How many U.S. presidents became president after serving in the Navy during World War II?

No president had ever served in the Navy until World War II, when it suddenly turned into a near prerequisite for reaching the White House.

John F. Kennedy commanded a motor torpedo boat that was run over by a Japanese destroyer in the Solomon Islands; Lyndon B. Johnson was briefly stationed in New Zealand and Australia despite being a sitting member of Congress; Richard Nixon supervised air cargo operations; Gerald Ford served as an aircraft carrier’s assistant navigator and was nearly swept overboard in a typhoon; Jimmy Carter attended the Naval Academy (and became a submariner after the war); and George H.W. Bush flew 58 combat missions, including one in which he was shot down over the Pacific.

In fact, from 1961 to 1993, the only non-Navy man to become president was Ronald Reagan.