Brashear enlisted in the United States Navy on 25 February 1948, four months before the military was desegregated by President Harry S.

Brashear first worked as a diver retrieving approximately 16,000 rounds of ammunition that fell off a barge which had broken in half and sunk.

In January 1966, in an accident now known as the Palomares incident, a B28 nuclear bomb was lost off the coast of Palomares, Spain, after two United States Air Force aircraft of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), a B-52G Stratofortress bomber and a KC-135A Stratotanker aerial refueling aircraft, collided during aerial refueling.

Brashear was serving aboard USS Hoist (ARS-40) when it was dispatched to find and recover the missing bomb for the Air Force.

[5] During the bomb recovery operations on 23 March 1966, a lifting cable snapped, causing a pipe to swing across the deck of the USS Hoist.

Realizing that a shipmate standing in the stern of the landing craft was in serious jeopardy if the heavily strained stern line also parted, he unhesitatingly pushed his shipmate to safety, but was seriously injured himself when the stress from the remaining line caused a portion of the craft to carry away and hit him in the leg.

By his prompt and courageous actions in saving another man from injury or possible death, Chief Brashear, at the risk of his own life, upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

[citation needed] On 24 October 2007, the Newport News Fire Department dedicated a 33-foot (10 m) high-speed fireboat named Carl Brashear to be used by their Dive and Marine Incident Response Teams.

[14] The Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship USNS Carl Brashear (T-AKE-7) was christened in his honor in San Diego, California, on 18 September 2008.

[18] On 21 February 2009, Nauticus, a science and maritime museum in downtown Norfolk, Virginia, opened a new exhibit called "Dream to Dive: The Life of Master Diver Carl Brashear.

In 2009 the Chief Petty Officer Club onboard Naval Station Little Creek VA was renamed The Carl Brashear Center.

"[21] Brashear's Dress Uniform is on display at the Hardin County History Museum in Elizabethtown, Kentucky as part of the "We Were There" Military Tribute and Exhibit.

In this movie Carl Brashear plays the role of a knight in shining armor as he flees from the automatons of modern mankind.