Bluejacket: A Sailor's Life

by Chet Bright, Derek Turner

Chet Bright faced the prospect of death on the water many times – during World War II, Korea and Vietnam – but in the end the sea was his savior. The son of a West Texas cowboy, he ran away at seventeen to join the military after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Aboard a destroyer during World War II, as a frogman with the Navy's elite Underwater Demolition Teams in Korea and later as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal expert, Bright found himself anchored to life on the water. It thrilled him and it scarred him, but he could not untether himself from the adventure it promised. Bluejacket is the story of those adventures, from his time at war to his post-military years sailing the Caribbean in a boat built from a shell in his back yard. He gave his life to the sea. In return, it gave him these memories.

214 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2012

Reviews

[Tony Latham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I expected this book to be a detailed account of the early days of the Navy's Underwater Demolition Teams but it's not. It is really an autobiography of a man that put many years in the U.S. Navy and moved on and into retirement but remained connected to the sea. Chet Bright's book does detail UDT operations during the Korean War and I was amazed the Navy basically gave Bright some new equipment and allowed him to learn the craft with on-the-job training. Frankly he's lucky he survived. It is a well written easy read and a flat-out good story. –Tony Latham, author of Trafficking, a Memoir of an Undercover Game Warden.