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Turning to the homeland, Bud asked, “Are we in America safe from these tragedies?” The answer was no. “We must become fully alive to the genuine threat of subversive elements within our own borders.” Closing his speech with a call for preparedness and mobilization, Bud urged the audience and judges never to think it can’t happen in the homeland. “When we have awakened from the stupor engendered of these myths—when we have signified by complete preparedness and by our alliances, that we have thrown off their throttling grasp—when we can say, not with blind Norwegian faith—but with true confidence—IT CANT HAPPEN HERE—then—only then—the brave Norse, the stolid Dutch shall NOT have died in vain.”
Bud thought “my delivery had been the best of my life.”43 Indeed, the judges selected him as one of the finalists in the entire regiment. “I’ll give em a fight,” Bud assured his father. The newspapers validated Bud’s debate themes. “Well it’s good bye France and Great Britain by todays papers,” Bud wrote the morning following his speech. “I can’t yet conceive of a world without the British Empire. It’s going to be terrible. . . . The way England and France are failing, I may have to include them in my list of victims by the time I speak.”
Bud gave them one hell of a speech in the finals, taking first place from the Quarterdeck Society. One of the judges, Senator David Walsh of Massachusetts, chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee, told him, “Young man, if you can do this well when you are a plebe, I am wondering what you will do when you are a mighty First Classman.” Invited to attend the academy’s award ceremony for all academic winners, Bud was the only plebe in attendance and was awarded a gold watch. “They presented me with the watch for the speaking contest. I felt as big as life—marching up before 2300 middies and some 500 spectators. The gold Lonjeen [sic] watch was very expensive and engraved on the back with date, occasion.”
With final exams looming on the horizon, Bud buckled down. Winning the Quarterdeck award seems to have provided a reality check with respect to what hard work could accomplish. He ended up with “the most brilliant set of exam marks I have built up since the entrance exams a year ago.” His 3.44 earned him status as a “star” man, allowing Bud to wear a gold star on his uniform. This was a terrific recovery after his midyear tailspin in math and steam. “I’m really happy,” Bud acknowledged. “I must have, unconsciously, given up the ghost a little, as far as drive goes. Second, women must have had something to do with it. From November until March, I was infatuated with a dizzy dame. When I got over it, I buckled down—the difference—with these grades I have regained a measure of self-confidence. Next year, just watch my smoke, I’ll give no quarter.”44
A plebe year that started with second thoughts about remaining at the Naval Academy followed by his mother’s death was ending on a high note, what Bud described as “the salvaging of the glory of previous years.” The “crest is riding high. I have never known a two weeks more invigorating to my spirits and exhilarating to a dropping one. First there was my sudden awakening academically . . . starring 48 out of 700. This standing convinces me that I can cut that in half next year—we’ll see.”45 He was in the midst of a glorious self-transformation. “I have found myself growing happier each day here dad. More and more I am learning the importance of friends and acquaintances. I believe this plebe year has eliminated more dissatisfaction and restlessness from my system, than I thought possible.”
The completion of plebe year brought the midshipmen’s summer practice cruise. Between plebe and youngster year, all midshipmen are given the opportunity to discover firsthand what it is like to be in the fleet by going on their first cruise. Aboard the battleship New York, Bud was feeling especially buoyant as “we left the Reina Mercedes dock with the band playing, some fifty motor launches took us to the cruisers while parents and sweethearts waved goodbye from the docks.”46
In a letter home, Bud described his first days at sea as “the same as during those terrible days at the beginning of plebe summer, dazed, confused—but that will all clear up, in two or three days.”47 Indeed, by the time they were off the Florida coast, his letters describe a love for sleeping on deck under the stars and talking with buddies until late hours. Bud delighted in seeing “schools of porpoises stretching miles in single file, leaping in and out of water.” He bragged “my luck is holding out. I am the only midshipman on the ship who has not had to stand watch.” He joked that he and his friend Zeigler had been able to hide with sundaes to avoid polishing brass and cleaning up paint chips.
