Vietnam Navy Veteran. Wrote novel about destroyers entitled "Steve McQueen Would Be Proud."
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Biography
I was born and raised in the small towns of the Midwest, and soon grew bored of cornfields and cruising the one-ways on Friday nights. When I graduated from Hayes Catholic High School in Muscatine, Iowa in the spring of 1969, I joined the navy to see the world. I wanted to be just like Steve McQueen in The Sand Pebbles – a seabag on my shoulder and fire in my eye. After boot camp and electronic schools in San Diego and Treasure Island, California, I went on my first navy cruise aboard the USS Tulare LKA-112. I practiced my Steve McQueen swagger as I walked down the muddy streets of Olongapo in my liberty whites. Five minutes later, a pickpocket stole my wallet. After I washed out of Nuclear Power School, I was assigned to the USS Tutuila ARG-4, which was anchored in the Saigon River where we repaired PBRs, Alpha Boats and Mike Boats. I stood watches at night on the pontoons lashed to the ship, throwing grenades in the water to discourage sappers. The Vietnam War was winding down and all the boats we worked on were turned over to the Vietnamese navy. The Tutuila traveled to Singapore in September 1971 to have her generators overhauled, and then on New Year’s Day 1972, we left Vietnam for good. We visited Hong Kong, Subic Bay and finally Kaoshiung, Taiwan, where we turned the ship over to the Nationalist Chinese Navy on February 21, 1972. This was the same month that President Nixon visited China. Tension ran high. I am now working on a novel about my experiences onboard the Tutuila. Stay tuned. My next duty station was the USS Joseph Strauss DDG-16, which was homeported in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. While on board the Strauss we went on a WESTPAC cruise where we visited Subic Bay, Philippines, Hong Kong, Kaoshiung, Singapore and Bangkok. I received an honorable discharge in Bremerton on May 9, 1975. After my six-year hitch in the navy, I attended Iowa State University (ISU) where I earned a journalism degree. While there, I published two short stories about my navy experiences in the university’s literary magazine. When I graduated in 1979, I wrote for a small newspaper called Solar Utilization News in Estes Park, Colorado. When that paper ceased publication in 1985, I got a job at the Estes Park Public Library where I worked as a reference librarian. After 22 years, I retired from the library to pursue writing full time. While working at the library, I wrote a novel about my experiences onboard the USS Joseph Strauss DDG-16 entitled “Steve McQueen Would Be Proud.” Check it out at www.westpacstories.com. I now live with my wife Lori five minutes from the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park. Our son Jeff is a senior at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
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