Kevin Locke and Anthony Taylor

[00:00] KEVIN LOCKE: Hi, my name is Kevin Locke. I'm 60 years old. Today is Thursday, May 20, 2021. And we're recording from Redmond, Washington, about 30 miles east of Seattle. I'm here today with Tony Taylor, who's a friend of mine for the past couple of years. Tony, go ahead.

[00:20] TONY TAYLOR: Yes, I'm Tony Taylor and I'm 81 years old. And today is the Thursday, May 30th. I mean, I'm sorry, May 20th, 2021. And we are in Redmond, Washington, and I'm sitting here with Kevin Locke, who's a good friend of mine and a fellow Navy veteran.

[00:47] KEVIN LOCKE: Tony, would you like to tell everybody how we met?

[00:51] TONY TAYLOR: Well, Kevin, as I remember it, I was driving through the community and I saw you going by on a bicycle. And what caught my eye was you had on a bicycle gear that said Navy on it in big blue and gold. And to me, I said, hey, there's a guy that I might know, or at least me. We may have gone to school together. So I quickly called out and said, hey, Navy. And you turned around your bike and came over to the side of my car. And I asked, you know, a little bit about where you were and what you'd been doing in the Navy. And I had thought possibly you'd been at the Naval Academy, because that's what caught my eye, because that was my alma mater is the Naval Academy. But you said, no, but I was in the Navy, and I spent a good number of years as a flight officer. And from there, the beginning. That was the beginning of this friendship. We started meeting pretty much regularly for the next past couple years. Till last year. Til last year. Then it slowed down. Whenever our wives would let us out, we would sneak out and have a coffee.

[02:03] KEVIN LOCKE: Well, I just got to thinking that we could maybe talk a little bit about your.

[02:11] TONY TAYLOR: Your history.

[02:13] KEVIN LOCKE: We met last year or. No, when was it? Was it three years ago?

[02:16] TONY TAYLOR: Two and a half years ago. Yeah.

[02:20] KEVIN LOCKE: And I actually, after. After meeting in the street, I tracked Tony down through the Naval Academy Alumni association, and that's how we kind of continued this thing going. But do you want to talk a little bit about your history in the Navy?

[02:36] TONY TAYLOR: Well, you know, Kevin, as I was telling you, I come from a Navy family. My father was in the Navy. My brother is also retired Navy. And as I was thinking about how the Navy has impacted my life, I kind of broke it down in five phases, which actually go back even as early as early childhood and right on up through my years at Naval Academy and during active duty, followed by Some time in the reserves. And so I thought what I'd do is maybe go through this in some sequence because there's a lot of history that really starts with the childhood aspect, mainly because of the impact that my father, a naval officer, is a submariner, had on me as inspiration from the time I. The youngest years that I can remember.

[03:35] KEVIN LOCKE: So can you remember when you first decided that you kind of wanted to go into the family business or.

[03:42] TONY TAYLOR: Well, it's, you know, I was born just a couple years before December 7, 1941. And at that time, December 7, my father was outfitting a brand new submarine, new fleet boat, submarine, to take it out to the Pacific, not knowing the day before that he was going to be going to war. But yet within a couple of months, he was underway heading to Pearl Harbor. And I was too young at that time to realize what it was. But while he was deployed in the Pacific during the war, my mother, my brother and I moved to Annapolis, Maryland, which is also the home where the Naval Academy is. And I was surrounded by Navy life there. And as I got a little bit older, by the time I was, you know, three, four, five years old, I became more and more aware that, hey, this whole thing about Navy Naval Academy, my father being in the Navy just sort of said, that's what I want to do when I grow up. And so that was the beginning of the impact of my father on me and going into the Navy.

[05:00] KEVIN LOCKE: And when did you actually start the process, seriously, for going into the Naval Academy? How old were you then?

[05:08] TONY TAYLOR: Well, I pretty much knew through, you know, my elementary school grades and high school that that was my goal. And so even going right into my final years of high school, I was already scheduled to take the exams to go to the Naval Academy. So, you know, here I was, you know, 16, 17 years old, and I was making those final steps. But all along, through all those years, you know, the inspiration was there. My brother had already gone to the academy. We had visited him while he was a midshipman. And again, that was more of the inspiration of what I wanted to do. How back.

[05:54] KEVIN LOCKE: How far back in your family's history does your military service go or the tradition of being in the service?

