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President Jimmy Carter, the nation's 39th chief executive and the first U.S. Naval Academy graduate to serve in the Oval Office, began his final journey Saturday with a procession that intertwined the small-town rhythms of Plains, Georgia, and the weighty traditions of American military pageantry. His was a life well lived, one whose actions epitomized the motto of his alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy: non sibi sed patriae — "not for self, but for country."
Decades after Carter resigned his naval commission to assume responsibility for his family's peanut warehouse and farmland, an honor guard of service members and midshipmen escorted his flag-draped casket from Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus. Former and current Secret Service agents, who had safeguarded him for nearly half a century, led the hearse past Plains landmarks that spoke to Carter's Depression-era roots — the modest home where Rosalynn was delivered by a nurse in 1927, the old train depot that served as his 1976 campaign headquarters and the fields where he once worked side-by-side with Black sharecroppers.
"He was an amazing man. He was held up and propped up and soothed by an amazing woman," remarked son James Earl "Chip" Carter III, recalling both his father and mother, the late Rosalynn Carter. "The two of them together changed the world."
The local reaction along the funeral route displayed the deep reverence for a man who, despite rising to the highest office in the land, "never forgot where he came from."
Yet this final salute to Carter also showcased the institutional impact of his early years in uniform — a side of his story he always said shaped his public life. In 1943, the teenage Carter arrived at Annapolis as a "landlubber in every respect," never having seen an ocean or stepped aboard a vessel larger than a fishing boat.
Entering what was then a largely insular academy, he encountered strict discipline from upperclassmen. Carter withstood weeks of "plebe summer" indoctrination before an accelerated wartime schedule designed to commission officers for a global conflict. He later recalled that the academy's rigorous environment taught him self-control, quiet leadership and above all, a reverence for "absolute truth."
Graduating in the top 10% of the Class of 1947, Carter served briefly aboard experimental gunnery ships USS Wyoming and USS Mississippi before transitioning to the submarine force. Drawn to the emerging possibilities of nuclear propulsion, he joined Navy Admiral Hyman G. Rickover's budding program.
Known as the "Father of the Nuclear Navy," Rickover put young Carter to work developing nuclear reactors at a time when fission technology was in its infancy. Carter later assisted with the emergency cleanup following a partial meltdown at Canada's Chalk River Laboratories, where he and his small crew disassembled radioactive components in dangerous conditions.
"They let us get probably a thousand times more radiation than they would now," he would recall, noting the fledgling nature of nuclear science in the 1950s.
Carter's father died in 1953, bringing him home to Georgia and ending a promising naval career. Yet the legacy of service never left him. He often said Rickover had "more effect on my life than any other man besides my father." Carter merged that influence with lessons from the Naval Academy's Blue Jacket's Manual, which instilled obedience, loyalty, energy and courage — values he carried from the submarine force to politics. Elected the 39th president in 1976, he became the only Annapolis graduate to occupy the White House.
On Saturday, those military bonds were clear at the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta, where a carefully choreographed tribute featured the 282d Army Band, part of Joint Task Force–National Capital Region. Band members performed "Hail to the Chief" and the hymn "Be Thou My Vision," salutes for a commander-in-chief who had once been a newly commissioned ensign, then lieutenant, in the U.S. Navy.
Grandson Jason Carter addressed the assembled staff, volunteers and Habitat for Humanity partners who had witnessed the former president's hands-on approach to public service. "His spirit fills this place," Jason said, thanking the men and women who would continue Carter's humanitarian mission around the world.
Following the Georgia observances, Carter's remains are set to travel to Washington. The farewell schedule includes a 21-gun salute at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, a transfer to a horse-drawn caisson at the U.S. Navy Memorial and a funeral procession tracing the route that Carter famously walked as part of his 1977 inaugural parade.
At the Capitol, his body will lie in state, giving lawmakers and citizens another day to pay their respects before a service at Washington National Cathedral. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro and Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Yvette M. Davids are expected to honor him in Washington, reaffirming his place in the school's storied lineage.
Ultimately, Carter's journey will end where it began: Plains. He will be buried next to Rosalynn, his partner of 77 years, near the house they built before his first run for state senate. Army Maj. Gen. Trevor J. Bredenkamp, commanding general of the Joint Task Force–National Capital Region, is charged with directing the soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, Coast Guardsmen and guardians along each leg of the route. The near-constant presence of uniformed service members throughout the ceremony reflects Carter's lifelong devotion to his country — one forged in the halls of Bancroft Hall and tested on the decks of submarines.
"For a ceremony of this scale, our teams must remain adaptive, thoroughly prepared and agile," Bredenkamp said. "We've brought together every branch of the military, coordinated with many local, state and federal interagency partners, and balanced various protocols to ensure every element — from cordons and color guards to the body bearers and military bands — flawlessly executes their ceremonial duties and responsibilities in tribute to President Carter's legacy."
