Rudy: My Story

by Rudy Ruettiger

  That might not seem like a big realization to some people. But to me? It was.

  Just when I thought my worldview had expanded as far as it could, the USS North Hampton finished up its dry-dock and we all left town for a little shakedown cruise. Our destination? Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

  This may sound ridiculous to you, but growing up in Illinois, I truly had no idea how much water there was in the world. Two-thirds of the earth is covered by the stuff! I also had no idea how my stomach would react to being out on that water, and it turns out my stomach didn’t like it one bit. I got seasick the moment we pulled out of Charlestown, and that seasickness lasted the whole ride down to Cuba . . . and beyond.

  If you’ve never experienced seasickness, imagine you have a stomach flu and you just can’t shake it. For days on end. You don’t have a fever, but you might as well because your head hurts, and you can’t see straight, and the continuous rocking and rocking and rolling of the boat just makes it worse and worse, like you’ve got a case of the spins after drinking too much, except the room really is spinning, the horizon gets lost, you can’t get your bearings, and you hurl and hurl and hurl ’til there’s nothing but thick, clear liquid and the taste of bile in your mouth, ’cause you just can’t swallow any food.

  It’s enough to make you question whether or not you’re going to make it. It’s enough to make some men think of jumping overboard and ending it right there. But you know why I never got to that point? You know why I made it through? Because the guy next to me was just as sick. If he can do it, I can. He’s sick; I’m sick. He’s not giving up; I’m not giving up. That’s what I learned out on the water with the navy. That’s what’s wonderful about the military. I don’t even know who this guy is, but he’s sicker than a dog and he’s just as sick as me, maybe sicker, ’cause he’s lying in his puke and I’m not. Poor guy, he’s not giving up. Still fighting. That’s the spirit I like. I need to be like that too. Never give up. We can do this.

  When I talk about camaraderie, that’s what I’m talking about. We were all in it together. All two thousand or so of us on the 664-foot vessel were a team. Every one of us, together. Never did that shine brighter than when we had to do a refueling and every single person on that boat chipped in. First-class, second-class, yeoman—didn’t matter. You could wind up pulling a line while your superior officer pulled that same line right beside you.

  That impressed me.

  I found myself wishing that school had been that way. I found myself thinking that every sports team needed to be that way. Every company. Every workplace. I found myself dreaming of how great the world would be if everyone’s boss came down off their high horse to tow the line with his workers now and then. How great would America be if it modeled itself after this sort of military brotherhood?

  The lush, green, windswept, sandy shores of Cuba were unlike anything I had ever seen on this earth. The shimmering, crystal-blue water looked like something out of a movie. It all happened so fast; it was hard to imagine this was my life. That this was, in fact, my chosen destination. I had taken the steps that had led me to this place. I had chosen to do this. Me. I made this happen.

  For most of the guys on the ship, Guantanamo Bay was a gateway to ecstasy: the fun, the booze, everything lay ahead just beyond that gate, a ride on the cattle truck into town. But for me? Guantanamo Bay was ecstasy. I went out with the guys a couple of times, but for the most part, when I wasn’t working, I stayed right there, enjoying the shore, taking runs around the base, and lifting weights. I was getting in shape. Training. For what? I wasn’t sure. But something. I felt like I was preparing for something, for whatever came next. I didn’t know what it would be. I didn’t have a plan. Just a feeling.

  From Guantanamo we came back to Portsmouth, Virginia, where the navy decided to decommission the ship. Everything was going to nuclear power at the time, and while the ship was decommissioned they had to keep a skeleton crew on board. Because of my position in maintenance data collection, I was forced to be part of that skeleton crew while the bulk of my shipmates were reassigned. Because they kept us around so long, they told us, “When we finish this decommissioning, you can have your dream cruise. You can go anywhere you want. So pick out where you want to go.” That was our reward!

