Navy looking for S.A. sailor believed fallen overboard

The Navy said it was conducting search-and-rescue operations over the weekend for a San Antonio sailor who is believed to have fallen overboard off the California coast nearly three days ago, but his father said Saturday night he fears his son is dead.

The search for Aviation Ordnanceman Airman Apprentice Ethan Goolsby, 20, who served aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, began after a lookout spotted what appeared to be a person in the water Thursday.

His father, Kelly Goolsby, said he will have been missing for 72 hours as of Sunday morning without protective clothing or safety gear.

“Ethan is a good swimmer, but I don’t know that any swimmer without something to assist him could survive 60 hours in water,” he said, noting the Roosevelt’s captain told the family the water ranged from 60 to 70 degrees with swells of 6 to 8 feet.

“So I do believe that he is dead,” Goolsby added. “We know of crazy 1 percent miracles, but we are prepared for the eventuality that it is, we hope, a recovery mission for his body, but we know that could be difficult as well.”

The Navy said nothing had changed since revealing Friday that the Roosevelt had launched searchand-rescue efforts Thursday off the southern California coast. A brief Navy press release stated that three helicopters and a Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat were launched in response.

The Navy said the U.S. Coast Guard, USS Bunker Hill, USS Russell, USS Howard and USS Charleston were participating in the search along with aircraft.

A single sailor was unaccounted for during a muster.

The Navy release did not identify the missing sailor, but Goolsby said it was his son and posted on Facebook that the ship was “still in search-and rescue-mode and that is their primary focus at this time, though an NCIS investigation is running concurrently.”

He spoke twice with the Roosevelt’s commander, Capt. Eric J. Anduze, and was told Ethan Goolsby, a 2019 graduate of Brandeis High School, had been last seen between 7-7:15 a.m., a period called morning quarters, following a night shifted he had served.

The younger Goolsby had been inspired to join the Navy because of a cousin who was a sonarman and another relative who’d served in the Seabees. He talked to Army and Marine recruiters before committing to the Navy, entering the Delayed Entry Pool two months after graduating from high school and going to basic training that November.

Kelly Goolsby said son wanted to travel.

“Japan was the thing he wanted to see the most,” he explained, adding Ethan Goolsby wanted “to go see and experience the food culture and the entire culture of Japan. A primary goal of his was to see the world.”

There were signs of trouble, however, early this fall.

Ethan Goolsby had said he wouldn’t be able to make it home for leave because he hadn’t completed all of his qualifications prior to a scheduled deployment of the Roosevelt, but surprised his parents by showing up at their door on Oct. 24. He remained on leave until returning Nov. 2 to San Diego, where he began a 10-day restriction-ofmovement quarantine imposed because of coronavirus.

Goolsby then spent two weeks in a Marriott hotel as part of a “redeployment sequestration” prior to going to sea. While the elder Goolsby said his son had complained about the Navy sometimes not getting

his meals to him during that stay, Anduze, the captain, insisted that subordinates told him that didn’t happen.

“Ethan told us at least twice he had missed meals. (The captain) disputes it, and that’s fine. It’s all second-hand knowledge,” said Goolsby, 49, a sales leader for a San Antonio cloud computing company.

The biggest issues he learned from his son centered on boredom in a hotel room and being tired after returning to work.

“He said, ‘I don’t have anything to do. I’ve tried to do pushups. I tried to work out, but I can’t leave the room, watch TV. I’m bored,’ and he went from that – and he called Saturday – and he said, ‘I’ve just had a really bad day. I worked all day. I’m tired. I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing,’ ” Goolsby said.

“The biggest thing he said, ‘I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing. I don’t know where I’m supposed to be, and I don’t know who I’m supposed to do it with,’ I can’t remember exactly. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing’ is the biggest – I don’t remember the exact words.”

Kelly Goolsby told his son that he’d adjust, adding, “You’ll power through it.”

Last Sunday evening, Goolsby said Ethan had worked all day and was taking a 3-hour break before going back to work that night. He told his son that he ought to get some sleep. Ethan said: “I have too much to do. We sail tomorrow.”

Ethan arranged to end his cellphone service as the Roosevelt went to sea.

“He sounded exhausted, he expressed exhaustion. I told him, ‘It takes a few weeks to adjust to the night shift, but you’ll do it pretty quickly,’ ” Kelly Goolsby recalled. “He said, ‘Yeah dad, you’re right.’ ”