Tag Archives: Corrective Shoes

4 August 2025

My Brief Naval Career

By Rick Ladd

Fun fact about me. I was born with congenital talipes equinovarus, or club feet. I had my first cast put on my left foot (the worst one) when I was two days old. Since infants are growing at a somewhat accelerated pace, they generally have to put the casts on reasonably loose and they need to be changed frequently.

My First Cast

At some point in my early infancy I managed to kick this one off. My parents saved it and I still have it, I think in the garage. I believe the one inscription you can read from this photo says, “Don’t let this stop you, Ricky. Keep kicking,” from a couple who have disappeared into the mists of time.

I ultimately had surgery on my left foot—my right foot straightened out with casts and corrective shoes—when I was five. When I enlisted in the US Navy in the Spring of 1966, it was the scars from the surgery that caused me to fail my physical. However, I argued that marching was something they did in the Army, not the Navy, and I was inducted.

Later, I found out marching was actually a very large part of Naval boot camp (it’s one way they build unit cohesiveness) and there also was a position our company commander would put us in called five and dive that put a great deal of strain on my ankle and shortened Achilles tendon.

When I went to sick bay to see if they could help me deal with the pain I was enduring, an x-ray discovered arthritis. I was offered a discharge, which I originally refused. However, the pain made it extremely difficult to keep up with my company and, to a man, my fellow recruits and several officers convinced me to take the discharge.

Two days later I accepted the offer and within a week I was on my way home. My DD214 says I was in the Navy for 1 month and 23 days and that I was awarded the National Defense Service Medal. Although I believe I could have made a ruckus and gotten at least some veteran’s benefits, I chose not to, believing there were others who needed it far more than I did. Because I was in for so short a period of time, I hardly refer to myself a veteran. I’ve never regretted my decision, though my foot has hindered me my entire life.

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25 June 2019

A Useful (for moi) Outline

By Rick Ladd

As I have noted previously, I am seriously considering working on a book, either of my memoirs (my whole life) or one about my activities in the Peace and Justice movement of the late sixties and early seventies. Most of that work was in protesting the war in Vietnam, but some of it was in protest of racism and inequality. If fact, I just found this document I authored about six years ago, which I called “20 things about me” and I can see it doesn’t say a word about my work with the Committee to Free Angela Davis. Clearly, I’ll be adding to this list, which I believe I will use to help me organize my thoughts about my life.

This is two views of one of the casts that were put on my left foot beginning 2 days after I was born. They must have put it on loose, because I kicked it off. My mother asked me to save it so, even though she’s been gone for about a decade, they’ll probably get cremated with me.
  1. I was born with club feet, one of which was corrected with casts, the other of which was corrected with surgery at 5 years old.
  2. When I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1966, I failed my physical because of my foot, but argued successfully that you don’t march in the Navy. Big mistake; it’s about all you do in boot camp. Was subsequently discharged when they discovered I had arthritis in my ankle.
  3. My father, fearing I would become a bum, bought a small snack shop for me when I was 19 and a half. I was there during the Summer of Love (1967) and ended up having him sell it at a loss so I could go up to Haight-Ashbury and find out what the hell was going on.
  4. It took me 3.5 years to complete High School because I cut so many classes and just didn’t want to be there. I subsequently gained admission and graduated with a Juris Doctorate from an accredited Law School ten years later, without having attended undergraduate school.
  5. I provided armed security – as a bodyguard and with a team doing bomb searches, etc. – for numerous groups and individuals during the height of the anti-Vietnam War movement, including Jane Fonda, Arco Iris, Hortensia Bussi, and Vietnamese students in the U.S.
  6. I, along with my brother and my roommate, provided armed bodyguard services for Roger MacAfee and his family after they had put up their ranch for Angela Davis’s bail.
    They were guests of honor at a fundraiser called “In Concert For Angela,” which was held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. His family, and the three of us, were about the only white people there.
  7. I was a bartender at the Ash Grove in Hollywood, a venue distinguished by having been burned to the ground numerous times by anti-Castro Cubans (Gusanos).
  8. I spent two months in Cuba as a guest of the Cuban government and a member of the sixth contingent of the Venceremos Brigade.
  9. I taught myself Spanish for the trip.
  10. My first wife was Cuban (totally unrelated to my trip many years earlier) and my current (2nd) wife is Sansei (3rd generation Japanese-American).
  11. I’ve smoked pot since I was 19. I’m currently 66 (and my brain still functions pretty darn well).
  12. I love good single-malt Scotch.
  13. My last dog was a Rottweiler who was given to me as a gift from a girlfriend who couldn’t handle him. He loved to chase shadows and stomp ants.
  14. I have had at least a dozen cats throughout my life, including two right now – Zack and Weezy.
  15. I accidentally ended up working on the Space Shuttle Main Engine program beginning a year before the Shuttle’s return to flight after the Challenger disaster. I stayed there for 23 years.
  16. I accepted an early retirement package in 2010, as the Shuttle program was winding down and the space program was contracting.
  17. I earned a Masters degree in Knowledge Management from CSUN in 2009, at the age of 62.
  18. I became a first-time, adoptive father at the tender age of 55 and, in a stunning display of higher intelligence, did it again at 59. I feel responsible, but not guilty, for the part I have played in IA.
  19. I attempted to provide social media marketing services for small businesses after retiring, but soon discovered nobody could afford to hire me and most were abysmally ignorant of what was possible.
  20. At the end of last year I decided to offer my services as an editor and proofreader and my efforts are beginning to pay off.
  21. I just signed two contracts to write for a couple of organizations I have a great deal of respect for.

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