  I knew what I wanted. With that feeling that life was opening up to me, I wanted to see the world, so I chose a Mediterranean cruise. Maybe I should have been a little more careful about the way I worded it, though, because while they gave me the chance to see the world, they put me on a tiny little destroyer escort: the USS Robert L. Wilson (DD-847), to be exact. “You’ll see the world now, sailor!”

  It was a purposeful move on the part of the navy. The guy who made up the orders said, “If I put you on an aircraft carrier, you’d get lost. You belong on a destroyer.” He knew my personality. Because it was small, with only three hundred shipmates, he knew I’d have a better shot at developing relationships and experiencing the camaraderie and teamwork I loved.

  The whole thing sounded amazing to me: we would be escorting the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) across the North Atlantic into the heart of the Mediterranean.

  Imagine that! Me, Danny Ruettiger, one of the Rudys from Joliet, going to Europe!

  The thought of it seemed too good to be true, but next thing I knew, I was throwing my duffle bag onto my bunk in the belly of the little cork of a boat. I say “cork” because that’s exactly how it floated on the water. Like a cork. Bobbing and dipping and tipping on every single wave. I didn’t even know the meaning of seasickness before I wound up on the Robert L. Wilson. I was sick as a dog! The whole trip across the North Atlantic I was cursing myself for not telling the navy I’d rather stay ashore and build them a new boat! Why oh why did I put myself onto this tiny motion-sickness machine?

  It didn’t make matters easier when we hit stormy seas on a night when I was on duty, alternating between watch on deck and coming into the bridge to take a turn steering the ship. With such a small crew, we all took turns doing everything. If I had felt better, I would have found that duty pretty exciting. How many people get the opportunity to steer a vessel of that size in their whole life? But I was puking too much for it to matter.

  I was reporting directly to a young lieutenant that night as I stood at the helm. I liked this particular lieutenant a lot. He seemed like a real down-to-earth guy, and he was a great leader. He treated his men well, even as he pushed us to get what he wanted and what the ship needed. I was so sick, I wasn’t exactly doing a great job of keeping that ship on course, but I did my best to follow his orders: “Sailor, come right ten degrees rudder.”

  “Sir, come right ten degrees rudder, sir!” I’d respond.

  “Correct,” he’d say, so I’d pull off ten degrees rudder. It’s all very systematic. If I wasn’t puking between orders, perhaps the ship wouldn’t have zigzagged through the open sea quite as much. But I did my best nonetheless, and in between following orders and puking, I noticed something I had never noticed before on that young lieutenant’s hand.

  “Sir, you have ND on your ring. What does that stand for, sir?”

  “Notre Dame University,” he said.

  Wow! I had never seen a Notre Dame ring before. I had never stood next to a Notre Dame man in my life. Despite what I had noticed about the bulk of the student body when I snuck onto campus during that retreat day in my senior year of high school, I still had this vision of Notre Dame graduates being larger than life. Yet here I was taking orders from one, right now!

  “Wow, you went to Notre Dame, sir?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Just steer the ship, sailor.”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied, but I just couldn’t stop myself.

  “Sir,” I said, “do you think someday I could go to Notre Dame?”

  “Sailor,” he said to me, “absolutely. Absolutely you can. Now stay on this course!”

  Maybe he was just trying to appease me. Maybe he just wanted me to shut up and steer the ship! But I didn’
t take it that way. Not at all. For the first time in my entire life, he planted a little seed in my brain that the untouchable “not for me” world of Notre Dame might not be so untouchable after all.

  “Absolutely,” he had said.

  He could have said, “Not in a million years, sailor!” He could have said, “Heck no! Not the way you’re steering!” or ignored me completely and just kept firing off orders. But he didn’t. He gave me that little encouraging word: “‘Absolutely.’”

