Bud interviewed an officer aboard a fictional ship, USS Skerrett (EDDG-31). No ship of the US Navy has ever borne the name Skerrett. However, there was a Naval officer, Samuel Salathiel Skerrett, who served 1848-94, and who retired as a rear admiral. The real DDG-31 was USS Decatur, a destroyer of the Forrest Sherman class, which served 1956-83, and which became renumbered from DD-936 to DDG-31 in 1966. In the US Navy the letters EDDG are not used as a type code or hull-classification code.