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COLD WAR CHALLENGES--AND
"THE HOUR OF DECISION"
By DAVID VERGUN
Production Editor
All Americans, and their friends and allies around
the world, were taken aback when, in 1957, the Soviet Union successfully
test-fired the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)
and also launched Sputnik, the world's first space satellite. Nuclear
war now seemed just a button push away, and the United States, it appeared,
was in second place in the latest and potentially most devastating "arms
race" of the 20th century.
The Navy League, which since its founding in 1902
had been advocating a strong overall national-defense program, with special
emphasis on the usually neglected sea services, decided it was time, yet
again, to publish a magazine to carry the Navy League's message to a larger
audience. The result was the May 1958 issue of Navy--the League's first
"Magazine of Sea Power" to be published since 1947. It included
a blunt warning from NLUS President John J. Bergen: "To stay on the
defensive in the war against Communism will mean ultimate defeat. ...
This is the hour of decision."
During the middle and late 1950s the U.S. sea services had already been
transforming themselves with the startling new technologies needed to
take them to, through, and beyond the nuclear/electronics world of the
late 20th century. "These [are] days of rapid change," Vice
Adm. John T. Hayward, deputy chief of naval operations (research and development)
told Navy in October 1959. A few examples of those changes: In 1958, the
nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Seawolf cruised submerged for a record
distance of more than 13,000 miles, demonstrating unprecedented stealth
and endurance in the vast deeps of the world ocean. The following year,
the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Skate reached the North Pole
underwater, proving that submarine operations in the frozen Arctic were
not only possible but also, probably, militarily necessary.
That same year, 1959, the fleet ballistic missile
submarine USS George Washington successfully launched A-1 Polaris strategic
missiles, helping to restore the so-called "balance of terror"
that deterred war between the United States and the Soviet Union for almost
four decades. The Navy's Polaris SSBNs (nuclear-powered ballistic missile
submarines) served as the most survivable leg of the U.S. nuclear deterrent
triad; Air Force strategic bombers and ICBMs were the other two legs of
the triad. In 1960, the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier,
USS Enterprise, was christened.
The Key to the Future
The Navy League supported and helped publicize these
and other technological advances, but also realized that the real "key
to the future" was America's youth--and gave voice to that recognition
by organizing the Naval Sea Cadet Corps (NSCC) for youngsters 14 to 17
years old, and the Navy League Cadet Corps (NSCC) for those ages 11 to
13. Local units of the two youth groups--sponsored by Navy League councils
and other civic-minded organizations--provided training in seamanship
and other nautical skills, and worked with the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast
Guard to give the Cadets some hands-on shipboard experience as well. Most
NSCC and NLCC instructors were retired or reserve officers or senior sea-service
enlisted personnel.
Since the founding of the Sea Cadets in 1958, in which Secretary of the
Navy Thomas S. Gates Jr. took a personal interest, the NSCC and NLCC have
trained thousands of young men and women annually, instilling in them
personal core values and patriotism, teaching them the history and traditions
of the sea services, developing their leadership skills, fostering self-reliance
and confidence, and making them better citizens in general.
Starting with a few founding units and fewer than
100 Cadets, the NSCC has grown steadily. Today, the program supports more
than 315 units, with nearly 11,000 Cadets enrolled--and is still growing.
Many former Cadets now hold high rank in the U.S. armed forces or fill
leadership roles in their civilian communities.
The NSCC program has continued to evolve, and to expand the NSCC/NLCC
spectrum of year-round and summer sea-service training opportunities.
During the early days of the two programs, Cadets could go through recruit
training at only four sites, with only a few Navy ships available for
follow-on training. There are now more than 125 major NSCC training sites,
both ashore and afloat, and literally thousands of summer-training billets
available in a broad spectrum of military occupational specialties. "Thanks
to the assistance provided by all branches of the U.S. military, including
the reserve components, and to the hard work and dedication of hundreds
of highly motivated and superbly qualified adult leaders," said James
R. Ward, NSCC national chairman (and the Navy League's national vice president
for youth programs), "NSCC training today is the most sophisticated
youth-development program in the nation." *
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