This is a fascinating interview with WWII veteran, pioneer of population study at Florida State, and now a master his own retired life, Dr. Charlie Nam. Charlie shares his keys to staying engaged and excited about the future, even in retirement.
Transcript:
Curry: Hello. This is John Curry. I have the pleasure today of sitting here with Dr. Charles Nam in his nice home, having a glass of wine with him. Charlie is a retired professor from Florida State University, and the reason we’re doing this interview is I’m interviewing people that I call the experts. And I’ve known you since 1976 and over the years you’ve done a lot of work because of your training and education dealing with demographics, sociology, retirement issues, longevity, and we’ve had some fantastic conversations over the years. And I just wanted to share that with people. So, first of all, I want to thank you for allowing me to sit with you and do this in your nice home and enjoy this nice glass of wine.
Nam: My pleasure.
Curry: Take a moment please and just share with people who might be listening to this your background, how you got started at Florida State University, just how you got interested in the things that you’ve studied and shared with me over the years about longevity.
Nam: Well, I was in World War II in combat in Europe… when I was 18 years old.
Curry: But you went in the Army at 17 though, didn’t you?
Nam: Yes.
Curry: I remember those stories about that.
Nam: And I was one of the younger people who fought in World War II, and when I got out of the Army and applied to go to college, I was told that, “It’s difficult to admit you because all of the older GIs that have come out of service were filling up the spaces in the universities and we didn’t have room for you younger guys.”
I went to New York University. At the time, my parents were in the suburbs of New York, and I asked them what it would take to get into the university. And my grades were good and my qualifications were okay and they said, “Well, you’ll have to wait until we have a slot for you.”
And I said there must be some way to get in. And they said, “Would you consider starting in the night school?”
And I said, “Will that get me into the day school?”
And they said, “Well, if you did well in the night school, we would move you to the day school.”
So I said fine, and my first semester in New York University I was in the night school. I had to commute in on the railroad to New York University. I attended courses at night, and at the end of the term they said, “Okay, we’ll put you in the day session.” And I finished the rest of the program in three years and got my bachelor’s degree in applied statistics. Statistics was always an interest of mine in a popular way, like, I’d collected statistics about baseball players and things of that sort. I didn’t even know there was a field like that.
And at the time there really weren’t statistics departments in more than two or three universities in the country, and New York University had what they called an applied statistics program where you took courses in mathematics, economics, business, sociology, wherever there were concerns about statistics. And I benefited greatly from that program.
When I finished it, I applied for a Federal Government job and was hired at the US Census Bureau, which had just taken the 1950 census of population and needed some young professionals to help them develop the data with processing and analyzing the data. So I went to Washington and spent a few years working on the 1950 census. And the people I was working for, my supervisors, were people with PhDs who had already established themselves in the social science professions, and I learned from them what it took to be a professional in the industry. And I got very attracted to it, and so I developed my skills there.
There came a time in 1953 when they said they no longer could retain me because the period of census analysis was completed and they would have to let me go. Well, they had let many more go before me but I was let go as well, and so, through various means, I went back to complete a master’s degree and a PhD at the University of North Carolina.
At that point the Census Bureau said, “Why don’t you come back and you can be a branch chief for us for the 1960 census?” And I did that and spent a few years there, but I wasn’t really satisfied with my professional work there. Government work requires you to do what the government needs to have done, and I’m a little more innovative than that and I didn’t have an opportunity to lead.
Curry: Some people that know you very well would say that innovative is not the right word. Maybe a bit of a maverick.
Nam: A bit of a maverick perhaps. And so I started looking around in terms of university employment, and that’s what brought me to Florida State University. You have to understand that, at that time in the early 1960s, the population in the United States and in the world was growing at the most rapid rate it had ever experienced.
Curry: I did not realize that. So the 1960s was the….
Nam: The early 1960s, the highest rate of population growth in the world and in the United States as well, and that made the Federal Government very sensitive to the need for understanding what was happening with the population, and they built programs to support research and to support graduate education. And so, when Florida State University hired me, I said to the chairman of the sociology department, “Let’s go and get some of these fellowships that they’re offering from the Federal Government.” And we got four of them that came with my introduction to Florida State University. And that started the development of a program which still exists today on population research at Florida State University. In fact, this year we’ll celebrate our fiftieth anniversary as a center for population studies.
