Where I was 30 years ago

I was thinking today about where I have been and what I've done and realized that it's been 30 years since Iran over ran our embassy in Tehran.
At that time I had been in the Navy about 8 years. I was stationed with VA 93 attached to CVW-9 aboard The USS Midway permanently assigned to Yokosuka Japan. It was 1979 and Midway was on a training mission in the Indian Ocean.
As I remember we had just left Perth Australia and were traveling north to Kenya when we got word that our embassy had been overran.
For reasons I don't know we continued to Kenya and pulled in to Mombasa for 5 days for Liberty before continuing north to the Persian gulf where we stayed for about 90 days.
Those ninety plus days were the most stressful of my Naval career.
I was supervising a crew of four people, we were responsible for the maintenance of the navigation and weapon systems of 9 A7 E aircraft operating 12 hours a day off of a Aircraft carrier about half the size of a modern one.
I was 28 years old and my crew averaged 20 to 22.
During that time I worked what was called day shift. It was a 12 hour shift or 7 AM to 7PM .
Because there were only 5 of us day shift was me and the airman and night shift was the 3 2nd classes.
My day started at 6:00 AM when I woke and hurriedly dressed and rushed to the morning Maintenance meeting. Flight quarters started soon after and lasted till after 7PM.
As soon as the last launch went out, I got my chance to eat my only meal of the day, and went to bed to start over the next day. This schedule went on for 93 days with some breaks, on Christmas day I got a few hours to relax but we had to catch up on the aircraft maintenance so it wasn't much of a rest. Basically it was a no fly day and we used it to catch up as much as possible.
After so many days of work in a row we lost track of what day it was and didn't really care, as long as the aircraft left the pointy end and returned in one piece we were content.
There was some excitement occasionally, during that period one of the F4 outfits had a mainmount wheel come off during the launch, and the pilot had to ditch he was instructed by the airboss to fly along side the ship and eject and he was picked up by the plane guard.
This period finaly ended and we left Gonzo station to head for home port, Yoksuka, Japan.
It was a fairly uneventful trip until we got close to Japan. Of course we had to off load munitions. It's considered bad manners to pull into port with weapons aboard. Then there was the flyoff, we had to get the flyable aircraft to Atsugi so we could fly and do scheduled maintenance while in port. The flyoff was a little dicey because we had ice on the flight deck and the aircraft tended to slide around while taxeing, which got everyones adrenalin going.
After entering port we had to offload our maintenance equipment and move to Atsugi for the inport period which was never long enough.

New Additions

Our family is growing. David's daughter Pam Nugent had a girl named her Jaimee Savan isn't she a doll








and David's son Martin is a proud new Father of Alan Han

As in all things when one loses in one aspect of life there is a gain elsewhere.


In other news, Eric, my great nephew started driving. I think he will do well. He is a levelheaded young man who will consider his actions carefully most of the time. But like everyone else do stupid thing without thinking. I do this all the time. I just hope he's not driving when stupidity overcomes him. I consider this the bane of mankind, stupidity sneaking up on you when you least expect it.

Working in education I see this a lot. Supposedly intelligent adults doing incredibly stupid things. Feshman do it all the time. Example going into a building they think is the one where they have a class looking for a classroom that is in another building.

Death in the family

From www.fortwayne.com dated 25 July 2009

DAVID LEE RALSTON, 62, of Fort Wayne,
our beloved father, brother and son was
called home to our Lord and Savior, on
Tuesday, July 21, 2009. He was born on
Jan. 24, 1947. He is survived by his parents,
Lester and Marietta Ralston; two brothers,
Glenn (Loree) Ralston and Maurice (Maye)
Ralston; sister, Alta (Denny) High; son,
Martin (Hongling) Ralston; daughter,
Pamela (James) Nugent; and four
grandchildren, Nathanial, Jacob, Jade,
and Jaimee. Memorial service is 3 p.m.
today at Faith Baptist Church on Trier
Road, Fort Wayne. Arrangements by
C.M. Sloan & Sons Funeral Home,
1327 N Wells St.

