Navy widened Rockey's worldview

SEELEY LAKE – Two weeks after graduation from high school-that's when Rockey Kennedy said his real education began. Kennedy grew up in Lone Pine, California, a little town tucked away in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In 1958 he celebrated his 18th birthday in San Diego, in Navy boot camp. His dad, a World War II veteran who served under General Douglas MacArthur, had to sign a waiver so his son could join the U. S. Navy even though he hadn't quite turned 18.

Kennedy said, "Being raised in a small town, you don't get much exposure to the world. I had never seen a black person, person-to-person until I hit boot camp. I'm going, 'Holy cow! This is a different world out here.'"

The mega town of San Diego was just the first of many places to which Kennedy would be introduced. Training for his career in the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (yes, he was a real, live NCIS operative) took him to Oklahoma, Georgia, Maryland and Alaska before returning him to San Diego. At each of those stops he learned and put into practice such things as interview techniques, criminal investigation and intelligence gathering.

NCIS is tasked with investigating all criminal activity on any Naval installation, but day-to-day operations were not quite as glamorous as on the TV show. Kennedy said it was mostly a lot of minor law enforcement issues-"guys getting in trouble"-and a lot of routine work like doing background checks on personnel requiring secret or top-secret clearance. Occasionally a more involved case came along. For example, there was a situation where a young officer committed suicide over a woman.

Kennedy's nine years of duty occurred during the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. NCIS agents were constantly collecting information on Communist activities. The year Kennedy served in Adak, Alaska at the tip of the Aleutian chain, he was close enough to Russia to monitor their air and sea activities.

Additionally, agents monitored grain and food shipments to Communist ports. That information allowed NCIS to extrapolate the physical wellbeing of the country's people. They also interviewed merchant seamen on foreign vessels returning from Communist ports. From those interviews they gained a greater sense of what the people were like, whether they were healthy or starving, whether there were any military ships in the port, etc. All that information was evaluated and compiled into reports sent to the Pentagon, so the military would know what to expect should it become necessary to invade Russia or other Communist countries.

Kennedy remembers being at sea doing war maneuvers in November 1963 when the ship's captain announced President John Fitzgerald Kennedy had been shot.

"All hands, man your battle stations," the captain ordered. "We're going all ahead full back to San Diego [the ship's home port]."

Everyone aboard was angry and upset. According to Rockey Kennedy, classified documents were even retrieved from the ship's safe as they readied for war. They were ordered to stand down once it became apparent the assassination was not the beginning of an enemy attack.

One piece of intel, now declassified, has stuck with Kennedy. The Russians revealed their strategy against the United States.

"They intended to corrupt our politicians, lower our educational standards, infiltrate our court system and get it so congested it would take years to adjudicate cases and they would introduce drugs into our military forces. And it's all come true," Kennedy said. "Every bit of it. And their famous quote was, 'The United States will fall like a ripe apple from the tree.' We had all that information back in 1966."

Kennedy served the last year of his military career in Seattle as bodyguard to Captain Edward Martin. Martin played an active role in World War II working behind enemy lines to inflict as much damage on the Japanese as possible. He succeeded in sabotaging an enemy ship in the Yellow River. The Japanese countered by putting a $50,000 bounty on him, payable in gold.

Kennedy escorted the Captain everywhere he went. Many of those trips were to Naval Hospital Bremerton for Martin's semi-monthly treatments. His actions in World War II took a physical toll on his body. He and his partner had operated at night and literally buried themselves during the day to avoid detection.

In 1967, when Kennedy's military obligations came to an end, the Captain tried to convince Kennedy to extend his tour of duty. Kennedy respectfully declined. He already had another job waiting. As he put it, "I went from Navy blue to LAPD blue." He served on the Los Angeles Police Department for the next 23 years. Because of his military experience in Naval Intelligence, he was promoted to detective almost immediately.

After he retired from the LAPD, Kennedy stayed in the area, even though he said he hated living in California. He said he was "messing around on the computer" and happened to connect with Sharon Ding. She talked about fly fishing and other things that interested him. Though she was living in Lodi, California, at the time, she had lived in Seeley Lake for 30 years and was hoping to get back there someday. Kennedy told her he had always wanted to live in Montana.

"So I packed up my dog in my truck," Kennedy said, "and looked her up in Lodi. And here we are."

Ding elaborated on the story. "He drove 200 miles to see me," she said. "I wanted him to see Seeley Lake so we just drove on up here. When we got here, we saw this house was for sale and we bought it! We'd known each other three weeks. Been together four years now."

Both Ding and Kennedy have been very active in the Veterans and Families of Seeley Lake organization since they've been in the valley. They helped with general maintenance and with the construction of the Veterans' Memorial kiosk. They have also ridden on the organization's annual Fourth of July Parade float.

It isn't only his nine years of military service that makes Kennedy a proud patriot, Kennedy said he is just naturally patriotic-- he was born on the Fourth of July.