Curry: Wow. Let’s hit the pause button for a second. You’ve just covered a lot of material. So here’s what’s going through my mind. I’m hearing a young man, 17 years old, goes into the Army, 18 years old officially. You go to war. If I recall correctly from what you shared with me on our Honor Flight show together, you were in infantry, I believe, so you saw combat. You made it back. You wanted to better yourself, and because of the GI bill, you were able to go to college, but yet, you were thrown a hurdle in front of you – “Well, you can’t come during the daytime; you have to come at night.” So, instead of giving up and saying, “Well, you know, that doesn’t fit me. I’m gonna walk away,” you paid the price and did what you had to do – ride the subway and get to work and go to school at night.
Nam: True.
Curry: There’s a lesson there and the lesson is that, if you truly want something, you have to pay the price to get it.
Nam: That’s right.
Curry: And that’s true whether it be in your field or in my field in the world of business. You have a choice in life, you know. You can endure a little bit of hardship and work hard and work through it, or you can give in and walk away. You didn’t give in. You pursued that.
Nam: Yes.
Curry: Then, you didn’t have – everything wasn’t perfect so you ended up going to Washington DC to work with the Census Bureau, and then they get rid of you because the projects are over.
Nam: Right.
Curry: So you leave, but I’m curious. You didn’t say how you got to North Carolina. Why North Carolina? What happened there?
Nam: Well, when the Census Bureau let me go, I was actually unemployed for two months, because Dwight Eisenhower had become president just shortly before and I admired him greatly because he was our leader in Europe during the war.
Curry: Right.
Nam: And the fact was he had promised to cut back on federal employment and I was a victim.
Curry: You didn’t like him so much then, did you.
Nam: But I kept looking, so it was hard to get other kinds of jobs in the Federal Government, and I was thinking, well, I’ll look around in the private sector, when one of these chance events occurred. In Montgomery, Alabama, where Maxwell Air Force Base is located…
Curry: I’ve been there, because I was in the Air Force.
Nam: Okay. Well, somebody representing Maxwell Air Force Base came to the Census Bureau just before I left saying, “We are developing a demographic unit at Maxwell Air Force Base and we’re looking for an employee who can do some analysis of some data we have.” And my then supervisor said, “We have the perfect person for you.” They interviewed me and I got the job. And I went down to Montgomery, Alabama. I was there for ten months working with them. I got a lot of good experience, and they had several people as consultants that came down there. One of them was a professor from North Carolina and I met him. I guess he was impressed with me and he said, “Why don’t you go on to graduate school?”
And I said, “Well, I just don’t know, you know.”
He said, “If you come to Chapel Hill, I’ll give you a graduate research assistantship and you can work with me.” So I went and took the graduate record examination and passed it adequately and that’s what took me to North Carolina.
Curry: So, again, just dealing with life. Before we turned the recorder on, you shared with me a conversation you had this morning with a gentleman who’s 95. Would you share with our listeners how old you are?
Nam: Well, you’re thinking about the point of chance?
Curry: Yes.
Nam: Yes, I think chance played a role in several points here. The chance that the job at Maxwell Air Force Base was created, which took me down there. The chance that the professor from North Carolina happened to be a consultant at the time I was there and I met him. And the chance that we had managed to connect and he offered me the assistantship.
Curry: But can we also agree that while chance was involved that if you were not prepared, that chance probably would not have been offered? Because I remember reading somewhere as a young man… I think I was in the Air Force. I went in the Air Force at 17. My dad had to sign for me. But I seem to remember while I was in the Air Force that luck is where preparation and opportunity meet.
Nam: Yes.
Curry: So “chance” could be substituted for the word “luck.” So you have to be prepared so that, when that chance can tap you on the shoulder, then you’re ready.
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Nam: Yeah, I agree with that. And I think my training at New York University for my undergraduate degree prepared me well for the various tasks I did both at the Census Bureau and at Maxwell Air Force Base. So, when we had meetings there that involved the consultants, I was called on from time to time to make comments, and I guess my comments based on my experiences and education impressed them enough to say, “Here’s a fellow who can do something in the future.”
