After 23 years and two month of service to this nation I've hung my stars up.

I enlisted at age 21 to see the world and get the hell out of hell - my "friends" (ha) were getting into harder and harder drugs ('ludes, acid, and coke) and stealing to support themselves. I passed the Navy's nuclear power tests and was accepted into the program. Six weeks into bootcamp they dropped the IC rating from the nukes and I was offered the choice to go home, to become a nuke Electican's Mate, or take my choice of other IC advanced training. I choose closed circuit television as I had alway had an interest in radio and television.

I graduated from company 157 in San Diego as the honor graduate and went to Basic Electricity and Electronics "BEE" school there at Service School Command. I graduated top of my class of over 120 sailors and went to CCTV school at Great Lakes IL. I originally came from Chicago Heights and had my girl friend come up to visit many weekends. I once again graduated at the top of my class and should have gotten orders to Broadcast Television school but was sent to the USS Midway home ported in Yokosuka Japan. By now I was an E-4 never been underway.

I walked aboard to find that ten of the guys there had just been busted in my shop for doing LSD. A crusty old Warrant Officer named Mr. Sales put me in charge of the whole televison and radio studios and production. When our E-6 returned from his TAD to school I turned the place over to him. Chuck Underwood was an alright manager but not much of a leader. My shipmate Dave Ball taught me production and across two years I had won 6 first place Chief of Naval Information Awards and two DoD wide Thomas Jefferson Awards for my radio and televison productions. I flew so many hours in helo's shooting video tape that I got flight pay a few months. I made four WestPac cruises on Midway and hit the ports of Asia so many times I lost track. Along the way I fathered a daughter in The Philippines and and met my to be wife in Thailand. I was promoted twice aboard Midway and was an E-6 by my fourth year there. Living in Japan as a single E-6 before AIDS was an experence that can't be explained in words.

After four and a half years aboard USS Midway the detailer said I had to return to the US so he sent me to Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean. 365 days and a wake up is the tour there - no families and darn few womenz. I re-engineered and built the AM and FM radio systems there from microphone to the antenna's SWR settings. I nearly ran into an alcohol addiction but after downing a quart of whiskey an earthquake stuck the island and I took that as a sign and quit.

While stationed at Diego Garcia I married my now wife in Bangkok Thailand. Washington was talking about sending me to Alaska but I turned that down and took instructor duty at Service School Command San Diego. Taking my young bride from the tropics of Thailand to Alaska wasn't in the cards. While bringing her to the US some Air Force clerk mis-typed my wife's priority so I ended up paying for both our tickets in cash to fly to the US. Right at that time President Reagan and the congress were doing battle over the budget so they weren't paying us military our wages - $50 a day was all I could draw to live in San Diego - hotel, rent-a-wreck, and food in one of the most expensive cities in America. What my poor wife must have thought living in a flea-bag hotel with a broken heater while I drove a wreck with no clutch!

Once the buget was signed I got like $5000 worth of back pay and moved to Pacific Beach and bought a new car. The apartments in PB were nice until about three months after moving in the owner sold the place and the new landlord started letting dopers and welfare families in. My 18 speed racing bike got striped to the pipes. Some punk across the way tossed a garbage bag full of empty beer bottles onto the hood of my four month old car. I jacked him up against the wall before he said that he wasn't 18 and that I'd go to jail for touching him. Later he would come up to the windows of my place and look though the sheer curtains at my wife while I was on duty (every eighth nihgt). After watching Rev. Louie Faracon on public television instructing his followers to arm themselves I thought that that was good advice and bought first a .22 LR pistol and then a twelve gauge. The hook was set. The punks stopped making comments about me coming and going in my uniform after noticing that I was bringing gun cases back and forth every weekend as I took lessons from my friend Bob Stoneman.

While teaching I trained hundreds of sailors and was always rated in the top 5% of the instructors command wide. I made Chief Petty Officer my first time up and put the uniform on September 16th, 1989.

After San Diego we went to Australia to NCS H.E.Holt in Exmouth WA. I met an Australian man who taught me to snorkle, scuba, and throw a mean dart. I spend ten to sixteen hours a weekend under water with him spear fishing and gathering crays. I was the Chief Engineer of the Navy Broadcast Service detachment there and had a crew of ten guys and gals working for me. Good times, lots of parties and dances.

When Clinton closed the base eight years before schedule I took orders to the USS Carl Vinson home ported in Alameda CA. This was my toughest tour for a number of reasons. I was made the assistant radar officer and I could barely spell radar let alone help repair one, the ship was home ported in Alameda but was under going a ten month yard upkeep in Bremerton WA. There were flights home on Fridays that would return on Sundays - you could take two a month if you made the list. HTC Dave Cash in the hull shop was one of my only friends on that cold ship - no spirit there. Kevin Fournier was my LPO and I taught him and his crew well.

After two years and a few months aboard I was pulled off early with a by-name request to come to the AFRTS broadcast center in Sun Valley CA. The BC is where the military television channel is produced and then sent via a series of satellites and uplinks around the world - mainly to Korea, Japan, Italy, and Germany where there are large bases. I was assigned as a project engineer on a multi-million dollar project to move the BC from Sun Valley to March ARB about 80 miles away. I worked from before sun-up to well after sun-down for nearly ten months. Afterwards I was involved with going to digital signals and trippling the number of services.

