Eric Wood:  

1981-1984, civilian, met and married Suzanne! Lived in Kentucky, Indiana, and North Carolina. 1984-1986, VA-81; Cecil Field, FL; USS Saratoga; Med, Carib, IO; capture of Achille Lauro highjackers, attack on Libya. Met the carrier in Toulon, France, and was off the boat at the topless beaches the same day thinking, "Ya know, this sea duty ain't bad at all". Visiting Rome, Carthage and Jerusalem all within a few months of one another. My first catapult launch and first arresting wire recovery aboard the carrier when we flew ashore to Sicily to repair a broken jet...the French Alps..Dubrovnik the day after we caught the highjackers, back when it was still part of a unified Yugoslavia and before the Serbs shelled it.....Going to the site of the Battle of Hastings.... 1986-1990; Naval air test center, Patuxent River, MD. Trips to DC and Annapolis. A few days at Lakehurst, New Jersey for an aircraft evaluation. Good friends like Marc Thompson & John Bales. 1990-1994; VAW-121; Norfolk, VA; USS Eisenhower; USS Washington; you name it, we saw it; Desert Shield in the Red Sea, the Med, the North Atlantic off the coast of Norway, etc. Too many great and enduring friendships to mention, still see Scott Carlson (2006- he's retired and moved to Perth, Australia) and Greg Lynch. Great Med cruise in the summer of 1990, took leave in the south of France to vacation nekkid at Cap d'Agde...Israel again, fun in Tel Aviv, seeing a hero of mine, Vaclav Havel, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem...medina in Morocco....shawarmas and mango juice after riding across the Creek in Dubai..the hooches in Panama... Saw brother Brian pitch for the Rochester Red Wings v. the Norfolk Tides in '93, finishing with strikeout of Jeromy Burnitz. 1994-1997; VS-41; North Island, CA; lived in my favorite place in America- Coronado, CA and before that, in south San Diego, about 3 miles from the Mexican border. Some good family visits- brothers Alan and Craig loved Tijuana. 1997-2000; VAW-113; Miramar, CA; Point Mugu, CA; USS Lincoln; great times, and after years of Med cruises, got to experience a Westpac, see Hong Kong, Australia, etc. Summer in the sweltering Persian Gulf after always having been there in cooler weather.....being a guest of the Sikhs in Singapore for a day....the dark Manmo temple in Hong Kong....mostly ran with Jolt Snow in port... Since retiring have lived in California, Japan, France.