Once, as a boy, I met Carl Brashear. I didn't quite understand his significance at the time, but I have come to understand it as an adult.

Master Chief Boatswain's Mate Carl M. Brashear, USN (Ret.), has passed away.

He was a MAN worthy of admiration. And in death, Carl Brashear remains a MAN worthy of respect, admiration and emulation. At a time when the place of a black man in society was often subject to question, he made his way by being better than those around him. When a lesser human being might have given up and allowed himself to be defeated when life dealt him a crappy hand, he fought to overcome the obstacles placed before him.

Yes, I say it again. Carl Brashear was a MAN.

Carl M. Brashear, the first black U.S. Navy diver who was portrayed by Cuba Gooding Jr. in the 2000 film "Men of Honor," died Tuesday. He was 75.

Brashear died at the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth of respiratory and heart failure, the medical center said.

Brashear retired from the Navy in 1979 after more than 30 years of service. He was the first Navy diver to be restored to full active duty as an amputee, the result of a leg injury he sustained during a salvage operation.

"The African-American community lost a great leader today in Carl Brashear," Gooding said of the man he depicted alongside Robert DeNiro, who played Brashear's roughneck training officer in "Men of Honor." "His impact to us as a people and all races will be felt for many decades to come."

I'd like to correct Cuba Gooding -- all of America has lost a great leader and an exemplary human being. Race should not even enter into the equation, for I believe that Carl Brashear and his example transcend that trivia of skin color. That is a lesson I learned from the Navy man who raised me, and who introduced me to Carl Brashear.

Let us not forget what Brashear was doing when he sustained the injury that cost him his leg.

In 1966, Brashear was tasked with recovering a hydrogen bomb that dropped into waters off of Spain when two U.S. Air Force planes collided.

During the mission, Brashear was struck below his left knee by a pipe that the crew was using to hoist the bomb out of the water. Brashear was airlifted to a naval hospital where the bottom of his left leg was amputated to avoid gangrene. It later was replaced with a prosthetic leg.

The Navy was ready to retire Brashear from active duty, but he soon began a grueling training program that included diving, running and calisthenics.

"Sometimes I would come back from a run, and my artificial leg would have a puddle of blood from my stump. I wouldn't go to sick bay because they would have taken me out of the program," Brashear said in 2002 when he was inducted into the Gallery of Great Black Kentuckians. "Instead I'd go hide somewhere and soak my leg in a bucket of hot water with salt in it - that's an old remedy I learned growing up."

After completing 600- to 1,000-foot-deep dives while being evaluated for five weeks at the Experimental Diving Unit in Washington, D.C., Brashear became a master diver in 1970.

Would you go to such lengths in similar circumstances? More to the point, having achieved the goal of reinstatement, would you continue to excel, striving to be teh best in your field? That is the marking of a MAN.

Not only did he love what he did, Brashear had no regrets.

Despite the battles he faced in the Navy, Brashear had said his passion for military service was unyielding.

"I loved the Navy so much I once tried to get my mother to join the Navy reserves," he said with a laugh. "I would love to do it all over again."

And the tradition of service begun by Carl Brashear continues today -- his son, Philip, was granted emergency leave from his duties as an Army helicopter pilot in Iraq so that he could be with his father during his final hours on this earth.

May God, our compassionate Father, who watched over and preserved Carl Brashear in life welcome him into paradise this day, and grant him the eternal rest he so richly deserves. And may He send out his Holy Spirit to comfort the Brashear family and all who knew and loved this MAN among men. In the name of Christ Jesus we pary. Amen.

OTHER TRIBUTES: Captain's Quarters, Specific Impulse, Below the Beltway, Gantry Launchpad