  It’s hard to get something that’s the polar opposite of what you’ve been told your entire life out of your head. “Notre Dame isn’t for kids like you . . . You’re not college-bound . . . You don’t have the grades . . . You don’t have the money . . . Notre Dame’s for the best of the best. The elite!” It suddenly occurred to me that none of the people who put those thoughts in my head had actually gone to Notre Dame. Most of them had probably never stepped foot on the campus or had any real idea what the admission requirements were. It’s funny—and a little disturbing, actually—how easy it is for us to believe the stuff we hear, whether it’s the truth or not.

  As I stood there on the bridge setting a rough and rocky course for Europe, I found it astounding that a brand-new question was rattling around my seasick head: Could I maybe, someday, go to Notre Dame? Followed by an unexpected answer: Absolutely.

  While the sickness continued (exacerbated by yet another cigar-smoking superior who loved to blow that smoke in my face), the doubts I had about choosing that course washed away the moment we hit the Mediterranean sunshine. Never in my life had I imagined I would ever find myself in a place so beautiful.

  Italy, Spain, Malta, Greece—we hit a different port every three days. It was a dream! Think of what I was doing just a few months earlier: waking up, leaving for work, coming home. Now? I’m seeing the world, and they’re paying me! Paying me to see this! Our captain was a great guy who really let us experience it all too. We pulled into Crete and he ordered a “Swim Call,” where all of us jumped off the boat into that bath-warm turquoise water; a couple of guys stayed on deck with rifles, watching for sharks. (Luckily none came.)

  Feeling that sun, that water washing over me, that’s when I really started dreaming. I met a lot of good guys on that ship, and I started hearing their stories, these sea-going sailors who’d been in the navy for many years. I saw their skin, with that sea-salt look, the hard skin of true sailors, man. The real deal. They’d lived, truly lived. Then in the back of the poop deck in the evening, when it was calm and all I heard and smelled was the ocean, my mind seemed to wander, almost escape itself, as I stared up into a star-filled sky and realized the possibilities were endless. Endless!

  It was during those nights when my thoughts turned to Notre Dame. I know it sounds crazy that a single conversation, a few seconds with that young lieutenant on that stormy night, could set my mind on a brand-new course, but it’s true. I found myself running around that ship, staying in shape, sweating in that scorching sun, dreaming of what it would feel like to go to Notre Dame. I didn’t know how I could get in. It’s not like my grades had magically improved just because I joined the navy. It’s not like I made enough money to cover tuition. Still, the thought that it was possible just would not leave my brain. That one conversation changed the thought of Notre Dame from a fantasy to a dream, the difference being that a fantasy is untouchable, unattainable, and unreachable; a dream is something you can work toward, something you can envision, something you can feel beckoning you from right in front of you.

  I started to see myself as one of those Notre Dame students and felt like I was suddenly becoming a student of the world.

  In Athens I decided to see the sites. How could I not? And I quickly discovered the camaraderie and bonding that can happen between different cultures on the other side of the world. My buddy and I wound up chatting with a Greek family who offered to show us around. The doctor and his wife and kids took us to the Acropolis, and some amazing historic ruins that were in the process of being dug up. It was beautiful. That family fed us and they were honored to have Americans at their house. We got to Rome and the same sort of thing happened. And at every stop we made, I decided, I’m gonna go tour. I’m not gonna get drunk or chase women like the other guys. This is awesome! That’s just what I did. My mind-set was that I wanted to see everything I could. Plenty of shipmates spent their time getting wild and crazy, but I just couldn’t pass up this opportunity to take the world in. Who knew if I’d ever be back? I didn’t want to regret missing any of it, and I tried to make sure that wouldn’t happen. I still took time to work out. Lifting weights became a ritual to me. I took time to run. I even made time to take training courses back at the ship, in whatever subjects they had to offer, just to improve my study skills and to prove to myself that I might be able to make it in a classroom after all. Those Notre Dame dreams kept kicking in my gut. And somehow my travels and my sightseeing were feeding me in a way I had never felt in any classroom. I wanted to learn about everything. I wanted to know more about the world.

