Naval Training Center

On October 24^th, 1960, Joan was sworn in to the Regular Navy and received her commission. In March 1961, she was promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade. 

She moved to the Naval Training Center in San Diego where she became Officer of the Personnel Division. She maintained service records for all officers on the Naval Training Center under Commander Marie Kelleher. Joan admired and respected Kelleher who she said was strict, serious, fair and a great mentor. “I learned a great deal from her regarding how to conduct myself and deal with my subordinates. She was the earliest positive influence on my professional life.”

In 1962, Joan began a new job as Director, Student Personnel Division. In this assignment she described signing hundreds of records. 

From time to time, Joan described her own passing role as a witness to history in major events in U.S. and World history.

In October of 1962, Joan spent many hours looking through service records for any radiomen who could speak Portuguese. She had no idea why the Navy needed Portuguese speaking radio men. She found out many years later that it was related to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

On October 22, President Kennedy addressed the nation announcing the presence of soviet missiles moving toward Cuba and a US Naval blockade.

In the secret discussions of how to handle this crisis, one of the actions being considered by Secretary of State David Rusk, was to have Brazil act as a secret back channel to Castro to convince him to break from Moscow and Communism in favor of a socialist government aligned with Latin American interests. This scenario did not actually happen, but the effort was not made public for decades.