Daniel Genovese was born on September 7^th, 1931.  He graduated high school in 1951 with the world as his oyster.  However, there was a war brewing, and a draft soon to follow.  He had already been in training with the Navy and he knew that when the draft came around he would be signing up with the Navy, rather than the Army.  He didn’t want to go into the Army, because he felt he’d see more of the world on a boat.  His training started in Bainbridge, MD and then later moved on to Service School in Great Lakes, Illinois.  Once the Korean War began he was put on Active Duty and placed on the U.S.S. Bottineau.  He was one of the lucky ones to have been placed on a ship that was part of the Atlantic Fleet. 

            When I asked him about life on the U.S.S. Bottineau he said that it had many of the comforts of home.  That it was like being on a floating city.  Everyone had their jobs, and the day went like many other days on land.  He was on the team that worked with the propulsion systems to harness the steam and make the ship go forward.  He was trained in fighting fires on the ship as well.  Many years have since passed, but he remembered that he saw a lot of the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, the greater Northern Atlantic Sea, along with much of the Mediterranean. He was also given an eleven-day pass for Casablanca, in Africa.  I asked him if it was much like the movie and he said that it did have much of the character and pace that was set in the famous movie.  I ventured on to see what he did on those eleven days, but he said the only thing, other than bars and local hot spots was one particular location.  He remembered going to the meeting place where Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met to talk about war efforts during WWII.

            He was in the Navy for four years.  He said that it wasn’t the high life; but that he saw places and things he would never have seen if he wasn’t in the Navy, and for that reason he loved it.  What he didn’t like was the five hurricanes he had endured during his times on the boat.  Those storms had made life on ship quite scary, but he knew they’d all persevere.  He said that they would try and avoid them, but since he didn’t see any action, he could endure a couple of bad storms.  He was very glad to have solid ground under his feet when his term ended.  Once his feet got on the ground he enlisted in another year for Service School to continue training on being a machinist.   

            Before he moved to end the interview I asked about today’s war and what he thought about the draft.  Being that armed services now are all volunteer based he hopes that the war effort doesn’t continue on much longer.  He hopes that the war doesn’t bring back the draft, but that “if it has to, it has to.”  I also asked him what stuck out in his training and he said that it was what to do if the ship went down, and also putting out fires if they occurred in the boiler area.  But everything else has since retired with the tides.  I asked what he would say to someone just entering the Navy. “If you want to see the world, do it.  If you can keep your nose clean, and do what people tell you, do it.  Seeing the world is the best thing a man can do.” 

            After the following year of extended service in the service school he went into the Philadelphia Naval Yard where he worked as Shore Patrol.  Then he found work using his knowledge of machinery at Owens-Illinois where he worked for thirty years.  He used this knowledge to fix the machines that went down that manufactured caps.  Much of the machines fixes had to have tools specifically made to fix the broken machine.  And it was his Navy training that made him a perfect fit for the job.