[06:01] TONY TAYLOR: Well, actually, it was with my father. My father came from Philadelphia and went to the Naval Academy and graduated in the class of 1927. And that was beginning of a career. And within a few years, he went to submarine school. And after that, he married my mother. And their first tour was in China, of all places. So this was all in the early 30s. So there was nobody before my father that I know of that was in a service. But that was the beginning of the tradition between my. My brother and myself, following in his footsteps.

[06:46] KEVIN LOCKE: And when did you get accepted to the Naval Academy?

[06:49] TONY TAYLOR: I was accepted. Let's see, I entered the Naval Academy in 61. And so I was there at the Academy. And it's a course of. By the time I graduated in 1964, I had a bachelor's degree in engineering with a minor in naval history.

[07:15] KEVIN LOCKE: Did you? It seems to me that going to the Naval Academy would kind of be a shock to most people, but you had a little bit of an advantage having a brother that had been there and a father that had been there. Did they kind of tell you what to expect and did it live up to those expectations?

[07:33] TONY TAYLOR: You know, it's interesting because a lot of my classmates, as in that first year where you enter the Academy and you go through the coming, what they call a plebe, and a lot of indoctrination, a little bit of light hazing here and there, some of the guys really got them down and they were struggling to get through it. But I think my inspiration was such that I didn't let it bother me. I didn't let it get me down. In fact, I really enjoyed it. I enjoy being able to spend the time at the Academy in sports and in social life and sailing, intramural crew, things like that. And, of course, a lot of that also goes back to those childhood years when we actually lived in Annapolis. And I would go over to the parade grounds there, and I would play out there. That was my play field on the parade grounds. And in fact, we were there when the war ended. VJ Day was actually the surrender in 15th of August, 1945. And I remember my mother taking me over to Tecumseh Court in front of the Bancroft hall, where all the midshipmen live, and there's this huge bonfire built there, and also this big bell that was. Had been donated by the Japanese many years before, and that was rung so much that the bell cracked. So it had a lot to do with just all that inspiration that had just stayed with me all those years.

[09:11] KEVIN LOCKE: So you got commissioned in 64. Where did you go? Where was your first duty station? And what did you do after the Naval Academy?

[09:18] TONY TAYLOR: Well, I had originally wanted to go into submarines, just as my father and my brother Pat had done. But at that time, to go into submarines, you had to have perfect 2020 vision. And my third year at the Academy, my vision had slipped to 20 30. And they said, no, Mr. Taylor, you just won't be able to go to submarines. What do you want to do now? So my first choice there was to go surface warfare. In other words, go aboard, whether it was a destroyer or cruiser. And my first duty was to a brand new guided missile cruiser out of Norfolk, Virginia. And that's where I reported for duty in the summer of 64.

[10:06] KEVIN LOCKE: Okay, and then. And what boat was that?

[10:09] TONY TAYLOR: That was the USS Harry E. Yarnell, named after an admiral from back during the World War I and post war eras. And he was a very well known naval officer at that time. But being a brand new guided missile cruiser at that time, was designated as a frigate, had an opportunity to deploy several times to the Mediterranean through the years. 64, 65, and then again in 66. And actually it was on the way back from that second deployment from the medium that I received orders to go to Vietnam.

[10:54] KEVIN LOCKE: So what was your path from leaving the ship to going over to Vietnam? And what did you do when you were in Vietnam?

[11:00] TONY TAYLOR: Well, the order said that I was to report first to Coronado, California for six weeks of training in Swift boats. Well, I didn't know what a swift boat was, nor did anybody on the ship know what a swift boat was. And it wasn't till we got back to Norfolk at the end of that deployment. And I found an article in Navy Times that showed a picture of a swift boat. And I said, oh, that's what I'm going to be doing. So it was a very interesting educational aspect of what it was going to be and the training that I'd be going through. And so by the time 66, the summer of 66 rolled around, I was already heading to Vietnam.

[11:48] KEVIN LOCKE: Can you tell us any stories of when you got to Vietnam that are funny stories or fun things that you did outside of your duty on the Swift boats?

