Subject: Admiral Zumwalt Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2000 09:20:06 -0500 From: "Bill Copeland" To: Amiral Elmo Zumwalt, former CNO passed away over the w/e. I had the pleasure of meeting the Admiral at the 10th Anniversary / Reunion at the Viet Nam Wall in Washington in 1992. He was quite a guy. Godspeed Admiral! Fair winds and a following sea be with you always. ****************************************************************** DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - Retired Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., who as chief of naval operations made wide-ranging reforms that helped modernize the Navy, died Sunday. He was 79. Officials at Duke University Medical Center announced the death, but did not immediately release the cause. Zumwalt was discovered on Sept. 24 to have a cancerous tumor in his chest cavity. He underwent surgery twice. His condition improved, but a second surgery in December to repair a perforated colon caused a setback. When he became the Navy's top officer in July 1970, Zumwalt was 49 and the youngest officer named to that post. He quickly became famous for his ``Z-Grams'' that made Navy careers more attractive by relaxing regulations that enlisted men considered demeaning and senseless. Among other things, the ``Z-Grams'' permitted beards and long hair if maintained neatly, the wearing of civilian clothes at shore installations and more free time in port. Zumwalt also abolished the prerequisite of attaining the rank of admiral for holding a major command at sea and widened freedom of choice in assignments. At the U.S. Naval Academy, his attitude toward meaningless regulation was reflected early in the fact that in his class of 615 cadets he ranked 24th academically but 275th in conduct. As the Navy's senior officer he increased the combat effectiveness of the dwindling U.S. fleet by outfitting ships with more sophisticated and efficient weapons. Zumwalt, commander of Navy forces during the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1970, believed he inadvertently caused the death of his own son, Elmo Zumwalt III, from cancer by ordering the spraying of Vietnam jungles with the defoliant Agent Orange, which contained the toxic chemical dioxin. Zumwalt's eldest son fought under his father's command in Vietnam and died of cancer in 1988 at age 42. The elder Zumwalt said he did not regret ordering the use of Agent Orange because it reduced casualties by making it difficult for the enemy to hide and find food. ``I do not have any guilt feelings because I was convinced then and I am convinced now that the use of Agent Orange saved literally hundreds and maybe thousands of lives,'' Zumwalt told The Associated Press in 1985. Zumwalt led efforts for more research into the chemical's deadly effects. The Department of Veterans Affairs now provides medical treatment and payments for various cancers and other diseases associated with exposure to Agent Orange. Zumwalt wrote two books. ``My Watch,'' published in 1976, recounted his Navy career and warned Americans about the Soviet naval threat. ``My Father, My Son,'' published in 1986, was co-written with his late son and is an account of their Vietnam experiences and the illness that would later kill the son. ``I do not second-guess the decisions Dad made in Vietnam, nor do I doubt for a minute that the saving of human life was always his first priority in his conduct of the war,'' the younger Zumwalt once said. Zumwalt was born in Tulare, Calif. Both of his parents were physicians and he originally intended to become an Army doctor. But an Irish whaling sailor, a friend of his father's, spun such exciting tales of adventure at sea that Zumwalt changed his mind and was admitted to the Naval Academy, where he graduated cum laude in 1942. Zumwalt served on destroyers during World War II. He was awarded the Bronze Star for his valor during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. In the Korean War he was navigator of the battleship Wisconsin. At age 44, Zumwalt became the youngest officer promoted to rear admiral. He retired as chief of naval operations in July 1974. He unsuccessfully ran as the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Virginia in 1976. President Clinton awarded Zumwalt the Presidential Medal of Freedom in January 1998.