1. A line officer (or otherwise termed “officer of the line”) “is a military officer who is trained to command a warship, ground combat unit, or combat aviation unit.” See Wikipedia, s.v., Line Officer. The term has roots in “the 18th- and 19th-century British naval practice of employing sail-powered warships in line formations that maximized the effectiveness of side-mounted cannons. The ships were called Ships of the Line, and their commanders were termed line officers” Because of all the seamanship and military training a line officer receives, he is considered the senior officer aboard any vessel, and only line officers can take command. Should the last remaining officers aboard a vessel be an ensign line officer and an admiral medical officer, that ensign is the senior officer aboard and in command over the admiral! That goes for aircraft as well, which is why pilots are trained as line officers because they will be in command of their vessel, an aircraft. A line officer wears a star above his rank stripe on his sleeve.

The Cold War: Patuxent, Monterey, Anacostia, the USS Hornet—and Orders from the CNO

I spent three years at Patuxent (1954–1957), where my daughters, Kristen and Candace, were born. I studied hard and flew hard, graduating in the top third of my class. For the first time in my life I had access to every conceivable airplane available to free world pilots and flew every one I could.

After Patuxent, I was ordered to Line School at the Navy Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.¹ We spent a year there before being ordered cross-country once again, this time to the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., where I was to study airborne electronic and photo surveillance techniques, a career emphasis with roots in my patrol plane experience during the Korean war with antisubmarine warfare and surveillance.

By 1958, coming up on my ten-year mark in the service, I had orders to report to Long Beach, where the USS Hornet was to be berthed. I was the Hornet’s air intelligence officer.

As it happened, however, I ended up spending all of six months of my navy career attached to a ship—five months of those in dry dock at Bremerton, Wash. As I said, I had an unusual naval career.

In January 1959, just as we began our sea trials out of Coronado, I received mysterious orders from the Chief of Naval Operations, the legendary Adm. Arleigh A. Burke. I was to report to the Pentagon on February 1 without discussing my orders or speculating about them. There was no explanation. Nothing. Then again, I was used to orders; I had been following them for more than a decade. I had little inkling about how momentous my orders were for the country, for my career in the Navy, for my family, or for me. Click here to read about Carpenter’s NASA career.