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June 2002
Aloha, Great '98! I've been in Hawaii for almost a year now, and it's taken me this long to give in and use the
most commonly used word in the entire state. I hope all is well with everyone. Summer is upon us, and we are all
now officially O-3s. I'm sure some Classmates will start transferring back as company officers real soon. Scary.
Now for the letters this month, the first from Jake Schmitter:
It's official, after seven years (almost eight) of active duty service, I am finally experiencing
my first deployment (I guess you SWO daddies are on your third or something). After finishing
the EA-6B RAG in June 2001, I joined the world famous angry patriots of VAQ-140. Currently
we are supporting OEF onboard JOHN F. KENNEDY. Just the other day I flew with my skipper,
CDR Tom "Spicoli" Mascolo '82, for his 1,000th trap. A fair amount more than my paltry 60-plus
traps. The other grads in my squadron are LCDR Mike "Mumbles" Breslauer '89, LT Phil "Ace"
Ventura '94, LT Mike Gussenhoven '96, and two other Ninety-Greaters Chris Delgado and Todd
Zentner. Good stuff in the VAQ.
Being onboard BIG JOHN is somewhat akin to a small scale USNA reunion. Mike Gawlas is a
COTAC in VS-31; my fellow Alumni of Dirty Thirty, Brian Vanyo, is in VF-11 as is Brian Sawicki;
Rafe Wysham is in VF-143. On a side note, Rafe is the first member of our Class to become a
member of the Martin-Baker club. Though the whole crew of BIG JOHN was saddened by the
loss of his pilot, we were all very thankful that Rafe returned to us uninjured. Brian Summers
and Jim Shipman are Hornet-mafia types in VFA-136. Chris Savage is a boat intel dude doing
his super secret squirrel stuff. My apologies to all the '98ers onboard JFK that I missed. We are
doing some good work out here. The bad guys don't know what's hittin' 'em and we really are
kicking a** and taking names, addresses, and phone numbers. It feels good to give some
payback for 11 September and for our own Classmate, Darin Pontell.
On a personal note, I got married in November of 2000 to the former Miss Drew Burns. It was a
good excuse to see my homies Mike Imbs, Tony Ramos, Josh Potoco, Jason Buckley (who is
about to have a baby), Aaron Beattie, and Rory Tucker '96. Misty Steinberger had the
esteemed honor of slapping my then-new wife on the butt with her sword. On a whole, life is
good. All I need now is a dog...
Sounds great, Jake. Keep up the hard work and in a few more years, you can write again about your 1,000th
trap.
That's the only letter I got for this month '98. Stay safe, and keep an eye out for upcoming info on our five
year reunion, less than one year away! Fair winds. -DSF
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