Men of Honor (released in the UK as Men of Honour) is a 2000 drama film, starring Robert De Niro and Cuba Gooding, Jr. The film was directed by George Tillman, Jr. It is inspired by the true story of Master Chief Petty Officer Carl Brashear, the first African-American Master Diver in the United States Navy.
Carl Brashear (Gooding, Jr.) decides to leave his lifestyle in native Kentucky in 1948 and the life of a sharecropper by way of joining the United States Navy. As a crew member of the salvage ship USS Hoist (ARS-40), where he is assigned to the galley, he is inspired by the bravery of one of the divers, Master Chief Petty Officer Leslie William "Billy" Sunday (De Niro). He is determined to overcome racism and become the first African American Navy diver, even proclaiming that he will become a Master Diver. He eventually is selected to attend Diving and Salvage School in Bayonne, New Jersey where he arrives as a Boatswain's Mate Second Class. He finds that Master Chief Sunday is the Leading Chief Petty Officer and head instructor, who is under orders from the school's eccentric commanding officer to ensure that Brashear fails.
Brashear struggles to overcome his educational shortcomings, a result of his leaving school in the 7th grade in order to help his family's failing farm. He receives educational assistance from his future wife, an aspiring doctor, who works part time in the Harlem (New York City) Public Library. Brashear proves himself as a diver by rescuing a fellow student whose dive buddy abandoned him during a salvage evaluation that turns into a near disaster. Unfortunately, due to the prevailing racism of the commanding officer, the student who fled in the face of danger is awarded a medal for Brashear's heroic actions. Likewise, during an underwater assembling task where each student had to assemble a flange underwater using a bag of tools, Brashear's bag is cut open. Brashear finishes the assembly and successfully completes the diving school, earning the quiet and suppressed admiration of Master Chief Sunday and his fellow divers. Master Chief Sunday is later demoted for standing up for Brashear and allowing him to pass, having since been demoted to Senior Chief. His career begins to wane as he continues to lose his composure around the officers that disrespect his accomplishments, until he is finally demoted to Chief Petty Officer and relegated to menial duties.
The paths and careers of both Brashear and Sunday sharply diverge as Brashear rises quickly through the ranks, even becoming a national hero in recovering a missing atomic bomb and for saving the life of Navy crew, while the latter becomes a brooding alcoholic and is reduced in rank from Master Chief to Chief Petty Officer. The two eventually meet again after Brashear loses his left leg in the atomic bomb incident and must fight the US Navy bureaucracy in order to return to full active duty and fulfill his dream of becoming a master diver. They are successful and Brashear is reinstated.
In the epilogue, it is noted that two years later Brashear becomes a master diver.
