It All Counts On Twenty: My Life While Serving In the US Navy, 1941–1961

John R. Burgoon Jr. was never one to turn down an adventure. He joined the US Navy at age seventeen and pursued a career in the aviation branch of the navy. One of his first assignments was flying anti-submarine missions from Panama during World War II. Burgoon carried out his work with distinction, and his radio, radar, and electronic skills did not go unnoticed. He became an instructor—even teaching other instructors how to teach. His twenty-year career was never dull, and included a stint in Guam, where he improved upon a shortwave radio station and relayed servicemen’s calls to the United States; he also had an assignment as a legal officer in San Diego, where he never lost a case. Burgoon’s exciting off-duty life included being an amateur radio operator, a proficient chess player, an impressive hypnotist, and a certified gemologist. In between everything, his good looks managed to get him in trouble with the ladies; this memoir shares all the good stuff in It All Counts on Twenty.