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He wasted no time dropping out to join the Navy. Soon enough, he found himself assigned as a radar operator aboard the USS Alkaid, a converted merchant ship heading for the Pacific to serve as a troop and equipment transport.
Like most of the young crew of 200 or so, Bradshaw was new to the Navy, life on the sea and being away from home.
Over two years, he and the rest of the Alkaid crew completed 80-some missions, delivering everything from combat soldiers to soap to ports like New Zealand, Guadalcanal and Fiji.
Though the Alkaid wasn't a combat ship, it sailed in and out of combat zones and made all but one or two of the hauls unescorted in dangerous waters.
"We took 1,200 Marines to Iwo Jima," said Bradshaw, "and there were only 300 left from that unit when we came back to transport them out."
The 75-year-old Bradshaw, now retired and in Spotsylvania County, is hosting a special group this Memorial Day weekend: some 25 shipmates from the Alkaid.
They're in town to mark the 58th anniversary of the ship's commissioning and their arrival as 17- and 18-year-olds aboard the steel-decked vessel that became their home for two years.
I chatted with Bradshaw a few weeks back about the reunion and his time aboard the Alkaid, a Liberty Ship named for a star in Ursa Major.
As I listened to his stories of the war and life aboard a ship that was a steel sweatbox in summer, I was struck by the sense of brotherhood that underscored every tale.
My mind flashed back to the half-dozen or so columns I've done about military reunions over the years. The common denominator: nothing that follows ever creates the kind of bond that exists between those who serve together in wartime.
As shipmates of Bradshaw's began to arrive for this weekend's reunion, to include a cookout at his home and other festivities, I pulled a few aside to ask them about the connection they feel to their former shipmates.
"You have to remember that most of the us were 17 and 18, away from home for the first time, cruising into the war," said Loran Wilcox of Inglis, Fla. "Sharing that makes a bond develop pretty quickly."
He added that, unlike many of the ships on which he served later as a career Navy man, the Alkaid was put into service and taken out two years later with the same crew.
"People weren't coming and going, as they did with other ships," he said.
Jack Cothran of Alexandria said that while all young men in combat lean on their comrades for support, none are any more "together" than those aboard ship.
"We slept in bunks that went four deep, just a foot or two from the man above you," he said, smiling at the memory. "You get to know a lot about the men around you, their personality, their worries, their ways."
Joe Hart, who traveled from Portland, Ore., for the four days of stories and fellowship, said that although they didn't lose a shipmate to the war, danger was all around.
"The worse thing was probably trying to get through the furious typhoon at Okinawa in 1945," said Bradshaw. "You couldn't walk up on deck unless you had a line tied to you. It was a pretty scary few days."
Though the reunions started in the early '70s, they peaked a decade or so later and settled into an every-other-year pattern.
"Because I've been the organizer for this year's reunion, it's been my responsibility to keep track of the deaths in our group and send flowers in its name," said Bradshaw. "We've had seven, either shipmates or their wives, in the past two years."
Glasses will be raised to toast those who were lost through the years.
And many a tale told about a time when arthritis, Medicare and other such concerns were something their fathers worried with.
Said Hart: "These tales are a little bit like fish stories. My wife jokes that we have to keep coming to see how much bigger the stories get each time they're told."