[11:59] TONY TAYLOR: Well, it was a very demanding time. The Swift boats were nothing more than about a 50 foot craft, but with a lot of weapons on it. And there's a crew of five sailors and myself, I was the only officer on board. So I was what they referred to as the ONC officer in charge. And we would go on deployments for, or actually patrols for 24 hours at a time. And then we would be off for a day and then again, and it was, you know, it was challenging in that we were out there to patrol the coastline to keep the North Vietnamese from coming down the coast with weapons or smuggling troops in whatever it may be. And so these Patrols required us to stop not only these larger, what they call steel hall trawlers, which would be like a small cargo ship and making sure that they weren't carrying any contraband, but also we would stop these small little boats that the fishermen would be out there. And sometimes those small boats would also be carrying large sacks of rice. So we would have to actually go in these boats and check their ID cards, make sure that they, if there were men on there that they were older than or younger than a age to be in the military. And I can remember one time checking the ID card of a fisherman out there, very distinguished looking man, but it showed he was 98 years old. And I've always remembered him. In fact, I even have a photograph to this day of this 98 year old fisherman. But other times there were young mothers there with their babies and you know, it was all a part of the patrolling we would do. But some of the things also required a little bit of risk. If we got caught up in with our propellers in fishing nets, somebody had to go over the side and clear the nets. Well, I was the only one who was really a decent swimmer. So I was designated by myself to go over the side, dive under the boat with a knife, cut the nets away from our propellers and coming up. And I can remember several times that would happen at nighttime. And at nighttime that means we would have to put a searchlight into the water so I could see what was going on. But I'd also make sure that several of the sailors, crewmen had weapons standing by, keeping an eye out for sea snakes. Because in those waters, a lot of the snakes that swim there are poisonous snakes referred to sea snakes. So if they saw sea snake coming my way, they would tug on a line attached to my waist and, and pull me back aboard. And then there were other times I would come up from dive and I would be told, go back under the water. We're being fired at from shore by the enemy. And so I'd go to the other side of the boat to crawl back aboard. Then there were times that we had our hours off in port in Da Nang, which was our major port. And then another port that we worked out of was Chu Lai and down in Chulai, during our off hours we would get together and play sandlot football. And I remember one time that we were out there, another officer who was not in swift boats, but he was a supply officer in charge of the logistics of material coming into Chulai came out and says, hey, can I play ball with you? Well, that was Roger Staubach. Roger Staubach had been one year behind me at the Naval Academy, had earned a Heisman Trophy at the Naval Academy, and as many of us know, he went on to be a professional football player at Dallas and quite a legend at Dallas. So I can say that I got to play football with Roger Staubach, even if it was in the sand. And the only thing I can recall that was negative about it is that when he told me to go deep to catch a pass, I put my hands up to see that bullet coming towards me. It snapped my little finger to the point that I was for days bandaged up, because that little finger really hurt. But I never wanted to catch another ball from Roger Staubach.

[16:39] KEVIN LOCKE: How long were you was your tour in Vietnam?

[16:42] TONY TAYLOR: I was there a full year. We did have a break where we could go on R and R. So another classmate of mine from the Academy, he and I went up to Hong Kong for a week, which was fun. We got a lot of gifts at dirt cheap. A beautiful watch for my wife that, you know, made in Europe, would have cost me three times as much anywhere else. But in Hong Kong, you had all sorts of great deals and even ordered new uniforms and suits. So it was a good time.

[17:18] KEVIN LOCKE: What did you do after Vietnam? What was your next set of orders?

[17:21] TONY TAYLOR: Well, the tour in Vietnam was for a year, and I knew in the late spring of 67 that I'd be getting orders someday. Not sure where I'd be going, but really didn't have a chance to think a lot about it or even have a chance to talk to a detailer. The detailer is the officer back in Washington who decides who goes where. And since he couldn't get a hold of me, he placed a call to my wife, who was back home in Norfolk, Virginia, where she was staying during my deployment. And this detailer called her and says, this is so and so, and your husband is scheduled to have new orders coming up this summer. Do you think he would like to go to Hawaii? Well, my dear wife didn't hesitate. She said, of course I'd like to go to Hawaii, or he would like to go to Hawaii. So before I knew it, I had received orders to go to Hawaii to become an aide to a admiral out there, the Naval District admiral. And so after some post Vietnam leave, we went from Norfolk out to Pearl harbor, and we were there for several years. But unfortunately, the admiral that I was working for, after about six months, he, on a trip back to the mainland, had a heart attack and passed away. So suddenly I was an aide without a job, or in other words, an aide without an admiral. Well, coincidentally, during that time, there was a transfer of command at Commander in Chief Pacific Forces, which means that admiral is in command of all military personnel, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, throughout the Pacific theater. And so the change of command was on board a ship tied up there, and it was Admiral McCain, Admiral McCain, if the name is familiar with you, he's the father of the late Senator John McCain. Well, I had known the McCains going back to my childhood, actually, when Admiral McCain, at that time he was a young lieutenant commander, was being trained by my father in New London. And I got to know the McCains because they lived next door. In fact, besides John, who was my brother's buddy, the younger son Joe, became a buddy that I have known even to this day, probably longer than anybody else I've ever known. But anyway, I had the opportunity for Admiral McCain to come aboard as his aide, flag lieutenant. And from there, it was a fantastic another 18 months of travel back to Vietnam, to Korea, Thailand, Tokyo, trips back to Washington, D.C. for conferences to San Francisco. It just was a fantastic tour.

