L. Patrick Gray - Naval Career

Naval Career

The US Navy commissioned Gray as a line officer, as which he would serve through five submarine war patrols in the Pacific during World War II. Gray suffered a ruptured appendix at the start of his sixth patrol and he was unable to get to a hospital for 17 days, an ordeal that should have killed him. His Academy class of 1940 would go on to suffer more wartime losses than any other class in US history.

In 1945, Gray visited Beatrice Kirk DeGarmo, the widow of his classmate at the Naval Academy, Ed DeGarmo. A year later, in 1946, he and "Bea" were married, and he would adopt her two sons, Alan and Ed. They would have two more of their own, Patrick and Stephen.

In 1949, while still serving in the navy, Gray received a J.D. degree from George Washington University Law School where he edited the law review and became a member of the Order of the Coif. He was admitted to practice before the Washington D.C. Bar in 1949; later, he was admitted to practice law by the Connecticut State Bar, the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, the United States Court of Appeals, the United States Court of Claims, and the United States Supreme Court.

By 1960, Gray's achievements in the Navy included commanding three submarine war patrols during the Korean War, earning the rank of captain two years before he was legally allowed to be paid for it, and serving as congressional liaison officer for the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Chief of Naval Operations. In that same year, when Gray indicated his desire to retire from the Navy, Arleigh Burke, the Chief of Naval Operations, told Gray "If you stay, you'll have my job some day." Gray did not stay, and in 1961 joined a Connecticut law firm.