Watkins spent 37 years in the United States Navy, serving on destroyers, cruisers and submarines, and shore assignments in personnel management. He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with Combat 'V' as a result of combat operations that occurred in May and June 1968, in the Gulf of Tonkin, while serving as executive officer of . In those operations, the ship participated in events leading to the shoot-down of five North Vietnamese MiG aircraft, two by air intercept with her air controllers (1967), and three by long range surface-to-air missiles (first in US Naval history) (1967 and 1968). The longest kill was at eighty miles.