[20:42] KEVIN LOCKE: And what year was that, or what years were you Admiral McCain's?

[20:46] TONY TAYLOR: That was 67, 68. And then after that, I went back to the Newport, Rhode island, for six months of surface Warfare school, which prepared me to then go aboard another guided missile frigate out of Norfolk, where I was a communications officer. I was. Handled all of the. I'm sorry, not communications, operations officer. I was in charge of all the operations and keeping the captain of the ship prize of what we're going to be doing and all the different exercises that we would be involved in. And during that time, there was opportunity that actually my wife was able to come over to the Mediterranean, to Europe, and follow me from port to port. And so I would meet her maybe in Athens, Greece, for New Year's, or in conference for Christmas, or in Naples, Italy, in Malta. We just had a fantastic time meeting each other in the Mediterranean, different ports there.

[21:57] KEVIN LOCKE: Anybody else with you on that trip?

[21:59] TONY TAYLOR: Well, of course, on one of those, our sun was along that my wife brought along. But there were a number of classmates that I would meet when we were in port who were on other ships that were with us at that time.

[22:16] KEVIN LOCKE: And which ship were you stationed on during that time?

[22:20] TONY TAYLOR: Okay, that was the Dahlgren, USS Dahlgren. And that was another guided missile frigate. Again, a very interesting tour. In addition to being deployed to the Mediterranean, we also went up into the North Atlantic chasing Soviet submarines. Up above the Arctic Circle, because this was the height of the Cold War. So in addition, by being a Vietnam veteran, I was very much a Cold War veteran. And so a lot of our deployments in, whether it was on the Yarnel or the Dahlgren, was keeping track of the Soviet ships, especially Soviet submarines, ensuring that they stayed away from our forces and didn't do anything that would cause harm or be in question.

[23:07] KEVIN LOCKE: Okay, what did you do after that tour?

[23:12] TONY TAYLOR: After that tour, came back, had another chance to have what we call shore duty. And in Norfolk. And I worked at the Navy's Test and Evaluation force there in Norfolk, where I had several projects, test evaluation forces, where the Navy says, okay, we have a new piece of equipment that we want to test out before we put it into the fleet or a new type of vessel. We want to check out this, what we really want to have as a part of our future fleet. And my main job there was having to do with do we want to have a new type of patrol vessel similar to the Swift boats. And this was the era that they were testing out hydrofoil craft. In fact, one of the craft was built here in Boeing. And I remember coming out here to Seattle and talking to the engineers and having a chance to discuss the potential of these boats being patrol boats for future patrols in what we call the Greenwater Navy, in other words, near the shoreline.

[24:24] KEVIN LOCKE: How'd they turn out?

[24:26] TONY TAYLOR: Well, the two boats that they did build were tested and put into a deployment for a while, but it just turned out to be not to be a practical vessel to have in the service. And so eventually they were retired. And by the time I left Optav4, they'd gone on to other projects. So that was my last tour on the active duty side.

[24:53] KEVIN LOCKE: So then what'd you do?