He had settled into a regular routine, beginning with 5:00 a.m. morning coffee, followed by rolling and stowing hammocks, getting washed and shaved and turned to, meaning cleaning the ship from 5:30 to 6:30, scrubbing decks and locker rooms. This was followed by a breakfast of beans, corn bread, and more coffee, then more cleaning of the ship until 9:00 a.m., then orientation tours, and lunch. The afternoons were usually spent on lifeboat drills and a range of exercises, including general quarters (i.e., battle stations), man overboard, fire drills, and a heavy emphasis upon damage control drills and gunnery. He stood a variety of watches that included engineering, gunnery, and navigation. Following dinner, the crew enjoyed movies each night. “Where else can a man escape the wiles of women and the worries of civilization with such smothering completeness, as on board a naval ship,” Bud wrote to his father.
Looking forward to returning home for the first time since his mother’s death, Bud wrote, “Now that the old bean is free of mental exertion, my thots [sic] turn ever homeward. I can see the old homestead clear as a bell. The beautiful sycamore trees lining the sides of the streets brats playing football, etc., in the tar pitted road-neighbors-gossips-dogs and all of you (excuse the dogs first).”
Events in Europe were on everyone’s mind during the cruise. “It seems hard to believe that Italy has just added her bit to the Hell in Europe. . . . To me, this era is as significant as the Fall of the Roman Empire. . . . When Rome fell, the genius of her civilization, the knowledge known only to her intelligentsia—was destroyed with them. Today, the prospect is the same.”48 The British Empire “stands at the brink . . . the last ally in Europe is down—France, rent asunder by the barbaric genius of the Hun. . . . Her last hope is the United States.”
Echoing themes from his Quarterdeck speech, Bud lamented the consequences of America’s isolationism. His country was demonstrating the “same British conservatism” and “has hesitated too long.” England was falling. “That island, source of the greatest empire in history, will be gutted—bombed from the skies—starved at the seas—finally invaded from the shores of her dead ally. . . . Dictatorial jealousy and fear will wipe out what remains when the inferno of bombs and shells have ceased. And WE STILL STAND ALONE having let our friends die—unaided. We must face their murderers—a coalition of Germany, Italy, Japan and their satellites.” In the absence of such a coordinated response, “we will go down—just as surely as we maintain our course.” Bud endorsed maximum preparedness. “If we can co-ordinate our industry to turn out the most gigantic fleet of planes and navy in the world, we MAY escape the horde that approaches. But having seen the inadequacy of Democracy when facing Monarchy, and having seen the diabolical resourcefulness of the latter, and knowing that the day of the impossible does not happen, one can only WONDER, HOPE AND PRAY.”
The coming war also meant changing academic plans at the academy. Due to the emergency created by war and the shortage of officers, the Naval Academy education was being reduced from four to three years. The shortage of officers was so acute that the academy sacrificed a year of training to get them into war.49 “All of this is very heartbreaking to me, but I can’t feel cheated, knowing that all of the young men of this country are going to have to sacrifice to stop that beast in Europe.” Bud closed his letter from sea with a promise: “I haven’t forgotten you [Dad and Jim]. I think the family has been on my mind more than anything else since the cruise began—and, dad, don’t worry about Sept. leave—I’ll be home if I have to ‘go
over the wall’ [academy slang for taking ‘French leave’].”50 “By the way, when we hit New York July 12, I will be broke—‘No mon [sic], no fun, your son.’ ”51
Bud received the money from his dad and did not have to go over the wall to reach California. With the midshipman cruise scheduled to end on August 15, leave was shortened to two weeks. The family reunion included a fishing trip with his dad and brother Jim. It was good to be home, although he found “mother’s memory haunts every picture, every household object.”52 As soon as he had returned to the academy, Bud learned he had received the highest marks in aptitude for the summer cruise.53 “The biggest news is that the marks in aptitude for the service for the cruise were posted. Out of 719 ‘youngsters,’ I stood No. 1 with a 3.90. I was darned proud of this,”54 wrote Bud, who also received a medal for cruise short-range battle practice accuracy, one of two men in the gun crew to get a medal—the pointer and trainer. “I now look like a general with two medals and two stars on my full dress—whoopee. Had them all on at the hop last night.”