Curry: Very good. All right, let’s go back to Florida State now. So you’re at Florida State University. So you’ve come in. What was your initial role at Florida State?
Nam: Well, because population studies was getting to be a national interest in this country, Florida State was interested in developing a population study specialty, and that was the main reason they hired me. They were counting on me to develop a program.
Curry: So you were hired to come in and start that.
Nam: To start that.
Curry: Now, I did not realize that. I knew that you were head of that department for a long time, but I did not realize you started it.
Nam: I was recruited to do exactly that, and I mentioned the fellowships we got from the Federal Government, and at the time we only had one undergraduate and one graduate course in population studies.
Curry: Take a moment and explain how a fellowship works so people could understand that.
Nam: Well, we had funding from the National Institutes of Health, specifying people who had masters and doctoral training in population studies, and they specified the amount of the fellowship. We would then recruit students who would fit into those slots. But at the time, a lot of very able graduate students did not have funding for their graduate education, so this was considered a plum for them and we had the plum.
Curry: Very good. So you were able to attract talent.
Nam: To pick the best ones, right.
Curry: Over the years when we’ve had our personal conversations, you’ve talked about longevity; you’ve talked about life expectancy. How much did you get involved in that because of your work in sociology and studying population? How did you get an interest in that?
Nam: Well, someone said that in my early career in the demographic field, I was interested in the study of fertility, of childbearing, and then as time went on, I seemed to shift to an interest in migration. But then as I got older and I guess my own concerns oriented me more to life expectancy and what the risks of mortality were. And so most of my research in the last 20 years of my professional career was focused on health and life expectancy. And I’ve done quite a bit of research in that area, which includes the effects of various factors like cigarette smoking and other behaviors that restrict life expectancy.
Curry: Very good. I know in my planning, I tell people, “Look, the seven mistakes that we… that most people make, number one, is underestimating life expectancy. My oldest client is now 100 years old. She turned 100 on February 9th. A lot of clients are in their nineties, even more in their eighties, scaled back to seventies and sixties. I have some clients who come to me because of their parents or grandparents referring them to me that are 22, 25 years old. That’s unusual, because I say, “I’m 64; are you sure you want to work with me? I can get you a younger associate.” But because of the relationship, we work together.
But it’s amazing what I’m experiencing, understanding and studying life expectancy myself. And I’m definitely not a scientist like you are, but over the years I’ve learned that the more I can learn about the subject of longevity, health, nutrition, wellness in general, and help clients understand it, the better prepared they are for retirement, because it’s not just about money.
You know, sometimes people think, “Well, I’ll go to John and get help on the retirement income side.” You know, that’s okay, but if you don’t plan for a long life, you could run out of money. On the other hand, somebody could be like my grandfather. He retired and unfortunately died four and a half years later, and my dad retired and lived 23 years in retirement. So what’s it going to be? Short life expectancy in retirement or a long one? And we don’t really know, do we?
Nam: The research has shown that people don’t die prematurely after retirement, that there are many other factors that have to do with their life expectancy. And I think, you know, partly it’s genetics, what genes you’ve inherited from your parents, and part of it is your own behavior and the risks you take in life. And you have to weigh both of those things as you think about life expectancy.
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In my case, my mother lived to 83 and I’ve already passed that, and my father lived to 94 and I haven’t reached that yet. And I’m sort of in the middle of those two life expectancies. Well, you would expect that the son of two people who lived to old age would also live to old age. However, my oldest sister died at 69, so she didn’t even make the life expectancy of my mother. So there are a lot of factors that contribute to what life expectancy will be.
I’m very fortunate that I’m approaching 91 and in reasonably good health. And as you indicated earlier that I’m very conscious of my diet, my exercise, my general behavior. I don’t smoke. I drink very moderately, and I think that’s been to my benefit.
Curry: No doubt. No doubt. What does your research show as far as the impact… and we have the ability with behavior modification to maybe beat up the genes, or is it the way we’re born, the way it is?
Nam: Well, you inherit your genes. There’s nothing much you can do about that.
Curry: Right.