  You hear about the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the cathedrals, and now here I was seeing them all firsthand. It was awesome. How can you not be moved seeing Michelangelo’s work? Staring up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, seeing that image of man touching God, imagining that artist lying flat on his back on scaffolding for months at a time, you can’t help but think, Wow. How’ d he do that?

  It’s inspiring. It makes you want to do great things yourself. Or at least put in some extra effort.

  How could it not?

  I even saw the pope as he stepped out onto his balcony to bless the crowd in front of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. What an awesome sight. All of those people. No matter what you believe, there’s a powerful spiritual presence in that place that you can feel in your bones. And to think of the reach of the Catholic church! I thought back to our little church in Joliet. I thought, once again, of Notre Dame, and the beauty of that campus, and the overwhelming spirituality I felt while standing on that plush green lawn as the golden statue of Mary smiled down upon me.

  On a daily basis that Notre Dame dream kept growing. Everywhere I went, I’d find something that reminded me of the possibility. It wasn’t a dream of going to college. No other school would do. It was the dream of being a part of that campus. Of capturing and living out that spiritual feeling I had when I looked up at that Golden Dome, and over at the cross at the top of the Basilica. Of fitting in with that student body and opening the doors to an education that could help to make me more than who I was today. More than what my parents and peers expected me to be. More than what I had allowed myself to even fantasize about.

  With all the working out and bulking up I was doing in the navy, maybe I’d even have a shot at playing football at Notre Dame! Okay, so that still seemed really far-fetched, but I recall having the thought. More than once. After all, if I could dream about going to that top-notch school, why couldn’t I dream about playing for their top-notch team?

  It wasn’t just a fantasy anymore. As I’ve said, it was a dream. That’s a big difference. And that dream seemed closer and closer, even though I had no idea how I would ever make it come true.

  As our Mediterranean tour came to an end, so did the nonstop escalation of the war in Vietnam. The emotional toll of that war was one thing. The financial toll was another. The government was cutting back on military spending, and as part of the deal, they decided to allow servicemen like me who had eighteen months in uniform to opt out early.

  There wasn’t even a question for me: I was sick of being seasick. I knew I wasn’t cut out to be one of those salty-skinned lifelong sailors. Plus, the navy had already done more for me than I had ever imagined it could. I had seen the world, and I had grown stronger in every way imaginable.

  I had a new dream to pursue now. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, didn’t have a clue, but I knew it was time to go home.

  4

  Reading the Signs
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br />   I’m not exactly sure when it started to sink in—that gnawing feeling that I was in danger of giving up. I think it was almost a year after I came back from the navy when it started to spiral. I felt that my life was quickly tracking backward, falling into routines, in danger of running on autopilot again toward a destination that wasn’t my own.

  I had traded my bunk in the belly of a ship for a room in my parents’ house, back on Briggs Ave. (My own room, thankfully. I was finally allowed out of the basement bunkhouse and into a solo bedroom now that both of my older sisters had moved out.)

  I had traded my important work on a communications ship fit for the president to go back to the power plant. It was a higher-paid position, in maintenance, with more responsibilities. I was thankful for that. But still . . . I had traded “swim calls” in the Mediterranean for sitting in the stands under the lights on Friday nights, watching high school football with old buddies from Joliet Catholic, then reliving our glory days over beers.

  I had traded walks in the stunning streets of Athens and Rome for a daily commute down dusty Patterson Road, on the bad side of the tracks, past run-down houses with overgrown yards, a car lot bragging “We Buy Junk!” on its big, old, faded sign, and right through the chain-link gates that led to those skyscraper-sized smokestacks and train-car loads of black coal piled up like mini mountain ranges.

  This wasn’t my life. This was more like my father’s life. The life of a Union Oil man who did what he had to do to support his big family. A proud life, sure. An honorable one. A good one! But it wasn’t mine. I knew it. I knew where I wanted to be. I just didn’t know how to get there, and for a good long time, life—with its bills, its expectations, its routines, and its too-easy-to-be-trapped-in patterns—seemed to get the best of me.