lot of work in support of the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA). For the USNA Alumni Association he traveled the country briefing alumni chapters on the status of affairs at the school. For four years he wrote “Capitol Hill,” a column on congressional matters, for Shipmate magazine, the association’s monthly publication. When Ross Perot established a “Leadership Chair” at the Academy, Bill became its principal lecturer for several years. He was an official with the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame, Inc., and also a consultant to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. He served on the boards of directors of several corporations. The list could go on.
In 1995 Bill suffered a massive stroke as a result of heart surgery to replace a slightly leaking aortic valve. Paralyzed in his left arm and left leg, half of him was gone. One of his shipmates told me, “Fifty percent of Bill Lawrence is better than 100 percent of any other man I’ve ever known.” Yet, even the medical staff gave little hope of survival. Bill’s good friend Ross Perot even flew to the Naval Hospital in Bethesda to make sure his longtime friend was receiving all possible care.
Bill Lawrence’s life hung in the balance, and we were advised to prepare for a funeral. Selfishly, I suppose, I asked myself, “What in the world will I do without Bill Lawrence?”
I began thinking about pallbearers, cremation, and the ultimate dark side of human existence. But after four weeks of tubes, monitors, and twenty-four-hour medical supervision, Bill, who had survived being a prisoner of war, didn’t die. His strong spirit and body beat the incredible odds. Although in a wheelchair and enfeebled, he was allowed to return home, his left side still almost useless. Ironically, and thankfully, his speech and intelligence were fully intact. We no longer talked about a funeral.
We set up our large kitchen like a well-equipped rehab department. A trusted therapist and friend helped, and we put Bill through an intensive program of therapy six hours a day, seven days a week, for four months. Bill cooperated. “Just get me so I can walk again,” he said, “and I’m not going to use a cane.” Later he admitted, “A lot of it was exhausting and I hated doing it all day after day, but I knew I had to give it my best shot if I was going to get better.” He never complained. He was a perfect patient.
Bill eventually became well enough to travel with a companion, and in his last years made a number of trips to functions that were dear to him, like the National Football Hall of Fame meetings in New York, the National Museum of Naval Aviation Symposia in Pensacola, Golden Eagles meetings, and Navy football and basketball games. Capt. Ed Wallace, executive director of the Naval Academy Foundation, told me, “We all know Bill Lawrence’s blood runs blue and gold.”
The writing of this autobiography was also a tonic. Putting his memoirs in order gave him a strong sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. It’s amazing how, despite all his stroke-related travail, he continued to have vivid and accurate recall of all aspects and interests of his life. He was a walking repository of facts about history, political issues, presidencies, world geography, football scores and plays—all fixed indelibly in his mind.
Bill especially remained current on matters that had an impact on the Navy. He was a regular at Navy football and basketball games, attended professional symposia, sat in on biweekly lectures at the Naval Academy given by his friend and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., and participated in various Academy luncheons and dinners, particularly those related to athletics and professional ethics. Bill maintained contact with a multitude of friends and classmates. One, Pete Hill, wrote to our son, “There were few like him in industry—and fewer in government. He was a cut above the rest of us.”
Noontime on December 2, 2005, his clothes laid out in preparation for the bus trip he would take to the Army-Navy football game the next day, Bill died in his bed. He had said only that he had a headache and just wanted to rest a bit.
His funeral at the U.S. Naval Academy chapel was held on December 14, the altar aglow with candles, two magnificent Christmas trees, and an abundance of glorious poinsettias. The Naval District Washington, D.C., Honor Guard carried Bill’s ashes, contained in a polished wooden box, to the altar. Sixteen honorary pallbe
arers of family and close friends followed them. More than twenty-five hundred people came to honor Bill Lawrence, including twenty-five former Vietnam POWs, classmates, loyal friends, and bereaved family.
Capt. Alan Baker, senior chaplain at the Academy, gave the opening blessing and invocation. Then we stood to sing “A Mighty Fortress.”
In respect, the guests stood as Ross Perot read a letter addressed to me from the president of the United States, and then Ross gave his own personal words of tribute to his beloved friend. Chaplain Baker spoke the prayer for comfort and illumination. Our children, nieces, and nephews read from scripture, and the Naval Academy Glee Club sang from the antiphonal choir loft “There Is a Balm in Gilead” and the Welch hymn, “God Who Mad’st Earth and Heaven.”
Bill’s physicians, as well as former POW Capt. Edwin A. “Ned” Shuman III, USN (Ret.), and Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the current chief of naval operations, gave words of tribute and remembrance. Then, up to the lectern marched Mrs. Lipscomb Davis, Bill’s ninety-three-year-old fourth grade teacher. She recited a poem Bill had written in her class and read from “Oh Tennessee, My Tennessee,” composed by Bill while in solitary confinement in the Hanoi Hilton. This poem was designated the State Poem of Tennessee by Act of State Legislature in 1973, and it concludes with heart-wrenching words:
And o’er the world as I may roam,
No place exceeds my boyhood home.
And, oh how much I long to see
My Native land, my Tennessee.
The chaplain noted that at the end of World War II, the nation knew America needed more than superior military might and advanced military technology in order to thrive. “We needed men and women of exceptional character and uncommon integrity. Bill Lawrence had those qualities in abundance; they were the cornerstones of his life and his performance as a military leader.”
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