Retired Navy commander Dennis J. Ringle of Newport thinks it’s important to study history and U.S. presidents.
“Absolutely, we should observe Presidents Day and teach more about all the presidents, their good points and their bad points and the decisions (they made),” said Ringle, 71, of the upcoming Feb. 16 holiday.
Ringle wrote the 1998 book “Life in Mr. Lincoln’s Navy.” The 240-page work is about shipboard life in the Civil War. It was published by the Naval Institute Press and was once part of the Navy’s Professional Reading Program. For years, Ringle spoke about the book around the world.
“I spoke at the Naval Academy every other year for the International Naval History Symposium,” Ringle said. “I’ve gone as far east as France and west as California and everywhere in between.”
Ringle spent five years researching the book and said he learned some interesting facts about President Abraham Lincoln in the process.
“Lincoln was big into experimental stuff. He had bids out to create an answer to the Confederates building the (CSS) Virginia,” Ringle said.
John Ericsson, a Swedish-American engineer and inventor, showed Lincoln his model for an ironclad ship.
“It would become the (USS) Monitor,” Ringle said.
Ringle said Lincoln visited a Navy yard on April 14, 1865, the day he was shot.
“Lincoln liked new things. The Navy produced all kinds of stuff. He spent part of the day at the Navy yard, talking to the captain in charge of the naval station who did scientific research on cannons. It’s interesting, if he stayed there longer, he might not have made the play,” Ringle said.
Lincoln, through the secretary of Navy, paid escaped enslaved people for their help aboard ships, Ringle said.
“A lot of the slaves had a lot of nautical experience. (The captain) took them on board,” Ringle said. “If they were really skilled, they were paid whatever white sailors would get for that skill.”
While Ringle spent some of his career aboard Navy ships, he also was a teacher who liked to immerse his students in history. He taught for Monroe High School’s former Junior ROTC program for eight years, until it was disbanded in 2007. He also was a faculty member at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland and taught at the University of Michigan and at Henry Ford Community College.
“(We dug) deep in some interesting stuff,” Ringle said. “I put the students in role-playing positions: You’re George Washington. What are you going to do with these people who are rebelling and we just fought a war to stop this? It was a lot of fun. I tried to bring realism into the class as much as I could.”
For 10 years, Ringle took about 40 Monroe High School ROTC students each year to the VA Hospital in Ann Arbor. Students brought cookies to veterans and listened to their stories.
“A lot came out of the rooms crying. One year a veteran in a room (was at Pearl Harbor). He was one of the welders/pipefitters that was cutting out sailors trapped on the Battleship Oklahoma that flipped over. It was stuff like that that really brought home real life,” Ringle said.
Ringle said MHS’ program was once one of about six Junior ROTC programs in Michigan.
“Now it’s down to one, maybe two,” he said. “Our program prepared kids for life after Monroe High School. It taught them skills you need in life. It had a leadership program and a sailing program in Newport, Rhode Island that I sent students to. I was an instructor there for 20 years.”
Ringle estimates that about 30-40 MHS students enlisted in the armed forces after their time in the program.
“Three went to the Naval Academy. One is still in. The program paid its dividends,” Ringle said.
— Contact reporter Suzanne Nolan Wisler at swisler@monroenews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Retired Navy commander reflects on his study of Lincoln, history
Reporting by Suzanne Nolan Wisler, The Monroe News / The Monroe News
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