Branch: Navy
Duty: Naval submarine tech
By Delaney Brown
Johnathan Rowles saw the military as his only option for a better life. Born and raised in St. Petersburg’s midtown, Rowles watched his mom, a certified nursing assistant, struggle to make ends meet.
There wasn’t much support from his extended family. His family is Irish Catholic and when his older sister Courtney, who now goes by Court, came out and transitioned, Rowles’ family was denounced.
Rowles didn’t try hard in school. He played football, but was never serious about it. He didn’t really see a point. It seemed like no matter how hard he tried it would never be enough.
“My parents had no idea how to set us up for success. They were too busy trying to keep it all together,” he said.
By the time Rowles graduated from Boca Ciega High School, his GPA was a 2.1. There weren’t many places for him to go. With his brother and mom both struggling to keep it together, Rowles knew he would need to be the one to help provide for his family. His life was in free fall and the Navy was his parachute. Rowles enlisted in 2011. When he received his first paycheck he sent half of it back home.
After completing basic training, Rowles heard an announcement on a loudspeaker looking for volunteers to serve on submarines. The position came with a raise. As soon as he heard extra money, Rowles volunteered.
Rowles was assigned to an Ohio-class submarine as a missile technician. At 18 he was responsible for maintaining the four-story missile tubes on board the submarine; each one loaded with re-entry bodies 50 times the strength of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. He was turning wrenches on bombs that could end the world. That responsibility was not lost on Rowles.
“You’re under so much pressure when you first show up,” Rowles said. “You’re not allowed to be a human being again until you get your (submarine warfare qualifications): you can’t eat dessert, you can’t watch movies, you’re not allowed to loiter in your rack. You don’t want somebody who doesn’t know what they’re doing in the thick of things”
Every member on board a sub has to know every system on board. If something happened in the torpedo room that wiped out all the torpedo men, Rowles had to be ready to step in to keep the boat going.
So Rowles got to studying with a “16th-century Puritan mentality.” On his watch shift, Rowles would roam the submarine with a set of notecards. As he passed a different system he would read the name out loud, study the knobs and dials, and figure out how it worked. He passed his qualification in eight months.
Life underwater wasn’t easy. The crew could be underway for months at a time without re-surfacing. Space on a submarine is limited. Everyone is cramped and emotions can run high. Trapped in a metal tube, Rowles missed pizza and the feeling of carpet on his feet.
Rowles became the president of the Morale, Welfare and Recreation committee. It was his job to make life on the ship a little easier for the rest of the crew. He bought Tempurpedic mattresses to make the bunks more comfortable. He planned family retreats for the servicemen with family back home. He kept track of everyone’s favorite snacks to make sure the ship was well stocked.
Rowles left the Navy in April 2017 after five and a half years of service. He would have stayed in longer but his mom had fallen ill and he came back to St. Petersburg to take care of her.
Now 25, Rowles is studying political science at USF St. Petersburg. He hopes to run for local office one day. It’s important for him to give back to the community he came from. He wants to see more opportunities for kids growing up in the city’s rougher areas.
“If I can affect the community that I came from positively, or change one life for the better than that’s a success,” Rowles said. “That steel tube taught me one thing. It taught me that I wasn’t made of glass.”
Photo courtesy of Stacy Pearsall (resized for web)
