Elmo Zumwalt's family moved to Los Angeles, California, where he grew up.
21 Facts About Elmo Zumwalt
2.
Elmo Zumwalt became estranged from her parents for marrying outside the faith, as the Zumwalts were Christians.
3.
Elmo Zumwalt had planned to become a doctor like his parents, but in 1939, he was accepted to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
4.
Elmo Zumwalt participated in intercollegiate debating and was a Company Commander and Regimental Three Striper.
5.
Elmo Zumwalt graduated with distinction and was commissioned as an ensign on June 19,1942.
6.
Elmo Zumwalt received an honorary degree from Texas Tech University.
7.
In January 1948, Elmo Zumwalt was assigned to the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps unit of the University of North Carolina, where he remained until June 1950.
8.
Elmo Zumwalt served as officer and enlisted requirements officer, and as action officer on Medicare legislation.
9.
Elmo Zumwalt then served as Director, Systems Analysis Division, OPNAV from August 1966 to August 1968.
10.
Elmo Zumwalt was the Navy adviser to General Creighton Abrams, Commander, MACV.
11.
Elmo Zumwalt always spoke very highly of Abrams, and said that Abrams was the most caring officer he had ever known.
12.
Elmo Zumwalt's command was not a blue-water force, like the Seventh Fleet; it was a brown-water unit: he commanded the flotilla of Swift Boats that patrolled the coasts, harbors, and rivers of Vietnam.
13.
President Richard Nixon nominated Elmo Zumwalt to be Chief of Naval Operations in April 1970.
14.
Elmo Zumwalt reshaped the Navy's effort to replace large numbers of aging World War II-era vessels, a plan called "High-Low".
15.
Elmo Zumwalt proposed four kinds of warships to fit the plan; in the end, only the Pegasus class of missile patrol boats and the Oliver Hazard Perry-class of guided missile frigates became reality, and only six of the planned 100+ Pegasus-class hydrofoils were built.
16.
Elmo Zumwalt was the last Chief of Naval Operations to live at Number One Observatory Circle before it became the official residence of the vice president.
17.
Also in 1976, Zumwalt unsuccessfully ran as a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate from Virginia, and was defeated by incumbent independent senator Harry F Byrd Jr.
18.
Zumwalt's eldest son, Elmo Zumwalt III, served as lieutenant on one of Zumwalt's patrol boats during the Vietnam War.
19.
Elmo Zumwalt III died from his cancer on August 14,1988, at the age of 42, three months after the TV movie was shown.
20.
Admiral Elmo Zumwalt was the first chairman of the NMDP's board of directors.
21.
Elmo Zumwalt died on January 2,2000, aged 79, at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina from mesothelioma.