Education: The Collegian & the Sailors

When the U.S.S. John S. McCain slipped into Southeast Asian waters last fall, she began a cruise that any peacetime sailor might envy. The Seventh Fleet destroyer leader called at Cebu, Singapore, Rangoon, Calcutta, Hong Kong and Okinawa. In Rangoon 15,000 Burmese streamed aboard her. In Calcutta she hus tled food and medicine to a city ravaged by flood and cholera. Off Formosa, she plucked 41 seamen from a sinking Japanese freighter. But last week, back at Pearl Harbor, came the biggest thrill of all: the arrival of a penniless Okinawan, bound for the University of Hawaii with a full scholarship guaranteed by the McCain's men of good will.

The idea sprang up after Calcutta, when the ship lay heavy with the fresh impact of Asia. "Everything was so moving," recalls one officer. "The poverty, the filth, the sickness, the pressure of Communism." Soon the ship buzzed with a plan: send an Asian boy to college. The crew approved unanimously—as long as they could choose the lad personally and keep an eye on him in home port Pearl Harbor.

A committee got entrance exams from the University of Hawaii, raffled off a Vespa motorscooter at a $1,150 profit. When the McCain reached Naha, Okinawa in December, she mustered a U.S. diplomat and two missionaries to find six able, poor boys who would promise to return to Okinawa and help their people. Among the candidates: Hoshin Nakamura, 19, son of a small farmer in the village of Sashki. A B-plus senior at rigorous Chinen Senior High School, Hoshin had no money for college. With ease, he passed the McCain's first test: a statement of purpose. Said Hoshin:

"I would like to go to the University of Hawaii to study English. Then I would make a building in the side of my village where I would take care of my Okinawan children. Then I want to put a library into this building so that everybody may be able to read whenever they want. I would like to open the door to the poor children and anyone else who wishes the comfort or joy to be always found within. If it is possible, I would like to teach a right and beautiful English in an Okinawan high school.''

Last week, having topped his rivals in the formal exams, Hoshin sailed into Pearl Harbor. At dockside: everyone from the Pacific Fleet's chief of staff to Hawaii's Congressman Daniel K. Inouye. To pay Hoshin's entire expenses for the next four years, the McCain has already installed an ice cream machine with proceeds ($120 a month) earmarked for his education, along with a big chunk of the ship's bingo profits. Says Hoshin: "It is much too wonderful to explain."