Navy TV Advertising in the 1950s the guy was wearing a sailor unifrom

In 1954 I'm 14 years old and the Navy ran recruiting ads on TV all through my teenage years. The other services probably did also but the images of the Navy ads stuck in my brain. The ads showed a man walking along wearing a suit and a fedora hat. "Are you stuck in a rut?" A rut would open up and the guy would walk down into it and all you could see was the fedora hat bobbing along in the rut. When he came up out of the rut the guy was wearing a sailor uniform and a jingle would play, "Join the Navy and when you retire you'll only be 38!" That made sense to me. Why didn't people do that? Work for 20 years and then retire.

Well I didn't know how old Dad was but the Grandpas were certainly over 38 and working all the time. At the time I was only vaguely aware of World War II but was somewhat aware of the Korean War. My dad and grandpas didn't have answers about why people didn't serve for 20 years. Most likely protecting me from my ignorance.

We lived in tiny Weston, MA. Tom Scott wanted to date my younger sister. Tom was a Petty Officer Second Class Aviation Aircraft Mechanic in the Navy for four years. Now he was taking flying lessons and working as a cab driver to pay for the lessons and eyeballing my sister. Tom was way older than us by too many years and Mother told him he must wait until Florence was at least two years older before he could maybe date her. Tom and Florence eventually married and Tom went to work for American Airlines as an aircraft mechanic.

Those are the three influences that had me thinking that the Navy was a possible career path for me. I certainly didn't want four more years of brain torture attending college. Little was I aware the Navy would have me in school for a little over a year! The photo below is Second Class Aviation Machinist Mate Tom Scott. Tom is one of the reasons I joined the Navy.