U.S.S. Kawishiwi AO-146

I first came aboard when the ship was home ported in Hawaii with Capt. Bilderback as commanding officer and then Capt. Nicolson took over. I started out as a deck hand in 2nd Division and became a Radioman Striker until I left the Navy in 74.

In boot camp I met Eric Minlschmidt,and we were both assigned to Kawishiwi. He became a Corpsman. He, Jim Menchaca (a signalman) and I got along well. I was a reader, played tennis and went hiking a lot. .

View John's photo of Kawishiwi in DRYDOCK and UNREP with Enterprise. Many of his records were destroyed in a water leak.

After the Navy, John went to college for a short time and play tennis semi professionally. Then he worked for Berkeley Police Department as a crime scene technician and then onto Oakland Police Department as a Police Officer. I stayed with police work for about 4 years and went back to college and graduated from U.C. Berkeley in Wildlife Biology. Worked off and on as a naturalist and biologist with the National Park Service and then taught Biology and math in Oakland and Berkeley. In 1986 I started my own business building custom kitchen cabinets and custom furniture, see my website at
http://Johnsfurnitureandcabinets.com.