“Don’t be silly,” I laughed. “At forty-two, I’d be crazy to even consider it. In the first place I am devoted to the service and, in the second, there’s nothing in a naval officer’s training to qualify him for business competition.”
“I haven’t suggested it,” Fred replied soberly, “without first thinking the matter through. I’m sure you have the necessary versatility and resourcefulness.”
“I appreciate your interest and thank you for the compliment,” I replied, “but frankly I’m sorry you brought it up. If I accepted, which, of course I have no intention of doing, the time would surely come when I would regret it. And in passing it up, I open myself to the certainty that every future setback will make me sorry I lacked the guts to resign.”
“Is there no way for you to retire?” he asked.
“No, and if there were, that wouldn’t be the way to go about it. Nothing but a complete separation would do, and for me, that is quite out of the question. I’ve got twenty-five years in on my retirement. Throwing that away would be stupid.”
“Well, think it over,” he persisted. “And when you’re ready, let me know. You could start with the propeller company, and then, if things work out, you could go on from there.” I laughed at the idea.
And, at the moment, I was serious about it, but after Fred and Bill and Tom had left, I found I couldn’t turn off his voice by a flick of the switch. This was no ordinary proposal to be dismissed forthwith: These men had shown me their stuff on many occasions. They were deep in the technical development of aviation, something close to my own heart. They were getting big things done; I was bogged down in a maze of politics with no clear objective before me, and frustrations wearing me down. I began lying awake nights, analyzing the pros and cons.
Trying to compare advantages and disadvantages like this got me nowhere. The fundamental fact was that if I persisted in working at aviation I must risk my chance for high command. If, however, I gave up aviation and returned to line duty, I would be deserting technical development at the very time it needed the attention of everyone who had acquired experience in it. In private business I could continue the engineering development and, far from impairing my future as an executive, could actually enhance it. For in the new era which had blossomed in the brief fifteen years since Dr. Charles Edward Lucke and Columbia University, an executive with a fundamental engineering training had a better chance to accomplish things in a manufacturing business than one without such training.
The chances of a former naval officer succeeding in business were slim, but the chance was there. The risk of failure was great, but the opportunity to contribute importantly to the advance of aviation was enough to warrant taking the chance. Admiral Reeves would have judged it “an intelligent risk.” I submitted my resignation, and received the acceptance in December, 1929.
The stock market had crashed two months before; the world had entered a protracted period of depression. I had bought a complete outfit of brand new uniforms, for duty on the commander in chief’s staff. Now I packed them away in a sea chest, along with the prize sword “awarded by the Class of 1871 for proficiency in ordnance and gunnery,” and turned my back on the sea. After twenty-five years of naval service, I signed off for life.