by Alexis Brianna Ruiz – Interview
I interviewed one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met in my life. David Carlise. He has been to every continent in the world, and hasn’t gone to Romania and a few countries in Africa. He graduated from a “unit in Rhode Island” in 1968 and found his way to being apart of the Coast Guard. Around this time, the government was drafting for the Vietnam War and he thought that if he joined the coast guard, he wouldn’t be drafted. Unfortunately, he ended up getting drafted. The fortunate part was that he has really fun stories from traveling all over the world. When he explains the stories, he leaves out major details and makes you interpret it for yourself. It can be frustrating at times, but it forces your imagination to make the story more than what it is. That might be what he’s striving for, but I also might be over thinking it! His whole life fits the motto of “going with the flow.” He has stayed at random parts of the world for years at a time, sacrificing work and family for experience and curiosity. Sometimes that would lead to dangerous events; so dangerous that it would literally make a movie. David was featured in both the book and the movie called “The Perfect Storm.” He says that he can’t watch that movie because it gives him flashbacks to that time. This man has lived through explosions on ships, fires on ships, sinking ships, and much more. He had to actually use one of those hagman suits and link up with his crew in the ocean for five hours until rescue came. I was asking other students about him, and they all came back with different stories. It’s almost like if he’s lived 10 lives in one. He now works in the engineering department in the Siquliac and smokes on a wooden pipe during his breaks. Oh, the people you meet out at sea.
