Newell Tarrant

From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference

Newell Tarrant is a retired Navy Flight Officer who played Commander Rogerson, the Command Duty Officer of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

A graduate of the Naval War College and TOPGUN, Tarrant fought over 200 combat missions in the Vietnam War. He concluded his twenty-year naval career as the Commanding Officer of the Chargers of VF-161, a carrier-based fighter squadron. Currently residing in San Diego, California, he has become an author, with his first novel, Shadow War, published in 2002. [1]

[edit] Background

While Tarrant has been positively confirmed as a real U.S. Naval officer both by Star Trek producers and the publishers of several novels written by Tarrant, as of 2009 the actor's name has yet to be found on the registry rolls of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Naval Personnel Command, or the National Archives and Records Administration. [2]

Even so, of all the Star Trek personalities with military service, Tarrant also appears to be the only one with service in the Vietnam War.