[24:55] TONY TAYLOR: Well, I then left active duty Navy, but said, hey, I still want to be a part of the Navy. So went up to Washington, D.C. area and joined a Naval Reserve. And in fact, I was in Naval Reserve for about another 15 years or so. And the job that I had as a civilian, because I was my being a naval reservist, you're not working full time Navy, you're working one, two weeks a year of active duty, and the rest of time, a couple times a month, you meet with your reserve unit. But initially he was assigned to go to a company, Northrop Corporation, that had a contract with the Navy on the new upcoming Trident submarines, the next generation of submarines at that time. And my boss at that at Northrop happened to be the son of a Very dear friend and classmate of my father back at the Naval Academy in 1927. In fact, just to step back a little bit, my father, at the end of the war, even though he had been in submarines for the first part of the war and very highly decorated, towards the end of the war, he went aboard the USS Missouri, which was Admiral Halsey's flagship for Third Fleet. And he was there for the signing of the surrender on September 2, 1945, in Tokyo Bay. And my father being a part of Halsey's staff, Admiral Halsey said, hey, Captain Taylor, we want you to go ashore, locate where the Japanese have been holding the POWs that they've captured, who were all submariners that were captured by the Japanese during the war. So my father went ashore, he located the POW camp, repatriated them. But the highlight of that was repatriating one of his roommates from the Naval Academy. And that roommate was the father of the man that I, as a reservist and now a civilian in Washington, D.C., was working for that sun. So we had a lot in common. And that made all that, that part of my life all the more interesting. And then from that, I went to Rockwell International and worked on another project having to do with the Aegis ships, which are also a part of the next generation and have become the current generation of cruisers and destroyers. And all this was related to test and evaluation, in other words, using the history and the expertise that I picked up at my last tour in the Navy. So that was all very interesting. And then, of course, there's. The other side of it was being as reservists. As a Naval reservist, I joined a unit of six naval officers. It was just. The Reserve unit had just been formed, and we were assigned to the Pentagon to the. Working for the Chief of Naval Operations. And I was assigned to an organization there for plans and policy for the Navy in Europe and in NATO. And so I would go over there to the Pentagon about once a week for four or five hours. Had my own desk. I sit down, work on position papers. I would brief admirals. I would be there for military exercises in the command center. And then when it came time for my annual active duty, I was often sent to Europe. Once to Brussels to work at the NATO headquarters for two weeks. Another time in Stuttgart working to the commander of U.S. forces Europe. I was in Portugal during a worldwide naval exercise where I worked in the command center. So all of my active duty and all the operations that I did during the Reserves here at the Pentagon was just very inspiring and again, a part of that whole realm of the five phases of my Navy life.

[29:24] KEVIN LOCKE: What did you do outside the Navy when you weren't during the Reserves? What was your regular job?

[29:30] TONY TAYLOR: Well, my regular job was when I was working for initially Northrop and then Rockwell and the contracts that we had when I was working on the Trident program and the Aegis program. They were all under a contract that those companies had with the Naval Sea Systems Command right there in Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia. So my time was spent mostly working with my Navy counterpart in those offices on test and evaluation plans and projects and working and supporting the office and the Admiral who headed up those projects and preparing presentations and program projects that needed somebody to put together point papers or presentations to move up the line like to the Chief of Naval Operations. So that was again a dual hatted thing as far as my working as a civilian for the Navy and at the same time being a reservist in the Navy. So those last two phases of my Navy life were pretty much in parallel.

[30:50] KEVIN LOCKE: What was the most fun time during your time in the service?

[30:53] TONY TAYLOR: In my time in the service. Active duty? Yeah, I think. Well, I think the most memorable time really was being as a young naval officer. At that time I was Lieutenant JG, which is the second lowest rank as a naval officer. Being in command of a patrol boat in Vietnam, having that responsibility. There were many times that there was a lot of action. There were times that we were able to intercept some of these seals steel haul trawlers and capture them. And essentially the crews of those boats trawlers would disappear into the jungles after going ashore and we would capture their trawler where there were a lot of weapons and supplies in there. And you know, doing that along with your fellow swift boats sailors and officers and also other destroyers working with you, it was just a great part of being a young officer in that. And then I guess second to that was the responsibility of working with somebody like Admiral McCain, a four star admiral, and being able to again travel through, back through the Pacific and to Washington and being part of these high level conferences and partaking as an aid to the Admiral in these conferences. And again, even at the Pentagon as a reservist where I was working in the plans and policy for NATO and Europe, I would often be again in a lot of classified conferences with admirals and giving presentations there. So there was a lot of inspiration all the way through to the very end. And you know, when I retired as a Navy captain, it was only because that as a reservist who were just running out of what they call pay billets to pay reservists at that time. And so that's when I retired from the active duty as the captain.

[33:05] KEVIN LOCKE: And what did you do after you retired from the navy?