After four years in Riverside I returned to sea, this time aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. Abe was everything Carl Vinson wasn't. I fell in with the Chief's Mess and became the Surface Warfare program coordinator. I made Senior Chief E-8 and was selected before many more senior to become one of the four senior enlisted section leaders. Every fourth day I had a crew of 800 working for me and I was responsible for the safety of them and the ship. Lincoln was on WestPac in the Persian Gulf when the USS Cole was attacked. I was standing duty as the Electronics Material Officer evenings when the commander was off and was a part of the team that destroyed our share of radar sights, oil platforms, intercepted illegal cargo, and put the sharp stick into Saddam's eye more than once. I pulled duty the first day inport Jebel Ali after the Cole Bombing. We had been at sea for three months straight. Security and tensions were pretty high. We got three days inport where we weren't allowed to leave the safety of the pier before heading out. After five months underway we left the Gulf, my sixth and final WestPac, and headed home. It was during this cruise I was invited to be the moderator of the General Discussion forum here, must have been late 1999 or very early 2000.

During the cruise a vendor here mailed me a care package of beef jerky and other snacks which I shared to my crew of 25 guys. When we returned I took six of them out for a shoot with my AR's, FAL and M1A. I think gun store business shot up that following pay day.

It was aboard Lincoln that I fell down the MMR2 ladder tearing my leg muscles crippling me for life. I've put 40 pounds on since that day and haven't been able to hike or backpack since. The VA should give me about 30% disability when my now bad knees, feet, and bad are examined.

After three years aboard Lincoln I returned to the AFRTS BC where I made E-9 my first time up for it and was given the job of Command Master Chief. I had 55 service members in the Army, Navy, and Air Force. I was there for three years and change and saw five commanding officers/executive directors come though. I saw the amount of services provided triple again so it when from one channel of television to now twelve world wide. One of those commanding officers was doing crimes so I had to report him to among others the Office of Special Council, the Joint Chief's Staff, and the DoD IG. He was breaking every rule in the book - fraud, waste, abuse, and mis-management. I opened 18 formal complaints - mainly taking the lead for my troops who were seeing and passing the information on to me. The smoke still hasn't cleared but it is clear that the Army is short one short assed O-6 and the Navy is now shorter one Master Chief.

I ended up with the Legion of Merit, the Defense Superior Service Medal, a Navy Commedation Medal, five Navy Achievement Medals, two Battle "E"'s, six sea service, two overseas service, service ribbons from Gulf War I and II, pistol and rifle expert (on the USMC course), and both Surface and Aviation Warfare devices. I've been in about three dozen countries around the world and been stationed in half a dozen states.

One of my fondest memories of my whole career is a brief and passing one. The AFRTS holds a world-wide conference every second year bringing their managers and some of their staff into Riverside for a face-to-face meeting. I was so busy running around organizing everything that I never picked up my badge until the last day - everyone important knows me any way. So after the last meeting there's time to tell sea stories and catch up on news. I was talking with a woman that I had served with a dozen years earlier in Australia when her staff member caught my name tag. He said "You're THE ONE" I said, beg your pardon to the guy six pay grades my junior. He said you're Master Chief "Paul" the only one in our rating - the guy who proved that it can be done. Shit. I was knocked off my feet and rendered speechless and that's not easy to do!

So my future is here in California until I gather my nest egg large enough to retire for good. It might amaze and baffle some of you young (and old it seems) that assault weapons aren't the most important thing in life. There are many things in my life of greater importance but number one is my family. There's not a place on the planet where I can make the money I'm making here and now in the broadcasting profession while living as well as I do. Only in New York city - where all the television news comes from - pays better and I'm not willing to live there! I've been socking away $50 to $60 thouand a year the last three years and that's nearly enough to retire with my retainer in a few more years.

I'm looking east toward Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. There's also a pretty good chance that I'll pick up and blow to Thailand where I'll have hot and cold running maids in my palace. I would live like a millionare over there.

So that's a look at your friendly general discussion, Beretta, California hometown, and pistol optics moderator!

PS: That's retired, not retarded!

Thanks for your gracious service to our country, Paul!

Everyone in this nation is eternally indebted to folks such as yourself, who have given much for its preservation.

Eric The(Salute!)Hun

Congratulations.

As a former military electronics tech I applaud your dedication to our great nation, even if the Army wouldn't have you.

Thank you for your service!

Good luck Paulie!

Quoted: Good luck Paulie!

Keep that up and I'll tell everyone the truth about Washington State.

It does in fact, rain there all the time, everyday without fail!

Quoted: You forgot to tell em Chiefs run the Navy, I saw it first hand. 94 USS Essex 96 UUS Boxer Semper Fi Chief!

Goes without saying!

Vis Per Mare!

I have long been in awe of you, Master Chief Paul.  Thank you sincerely and humbly for your decades of service to this great Country.  Is it true you know how to "swear like a sailor"??  

Quoted: It does in fact, rain there all the time, everyday without fail!

And the women are short fat and ugly and the men are all Birkenstock and socks wearing wannabe Californians.

Traffic sucks too.

Run away run away.

Luv to Noon bud.