Nam: And so, what you have to do is take that as a given and then consider how you behave yourself to improve your life expectancy. I think people have underrated the importance of physical activity and the mental activity, because it isn’t just a matter of having your body be healthy. You have to have your mind be healthy, as well. And, you know, dementia has become a big problem in our society at older ages, and you can postpone dementia or avoid it by using your mind very well, as well as taking care of your body. Research has shown that these things do affect the risk of getting some form of dementia.
Curry: I do a lot of reading in that area, and I’m convinced that the things that I’m doing from the standpoint of doing martial arts, staying active, physically, mentally, will help me from the standpoint of hopefully delaying or postponing those type things, dementia, Alzheimer’s. The studies I’ve read, and they’re definitely not always scientific studies, have indicated that the more we can do things like doing puzzles, anything like dance, martial arts, where you have to think things through, make your mind work, make the brain work, that it’s good for you. So you’re simply confirming that.
Nam: Yeah, I think so. Exercise can be mental as well as physical.
Curry: Yes, yes. I had the pleasure in December of going to San Diego for a program called Unbeatable Mind Retreat. It’s put on by a retired Navy SEAL commander. And he talks about the five mountains to self-mastery. Number one is physical, then mental, emotional, intuition, and spirit. His premise is that, if you’re not physically fit, then you’re not going to be able to transport yourself around and do the things you need to do. But if you get physically active, your mind gets involved mentally, as you said a moment ago. If you are physically and mentally in control, you have better control of your emotions. You’re not so quick to be angry, lose control.
And then the intuition is following the gut. He said that it’s been proven by scientists there’s more nerves in our gut than anywhere else in the body, and he gives the example in Navy SEAL training, Charlie, that if they’re supposed to go to the right, if they have this gut feeling that that’s a mistake, go to the left. They do it to follow the gut. They’re taught to follow the gut.
And then the spirit, he talks about the corps of spirit that in Japanese that is the blending of the mind and body. What is your spirit? And I would say that when you were first told there was no place for you during the day you had that fighting spirit of “I’m going to make this happen,” unbeatable, and you found a way.
I’m interested in knowing more about how you’ve used that over the course of the years, because you’ve done a lot of research. You have been very active in your profession. I know that you’ve been president of various organizations. I don’t recall the organization, but I remember us talking about some organization or conference you go to pretty much every year, I think you said, for about 50 years?
Nam: Yes.
Curry: What organization is that?
Nam: Population Association of America. It’s the National Association of Demographers. And I will be going to their meeting in Chicago next month.
Curry: That’s great. Now how many years have you gone to this?
Nam: Well over 50.
Curry: Well over 50?
Nam: Yes.
Curry: Well over 50. So here you are, you’ve already revealed your age so I’m going to say it. So here you are almost 91. Why in the world would a 91-year-old fellow get on an airplane and travel to something like that? Why are you doing that?
Nam: Well, in my case, it’s a matter of staying in touch with my field. Of course, most of my peers have either left the Earth or are no longer active, but I’m interested in the research, particularly in my areas of interest, and it’s a good experience for me. But there’s still another thing which is important and that is staying active in a lot of different ways. Here in the retirement community, I volunteer for a lot of activities, and I had my own rule that every six months I will start a new activity.
Curry: I like that. Why every six months?
Nam: Well, that’s just kind of a rule of thumb, and I’ll give you an example of the kinds of activities that I’ve been involved in recently. One, as a teenager I played table tennis, but all the years since, I’ve never played. Here at Westminster Oaks, we have a table tennis team, and people mostly in their seventies and eighties and they’re very competitive. They go play in tournaments in Tallahassee and Florida at large and usually come back with gold, silver, and bronze medals.
Curry: Very nice.
Nam: And so they talked to me about joining the team. I said, “Well, I haven’t played since I was a teenager.” They said that’s okay. Well, I’ve gotten to the point where I’m the leading 90-and-over player on the team.
Curry: Very good.
Nam: And so that’s an example of a new activity. It’s both physical and mental in terms of its capacity.
Curry: Let’s break that down for a moment. You’ve got the physical, the mental, and you’ve got the social aspects, and the competition makes you strive to be better.
Nam: Absolutely.
