{"id":85687,"date":"2019-03-18T06:58:56","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T10:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=85687"},"modified":"2019-03-18T06:58:56","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T10:58:56","slug":"first-black-navy-seal-still-going-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=85687","title":{"rendered":"First Black Navy SEAL – Still Going Strong"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

NBCNews has reported<\/a> that Navy Master Chief Bill Goines is still going strong, even in retirement.<\/p>\n

Goines, 82, believes it was sheer grit and determination in the face of all obstacles that helped him become one of the first original U.S. Navy SEALs, a military team created by President John F. Kennedy in 1962. It wasn\u2019t until later in his career that Goines realized he was the unit\u2019s first African-American.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Goines retired as a master chief from the SEALs in 1987. He now spends his time traveling the country \u2014 mainly the East Coast \u2014 to recruit young men and women of color who could potentially become Navy SEALs. According to data provided by the U.S. Navy, of the more than 3,000 active duty SEALs, 1.3 percent are African-American and 8.8 percent are Hispanic.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s hard to pin down the exact cause, Goines believes those low numbers are related to one thing: the unavailability of swimming pools in minority neighborhoods. Training to become a Navy SEAL exposes potential candidates to one of the toughest training programs any soldier can expect to endure, requiring strength in the sea, air and on land.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my travels around, I found that a lot of predominantly black schools don\u2019t have swimming pools,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are public swimming pools, but with very little instruction.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Goines sees it as his mission to inspire other African-Americans to become a member of the SEALs.<\/p>\n

After years traveling the world for the SEAL team and going on secret missions, Goines sees it as his life\u2019s work to diversify the U.S. military\u2019s most elite unit. And the new front line for that mission begins at schools with young people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hand salute, Master Chief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NBCNews has reported that Navy Master Chief Bill Goines is still going strong, even in retirement. … First Black Navy SEAL – Still Going Strong<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":663,"featured_media":85688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[328,218,84,119,74,226],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversity","category-feel-good-stories","category-military-issues","category-navy","category-the-warrior-code","category-veterans-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/85688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}