Withers Aces Navy School

WAITSBURG - It was never Wyatt Withers' sole inspiration for going in the Navy, but once he had decided to join it certainly helped having a grandfather who had served in the same branch many decades ago.

Choosing to be "seasick over digging a fox hole," longtime local farmer Jack McCaw went to amphibian training school in preparation of the Allied invasion of Japan when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

He became part of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's occupation force in Japan and spent eight months there after that country's surrender.

Withers' mission will be much different. He always wanted to become a chemical engineer, but figured as a nuclear engineer in the Navy, he'd get his way paid through training and college.

Now he'll have that chance.

The 2010 WHS Cardinal graduated with Honors earlier this month from the Navy's Nuclear Power School, finishing 13th among 320 students. His commanding officer was so impressed, he asked Withers if he grew up on a farm. The officer figured only students with exposure to that kind of need for resourcefulness could ace the program the way Withers did .

Wither's top performance came just months after he placed first in Nuclear Field A School in a group of 33 students. Both schools are in Charleston, South Carolina.

Withers, whom most Waitsburg residents will remember for his outstanding basketball and track skills, left Waitsburg a year ago to go to basic training for nine weeks in Great Lakes, Ill., where he was done in October.

That month, he entered a largely academic training program involving nuclear power on aircraft carriers and submarines. Although he hasn't seen the inside of a ship just yet, his goal is to become a Machinist Mate, a nuclear mechanic on a submarine

For many months during that first training and the Power School courses, Withers was holed up on campus eight hours a day, five days a week.

"You have to be patient," he said. "But once you get into a groove, you get used to it."

Withers is now about to take six months of regular college classes ( chemistry and American military history), which "should be pretty easy compared to what I've just gone through," he predicted.

Then, he'll board a prototype submarine with a nuclear reactor for 24 weeks and he'll be done with school, moving up to the rank of Machinist Mate Second Class.