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Military Service
After graduating at Vance on October 25th, 1952, I had a brief stint at Miami
Airbase, Florida to transition to C-119s as crews. From there our crew went to
McClellan AFB, CA to get a C-119 and ferry it to Ashiya, Japan where we were to
be stationed. I flew the Korean Airlift of men and supplies of all sorts. I also
dropped paratroops several times. My tour of duty was to be one year but as the
Korean War ended while I was there, my tour was extended to 15 months. In 1954 I
had several short tours to Clark AFB in the Philippines to fly supplies to the
French in Vietnam (called Indo-china back then) who finally lost their war at
Dien Bien Phu.
At the end of my overseas tour I again ferried a C-119 back to Birmingham, AL
and was assigned to Charleston AFB to continue flying C-119s. Most of this duty
was dropping paratroops at Ft. Bragg although I still did some passenger and
freight hauling.
In early1955, I was transferred out of an operational squadron and became the
OIC of the C-119 Flight Simulator. As the C-119s were to be transferred away
from Charleston and I was separating from active duty, I was transferred to MATS
and became a base-ops duty officer for several months until I left active duty
in October, 1955.
Employment
Most of my working years was as a stock broker in Santa Cruz, CA. I retired
early and moved to Pebble Beach, CA. Here I worked in real estate and became a
real estate broker. Since this was not to my liking I went to the local
community college to learn electronics. One subject was Basic computer
programming in which I excelled and was requested to teach the course. I did so
for four years.
Volunteer work
When the Monterey Bay Aquarium opened in 1984 I went to work two days a week as
a volunteer in the sea otter department. I held two jobs: As an otter keeper of
the otters on display and as a nurse and teacher to orphaned baby otters which
we raised and released back to the wild. I did this for fifteen years.
At the same time I was a member of a marine mammal rescue outfit and started a
harbor seal protection organization where I had 80 volunteers working for me
each spring during the seal birthing period. I was also treasurer of the local
chapter of the American Cetacean Society.
Personal
I had three years at Northwestern University before joining the Air Force. After
pilot training I married Anne (was married for 11 years and had three
daughters). Upon release from the Air Force I went to San Jose State College for
my last year to get my degree in Business.
In 1965 I married Kay and added her son to my family. Our four children have
given us six grandchildren.
My hobbies are raising tuberous begonias, photographing wildflowers for
identification purposes, photographing sunsets, designing and building simple
electronic gadgets, and I spend far too much time on my computer mostly working
with photos. |