Curry: Instead of sitting here watching television all day.
Nam: Exactly. And let me give you one other example. I never in all my life acted on a stage, not even in elementary school when there were plays. I just rejected all that. Well, here at Westminster Oaks, a woman who is a resident, who is experienced with teaching acting, offered a class. She said, “Why don’t you come to the class?”
And I said, “Oh, I can’t act.”
She said, “Well, just come to the class and sit in it.” Well, I came to the class. It was kind of interesting. She offered an advanced class after that and I joined that. And the next thing you know I was in one play and then a second play, and I’m not getting ready for a third one. And I’ve become an actor at age 90.
Curry: So when will we see you on Broadway?
Nam: Not quite Broadway but…. This is another example. It’s physical, it’s mental, and it’s social as you pointed out.
Curry: And a sense of accomplishment, personally, on the individual side.
Nam: Yes.
Curry: You’re doing something that’s…
Nam: And it’s not that I have those skills necessarily, but people are willing to let me present those skills that I have.
Curry: I love it. I love it. Let’s switch gears for a moment, and I’m going to ask you to pretend you’re sitting in front of an audience, standing in front of an audience, and you’re giving them advice about this thing called retirement. What words of wisdom would you share? Getting ready to retire, working up to it say five or ten years before retirement, and then going into this thing called retirement and after. What are your thoughts?
Nam: Well, the first thing I would say is that, if you’re going to retire from your work situation, don’t think of that kind of retirement as being near the end of your life, that you still have to be very active beyond that point. Well, I would say, first, try to extend your work life as long as possible, because first of all it would be remunerative and, secondly, it would build up a lot of experience that would be good for you in your later years. But apart from the work experience, I think once you retire you have to adopt a set of activities that will keep you going, that will keep you alert, that will allow you perhaps to develop some new skills. Because there’s increasingly, with life expectancy going up, there are more years after work that we have to live and we can’t just be vegetables. We have to be active.
Curry: How old were you when you retired from Florida State?
Nam: I was approaching 70.
Curry: Approaching 70. Why did you work beyond, quote, normal retirement at age of 65? You could have retired. Financially, I know that you had the resources.
Nam: Well, I was still involved in research projects, still involved in teaching, and I didn’t dislike it so… and I understood there were benefits, for example, for Social Security to continue working till 70. I would get an increased benefit and also in my pension from the State of Florida, so that was to my benefit, as well.
Curry: So you had the benefit of having the salary up until retirement, and you increased your benefits later in life.
Nam: Yes.
Curry: We would call that delayed gratification.
Nam: Absolutely.
Curry: But at the same time, you were still contributing right up until the day you retired. It’s not like you were coasting. You were enjoying yourself and working.
Nam: That’s true.
Curry: Was it difficult for you to walk away from this thing you created and retire? It had to be somewhat difficult.
Nam: Well, the fact of the matter is I haven’t walked away from it.
Curry: Oh, okay. So the truth is coming out. You’re still working.
Nam: I still have an office at the university, for example.
Curry: Okay.
Nam: And here it is, I mean, I retired in 1995, the end of 1995. I still have an office because I’m still doing at least a small amount of academic research, and I give occasional guest lectures, and my colleagues like to have me around every once in a while and so I go to their staff meetings once a month. And it’s good for me and I suppose it’s good for them, as well.
Curry: That’s great. So what I’m taking from that, the last few minutes there, is you’re still contributing; it’s good for you; it’s good for the younger folks that are around you; so everybody’s winning. It keeps you active; it keeps you bright; and you have the social engagement that you want.
Nam: That’s true. And it’s not just the university. For example, we’re sitting at a table here and you notice that there’s a lot of pieces of paper on there.
Curry: And a lot of books.
Nam: And a lot of books. And what that represents is that I’ve just completed a survey of residents at this retirement village that has to do with the extent to which they’ve experienced falling, maybe injuring themselves and maybe not, and what some of the factors were that may have contributed to it. And this is a study we’ve just collected all the survey forms and I’m doing the survey itself and the analysis and I’ll write a report, which is something that maybe I could have done in the university but now I’m doing outside of the university in my own retirement village. And I enjoy doing it.
