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KENANSVILLE — Members and guests of St. John’s Masonic Lodge #13 in Kenansville gathered on the eve of the nation’s 249th birthday last week for a patriotic observance dinner featuring former Navy SEAL Jerry Davis.
Davis, a Duplin County native, shared powerful stories of service, sacrifice, and the untold missions that shaped his military career.
Davis inspiration to join the U.S. Navy stemmed from the movie Top Gun. The film was credited with increasing interest in joining the Navy substantially across the country.
Davis’s enlistment came quickly after he graduated from Wallace-Rose Hill High School.
“I graduated on June 7, 1990,” Davis said. “Two weeks later, I was on a plane to San Diego.”
While his hopes were to become a pilot after seeing Top Gun, he had only a high school diploma. The recruiter tried to convince him to become a mechanic on F-14s instead of flying them. Davis ended up entering the Navy as a hospitalman, more commonly known as a corpsman.
Right after Davis graduated from boot camp, a major event happened. On Aug. 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, which would result in what became known as the Gulf War when the United States became involved. Shortly after Iraq’s attack, Davis’s track as corpsman changed.
“Two men came walking through in camouflage,” Davis shared in his speech. “They sat us all down and said, ‘This is your one free opportunity. If you want to try out, be at the pool at such and such hour.’”
Another sailor, Rick Ellsworth, decided to go with Davis to try out.
“I had no idea what a Navy SEAL was, but we both made it,” Davis said.
According to Davis, training to be a Navy SEAL is as tough as its public perception.
“At first, you think it’s going to be six months of your life and it will be done,” he said. “It’s not like that. You start convincing yourself if you can just make it through the day, I’ll be okay. That eventually becomes, if I can just make it through one more minute.”
Getting through the training gave Davis enormous confidence.
“I’ve never let anybody tell me I could not do something,” he said. “I’ve never let anybody tell me to quit.”
The Navy SEALs have been in every major conflict since their inception.
“Very few people know that during the operation in Somalia known as Black Hawk Down, there were four Navy SEALs on the ground with them that day from SEAL Team 6,” Davis said, adding that it was not publicized because SEAL operate in classified operations.
Navy SEALs evolved from what were originally called UDTs, meaning underwater demolition teams. They began to become involved in more extensive operations during the Korean War.
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy asked Congress for $100 million to develop an unconventional warfare group. Kennedy handpicked a World War II enlisted man named Roy Bowman to create the first Navy SEAL team.
Bowman came to Fort Bragg and talked with a captain of one of the Special Forces groups.
“I’ll do you a favor,” Davis said Bowman told the captain. “I’ll teach your guys how to scuba dive if you teach my guys how to jump out of planes.”
There were just two Navy SEAL teams formed in 1962, one on the east coast and another on the west coast. The team on the west coast became involved in Vietnam. The east coast team would go on to become engaged in a Russian nuclear scare during what would become known as the Bay of Pigs in Cuba.
Davis served during the Clinton administration and spent much of his time in South America, as well as a few deployments through the Mediterranean. In South America, his SEAL Team 4 unit served with the CIA in attempting to stop the flow of drugs into the United States.
“We always worked hand-in-hand with the CIA,” Davis said. “They’re secretive. They are not a fighting force. The CIA gave us missions they were not equipped to do. We would jump into different countries in South America and watch drug lords and note when they would send shipments. We would pass that info to the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration).”
Davis said each SEAL team has their own specialty. There is a team trained for Asia and another one for South America. There was also a team trained for snow operations.
One mission Navy SEALs performed that not many people are aware of involved the days of NASA’s Space Shuttle launches.
“The Space Shuttle had rocket boosters that would be jettisoned after launch,” Davis said. “They would splash down in the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico. A SEAL Team was tasked with securing the sites around the water where the rocket boosters went in so the Russians could not get them.”
Davis shared there are many details he and other Navy SEALs cannot talk about due to the highly sensitive and classified nature of many of their missions. He was not the only former Navy SEAL who is a Duplin County native who attended the patriotic observance dinner last Thursday. Fellow SEAL veteran Niko Bouboulis was recognized by Davis.
After serving as a SEAL, Davis eventually left the U.S. Navy and joined the Army National Guard. He was deployed three times after 9/11 and was injured in 2008.
“It was pretty significant,” Davis said. “I broke my neck and my back.”
Despite his injuries, the National Guard kept him listed on active duty until his retirement.
“I’m far from a hero,” Davis said. “I’m just a guy who served with a bunch of heroes.”
Many other veterans from all branches of the military also attended the dinner.
During the program, the Masons from St. John’s Lodge 13 presented checks to the Wallace-based Feed Our Hungry Children Ministry and to the Duplin County Shrine Club to transport children in need of care to Shriners Hospitals for Children. The Kenansville Lodge is the 13th oldest Masonic Lodge in North Carolina. Its building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
