Roger Hawke served more than 20 years in the United States Navy, but he never faced life-threatening situations then as he did in civilian life years later.
Hawke, who turned 73 last week, entered the Navy in 1970 and served a total of 24 years, including almost 21 in active duty. Three of his first four years included time on a submarine that at one point was indirectly involved in the war between Egypt and Israel in 1973. He was involved in only one circumstance that could have been termed potentially life-threatening.
After retirement, however, Hawke survived a liver transplant and nearly died from liver cancer, a tick disease and serious heart issues. He has now been cancer-free 20 years.
Hawke knew early in life what he was going to do when he graduated from high school, and, according to his version of the story, he credits old movies and their stars.
Hawke told his mother he was not going to college, but she insisted he take college prep courses.
“So I took four years of college prep; failed,” he recalled, “then went straight into the Navy two weeks after I got out.”
What was so inviting about the Navy?
“I guess old movies,” he responded with a smile. “I’d watch old movies, John Wayne and all these guys in old, old black and white movies. You know, they’re going to all these foreign countries and having a good time. I put it that way, having a good time.”
Hawke joined the Navy when he finished school and served in active duty from 1970 to 1974. He met his future wife, Lynn Stevenson, while home on leave in 1971, and they married in 1972.
When Hawke’s initial tour ended in ’74, he worked for about three and a half years as a Macon P.D. motorcycle officer before he decided to re-enlist. He served for 17 more years before retiring as a Chief Petty Officer in 1994, and Jones County Sheriff Butch Reece hired him as a deputy in 1997. He ended up leaving that position in 2008 on medical disability.
Hawke was hands-on in his first naval assignment. “The first year I was a deck seaman on an oil tanker,” he detailed. “We refueled ships at sea. I ran the winches that controlled the eight-inch fuel hoses between the ships. After one year, I volunteered for submarine duty, and I served about three years in submarines. I was one of three ship’s cooks and was primarily the night baker when at sea.”
It was during that service time that Egypt and Israel went to war, and the U.S. Navy was indirectly involved.
“We did 96 days on submerged patrol,” the Navy vet explained. “Just keeping the Russians at bay, making sure they don’t get involved in Israel’s business.”
The sub was one of several vessels on which Hawke was a crew member.
“I served on an oiler, a guided missile destroyer, a troop landing ship, and a nuclear cruiser,” he said, noting that in either 1981 or 1982, the destroyer he was on was 12 miles off the coast of Libya when two Libyan jets were shot down.
“We went to general quarters that day,” Hawke recalled, “and the captain had already told us, if we go to general quarters, it’s not a drill. It’s serious. So we spent about 14 hours at battle stations with two Libyan gunboats riding along just off the side of the fan tail. That had the potential to be pretty serious.”
Hawke explained that his jobs in the service varied.
“I was a coxswain — driver — on a 40-foot utility boat. I used to teach firefighting and damage control, flood control, nuclear biological warfare, stuff like that. Later on, I was a career counselor. I did a tour recruiting in Macon and Milledgeville. I was the guy that came in and taught people about re-enlisting and the benefits.”
A lot of that work was also on ships, Hawke said.
“I was in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Charleston. Spent 10 years in the Norfolk-Virginia Beach area.”
Following retirement in 1994, Hawke worked a couple of odd jobs before starting as a patrol officer with Jones County in 1997, but later Reece asked him to begin ‘running warrants.’
“So, for about four years, I worked the warrant division, and I traveled all over the country to pick up inmates who got arrested. I’ve been to Chicago a couple of times, Kentucky, Texas, and the sheriff called me in one morning and says, ‘I got a man in Las Vegas. I’d go but I’m busy,’” Hawke relayed with a smile.
The former deputy explained that a cancer problem surfaced in 2004.
“My wife kept on me about getting a colonoscopy, and I wouldn’t do it. So finally, I got tired of hearing it. It turns out I had colon cancer.”
Hawke said the doctor told him he had issues with his liver, and he needed to go to Emory Hospital in Atlanta.
“So I went up to Emory and found out I had cirrhosis,” he detailed. “I had a complete liver transplant. Once they did the pathology, they found out that I had cancer as well. The doctor came out and told my wife if I had not had that transplant when I did, I would have died in about a week. It was pretty rough.”
Hawke said he ‘lucked out’ on the colon cancer. After being told one polyp had been cut out with no problem, he was summoned to the hospital the next week.
“The doctor came in and said, ‘The polyp that I cut out was cancer. I think I got it all,’ which it turns out he did. I’ve been colon cancer-free since then. So, I just hit it right.”
Hawke related that the liver cancer was only the first of three brushes with death, though he had a heart episode prior to the others. Two stents were required when it was discovered he had an 80 percent, then 90 percent blockage.
Hawke said another incident — even more serious — followed soon thereafter.
“While I was kind of recuperating from that, I was out in my garden, and I got bit by a tick.”
He said that shortly after he removed the tick, he developed chills and 103 degrees temperature for 10 days. He was scheduled for a follow-up at Emory, and when he went, he was immediately hospitalized.
“I had something called ehrlichiosis, which is a tick-borne illness,” Hawke stated. “The doctor told me at that time, ‘if you hadn’t come up here when you did, if you stayed out another week or so, you might have been gone.’ It’s worse than Rocky Mountain spotted fever, just not as common.”
That episode prompted his retirement from the Jones County Sheriff’s Department after 11 years of service.
About 11 years later, during the 2019-20 holiday season, the retiree faced another heart challenge that could have been fatal. He was told following a heart cath that he would need open-heart surgery.
“So the surgeon came in, talked to me, and he wouldn’t do it,” Hawke recalled. “He made me go to Emory to do it because of my transplant. But he told me, ‘I can let you get in the car and go home, but I can’t promise you’re going to make it.’
“So I was in the hospital over Christmas and New Year’s for open heart triple bypass.”
Despite the health issues, Hawke is still active.
“I keep plugging pretty much like I always have,” he proclaimed, adding that he is big into woodworking.
“I used to do a lot of craft shows. Not so much anymore. A lot of the stuff I do now is either one-on-one sales, or what I do, for example, for the veterans. Whenever Chap Nelson stopped doing his chainsaws, I picked up and started doing woodworking.
“The first year,” he continued, “which I believe was 2019, I made 125 wooden flags out of scrap wood, and I gave them out at the Veterans Day celebration. I just passed them out to the veterans. And every year since then, I’ve made something that’s military-related that I’ll go out and give all the veterans when they come through. “
Hawke is also active as a member of the local car club, the Jones County Cruisers, as well as the American Legion, the Masonic Lodge, the Scottish Rite and the Shriners.
“I’ve been a Mason for 25 years. And, I stay busy with the Scottish Rite,” he commented.
The Hawkes have done a good bit of traveling, including Hawaii, Alaska and the west coast.
“We’ll take six or seven weeks,” he shared. “We’ll tell the mailman, ‘we’ll be back in a month, month and a half,’ so we’ll just take off and start driving.”
Despite his serious health issues, Hawke has no regrets.
“Yeah, it’s been pretty good,” he acknowledged. “I tell people, you know, I’ve done things and seen things that most people don’t do.” And, he added, “about one percent of the world population has been to sea in a submarine.”
