When I got out of the Navy in the Spring of 1975 I took all the plant collections I made during my off duty time on Adak back to Iowa State University where I got my BS degree before entering the Navy in 1971. I eventually published papers on the plants (134 species), lichens (15 species), liverworts (6 species), and mosses (16 species) of Adak Island and wrote a book on the diatoms (321 taxa). I spent that summer with a research group from Rutgers University working on the salt marshes around Valdez Bay before getting my Masters degree in Botany from Rutgers two years later - specializing in the identification of diatoms (microscopic one celled plants with silica cell walls).
Upon graduation, I started working for Water & Air Research (WAR), an environmental consulting company in Gainesville, Florida doing various water quality studies and algae identification projects. For 10 years we had contracts with Southern Division Naval Facilities Engineering Command to write the required environmental documents for closing and realigning military facilities as part of BRAC. It was interesting when we went on military bases and logged in indicating we were from WAR on the sign in sheets! :-) I also analyzed more than 2,000 plankton samples during an eight-year period for the Naval Oceanographic Office that they had collected in the North Atlantic; North Pacific; Gulf of Alaska; Arabian, Sargasso, and Barents Seas; the Sea of Okhotsk; and the Canary Basin. [Wow - I was actually doing what we all THOUGHT we would be doing before the green doors!] :-) 41 years later I am still working at the same place but am now semi-retired and usually only go in a couple mornings a week to analyze samples. When I’m not at work, I’m doing lapidary and woodworking in my workshop or growing 10,000+ amaryllis in our yard!
John, Back on 03 Nov 2018, Jerry Frateschi wrote a similar post (Life after the Navy) and encouraged others to follow suit. His solicitation drew a lot of "good idea" responses but then kinda died on the vine. I found your post to be exceptionally interesting and hopefully others will also and then find the time to write their own post.
Nicely written and very interesting post. Thanks for sharing.
John,
I must extend my apology to Jerry. I somehow missed his post back in November. I feel like I committed a severe case of plagiarism. How ironic is that for a newspaper guy. I even used the same title. However, I could say that great minds think alike.
Certainly no reason to apologize. I only pointed out Jerry's post because it didn't get the response I was hoping for and I was really hoping your post would draw more replies.
We'll see I guess.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to write your post. It was interesting.
J
It took me about two years (Navy time) to find the Green Doors, and almost 27 years to find the exit doors! Who said we get smarter with age? But it actually worked out far better than I could have imagined. Training, SURTOPS, and Career Counselor billets made me realize I really enjoyed teaching. A year after USN retirement, I was an NJROTC instructor in a SC school. Great program, great kids (mostly), great fellow instructor (even though he WAS a dang Marine!). A good run of 16 years - all the fun of USN, but without the ugly side effects!
I'm now fully retired..."on the dole" as someone once said. I'm an elementary school classroom mentor, and spend two days a week volunteering at the USO. I only do THAT because I get free coffee...and because the "Boss" threatened me with bodily harm if I didn't get out of "her" house!