Curry: Well, we were talking earlier. On one hand, you’ve retired from, quote, going to the office every day, but you haven’t really retired. You’re still doing the things you enjoy doing.
Nam: Cut back at my time, but not retired.
Curry: I like to ask people this question: What does retirement look like to you? What is your vision of retirement? And I keep three books on my bookcase facing out. One is Kirk Douglas’ book, Life Could Be Worse. We share the same birthday. December 9th he turned 100 and I was 64. And I have George Burns’ book, 100 Years, 100 Memories. He died at age 100, 100-plus. His birthday was in January; he died in March. And I have Betty White’s book. She’s 95. Now, Kirk Douglas is still productive even though he had a stroke. He’s still contributing. He’s still actively doing things.
I’m of the opinion from the reading that I do that the people that are happiest and clients that I see are happiest are the ones who are still doing things beyond retirement. The ones that are the most miserable, Charlie, are the ones who sit around all day long, watching the television, listening to the talking heads telling them how the world is coming to an end. They are not active; they’re not social; they’ve become recluses. They are the most miserable people that I engage with. They’re just not happy. The people that have friends, they’re socially involved, they’re dynamic, and it doesn’t matter if you’re 70 or if you’re 90 or like my client who’s 100. She’s still driving. She won’t drive at night, but she’s still driving during the day.
So it just blows my mind to see people that are in their thirties or forties that act like they have no energy, and then I’m around you and every time I see you I have to remind myself of your age because you look 20 years younger because you take care of yourself. Now, I know genetics applies in there somewhere, but you make the conscious choice to get up and go work out at the gym here every day. You make the choice of eating properly. So it’s not just genetics. You have to also modify your behavior and you’ve managed that.
Nam: And I think another important point as you think of the people that you deal with in your profession is that you don’t have to be regarded as successful. Your peers don’t have to regard you as successful in your work to carry on beyond. I think, you know, what is success is a fluid kind of concern, but you have to think about your health and your ability to live a long life. And being active in various ways is something anybody can do. You may have special interests that aren’t related to your work career at all. Some people are runners. Some people are walkers. Some people go to the gymnasium, Premier Health, to keep up their activity. Some people have all kinds of projects of their own that may not concern outsiders but engage their physical and mental health.
Curry: I agree with that. And over the years I have redefined what success means. When I was younger, I was chasing this rabbit. I’ve got to do this to please these people, do this to be viewed as successful. Now my definition of success is doing the things that I want to do with the people I want to do it with when I want to do it.
For me, Monday and Wednesday nights for two hours I do kickboxing for an hour and a style of Israeli fighting called haganah for an hour and I do it with my son. So we’re doing stuff together. So we have that bonding for a 64-year-old father and a 33-year-old son. We have the social interaction with the other people in the class and the instructor. We then talk about it so we’re doing it to learn from the standpoint of the physical fitness, but the mental development is there.
And our son was involved in a car accident four and a half years ago, had some head injuries, some brain damage, and to see what has happened, Charlie, with the physical and mental development because of being physically active, today he is totally functional. He can take care of himself. We were having trouble with his concentration and focus for a while, but he’s overcome that big time. He’s excited, he’s happy, he’s more fun to be around, and we’re doing these things together.
So it’s not just about work, work, work so I can get to some magic age and retire. It’s not that at all. I think we should build in retirement along the way. Take some time off, go do some things, take that Friday afternoon off and have a glass of wine and talk with a friend. Do the things you enjoy doing. I like taking long walks in the woods myself. I love that, an hour, two-hour walk, hiking with the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts. I enjoy that.
We need to close this in a moment here, but what would you say to the person that’s listening to this that says, “You know what? I don’t like my job. You’re lucky because you loved your job,” but the person who is sitting there going, “I don’t really like my job. I’m okay with it.” Or even the person who says, “I hate going to work every day.” Any thoughts for that person so that they could get better prepared for retirement and be able to walk out the door at some point and enjoy life?
