Meeting Terry Kraft

Aside from the fact that the newspaper industry is dying, there are many joys to being a reporter–especially since, in the first case, I’m a freelancer, or what the paper calls a “correspondent.” You know–like Dickens, Hemingway and Steinbeck before me. OK. Maybe that’s pushing it.

One of those many joys, however, is meeting fascinating people and really, even extraordinary ones. Tonight was one such case. I covered the graduation ceremony at Oxnard’s Santa Clara High school, a private Catholic school in the heart of South Oxnard.

It’s place that breeds success and it is apparent when you walk on campus that there is a warm feeling there, a feeling of family and of challenge. It feels like a place where people really do care about each other.

But it is also the home to some extraordinary alumnae and one of those is Rear Admiral Terry Kraft, the former Commanding officer and Captain of the USS Ronald Reagan. Kraft now calls D.C. home and works in the Pentagon. He was the keynote speaker tonight and mentored one student at Santa Clara who will be headed off to the US Naval Academy.

I spoke to Kraft for a few minutes, interviewed him for my piece. I tend to get star struck pretty easily. When I first started writing about wine, for example, I really was in awe of the people who made the wine and sold it and it showed in my writing. I even got criticized by an editor at Wines and Vines, one of my first big breaks in the industry, for being what she called “star struck.” I’ve been working on the problem since I was told that and having now been a “street reporter” for more than a year, I’ve overcome that habit.

Still, in Kraft’s presence, I felt a bit of it come back. This is a man that for three years served as Captain of the US Navy’s biggest, baddest aircraft carrier and sailed it into harm’s way more than once. He did all of this, by the way, before he turned 46 years old. Pretty darned remarkable if you ask me.

He’s as soft spoken, gentle and unassuming–except for the blazing white uniform, Admiral’s epulets and gold wings on his chest–as any man I know. He has a ready smile, even an impish grin at times, and he’s an eye-contact guy. Graying on top, losing only a little hair to his otherwise boyish navy haircut, Kraft is at the top of the game. He holds one of the highest ranks in the navy and he has served under a number of Presidents. He’s a true career officer with a good deal of combat experience, both in the air–during 1986′s attack on Libyan targets and, of course, Operation Desert Storm–and at sea during Operation Iraqi Freedom among many, many others.

I told him when I finished talking to him that it was an honor to meet him–and it was. I am enormously in awe of our country’s military members and even more in awe of those that lead them. They have a kind of drive, focus and initiative that is rare today, and they combine that with a heart for service and caring. That is the whole package, friends. The real deal.

So, like I said–there are a lot of joys in being a reporter. None of them, however, surpasses the joy of meeting such a diverse group of interesting people and Rear Admiral Terry Kraft is certainly one of the more interesting people I’ve ever met.

Posted in Work/writing life