USNA Class of 1998 |
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Shipmate Class Notes |
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March 1999Thank you Great '98 for keeping the letters coming. It's great to hear from all of you, all over the world. I am writing this just after getting back to Charleston from my holiday leave. I hope everyone who had leave enjoyed it, best of luck in '99. I saw David Danelo and Steve Le at the Los Angeles Airport. Steve is getting his master's at University of Maryland, and Dave was on his way back to Quantico. It was good seeing both of them, small world. Now on to the letter from the fleet: Dan Hallock deployed on 5 December on board CLEVELAND (LPD-7) for a West Pac cruise. He finished SWOS on 24 November, made the cross country drive to New Mexico, then reported on board on 4 December. He'll be working in Deck Division under the 1st LT. From Dave Hickey: Flight school is going alright. I am finishing API tomorrow (12/9/98) and the wait for pilots to get into primary is 3-4 months right now. So, there are a ton of people just hanging around down here: Pat Mattes, Chris Canniff, Nate Williams, Nate Paukovitz, Steve Housh, Mike McPhail, Chris Smith and Ben Duelly to name a few. Gene Brown was removed from Flight School out at Vance AFB because he puked every single flight that he took. He is now in Newport. (Good luck to Gene).From Winston Scott, who is deployed on ENTERPRISE: I entered Aviation Maintenance Officer (aka Aerospace Maintenance Duty Officer). This community had a fast track. I went to a ten week school in Pensacola in AUG, checked into my squadron (VFA-37 BULLS an F-18 squadron) and we deployed on 6 November So yes, I spent my Thanksgiving here in the Persian Gulf underway. Nothing like a Turkey dinner in a ship's wardroom wearing a flight deck jersey and khakis,From Meghan Forehand: Hello from Enid. For all of you that aren't familiar with the greater Oklahoma territory, that would be the home of Vance AFB. This land locked crew is growing larger by the day. Roy Barber, Bill Tull, Jeremy Vellon, Eric Poss, Matt Williams, Keith Henderson and I have put in a few months of hard labor Nate Bitz, Noel Rodriguez, Wayne Patras, Clayton Shane and Bill Davey have joined us but the trouble makers are rolling in to join the next class...Aaron Shoemaker, Todd Sawhill, Brian Bradford and Mike Harvey. Most of us have suffered major Annapolis (i.e. civilization) withdrawal. The mall here doesn't have a Gap but they do sell John Deere tractors! (Yes, in the mall!) They don't sell Snapple here either. Weird. Vance is just a wee bit different from P-Cola. We're putting in 12hour days, rolling in at 5:00a.m. and out at 5:00p.m. and yes, we have to do things called "stand ups" which are reminiscent of Plebe summer rate fests. However, we are flying jets! Can't complain about that! Besides all that, we're having a good time teaching these zoomies how to fly and escaping to Oklahoma City when we can. If anybody is trying to track down somebody that is here, you can write or call me and I'll let them know. It's a real small world out here in no mans land. Hope all you sea-bound people are having good times. Meghan Forehand: mforehand@enid.com 580-234-4583, PSC Box 4393, Vance AFB, OK, 73705.From Christopher Keith: The first round of NFOs have graduated from Primary Flight Training from VT-4 down here in Pensacola. Derrick Dudash and Brian Vanyo will be staying in VT-4 after graduation for intermediate flight training and Katie Baldwin, Joel White and myself, will be heading off to Randolf AFB in San Antonio for Nav Training in January,From Pat Faye in Quantico: Delta company just graduated on 17 December. Let me give you a list of the MOS's. Pat Faye, Jason Smith, Daryl Daulton, Sam Russel, Tory Hinkson, Brad Ledbetter and John Schroeder all received Infantry as their MOS. Henry Kayser will be a Light Armored Reconnaissance officer. Neil Potts and Paul Avellino both got Ground Intelligence. Dave Baas got Amphibious Assault Vehicles. Jim Brady (the King of Battle) will be an artillery officer. Ron Wisdom got financial management. Cory Thorton, Billy Kirby and Gabby Bolton all got logistics. Will Millett got Air Support Control. Jeremy Winters got Air Defense. Rob Flannery got Aviation Supply and won the PT award for Delta Company. Melissa Martin got Adjutant. Becca Chany got Engineers. Al Kagen picked up the only non-aviation contract pilot spot in the Class. Other than that, we are all pretty glad to be done with TBS, even though a good number of us will be in Quantico until late March at the Infantry Officer's Course. Semper Fi!From Mike Files: Hafa Adai! Greetings from Guam, where America's day begins. I hope your holiday season was a memorable one. Well Christmas marked my sixth month stationed at U.S. Naval Forces Marianas, Guam. Probably the only person who would have known anything about this island would have been our valedictorian Peter Lombard, considering he is from this small island (32 miles long and 12 miles at its widest point.) Anyway, I write for all those sailors/marines who will be participating in Tandem Thrust '99, one of the largest military exercises in the Pacific during March/April. I wanted to let everyone know if they are planning on coming out to get in touch with me if they have any questions about Guam. I am currently the Protocol Officer here in the Civil-Military Affairs department. Take care and god bless. ENS Michael Files, Civ-Mil Affairs/Protocol, ComNavMar (N5), PSC 455 BOX 152, FPO AP 96540-1300, N52@guam.navy.mil, w: 671-339-8833; pgr: 671-635-0732; h: 671-647-6364.From John Bowman: There are about 20 of us left at NAPS. We'll be going to SWOS 29 January'99. Of course none of us have a clue yet what ships we'11 be getting. They won't tell us until we get to SWOS. We're here at NAPS trying our best to prepare the future Class of '03 for USNA, USCGA and USMMA. Brenda Wachowlak married Tom Berres '97 on a beach in St. Croix over the Christmas break. Wish them the best if you would.From Joe Femenia: I am writing to let you know some of the latest news from BUD/S. Coleman Ruiz and Bridget Stamp just got engaged over the Christmas holidays. In fact, upon returning back to BUD/S, the instructors were so ecstatic to hear the news that they personally congratulated him by sending him to the surf zone to get wet...More from the SEALs, this time from Mike Wisecup: Beef, Russel Tate and Jarrod Donaldson come in February for class 224. John Cremins is awaiting class 223 to finish Hell Week, then he will join in again.And finally, from Cole Bryan: Unfortunately around here in civilian world at UNC I do not have much contact with anything military related except for one other med student on HPSP scholarship. She is straight from undergrad and has no clue about what she is getting into. I wish I had some story or info to enlighten our blurb in Shipmate, but I don't except that Gross Anatomy beats EE and any Chemistry lab hands down.Thanks to everyone who sent me a message. From what I've heard, everyone enjoys reading the article, and the only reason that they do is because of your messages. Please keep them coming. I will catch all of you in April... Fair winds... DSF | |||||
| Last Updated: October 18, 2000 |
