ROOMMATES

The above photo was taken by me probably around the spring of 1961 at the Marine Corps Memorial in Arlington VA. There four guys on the left were my roommates for most of the time I was stationed at NPIC (Naval Photographic Interpretation Center in Suitland, MD. We all shared an apartment in the area called Congress Park of Washington, D. C.. Although there was 5 of us there was never any more than 3 there at a time to share the two bedroom apartment because we had different duty days. In civilian life I you would call it overtime, but we called it "slave labor" (see our Christmas card).

Pictured left to right are Richard Crishock, Joe Tidler, Ron Pluto, Gary Tarr and D. M. Dyt.

Dyt was not a roommate buy hang with us a lot. He was from NJ and died in a car crash around spring of '62. The other bookend is Richard Crishock a wonderful guy and one of those guys you never forget. About 4 years ago I renewed my friendship with him and his wife in Arlington, VA and found that they ad been living there only miles from where I lived for 30 years in the suburbs of MD. After finding, Dick as his family refers to him, I started looking for the other guys that were left. I located Tidler, Tarr and was sure we could find Pluto because he had always lived in Pittsburgh, PA and I had talked to him once in the 70's when I was in town for a seminar.

I have more stories about "Our Gang" at another time. We had a lot of good times together and I had plans to get a reunion planned when Crishcok got ill and passed away. This was a real shocker to me and I'll write soon about Dick.

REMEMBERING DAN BOYINGTON

Not long ago Stev Pitchford and I were wondering what ever happened to some of our old shipmates from our tour at the Taiwan Defense Command in Taipei, Taiwan. Stev left in Sept 1960 and I reported aboard Sept. 1961, but 4 of the guys that Stev knew were still there when I arrived. We both knew a really friendly guy named Dan Boyington. We talked about him and Stev found a photo of him and sent it to me.

Recently Dan came up again in our talks and Stev searched the records on http://www.navyphoto.org/ and discovered that Dan had passed away and also discovered that although we called him Dan his full name was William Daniel Boyington.

I had a lot of good times with Dan (on the left) and with his wife Barbara. I visited their house in the area we called American Village.

the above photo is of Dan (on the left) and Stev and then 2 single photos of Dan in the photo lab at the Taiwan Defense Command taken probably in 1960.

Dan retired as a Chief, heres hoping that one of his shipmates from the past will see this and comment, maybe even his wife will stumble across the blog.