My youngest son was a Peace Corps volunteer in Albania. If you don't know where Albania is, no worries. I didn't either.

Loved Top Gun. Loved Kelly McGillis's seamed stockings and Tom Cruise's derring-do. But the Navy wasn't on my radar until I received an invitation from the U.S. Navy's Leaders to Sea program to spend two days on the USS Nimitz.

When I was little my parents packed my brothers and sister and me into the back of a huge station wagon every August, and off we went to Palm Springs. There was no air conditioning in the car or the budget hotels where we stayed. It was 110 in the shade if we were lucky. The kids shared one room and our parents the other. I understand now that we weren't well off.