Page 98 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2025 - Online Magazine

by Ted Wilson

up to complete boot camp, but it During his enlistment which lasted
wasn’t all tedious. He was assigned three years and two months, the young
to be a scorekeeper for a national man learned how to live in close
shooting championship. His bunk quarters and get along and work with
mate was a Native American from fellow sailors, and he was discharged
Oklahoma. He got to meet and interact as a Petty Officer Third-class.
with men from all over the US and
learned to respect and get along with Like many others, Ed had a hard time
folks different from himself. adjusting to civilian life. He worked
on a tugboat on the Arkansas River in
His first duty station was North Oklahoma. He met a beautiful young
Island at San Diego. In 1968 President lady in a small café in Sunset, OK.
Johnson was to fly in, and Ed was After a “whirlwind romance,” he and
selected to be one of six sailors to be Joyce married July 10, 1970, soon after
aides for the Secret Service. They got to she graduated from Spiro High School.
ride as guards on the sideboards of the They moved to Whiteface, where he
vehicle transporting the president, and was recruited to be part of the militia
a treasured news photo of Ed on the that protected that community after
president’s vehicle was taken. a devastating tornado. Lubbock
dward (Ed) Marks began life in Later that year found Ed deployed was still recovering from its own
Lamesa, Texas in 1948, but soon to the waters off North Korea after recent devastation in May 1970, and
Emigrated to Whiteface where the Pueblo Incident in January 1968. Whiteface’s regular security detail had
he attended school until 1965, at the The ship was captured by the North been deployed to Lubbock, leaving the
age of 17, the day after Christmas, his smaller community unprotected.
parents signed for him to enlist in the Koreans and its crew captured. Ed The following years found Ed working
Navy. was serving on the USS Hancock,
an aircraft carrier pulled out of the at a feed lot at Muleshoe and a gypsum
He had a bit of a rough beginning as “mothball” fleet for service during mill at Rotan. He joined the National
a new recruit. While in bootcamp, the Vietnam War and the tensions Guard for a year where he operated a
one assignment was as dishwasher. with North Korea. They were “locked tugboat involved in bridgebuilding on
One day he was ordered out…he and loaded.” It was bitterly cold. a lake at Ft. Hood. Daughters, Jessica
had measles. While in sick bay, Ed Thankfully, the crew was released and Robin, were born while they were
contracted pneumonia. After some eleven months later,
time “out of it,” he asked, “Where am and that conflict
I?” He was told he was in the death did not escalate into
ward. “If you make it through here, another battlefront.
you’ll be all right.” Comforting words.
But the war in Vietnam
Two months later, Ed was all right. was raging. Ed’s ship
He described the Navy nurses as supplied bombing
“Godsends” …angels to him and missions off the coast
others, especially men wounded in of North Vietnam.
Vietnam. But that experience gave him Those memories
a sobering view of the realities of war. are still a sobering
reminder to Ed about
Once Ed was out of bed, he was back the hellishness of war.
to work. He still faced a lot of catching

98 Lubbock Senior Link