From 1946 to 1953, Carter and Rosalynn lived in Virginia, Hawaii, Connecticut, New York and California, during his deployments in the Atlantic and Pacific fleets.[21] In 1948, he began officer training for submarine duty and served aboard USS Pomfret.[22] He was promoted to lieutenant junior grade in 1949, and his service aboard Pomfret included a simulated war patrol to the western Pacific and Chinese coast from January to March of that year.[23] In 1951 he was assigned to the diesel/electric USS K-1, (a.k.a. USS Barracuda), qualified for command, and served in several positions, to include executive officer.[24]

In 1952, Carter began an association with the Navy's fledgling nuclear submarine program, led then by Captain Hyman G. Rickover.[25] Rickover had high standards and demands for his men and machines, and Carter later said that, next to his parents, Rickover had the greatest influence on his life.[26] He was sent to the Naval Reactors Branch of the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington, D.C. for three-month temporary duty, while Rosalynn moved with their children to Schenectady, New York.[27]

On December 12, 1952, an accident with the experimental NRX reactor at Atomic Energy of Canada's Chalk River Laboratories caused a partial meltdown, resulting in millions of liters of radioactive water flooding the reactor building's basement. This left the reactor's core ruined.[28] Carter was ordered to Chalk River to lead a U.S. maintenance crew that joined other American and Canadian service personnel to assist in the shutdown of the reactor.[29] The painstaking process required each team member to don protective gear and be lowered individually into the reactor for a few minutes at a time, limiting their exposure to radioactivity while they disassembled the crippled reactor.[30] During and after his presidency, Carter said that his experience at Chalk River had shaped his views on atomic energy and led him to cease development of a neutron bomb.[31]

In March 1953, Carter began nuclear power school, a six-month non-credit course covering nuclear power plant operation at the Union College in Schenectady.[21] His intent was to eventually work aboard USS Seawolf, which was planned to be the second U.S. nuclear submarine.[32] His plans changed when his father died of pancreatic cancer two months before construction of Seawolf began, and Carter obtained a release from active duty so he could take over the family peanut business.[33] Deciding to leave Schenectady proved difficult, as Rosalynn had grown comfortable with their life there.[34][35] She said later that returning to small-town life in Plains seemed "a monumental step backward."[36] Carter left active duty on October 9, 1953.[37][38] He served in the inactive Navy Reserve until 1961, and left the service with the rank of lieutenant.[39] His awards include the American Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, China Service Medal, and National Defense Service Medal.[40] As a submarine officer he also earned the "dolphin" badge.[41]

Carole De Nola, a Gold Star mother whose son had died of a fentanyl overdose, stood at the elegant San Francisco War Memorial for a Christmas party in 2022 with a rolled-up scroll festooned with long holiday ribbons in her hand.

Inside the bundle of documents was De Nola's appeal for congressional attention to the accumulating toll on service members of the drug that had killed her son, a dangerous synthetic opioid.

De Nola spotted the target of her appeal, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and made a beeline for her, only to be swarmed by aides who took the scroll and swept De Nola aside.

Ari McGuire, De Nola's only child, had been a 23-year-old reconnaissance scout with Fort Bragg's storied 82nd Airborne Division. He'd wanted to go to Ranger School and had already received an Army Commendation Medal in 2018 for a deployment to Afghanistan.

But on a Friday night in August 2019, De Nola got a call from an Army officer: Her son was on life support in a Fayetteville, North Carolina, hospital. Ari's heart had stopped beating while riding in an Uber, coming through the gate at Fort Bragg. An ambulance had managed to revive him, and Ari was induced into a coma upon arriving at the hospital.

De Nola, her husband Joseph, and the cantor from their synagogue had made the daylong trek from California to North Carolina to say goodbye to Ari. "When we got there, the doctor told us that there was nothing they could do. I'm sure that the whole hospital heard me screaming."

Ari had unknowingly overdosed on fentanyl. It's 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, and tiny amounts can kill. "We didn't know what had happened," De Nola said. "It was absolutely the biggest nightmare I could ever imagine."

Ari's death was one of 332 fatal overdoses within the military, according to information newly released by the Pentagon on ODs between 2017 and 2021 that was sent to lawmakers.

The vast majority of those have been newly categorized as "accidental." The five-year period saw 15,000 non-fatal ODs amongst the active-duty force.

The release of statistics on overdoses comes after a request from lawmakers last fall, following previous "Rolling Stone" magazine reporting on a startling string of overdoses at Fort Bragg, where McGuire died.