Early Life and Naval Career
Wilson was born in the small town of Trinity, Texas, to Charles Edwin Wilson, an accountant for a local timber company, and Wilmuth Wilson, a local florist, on June 1, 1933. Wilson had one younger sister, Sharon Wilson Allison, former chair of Planned Parenthood and president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, who currently resides in Waco, Texas.
Growing up, Wilson attended Trinity public schools and, upon graduation from Trinity High School in 1951, he attended one semester at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas before being appointed to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. While at Annapolis, Wilson earned more demerits than any other student in the history of the academy. Despite the excessive number of demerits Wilson graduated eighth from the bottom of his class in 1956 with a B. S. in Engineering, specializing in electronics.
Between 1956 and 1960, Wilson served in the United States Navy, attaining the rank of lieutenant and gunnery officer on a destroyer. While in the Navy, Wilson's commanders reported that he was the "best officer on ship but the worst in port." Wilson's exploits in port did not impede his career in the Navy and he was assigned to the Pentagon as part of an intelligence unit that evaluated the Soviet Union's nuclear forces.
Read more about this topic: Charlie Wilson (Texas Politician)
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life, naval and/or career:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candour never waited to be asked for its opinion.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“My life has been the poem I would have writ,
But I could not both live and utter it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is now time to stop and to ask ourselves the question which my last commanding officer, Admiral Hyman Rickover, asked me and every other young naval officer who serves or has served in an atomic submarine. For our Nation M for all of us M that question is, “Why not the best?””
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)