Stories from Bob's Life

I recall being about 7 years old – 2nd grade I believe, when we lived in Los Angeles for a few months after having just moved there from Hawaii. My father was sent to LA to attend a Navy school that he needed (I believe it was intelligence related) before he could take his next…

I have often told people that  (intentionally or not) I have become what I call a “Prince of Mediocrity” – I’m mediocre at more things than anyone I know.  What do I mean by “mediocre“?   I mean –  not bad, but not remarkable, and in some cases, perhaps better than many.   In my case, in…

I believe it was two days after the wedding and Mary Anne and I began our lives as husband and wife by heading to Brooklyn to spend Christmas with Mary’s family, meet the relatives before heading across country to Monterey for German language school before moving to Germany where I would serve as the Personnel…

It was 1990 and I was the Operations Officer at Seal Team Six, relatively new in the job, and I was the least operationally experienced of the team’s “head shed” – how the team referred to  the top 4 leaders in the command – the CO, XO, OPS, and Command Master Chief.  So during a…

It was 1998, and we’d just moved from Stuttgart, Germany, where we’d lived in government housing on Patch Barracks, to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where I’d spent much of my life and career and where my kids had spent some years in school.  When our family was moving into the new house we’d bought on Thomas…

In the fall of 1979, I had been seeing Mary Anne for nearly two and a half years.  At that point, she was 30 and I was 27. She had dated and had longer term relationships with quite a few more men than I had had with women and was more experienced and mature. I…

In BUD/S training, concluding first phase is a key milestone.  It is physically and mentally the toughest, often referred to as the motivational phase, whereas later phases are more training in Special Warfare skills.   So in April of 1975 when my BUD/S class 83 completed first phase, and were set to get a whole new…

September 11, 2001 started out for me like for most Americans like any other. I was living in Annapolis Md and left home at 0530 for my 45-50 minute commute to my job in the Pentagon in Arlington Va. I was the Senior Military Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low Intensity…

I had been dating Mary Anne for probably a year at that point – and she was still in the Navy.  I was the Assistant Platoon Commander to Stan Holloway at SEAL Team TWO and our platoon was travelling to the Navy SEAL detachment we then had at the Naval Base Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico…

I graduated from BUD/S in August 1975, and my parents come out for the graduation.  I don’t recall seeing many other parents or family members there but there were some.  It was a small ceremony with maybe 30 folding chairs on the BUD/S grinder right behind the quarterdeck, facing the “So you wanna be a…