Antwone Fisher

Antwone Fisher created his first real "family" in the U.S. Navy. Taking full advantage of the Navy's promise to help him see the world, Fish traveled everywhere during his 11-year stint.

He served aboard modern ships as well as older workhorses which had first seen duty in Vietnam. (Today, up-to-date devices like Remote Mine-hunting Systems are used to help keep troops, and their ships, out of harm's way.)

Antwone spent time in San Diego where the Naval Air Station at North Island, and the Naval Base Coronado, are familiar sights to anyone traveling in the area. When not deployed, famous aircraft carriers like the USS Constellation (CV 64), USS Nimitz (CVN 68) and USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) can be found along North Island's quay wall.

At sea for months at a time, Antwone Fisher began to discover things about himself. Expressing his pent-up emotions on paper, he fell in love with words. He realized, unexpectedly, that he was a poet:

We'll give Antwone no sister to smile
And say to him, when I grow
You must know, your name is my first child's.

We'll give Antwone no brother to share his
childhood days.

We'll give Antwone no mother, he'll go
through life this way.

We'll give him no clear vision to see
his way through strife.

We'll give Antwone no father to help
guide him through life.

No, what we'll give to Antwone,
From time to time in life,

To find his own, all on his own...
We'll make this Antwone's life.

(Finding Fish, page 30.)

It wasn't just hard-hitting poetry that occupied Antwone's mind during his navy off-hours. Long-simmering anger, which Patricia Nees had earlier observed, erupted on board ship. Antwone expressed that anger in various ways - like fighting with his shipmates.

While stationed in Pearl Harbor, assigned to the destroyer USS Edwards DD-950 (dubbed the "Ready Eddie" by her crew), Antwone Fisher met the man who would help to turn his life around.