Bud loved transitioning from plebe to youngster: “I must admit that Youngster year is 100% more fun than Plebe year. Plebe year this means no imperfection—the plebe is the lowest form of life. . . . Youngster year regain self-respect, partake in all the pranks known—water fights, hosing, etc.” Looking to the future, Bud advised his father that by third year, known as Second Class, he would aspire to “more poise—more serious attributes—desire to create good impression with 1.c—get good grades.” And finally, First Class—“conceit—one doesn’t desire to speak to inferiors, responsibility.”55 Bud relished everything about being a youngster. “The business of being a ‘youngster’ is wonderful. Do you remember how I swore I’d never ‘haze’ plebes? Well I’m already doing it—in a friendly manner, however. It is a THRILL to go down to a meal, relax, be called ‘Sir’—ask questions to plebes, etc.”
The new incoming plebe class was so large that Bud and his roommates were living five to a room. “The five men in a room is great fun—we raise the devil—but we don’t study like we should—its next to impossible. I am trying to concentrate but I am slipping.” It may have been twice the fun, but it was also going to be twice the work with an accelerated academic program.
Meanwhile, back in Tulare, Elmo could no longer hide his grief. Life seemed devoid of meaning since Frances’s death. He needed to fill the emptiness of her loss, and the shortage of doctors in the military gave Elmo his chance to again serve his country. He made the decision to volunteer for active duty in the Medical Corps, but chose not to tell Bud about his decision while they were together during the summer.
Upon reading the news in a letter, Bud was aghast that his father would consider leaving Jim, who was still a teenager living at home. Marshaling all his debating and persuasive skills, Bud sought to alter his father’s decision.56 “I am going to tell you of my own selfish reasons for dreading your army commitment—then show you two good reasons why you should dread it.” He thought his father’s action was the “breaking of a vow made to mother—the vow to superintend the advent of Jim’s progress into manhood—with the very best you had.” Having lost a mother—and for all practical purposes, a brother and a sister—Jim’s life would have the “barrenness of a desert,” if he lost either a Dad or a hometown environment. Jim would have no father for the “nucleus years” of character formation in high school, a crucial era in a man’s lifetime, “during which the long struggle of environment and education with youthful curiosity and temptation, produces the first picture of what he is to be. Suddenly one begins to think seriously about life—he plans his future, judges his qualifications, and dreams about what he will be.”
Bud argued that nothing would ever again be the same. “With you gone from Tulare, the shell collapses. The street of the Sycamores has become a dead forest—petrified by the coldness of a relentless Destiny—and the last tie which held me to the ‘nucleus’ is rent asunder. The thread which bonded me to keep the faith with my ‘Tulare self’—is gone.” Bud could not understand why someone so devoted to humanity, to curing the sick, a community man, a father to a young son, was trading it all in for literally nothing. Describing his father as a “great man endowed with the ability to care for the sick at heart as well as the physically afflicted—a man possessed of the energy and love of humanity to serve his community in a thousand ways—a remarkable father to his youngest child,” that man was now to be “taken from his lifelong service—forced from his chosen role—into the job of a high grade handy boy.” By going ahead with this plan, Elmo was trading “his gifted surgical hands for doing things interns do. . . . You should dread with sincerity the reduction in rank from that of a genuine servant of mankind, to that of a general handyman of Uncle Sam’s Puny Forces.”
