A large group of friends and fam­i­ly gath­ered in Boni­ta, Cal­i­for­nia on June 18 to cel­e­brate the pro­mo­tion of Nigel Nurse to the rank of Cap­tain in the US Navy. Nurse was born in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, in 1967, and is an East­ern Boys alum­ni. The fete re­al­ly start­ed on the night of June 17 at the Caribbean Tree­house in In­gle­wood Cal­i­for­nia. Out of town fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends from Flori­da, New York, At­lanta and T&T joined the lo­cals to cel­e­brate Nurse's pro­mo­tion. Nurse's aunt and own­er of the restau­rant, Car­ol Charles, host­ed the par­ty.

Next day, the fes­tiv­i­ties shift­ed to beau­ti­ful Boni­ta, San Diego. The weath­er was just right. There was tra­di­tion­al fin­ger-lick­ing Tri­ni and Amer­i­can food, but the win­ner was the fresh­ly made mi­ni Mex­i­can tacos. The Pin­ning cer­e­mo­ny was touch­ing. When Cap­tain Scott Kram­beck of­fi­cial­ly be­stowed the rank of Cap­tain on Nurse, there were shouts of joy and much ap­plause. There were al­so tears in recog­ni­tion of the tremen­dous sac­ri­fices made by all those who loved and sup­port­ed him in his achieve­ments.

The sec­ond part of the cer­e­mo­ny, The Wet­ting Down, saw Cap­tain Nurse div­ing in­to the pool in full uni­form, mi­nus his cap, much to the de­light of the spec­ta­tors.

The Nurs­es im­mi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States in 1974, even­tu­al­ly set­tling in In­gle­wood, Cal­i­for­nia. Nurse was an ex­cel­lent stu­dent, and was elect­ed class pres­i­dent in Ju­nior High School. He al­so joined the Sea Cadets and was fas­ci­nat­ed with build­ing mod­el planes. Af­ter grad­u­at­ing high school, Nurse at­tend­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. Up­on grad­u­at­ing in 1989 with a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Aero­space En­gi­neer­ing, he en­tered the Avi­a­tion Of­fi­cer Can­di­date Pro­gram, re­ceiv­ing his com­mis­sion in Sep­tem­ber 1989 and his Wings of Gold in No­vem­ber, 1990.

Cap­tain Nurse has suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed three mas­ter's de­grees -- Aero­nau­ti­cal En­gi­neer­ing, Busi­ness, and Sys­tems En­gi­neer­ing Man­age­ment. He has al­so re­ceived the Bronze Star Medal for mer­i­to­ri­ous ser­vice and nu­mer­ous oth­er awards. Nurse cur­rent­ly holds the po­si­tion of deputy pro­gramme man­ag­er for JPEO Joint Tac­ti­cal Ra­dio Sys­tem Ground Mo­bile Ra­dio Pro­gramme Of­fice.

So does Nurse ever take time out to play? Well ac­cord­ing to sources, he is "ah Tri­ni tuh de bone."