(Novemeber 29, 2000) — Carl Brashear stumbles across the room, wearing 290 pounds of equipment proving to the court that he is capable to remain on active duty. Master Chief Navy diver, Billy Sunday screams, “The Navy diver is not a fighting man. He is a salvage expert. If it’s lost underwater, he finds it. If it’s sunk, he brings it up. If it’s in the way, he moves it. If he’s lucky, he dies young 200 feet beneath the waves. ‘Cause that is the closest he will ever get to being a hero. Hell, I don’t know why anybody would want to be a Navy diver.” “Men of Honor” depicts the trials and hardships faced by Carl Brashear (Cuba Gooding Jr.) as he strives to become the first African-American Navy diver. The son of a Kentucky sharecropper, Brashear joins the Navy at age 17, in the same year that President Truman desegregated the military. Predictably, Brashear encounters a great deal of prejudice, racism and military bureaucracy. When Brashear leaves for the Navy his father tells him, “Never quit. . .be the best,” and he follows these words to the syllable. The trials and situations that Brashear encounters show just how terribly the blacks were treated because of narrow-minded white people. As soon as he enters the Navy Dive School, whites shunned him and all of the officers wanted him out, making it very difficult for Carl to get ahead. However, Brashear prevailed. At first, Brashear’s training officer, the rebellious and trouble making Sunday (Robert DeNiro), didn’t want anything to do with him. However, by the end of the movie he came around to help Brashear buck the military system into letting him stay in the Navy after the loss of his leg in a freak accident. The story is nothing short of inspiring. It is all about a man that overcame adversity despite tremendous odds against him—from dealing with only a seventh grade education, to battling racial prejudice, to convincing the Navy’s top officers to allow him to remain as a diver. The only problem with this near-perfect film is that its transitions are a little choppy. For example, in one scene Brashear convinces a black librarian studying for medical school to tutor him. Then, in the next scene they’re in love and after she walks out on Brashear when he’s challenged by Sunday, he runs after her taxi, asking her to marry him. Director George Tillman most likely cut some transitional scenes in order to shorten the movie’s length. However, in this case Tillman should have kept those scenes and let the film be lengthy, since “Men of Honor” is one of those movies that can be long without the viewers noticing it. Other than that, “Men of Honor” is an excellent and inspiring movie to see with superb acting by the entire cast. Rated “R” for language. “Men of Honor” is currently playing at theaters everywhere.