Roger Dexter: A Fiery Experience

By Mark Splitstone, Honor Flight Chicago Veteran Interview Volunteer

Roger Dexter was born in Melrose Park, Illinois in 1945, the fourth of five children. His father served in the Army in World War II but was never sent overseas, in part because of the large number of children he had. Roger attended Proviso East and Proviso West high schools, but was never a strong student, especially with reading comprehension. At age 16, he ran away from home to live with his aunt in California. Eventually, he decided to return home, and he hitchhiked back across the country to Melrose Park. In October 1963 he turned 18 and decided to volunteer for the military. He didn’t have a strong preference regarding which branch to join, so he says he basically went “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” and landed on the Navy. He signed up at the Naval recruiting station and began his service in December 1963. 

Roger attended boot camp at Naval Station Great Lakes. He was athletic and in good shape, so he didn’t think boot camp was all that difficult and it didn’t really bother him. He says the trainers mostly focused on the men who were out of shape. He does, though, recall what was known as the 96-count manual which involved the men doing exercises together in precision while holding their rifles. He says that after doing that several times during the day he’d always sleep well that night. Since his boot camp wasn’t that far from Melrose Park, he was able to come home for Christmas that year. 

After boot camp, Roger was sent to Millington, Tennessee, near Memphis, for aviation metal smith school. This school taught men how to repair the airframes of planes. Unfortunately, during his time there he broke his arm while roller skating, and since the school required a lot of hands-on work, he wasn’t able to continue. Instead, they sent him to the fleet. Since he had no specific skills or training, he was sent to wherever the Navy needed him at that moment, in his case the supply department. His job consisted of many tasks, including running the storeroom, ordering parts, doing office work and filing, and driving forklifts and trucks. Basically, anything the planes and pilots needed, he would get. 

He was sent to a receiving station in San Diego in March 1964, and from there was assigned to Naval Air Station Miramar. NAS Miramar would acquire a new name a few years after Roger was there—Top Gun. Roger was eventually assigned to be an aviation storekeeper with VF-162, a squadron of F8 fighter aircraft, and he ended up staying in VF-162 for the rest of his enlistment. In 1965 the squadron began operating from the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany, and Roger went to sea. He recalls a shakedown cruise from San Diego where everyone learned their jobs before sailing to Hawaii for more training and drills. Eventually, the Oriskany moved to the seas off the coast of Vietnam and began launching combat sorties.

As Roger was preparing for his 7:30 AM shift on October 26, 1966, the alarm for general quarters sounded and he noticed smoke coming from a ventilation shaft. A seaman had accidentally ignited a flare, and rather than throwing it overboard, he threw it in a locker containing other flares. These flares ignited as well and before long the ship was engulfed in flames and smoke. The fire was near the bow of the ship and didn’t reach amidships where Roger was stationed, but the smoke made it difficult to breathe. He recalls bombs and planes being pushed overboard to prevent them from exploding, and by the time the fire was extinguished three hours later, 44 men had lost their lives. The Oriskany sailed to Subic Bay in the Philippines to offload the dead and wounded and then sailed back to the United States. Roger and his squadron returned to Miramar to await the completion of the repairs.

In June 1967 Roger and the Oriskany returned to the seas near Vietnam. Not long after they arrived, they were witness to yet another aircraft carrier fire. In July 1967 a fire broke out on the USS Forrestal. At the time, the Oriskany was several miles away, and Roger recalls seeing a giant plume of smoke arising from the Forrestal. The results of this fire were even worse than the Oriskany, with 134 men being killed. One of the men on the flight deck who survived was Lieutenant Commander John McCain, who shortly thereafter transferred to the Oriskany since the Forrestal was out of commission. Roger was still on the Oriskany at the end of October when McCain took off from the ship and was shot down over Hanoi, leading to a five-and-a-half-year imprisonment.

Not long after the McCain incident, Roger felt ill and discovered he had appendicitis. The appendectomy was performed onboard the ship, and he was then transferred to a hospital in Japan. His four-year enlistment was nearing its end, and he considered re-enlisting. His next duty would probably be land-based, and he would get to choose where he was stationed. Some of the choices he was given for possible locations in Europe were tempting, but he decided that he had had enough. In November 1967, he flew home and was discharged as a Petty Officer third class, after four years of service to his country. 

One of the first things he did upon returning to the Chicago area was marry his teenage sweetheart. They had stayed together throughout his years of service and were married in early 1968. They had one daughter together but the marriage lasted for less than two years. He eventually remarried and has a total of five children and eight grandchildren. 

Without strong experience or education, Roger initially had difficulty finding steady work when he returned, but then one day he heard that the railroad was hiring. He hadn’t thought about working for the railroad, but the tracks weren’t far from his home so he decided to apply. For a while, he was a fireman on the trains and would sit with the older engineers, many of whom had worked on steam engines, and learn everything there was to know about trains. Eventually, he was promoted to be an engineer and ended up in this role, for both commuter and freight trains, for the rest of his career. For four years, he had the most seniority of any engineer at the railroad, which allowed him to pick and choose his routes. He says he probably didn’t know the physics of the job as well as some of the other engineers, but he had a strong natural feel for it. He retired in 2015 at age 70 with a nice pension and nearly 47 years of railroad experience. 

Roger currently lives with his wife, Dorothy, in Sleepy Hollow, Illinois, but returns to Melrose Park a couple of times a week. He still owns the house in Melrose Park that he grew up in, and comes back to work on the house and adjacent gardens. He was an alderman for a while and also was the commander of the Northlake American Legion post, where he enjoyed organizing projects to help veterans at Hines Hospital. He’s attended reunions of the USS Oriskany in the past and hopes to do so again soon, potentially even later this year.