My name is Chester G White Jr. and I was born on February 5th 1941 in Baltimore Maryland. I attended elementary school at Montebello, the same school my father attended. I went to Hamilton Junior High School for two years and then Baltimore Polytechnic Institute (High School).  I graduated in February which was not unusual in 1959. I received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis Maryland and entered on July 7th 1959 as one of 1915 plebes and graduated June the 5th 1963 with 876 remaining.

My first duty station was aboard the destroyer USS Perkins home ported in San Diego California.  My job was main propulsion assistant; I was in charge of the boilers and main engines.  We made two deployments to the Western Pacific (WestPac) and the second one was in the early days of the Vietnam War.  Next I was assigned to a destroyer escort the USS Lowe home ported in Guam.  On the Lowe I was the Chief Engineer, the head of the Engineering Department.  We would spend six months deployed off the coast of Vietnam trying to stop seaborne infiltration from the North interspersed with three months in our home port.  Next I attended Destroyer School in Newport, Rhode Island for six months followed by a tour as the Chief Engineer on the USS Perkins. We made several Caribbean Deployments and two to the Med, but I left the ship part way through the second Med deployment.