I recently lost my brother and it has caused me to ponder on death and relationships and how we are affected by siblings and friends.

As a child my brother and I were not real close, there were 4 years differences in age and our interests were too different and he married and moved away when I was only about 14.

After I retired from the Navy I visited him in Florida and we had a great time getting reacquainted and we became best friends for the first time.

A couple of years went by and he moved back home and we hung out together going to dart leagues and parties etc. One thing we always talked about doing was going fishing together but we never did and now its too late.

While in the military I guess I was lucky, there were no major accidents where people I knew died. There were accidents but they were all survivable, like the one I remember from California where two of our aircraft mid aired over the field and crashed but the crews got out of the planes before impact using ejection seats.

So I really didn't have to deal with the deaths of people close to me until I retired and had friends die, due to age related illnesses.

As I age deaths of friends and family get easier and harder. Easier in that I handle it better, and harder because I have fewer friends and relatives, and the world gets lonelier.
If it wasn't for my wife, Maye, I don't know what I would do. She is my support, the rock that my world rests on.

Anyway when David died I lost my best friend. He and I didn't see each other very often but he would call me or I would call him with questions or just to talk. It is difficult to realize how much you depend on such relationships until they are gone.

My realization of how this has affected me made me wonder how many of us take such relationships for granted instead of cherishing them while they last.

I am beginning to continue on, poorer in spirit but we must go on, and the world doesn't miss a beat when we pass but just continues on. A few people will miss us but not for long as their memory dims with time, they will remember us from time to time but the world continues and other concerns interfere and memories fade.

I suppose that's a good thing in the scheme of things, we don't want to be paralyzed by grief and stop living when we lose a loved one. I guess that is why people put up monuments to the fallen to keep their name present among the living so that they are remembered and future generations can know what you have done and who you were and what you looked like.

Today we have photos and movies and the internet to keep our information out there, when I log on to facebook I still see him. He is still listed in my friends list and is a constant reminder of the loss and the friendship I had with my brother. It makes me feel like I could just pick up the phone and call him.

Intellectually I know he is gone but emotionally he is still there and will remain for probably months to come, and then the memory will fade and he will be just a memory of other times like childhood when we have grown.

Its Wednesday morning and still raining. Hopefully today will be the last day of rain, at least for a while.

I originally thought when I started this blog that i would use it to recount my experiences while in the Navy. After further thought I decided that it would be better to use it to record my impressions of world and local news.
Go Navy, It's about time the Powers that be let loose the SEALS to free the skipper of the Alabama.

Interesting note in NYT Thursday Apr. 16, third world cook fires are becoming a major contributor to global warming, due to what is called black carbon. I don't think there is anyway to get them to stop cooking so the problem is problematic. I however think that the socalled civilized countries(civilization isn't all its cracked up to be) are the real problem. Until they come up with an alternative to burning fossil fuels the world is going to slip farther and farther into a global meltdown until mother nature says enough is enough and kills us all off.

Monday morning

Its Monday morning again and snowing. When I was in the Navy it rarely snowed because I was stationed in warm places, like California and Virginia.
I sometimes wonder why I came back to Indiana, in the winter the weather is crappy, it's either wet and cold or snowing and cold. Not just middling cold but frigid, and sometimes "F" ing cold as in below zero Fahrenheit.
It never fails. We had a delivery of mchinery today, so it snowed.

Other than that It's a quiet morning at work, my wife just called to say hi. I am sitting at my desk trying to decide what to do next, and listening to the local rock station over the internet.
It has turned into afternoon and still quiet.
I'm surprised sometimes how ignorant PHD's can be. This morning a Prof. couldn't get his laptop to find any webpages. when I looked at it, all that was wrong was a setting in internet options,it was looking for a particular proxy server and couldn't find it. I changed the setting all better.

Note from Moe

I guess I have to give the pres time to get his plan in place before being too critical, but it looks like my great great great grandchildren will be paying for it.

wtf is he doing

I cannot believe that the Government can give a tax cut and increse spending and pay for it all, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan must be horribly expensive plus the 1.7 trillion he promised to the private sector. How is congress going to pay for it all!!!!!!