The Navy's First Amputee Master Diver Did the Impossible Master Chief Carl Maxie Brashear became the U.S. Navy's first Black Master Diver and first amputee diver in 1970, shattering barriers that many believed were impossible to break. Born to sharecroppers in Kentucky in 1931, Brashear enlisted in the Navy in 1948—four months before President Truman desegregated the military—and became the first African American to graduate from Navy Diving & Salvage School in 1954. His greatest test came in 19