Bud closed with a flurry: “I love and admire you, dad. I have known that your motives are always honorable. But I sincerely believe that you have made and are making a serious mistake.” Elmo needed to “weigh the scales.” On one hand, he had a vow to fulfill and a service to continue; on the other hand, a duty, but not a duty that required a man of his caliber to rejoin the military as a doctor. “I write with tears in my eyes, when I think of Jim, the big, overgrown bear, coming home to a barren house—chuck full of all the little High School triumphs—eager to unload his joys and adolescent problems within the sanctity of his home to an understanding parent. And I shiver when I think of the ghastly emptiness that will be his—when his friends enjoy the family life that I held so dear—the dreadful silence of a lonely supper—the haunting friendlessness of an empty house. Reconsider, Dad, and work fast.”57
This was one of the few debates Bud lost. Elmo gave quite a bit of thought and consideration when composing his rebuttal, admitting to reading Bud’s letter of “criticism” twice, finding it “remarkable.”58 Undecided whether to “rebut or acquiesce or do both,” Elmo began his reply with the concept of duty and sacrifice to country taking priority over being a father to a son. Bud needed to understand that the issue was not what one would prefer to do but rather what one might have to do. The previous evening, Elmo had been listening to the radio when isolationist congressman Hamilton Fish was running at the mouth that we must fight “only a defensive war at any time—the Japs do not want war—the Japs will allow us continued trade—we could still buy tin and rubber.”59 Elmo believed that putting one’s head in the sand was a ticket to defeat. Of course with only one parent left, ideally it would be best for Jim if his father remained at home, and “there may be a danger that the home on the Street of the Sycamores may be a thing of the past. I recognize that in leaving my community, I may be losing certain position and influence—that my ‘career’ questionable as it may be even to me, may be decidedly changed. I think all these things were weighed in my own mind, but unlike you, I choose to turn the cloud inside out and gaze at its lining.”
Proffering advice that defines the Zumwalt lineage, Elmo had a duty to both his son and country.60 The storms of adversity had diverted him from the preferred course of remaining a country doctor. “All my life I have had a rather fierce love of Country,” wrote Elmo. He enlisted in 1917, a year ahead of the required time because he was a medical intern; he returned as a reserve officer in 1927, thinking that one day his country might need him. For fifteen years, he had been a reserve officer and could not now “show a white feather and say ‘let George do it.’ That would be a ‘bit’ yellow. Too many folks in this old USA have felt for many years that someone else should take the burden, someone else’s boy should go to war. That attitude is a danger and represents a bit of dry rot in any man’s land. So it seems to me that we must look at the map for a moment and realize that our ideal charting has and must be revamped. The storm of war clouds have blown us away from that ideal spot in the sun and we have to modify our plans. And please remember, that all thru your life you too will have to reef those sails and modify your course, that it would be much nicer to follow with always fair weather and no l
ost time.”
No one, of course, understood Bud better than his father, which is why Bud had no chance of winning the debate. “Now your treatise on Jim—was not on Jim—it was upon yourself . . . your temperament was such that you had to have those avenues of ‘talking it over’ and your estimable Mother filled that niche to perfection. I never could have done that same thing and you know it . . . in the main to her with your temperamental tailspins, you went and had solace.” Jim was different. “In the main, he is a self-decided type, seeking but little from the family . . . he is as different from you as day is to nite. You are the hare—he is the tortoise. . . . To me a home is the spirit of those who have made it, and even tho Mother has passed to ‘the land where whence no traveler returneth’ and you and Saralee have left for good, still, there will always be to me that spirit of camaraderie and I shall feel the touch of your hands and the kiss from your lips, wherever I may be. Because when your mother died—our home passed into that state of change that only a few years could hold together. We both recognize it, except we express it a bit differently.” Elmo ended by saying, “You may still not agree, but then I haven’t always agreed with your girls. You are a swell son, Love, Dad.”
After digesting his father’s response, Bud replied, “the answer to my plea was what I expected. I knew you would say what you did and I expect you are right—but then a devoted son cannot be blamed for trying to delay your being called. I want to ask you to give yourself an even break (be sure) when that call comes. All this butting on my part must be expected, because I always tell you how I feel.”61
On Election Day 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was ushered into an unprecedented third term. Months before the election, Bud had foreshadowed the result in a letter home, saying he was “certainly happy about Willkie’s nomination on the Republican ticket. He is a natural for the organizing genius-type of executive we now need. I only hope that he can escape the stigma of ‘Big Business’ that FDR’s group will try to wrap around him.” Still, he forecast that “the WPA class will ride with our friend, Franklin, back into a 3rd term however.”62 A week before the election, Bud saw the handwriting on the wall. “Willkie is losing ground at a frightful pace. God help us. Japan joins the Victory Parade. Oh, how I’d like to blast those yellow dogs out of the sea.”63