Ernie Borgnine was the reason I joined the Navy, though I didn’t meet him until 2003 at the Navy Memorial in downtown Washington, D.C. As a child growing up in the 1960s, one of my favorite television shows was “McHale’s Navy,” with Borgnine playing the part of Lt. Cmdr. Quentin McHale, drawing from his own experiences in nearly 10 years on active duty. “Doing that show was very much like being back in the Navy for me,” Borgnine said. “And like being part of a ship’s crew, we really became very close doing that show and many of us stayed…