[33:08] TONY TAYLOR: Well, I then continued to work. I was still working my civilian job with the Naval Seas System Command under contract with the Aegis program. But after a few years, these were the early days of personal computers. And I had helped my son, who was about 13 at the time, to buy his first computer, which was an Apple 2. And I was fascinated with these personal computers. And I probably spent more time on it than he did, to the point that I got so wrapped into it. And at that time, Apple didn't have stores. They had no real distribution of their new computers other than in a general computer store. We could go in whether you bought a Dell or an Apple or an Atari or whatever it may be. And so I saw, hey, there's an opportunity here. And I just saw, decided to open up under contract with Apple, a store which, where I could sell Apple products to the public, but also primarily I was selling them to government agencies, to the Navy, to the people that I've been working with, to offices up on Capitol Hill. I even was out with the CIA helping them set up their new imacs, not Imax, they were just the Mac pluses at that time and working with the, you know, National Geographic in the early days within were their computers and with USA Today, a newspaper company. So again I was created this store, but it's same time was finding that my customers were, you know, as interesting as the people that I had been working with in the Navy. So I did that for 10 years until I sold that business. And it did very well. And I was located right in Crystal City in the heart of where all the Navy operations are and the shipbuilding and the naval aircraft plans and policies are. So it was again a great way to finish off my professional career.

[35:34] KEVIN LOCKE: Did you ever meet Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak?

[35:38] TONY TAYLOR: No, but at that time there were a lot of Apple fairs of sorts that took place annually. One up in Boston, usually one back in San Francisco that I would attend. And I know at one time during, I guess it was up in Boston, I didn't meet Steve Jobs, but I did see him in the crowds. And in fact, I think I also remember seeing Bill Gates coming through there. Of course, he was a young kid at Microsoft, but he had some interest in what Apple was doing.

[36:17] KEVIN LOCKE: That's really Neat.

[36:19] TONY TAYLOR: And so from that, life's changed a little bit. I retired. Our son by that time was married and living out here in Seattle and expecting a family. And now it's the what brought us out here to the Seattle area where my wife and I have now been retired and enjoying our life and meeting people like you and other neighbors and, you know, moving on with a good life.

[36:52] KEVIN LOCKE: Tony's also the neighborhood Apple genius here.

[36:57] TONY TAYLOR: Oh, that's right. When I came out here, I moved into a community which is what referred to as a 55 plus to live in this nice community. It's mostly for retirees who are at least 55 years or older and they have a clubhouse in different clubs, whether for, you know, tennis or bridge or whatever. But I, with my background in Apple computers, I decided to start a user group, an Apple user group or that we would meet once a month and there was a lot of interest and so a lot of people would come into the conference room and I put on a presentation for an hour or so about the latest new projects or the new products or the software or how to do it or help them learn how to do it. And I did that for, gosh, about eight years until I kind of burned out. And my wife was saying, you're spending too much time preparing a one hour project where I was spending maybe five or, I mean, about 15 hours just to prepare that. But I did that a good number of years. And I still help people in the community even today. And if they've got a call, an issue, they give me a call and I either help them out over at their house or online.

[38:24] KEVIN LOCKE: That's pretty neat. Anything else you're doing with your time these days?

[38:29] TONY TAYLOR: Oh, I'm also the guy that the go to guy here in the community if some, somebody wants to downsize and get rid of old furniture or old computers or iPhones or whatever it may be. So I've become the person that, hey, hey, Tony, will you help me sell my, you know, antique clock or my old iPad or whatever it may be? So I help people sell things on either Craigslist or offer up sites and that kind of keeps me busy. Just on the side is something to do. And of course, I also am still very much involved with my classmates. The Naval Academy. We meet about every five years for reunions back in Annapolis and a number of times in between we'll meet at someone's house, whether it's in South Carolina or in Maine or in Virginia, and one time out here for a long weekend of get together. And even now, I've become the point of contact for my company at the Naval Academy in that I prepare newsletters and keep them up to date as what's going on. In fact, we're planning to have in about three weeks a our first zoom meeting of our company mates. And we're all going to get together on a zoom and have a little zoom Bap. BAP is our designator for.

[40:11] KEVIN LOCKE: Can'T say that on radio.

[40:13] TONY TAYLOR: Anyway, it's a forgetting it's a big A party. A big a party. And so, you know, doing things like that keep me busy. So being retired at 81 years old, I am not at a loss for things to do. I get together with you at least probably once a month. I mean, once a week for coffee or coming over to your place and you've got your projects where you're building fences and you're building, you know, a shed and you want to convert an old Morris into a little mobile home, whatever it may be. So I keep busy. We keep busy, and we enjoy our good life.

[40:58] KEVIN LOCKE: Well, thanks a lot for doing this. I appreciate it. And thanks to the folks at StoryCorps for letting us record this.

[41:05] TONY TAYLOR: And thank you. Thank you, Kevin.