Martin Garza:  

Class of 1985. I joined the United States Navy October 1986. Trained as a Stinger Gunner at Fort Bliss Army Base in El Paso,Texas Texas for 2 months and then was sent over to the Persian Gulf with my unit in April 1987. On May 17th 1987 I was on board USS Conyngham DDG-17 when we were pulling into the port city of Bahrain and at the same time USS Stark FFG-31 was pulling out to patrol an area of the Persian Gulf that we were at 24 hours earlier. Later that evening the USS Stark was hit by two Exocet missiles fired by an Iraqi jet aircraft. A total of 37 United States Navy personnel were killed or later died as a result of the attack, and 21 were injured. My ship was anchored off from the port and left with a skelton crew who were on board to the area where the ...Expand for more