Previously Held NEC SR-0000-Seaman Recruit
SN-0000-Seaman
SN-9740-Seaman - Other Technical and Allied Specialists
IC-0000-Interior Communications Electrician
I retired on the last day of June, 2011, the month I turned 61,
and took my Arizona State pension, then Social Security at 62.
I spent my post-navy life as a photographer and media manager.
The Navy gave me gypsy feet, and I've enjoyed them all my life.
As a result, traveling was not just a bucket list item for me.
With the way things have gone, it was a good investment.
I'm a direct descendant, tenth generation, of Joseph Loomis.
The Loomis Family arrived in the New World on 17 July, 1638.
We have defended America ever since.
Other Comments:
"Service included boots-on-the-ground in Viet-Nam"
[ One year, 365 days, 24/7 -- 7 June 1970 to 7 June 1971 ] U.S. Naval Advisory Group, Vietnamese Naval Shipyard, Saigon RVN.
I am also a Plank Owner and Shellback, USS Harlan County (LST-1196).
During my 4 years of active duty, 3 years were credited as foreign or sea service.
Technically, I was on Active Duty, USN, 3 years, 11 months and 16 days. However, I was in the Naval Reserve before that and after that, both Active Reserves and Inactive Reserves. So N/TWS has credited me from April 1969 through April 1983, 4 years active USN plus 4 years USNR and 6 years inactive Naval Reserves, and that is why my profile may occasionally show three hash marks. 1983 was my final Inactive Naval Reserve discharge date. Also, because I worked overseas, I never managed to take the 2nd Class Exam. So, actually I never wore more than one hash mark on my dress blues. And yes... there is a "V" on my Navy Achievement Medal even without having a Combat Action Ribbon because that's the way it was awarded. For more information click on the NAM w/V ribbon in my ribbon rack.
I am glad, proud, to have been born an American.
I voluntarily joined the armed forces, and for that
matter I volunteered for duty in Viet-Nam.
What I had hoped for was to not bring the violence,
the lack of value of a human life that I experienced
in Viet-Nam, back to America. It is that simple.
During my civilian career I spent over ten years as a hospital/medical photographer, two years in Saudi Arabia with Lockheed, and then two and a half decades as the media specialist and manager for a 9,000+ student public school district in Phoenix, Arizona. I feel fortunate to have retired without ever having a single unemployment or welfare check.
A movie in the making. Several locations in Wisconsin are places that I know, my old bank, the hotel I worked at and the courthouse where I got married.
Small Town Stories:
A classmate of mine, from the 3rd grade, was a real heart throb, as least for me. We lived in Columbus Wis, and back in 1960 it had a population of about 2,000. The next year my family moved about 12 miles north to Beaver Dam. Anyhow, she told me the film company for Johnny Depp's movie Public Enemies was in town and using the main street and bank for a backdrop in the 1930's era movie.
Well, I had to look up the movie to see why they were filming in little Columbus. The reason was, there are still so many places in Wisconsin that haven't changed much in 70 or 80 years. Even more surprising than Columbus was that they were also filming in Beaver Dam, at the hotel I worked in during high school as a busboy and short-order cook; another was in Darlington, south-western Wisconsin, in the courthouse my wife and I were married in... "in the courtroom we were married in".
Photos attached to this file include: Lafayette County Court House in Darlington, and the Hotel Rogers, Beaver Dam.
In the movie they panned the entire courtroom where we were married, giving me images I never thought I'd see again, let alone have, (I bought the DVD). Also, (my) Hotel Rogers which was used to represent the Congress Hotel in Tucson, Arizona. For the most part, they made no changes to the hotel, or it's lobby, for the filming other than to cover up the name of the hotel.
Here is a shot of the small town bank in Columbus Wisconsin. I had a savings account there as a kid. It's designer was architect Louis Sullivan. A design he called the "jewel box". The bank, the Courthouse, and Hotel Rogers, are all on the national registery of historic places, and not just because of the movie, but because they survived after all these years.
Lafayette County Courthouse, built 1905-1907. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Farmers and Merchants Union Bank, built 1919. Delared a National Historic Landmark in 1976. Hotel Rogers, built 1927-1928. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
..............
Back in the '60's the beer age in Wisconsin was 18, everything else was 21. So there were Teen Bars. They had to be out of city limits, so at the city limits on the three exits of town were the three bars. The Roost, the Galaxy and the Satellite. Real '60-'s names!! The last time I drove through that area I stopped to take a photo of the old Satellite. It is now an Old Folks Home. I nearly died laughing, right there in the parking lot.
.png?ixlib=java-2.3.0&w=100&s=d40e366bb55af1e70293eedccb148713 "Brown Water Navy (Vietnam)")
.png?ixlib=java-2.3.0&w=100&s=0cb147133885c62667d8969c50b66659 "Order of the Ditch (Panama Canal)")
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