Thursday, November 12, 2020
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Once again Grace, my Sincerest Condolences to you and your lovely family on the passing of John. As you know I had the good fortune of meeting John at the United States Naval Training Center, Bainbridge, Maryland better known as Boot Camp, in September, 1952,
We were kind of invaded by about 10 recruits who hailed from Cortland, New York. I and my two friends were from New York City. So all of us being New Yorker’s became friends. I must say the Cortland group were very nice and friendly guys.
Not long after living together we felt like we knew each other for years.
I believe Leo Mahar was their spokesman and it didn’t take long for Leo to become our Company leader with John by his side. Leo did a great job in keeping us in line and making sure we were following the Naval training program in order for all of us to graduate together.
In basic training you are confined to the Training facility. I recall at times just siting around with my friends and John, Phil Cinquanti and a few of Johns other friends. Don’t know what we were talking about, possibly just getting to know each other better.
After we graduated Boot Camp, we were granted a short leave to go home. When we returned from leave we received our assignments. John was the only one of his group and I of my friends to get assigned to the Battleship USS Wisconsin.
As luck would have it both John and I wound up in the same division but different jobs. He was a yeoman and I a photographer. John had a rack in the office where he worked. So I didn’t see him much except when we would run into each other during chow time.
We lost contact when John was discharged and renewed when we met again in 1990 at our Associations first reunion. Ever since then we kept in contact with phone calls and every two years at our reunions.
John you are surely missed by a lot of people and especially by me.
So my shipmate, rest in peace, you could stand down as we have the watch.
Fair Winds and Following Seas until we meet for the third time.
Shipmate,
Dom Menta
