Current Residence: Springfield
Family: Wife, Deloras; son, Richard L.; daughters, Doris and Faye; four grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
Career after the military: Graduated from Cincinnati Bible Seminary, ministered at churches in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. Retired from Navistar as an electrician.
Hobbies: Fishing and wood crafts.
Branch of the service: U.S. Navy
Did you join or were you drafted? Enlisted
Dates of service: Jan. 8, 1951 to Nov. 30, 1954
Deployments/bases: Naval Training Center, San Diego, Calif.; Naval Air Technical Training Center, Jacksonville, Fla.; NATTC, Memphis, Tenn.; U.S.S. Philippine Sea CVA-47, Photo Squadron VC-61
Total time that you served: Three years, 10 months and 23 days.
What did you do in the service? Aviation Electronics Technician
What did you gain from serving in the military? My experience in radio and radar repair and my career as an electrician.
What do you remember most about your service? Carrier operation of of Korea, opportunity to see parts of the world I would never have had otherwise.
What would you like readers to know about your military experience? I enjoyed the experience.
Is there anything else that you want readers to know that we didn't ask? I attend First Christian Church. I like to make wooden toys from scrap lumber and give them to charitable organizations, as well as the children of acquaintances. Deloras and I have been married for 60 years.
Hometown Heroes is a weekly feature profiling Clark and Champaign County veterans compiled with the assistance of local Vietnam veteran Randy Ark. To nominate a veteran, e-mail samantha.sommer@coxinc.com or randyark48@gmail.com or call 937-328-0363. Any veteran of any military branch, years of service and age is eligible to be profiled.
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