Jim Richmond

I enlisted in the U.S. Navy a mere 8 days after graduation. I was privileged and honored to serve our country for 4 years and was discharged honorably. The Navy took me places I never would have gotten to visit otherwise. California, Japan, Okinawa, Korea, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Washington, D.C. The Navy sent me to numerous schools for training including Vietnamese language school for 35 weeks, gunboat engineering systems and survival school which included a mock POW camp of which to escape. I had 3 tours to Vietnam and spent almost 21/2 years overseas in the Far East. I finally went to sea as a fleet sailor aboard the U.S.S. Worden (DLG-18). My enlistment for those 4 years was action packed and there was never a dull moment. I met a crewmember of the Pueblo, the Captain of the destroyer that was cut in half in the summer of 69, Miss America, Bob Hope, Miss Universe ( she sat on my lap). I would not trade this life experience for anything as I now belong to an ever increasing brotherhood of those who have a DD214.