Nam: Well, if you really don’t enjoy what you’re doing, you should look for other opportunities, I think. You know, the years I worked at the Census Bureau were rewarding in some ways but not in other ways, and that’s what led me to the university career. And so you have to be willing to make changes if the opportunities present themselves. But if a career is rewarding in enough ways, you may have to stick with it until retirement, but I think our economy is such that one can move from one sector to another pretty easily if you’ve got the training and the skills to make the move. But if you’re unhappy in a job, it’s better that you look at other opportunities.
Curry: I agree with that, and if you don’t have the training and the knowledge, it’s okay to start working on that. You can go to the library. You can go to the Internet nowadays. You can just sit at your house and read and study. I have to tell you. In my world I’m amazed at the number of people who do not take advantage of the opportunities to improve themselves. So it comes back to what you said earlier. You have to make the decision to improve. You have to make the decision to get on that subway at night and go back into town to take that class.
Nam: And it might not only be a question of formal education. It might be a question of taking a particular course in some subject that would give you additional skills in your job that would help you to advance in your profession.
Curry: Yes. I remember reading an interview you did with someone about your experience in World War II, and I seem to remember your parents never went to college. They worked in the business world.
Nam: My parents never got out of elementary school.
Curry: I’d forgotten that. So they did not get out of elementary school. So what do you think caused you to aspire, to pursue the education you have? I know you’re very low key. You don’t want to be called Dr. Nam, but you are a Ph.D. But you had some drive to pursue the B.S., the master’s, Ph.D. What do you think was the difference? What was the drive?
Nam: Well, at the time I was a child, not a lot of people went to college. It was still a… it was very different from today.
Curry: Yes.
Nam: And my parents who had elementary school education would like to have their children finish high school. That was their goal, get through high school. Today…
Curry: And then get a job?
Nam: That would be considered… yeah, and get a job. Today that would be considered ludicrous in a way because we think of college all the time as the ultimate goal. Well, my older sister, and I have a younger sister, as well, we all finished high school. My older sister went on and got a two-year college education, community college education, let’s say. So that kind of motivated me some. But to be honest, I really thought that if World War II hadn’t come along I would have finished high school and taken a job, maybe as a shoe salesman or something of the sort. And so the opportunity that came from the GI bill was important for me.
And another factor was that I had cousins, sons of an older sister of my mother’s, who went on to college and that was kind of an incentive for us to consider further education.
Curry: So, a bit of a role model.
Nam: Yeah.
Curry: Before we go, would you please share the story about how you ended up going to Harvard because of the Army program. You told me this on the Honor Flight, and I still chuckle about this. Would you share that?
Nam: Well, I finished high school and just two months after my 17th birthday and World War II was raging at the time, people were getting drafted. And I knew that in due time I would be subject to the draft, but I thought, well, I still had most of the year to go before I would get drafted, so I went and took a couple of courses of mechanical drafting at Delehanty Institute in New York, thinking that this would give me an opportunity to work in one of the defense industries, like, Grumman had a factory out in my area. And I took these two courses, but I couldn’t get the job because when I went for interviews they said, “Oh, you’re going to be drafted very soon. We can’t hire you.”
So I went down to an Army recruiting station just to get some information, and I said, “Look, you know, I’m not yet 18. I can’t get in the Army.” I could get in the Navy at 17 but I wasn’t interested in the Navy at the time, and they said, “Well, we could put you in the Army Reserve and when you’re 18 we would make you active.” And then they said, “But one other thing, we have a new program we just started nationally where we take 17-year-olds who score well on a test and put them in the university to get training that would be useful to the Army.” They said, “Would you be interested in taking a test?” Well, first they asked, “How were your grades in school?”
I said, “Fairly good.” And then the test, I said, “Sure, what have I got to lose?” I took the test and a few weeks later I got a letter from the Army saying please report to Harvard University for the fall term.
Curry: That’s funny.
Nam: And so in August of 1943 at age 18 I was starting my first year at Harvard. I was there for one year, two semesters, and the military situation in Europe got very bad and they stopped all those programs and put us into active duty. Eventually I got overseas. But I was in combat when I was still 18.
Curry: Wow. First of all, thank you for your service to our country. Thank you for being such a good friend and mentor and inspiration to me all these years. And, Dr. Charles Nam, thank you for taking the time today. I appreciate you so much.
Nam: Thank you.
Curry: Thank you.
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