LZ Lakehawk: Local vets recount their adventures
Good Sunday morning, Lakehawkers!
Your humble ink-slinger thought he knew about all the "good deals" available to the young American who serves a hitch — or longer — wearing the cloth of our nation.
More LZ Lakehawk: Packwood gifts Combat Café with original Dickson art
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But give credit to the quota-driven professionals who do "talent management" for those who raise their right paws to do duty in the warrior trade.
In case you missed the 10 July piece on Eustis' veritable "Hippler squadron," Colonel Chuck and Miss Rose-Marie's oldest son picked up quite the gig — while enrolled at UF:
Sworn in as a petty officer lst Class (just one rank below "Chief," y'all), Kent Hippler received full pay and allowances at the active duty rate while completing his nuclear engineering studies.
The Navy also threw in a cash bonus; and two short years later, Ensign Kent Hippler was sailing the Seven Seas and copping an additional year of (graduate-level) education at Nuclear Power School.
Family friend and Air Force brat Shak Robinson, a Marine captain and a high-ranking "striper" when he attended the Naval Academy, was recently selected as an Olmstead Scholar – another competitive opportunity in our military.
That means he has been in mufti (civilian clothes) for three years, studying in a language not his own and working toward a PhD — in Mexico City.
Oh, we taxpayers will get it back.
You might one day see "Colonel Robinson" or perhaps "Brigadier General Robinson" in televised footage offering advice to say, the Secretary of State or maybe the President's National Security Advisor.
At least that's close to what happened in the career of a combat-seasoned Marine artillery officer named Lt. Col. Bud McFarlane, an Olmstead alumnus who went on to become Ronald Reagan's NSA after having served as Henry Kissinger's military assistant while still on active duty.
Or Army Gen. John Abizaid, the first Olmstead scholar to study in Arabic (at the University of Jordan) years before his four-star assignment heading the U.S. Central Command in Tampa.
You might surmise, correctly, that commissioned officer experience is a helpful asset for such programs (which also include fellowships with prestigious organizations such as the Foreign Affairs Counsel; internships with major corporations; and hand-picked, foreign war college enrollment with our allies in France, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands and many others).
Each of our Armed Forces offers a path toward earning those gold bars as a second lieutenant or ensign — often with college thrown in, including possible enrollment at America's service academies.
A very recent join to the life of a Mustang (military jargon for a former enlisted warrior who is promoted to the officer ranks) is Altoona's Ens. Loanna Torrance, U.S. Coast Guard Reserve.
For Loanna, it's in her bloodlines: her Dad is LZ LAKEHAWK's own Chaplain Bob Haines, a retired Navy lieutenant commander who served in Vietnam on the enlisted side, was commissioned into the Army during his college and seminary years and — near the twilight of his career — deployed with a light armored Marine Corps infantry battalion for Operation Desert Storm.
BRAVO ZULU, Ensign Torrance!
Well, it's easy to see we shall have soon to revisit the topic of military service "good deals" – or as the Hawk's Director of Flight Ops would put it: "cool deals."
Lake and Sumter are loaded with examples of those lofty opportunities reached for and pulled down, including an astronaut billet (the late Capt. David Walker, USN); a spot on an aerial flight demonstration team (Mount Dora's resident Blue Angel pilot, Wayne Molnar); and Eustis Panther star scholar-athlete Lt. Col. Aaron Parks who now has an Army-paid PhD under his belt (not to mention multiple combat tours and current battalion command at Fort Carson, Colorado.
The programs are there, including an Army path by which a medic can aspire to become a doctor; teaching at the college level as an ROTC instructor (Maj. Glen Key at UCF and Capt. Theo Bob at Florida A&M both come to mind); specializing in the underwater stuff (both submarines and diving — a big part of Navy Capt. Hank Zaleski's Medical Corps resume'); and sometimes becoming part of a totally new enterprise, which is the story for U.S. Space Force Capt. Andrew Holland of Sorrento; and The Villages' former Army Capt. Joe Morgan, who, back in the day, was one of the first young officers to earn the Green Beret.
SAVED ROUNDS
- We note the passing of Donald Richard Roberts, who graduated Leesburg High School the very year (1947) the U.S. Air Force left the Army Air Corps and became a service branch unto itself.
He was commissioned soon after completing studies at the University of Florida in 1951, serving during the Korean War and staying in Defense-connected endeavors as a civilian with Texas Instruments, Lockheed, Teledyne, and United Technologies.
- Soliciting your prayers this week for longtime Orange County Deputy Bob Cockcroft, who was injured in a tree-cutting accident. Bob, a U.S. Army Vietnam veteran, is part of a storied group that meets at Combat Café for breakfast on the last Friday of each month.
The majority of the group have in common another special link: They were raised and educated as Groveland Greenbacks.
This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: LZ Lakehawk: Local vets recount their adventures
