Bill Key was 18 years old when he decided to join the military, but he didn't know he would spend the next 20 years of his life on and off submarines.
"I don't think there's anything you can really compare it to," Key said.
Key joined the Navy in 1985, mostly to get away from school. His plan backfired almost immediately. Key spent the next year and a half at nuclear power school, training to do the job for which he had signed up.
However, it didn't end there.
"For the next 20 years of my life, unless I was on leave, I was taking a test every other week on material that we went over," Key said. "We were always studying, learning, taking tests."
Key was 20 when he went on his first submarine patrol--the first of 19 during his time of service.
"Our mission was to go out and be undetected," Key said.
Even the Navy authorities didn't know precisely where the submarine was.
"They knew we were in so many square miles in the Atlantic Ocean," he said.
As a nuclear machinist, Key spent his time at sea standing watch and performing maintenance, working on things like piping systems, pumps, valves and the propulsion plant and nuclear reactor on the submarine.
"When you're on a submarine in the middle of the Atlantic at 400 feet and something breaks, we did not have the luxury of pulling in or having a maintenance facility fix it," Key said. "We had to figure out how to fix it, and if we didn't have the parts needed on board, we had to figure out how to fix it in a unique way."
Key said that was the fun part of the job--that and watching movies.
"We got to see movies on the TV before people here got to see them in the theater half the time," Key said. "We'd get them as soon as they came out ... You didn't even bother to go out to the theater when we were in port."
But a movie collection wasn't the only thing the strategic missile submarines had on board.
"We could carry a lot of missiles," Key said. "These were all multiple warhead missiles for use against Russia if necessary, or any other big threats that were out there."
Key described the missiles as being more powerful than those used at Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
"We carried enough missiles to destroy a country," Key said. "Luckily, we never got a launch order, because that would have meant World War III."
Key's time on the submarine meant time away from his wife and children.
"If we were in port, I could call," Key said. "And we wrote a lot of letters."
Key went two to three months at a time without seeing his family, unless he was on shore leave.
His longest span below the surface was 110 days.
"I knew the job he was doing was important for the protection of our country," said his wife, Michelle Key. "It did get hard, but we had a good church family support system."
Bill said he told Michelle that whenever she couldn't take it anymore, that was when he would retire.
"I went out to sea, but she had to stay home and take care of children by herself, and that was a hard job, too," Bill said.
So in early 2006, Key turned in his papers and prepared to retire in July of that year.
But on June 23, Bill passed out in his home. After a series of tests, it was determined he was operating on less than half a heart.
He was scheduled to receive a pacemaker Aug. 10, but on Aug. 8, his heart stopped.
His family and emergency responders performed CPR, but after 44 minutes without a heartbeat, Key was pronounced dead at the emergency room.
"The EMTs said, 'He is fighting too hard,' and they would not quit," Bill said. "I'm here because God wanted me here ... and I thank him every day for it."
Bill's pacemaker was implanted Aug. 13, and life went on despite his prognosis: a 5 percent chance of survival with massive brain damage. The problem was caused by diesel exhaust poisoning in November 2005 from malfunctioning equipment.
"Sometimes I resent--not the Navy, because you can have industrial accidents anywhere--but what I can't do anymore," Bill said. "I hate lying around. I hate the fact that I have to take a nap every day."
Bill said he doesn't know if people really understand or appreciate veterans the way they should.
"I would love to see our country go to a required military service, a year or two years. I wish more people would understand what Veterans Day is about."
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