Early Years, Education, Military
Rollins was born to Joseph Guy Rollins and the former Ethel Stratton in Merit in Hunt County near Dallas at the home of his maternal grandparents, Robert B. Stratton and the former Julia Hardy. Rollins graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio. In 1938, he completed his bachelor's degree at Texas A&M University in College Station. He thereafter earned his law degree in 1941 from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
During World War II, Rollins enlisted in the United States Navy even before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. From 1943–1945, he was the commanding officer of the U.S.S. Curlew AM 69. In October 1943, he directed a group of minesweepers that successfully cleared the Caribbean entrance to the Panama Canal of German submarine-laid naval mines which had shut down the waterway for two critical weeks of the war. Rollins received a letter of commendation for his "fine seamanship under difficult conditions". After the war, Rollins was active in the Naval Reserve for eleven years and was commanding officer of the Reserve Electronics Unit in Sherman in north Texas.
Read more about this topic: Joe Rollins
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or military:
“The conviction that the best way to prepare children for a harsh, rapidly changing world is to introduce formal instruction at an early age is wrong. There is simply no evidence to support it, and considerable evidence against it. Starting children early academically has not worked in the past and is not working now.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“In all sincerity, we offer to the loved ones of all innocent victims over the past 25 years, abject and true remorse. No words of ours will compensate for the intolerable suffering they have undergone during the conflict.”
—Combined Loyalist Military Command. New York Times, p. A12 (October 14, l994)