Kathy Pinna
Shazanta Brasher's father - Carl Maxie Brashear's story
After enduring death threats from white shipmates and efforts by Navy officers to sabotage his final exam in diving school, Carl Maxie Brashear emerged as the Navy's first black deep sea diver.
Ha had no intention of giving that up in 1966, after injuries suffered while recovering a bomb left him an amputee.
In the months after the accident, Master Chief Petty Office Bashear put himself through grueling physical training.
"It's not a sin to be knocked down," he told the Salt Lake Tribune in 2002. "It's a sin to stay down."
Master Chief Petty Officer Brashear went on to become the first black master diver in the US Navy, and the first amputee to be restored to full active duty as a diver. His story was told in the 2000 film "Men of Honor". He died of respiratory and heart failure Tuesday at the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth VA, He was 75.
His son Phillip, a helicopter pilot, was brought back from Iraq last week because of his father's illness. In addition to Phillip, Master Chief Pettty Officer Brashear is survived by sons DaWayne Brashear and Patrick Brashear, and by his first wife Junetta Brashear. The couple divorced but remained friends. Another son, Shazanta Brashear, died in 1996.
- The South Florida Sun Sentinel (from LA Times), Jul 28 2006.
Ha had no intention of giving that up in 1966, after injuries suffered while recovering a bomb left him an amputee.
In the months after the accident, Master Chief Petty Office Bashear put himself through grueling physical training.
"It's not a sin to be knocked down," he told the Salt Lake Tribune in 2002. "It's a sin to stay down."
Master Chief Petty Officer Brashear went on to become the first black master diver in the US Navy, and the first amputee to be restored to full active duty as a diver. His story was told in the 2000 film "Men of Honor". He died of respiratory and heart failure Tuesday at the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth VA, He was 75.
His son Phillip, a helicopter pilot, was brought back from Iraq last week because of his father's illness. In addition to Phillip, Master Chief Pettty Officer Brashear is survived by sons DaWayne Brashear and Patrick Brashear, and by his first wife Junetta Brashear. The couple divorced but remained friends. Another son, Shazanta Brashear, died in 1996.
- The South Florida Sun Sentinel (from LA Times), Jul 28 2006.
