Time to Rock |
Take a load off, lean back and
relax. Kick your shoes off if you like. Here you'll discover some of the little things
that have helped make me a unique individual while you get to know a little about one guy
proud to have had the opportunity to serve in Uncle Sam's Navy. |
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lair Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary |
Just A Little About Me
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My given name is Howard. Most of my life I have been known as
Luke which is a derivative of my family name. That seems to be the military way of nick
naming people and the name I am most comfortable with even today. My friends on IRC know
me as ^46Merc. I can be described as a old sailor with a starboard list (for all you landlubbers, that implies I lean to the right). I retired after more than 20 years of naval service as an Electronic Warfare Chief Petty officer (EWC). I was mostly assigned to "Tin Cans" in the Pacific where I spent most of the time in SE Asian waters. But I was fortunate enough to travel completely around the world aboard my Uncle Sammy's haze gray and underway greyhounds. I met many wonderful people who saw life from a very different knot hole than I did due to their life experiences. I was very privileged to be allowed to peer through their knot holes even if for only an instant. In addition I was able to see many of the worlds most interesting and exotic faraway places that had only been dreams in the imagination of a skinny 17 year old high school dropout from Moses Lake, WA. In the summer of 1959 "I joined the navy to see the world" as the recruiting posters said. I attended Boot Camp in San Diego CA followed by Radarman Class "A" School in Norfolk, VA . In 1971 I was one of the original group to be selected for to the new rating of Electronic Warfare (EW) when I was promoted to EWC (Electronic Warfare CPO) the rank I held until I was transferred to the fleet reserve While in the navy I was stationed aboard 6 ships that had hull numbers that started with a D. They were the USS Prichett DD-561, USS Blue DD-744, USS George K. Mackenzie DD-836, USS McKean DD-784, USS Davis DD-937, USS Worden DLG-18 (the Worden's designation was changed to CG-18 while I was aboard her but in reality she was still just a can). Then I went back aboard the McKean, now a reserve training ship, to finish up my sea duty I also spent 3 years as an instructor at Great Lakes Naval Training center where I taught basic electronics and radar operation at Radarman Class "A" School and three years at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii estimating repair work on nuclear powered submarines. As it turned out in the long run this short tour ashore was very important in development of the estimating skills that I use today. Thank you navy for giving me a wonderful second career!!! |
| My Family
Renata |
I am married to a wonderful woman from the Philippine Islands. I met her as
a result of a trip that I took, in 1972, aboard one of my uncle Sammy's steel hulled
yachts. When my ship returned to the States I requested a transfer to a ship homeported in
Yokosuka, Japan so that I could be closer to her. We were married in 1974 after a big
struggle getting approval from the navy in both the Philippines and Japan. I guess that
they had to make sure that a guy well into his thirty's really knew what he was doing. I
have a total of 6 children ages 37 (m), 35 (f), 34 (f), 21 (m), 19 (m) and 18 (f). |
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After I got out of the navy, in 1979, I worked on a research and development program in Richland, WA. The project was to use high powered dye lasers for nuclear isotope separation. But like many R&D programs it ended sooner rather than later. At the insistence of my wife, and with 3 preschool kids at home, I went back to school, utilizing my GI Bill and earned a AA degree in business from Columbia Basin CC in Pasco WA and a BS degree in Accounting from Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA. Until May 28, 1999 I was employed as an estimator of labor required to manufacture electronics, avionics and sometimes composites for a Seattle, WA based aerospace company. I still love the sea and travel. I enjoy meeting new people. I like camping, fishing, photography and of course computing. I appreciate old cars, trains and planes. I am very interested in history because I honestly believe that if we don't understand the past we are condemned to repeat it. I hate the Seattle rain! Don't move to Seattle all this rain is really depressing. It only rained for 40 days and 40 nights during Noah's flood. We just set a record of more than 90 straight days of rain. I think it rains about 350 days a year here. None of the sunny days ever fall on a week-end either. If you have to move go to California, Florida or New Mexico they have nothing but sunshine there. Don't even think about moving here!! Do you want your Kids to drown walking to school just because they were misfortunate enough to step off the wrong curb and get sucked under by a storm drain whirlpool? |
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United States Navy- Digital Images
This page was lasted updated 05/29/99
