Staff photo / J.T. Whitehouse Navy veteran Richard Duffett, the former mayor of Canfield, holds the ship plaques from the two vessels he served on in the 1980s.

CANFIELD — U.S. Navy veteran Richard A. Duffett knows how important teams and working together can be. He learned it on the football field and while serving on two Navy vessels in the 1980s.

Duffett grew up on Neff Drive in Canfield. He is a member of the Canfield High School Class of 1977 and was known for his skills on the football field. He served as quarterback for the Cardinals, which caught the attention of Navy recruiters.

“After my junior year, the Naval Academy in Annapolis recruited me for football,” Duffett said.

He jumped at the opportunity and was happy to serve. He said he had a lot of influence when it came to pursuing a Navy career.

“My late father Cecil Duffett was in the Air Force,” he said. “My Uncle Daryl “Jim” Duffett was in the Navy and a World War II veteran, my late Uncle Bill Beiltz was in the Marine Corps. My older brother, Dr. Ray Duffett attended Virginia Military Institute and graduated in 1979, and a good friend, Milton Kochert, served in the Navy.”

Right after graduation, Duffett headed to Annapolis and for the next four years he attended classes and hit the field, always looking forward to the infamous Army-Navy game. Duffett served his Navy team as quarterback.

” In my freshman year we lost to Army, but we won in my sophomore, junior and senior years,” he said. “I still like to attend those games to root for Navy.”

After his four years in the Naval Academy, Duffett went on to attend Surface Warfare Officer’s School in Newport, Rhode Island. He graduated that class in 1981 and got his first assignment on board the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier, CVN69.

“I was a division officer in charge of 50 men,” Duffett said.

He said the Eisenhower was deployed under IKE Operational Campaigns in Grenada, Libya, the Mediterranean Sea, Beirut and Lebanon.

“At Beirut, we were a key component of President Ronald Reagan’s Multi-National Peacekeeping Force,” Duffett said. “We responded to the terrorist bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983.”

Duffett recalls being at sea for 93 straight days, and arriving at Naples, Italy, where the crew was given three days of leave to go ashore. On the first day of leave, Oct. 23, 1983, Duffett remembers seeing one of the Eisenhower helicopters flying with its sonar buoy hanging down.

“That was a code to say, get back to the ship now,” he said. “That was when we heard about the attack in Beirut. We no sooner got underway than we were launching planes.”

In 1984, Duffett said the Eisenhower was invited to be the ceremonial ship when President Reagan spoke at ceremonies at Point-du-Hoc near Normandy, France, for the 40th anniversary of D-Day.

“The president’s helicopter did a flyover of the Eisenhower,” Duffett said.

Duffet served on the big carrier for 2-1/2 years.

His second tour of duty was on board the USS Francis Hammond, which was sent to the the Philippines on a peacekeeping mission for the transition from Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos to President Corazon Aquino.

While in the Philippines, Duffett said the Hammond took part in joint naval exercises with South Korea, Japan and the Philippines.

Duffett’s next move was to take navigator training and afterwards was transferred to the Hammond as navigator and legal officer. He said as legal officer, he would represent sailors who got into trouble and were brought before the captain for punishment.

The one big moment for Duffett and the crew of the Hammond was the day they found a secret Soviet submarine.

“Our ship had a 600-foot tail (sonar) we could put in the water,” he said. “We used it and were the first ship to track the Russian Akula class sub.”

In 1987, Duffett had taken on the role of athletic director for the ship and was playing in a tackle football game. He suffered a severe knee injury that ended his naval career. He was given an honorable discharge that year.

“I grew up in Canfield and always loved the community,” he said. “So I returned to Canfield and moved to a house on Neff Drive, not far from where I grew up.”

Upon returning to civilian life, Duffett became a football and baseball coach at Canfield High School and was a special education teacher at the Mahoning County High School.

Around 2002, Duffet got work in the security field and has been there since.

In 2005, he married Brenda Corbin Duffett and together they raised three children and now have five grandchildren.

As with his service on board the carrier and the Hammond, Duffett still held fast to serving others. In 2018, he became mayor of Canfield and served until the beginning of 2022 after not seeking re-election in November.

He also got involved with American Legion Post 177, where he serves as chaplain.

“I think the positive thing I took away from my Navy experience is serving others and being part of something bigger than yourself,” Duffett said.

jtwhitehouse@vindy.com