Kermit Obermeyer:  

School Started school at St Paul's in St Pete. 2nd grade in GA, 3rd back at St Paul's, 4th back in GA, 5th & 6th at 74th St. Elementary St. Pete, then 7th at Disston, 8th at Mirror Lake, and 9 thru 12 at SPHS... Went into the Navy '61 to 67, got out went to JC, transferred to USF Tampa, finishing Aug. '71... Graduated Harnischfeger Institute in Milwaukee '73. Also completed various training courses over the past thirty years, for the corporations where employed. Retired from Emerson Computer Power with over 20 yrs. as an electrical engineer; in June 2002... Military Left for Basic Training 14th May '61 Mother's Day, completed training in Great lakes Naval Station. Oct'61 assigned to USS Greenwood DE679, stationed out of Key West Fl, Spent time training Fleet Sonar School, Went into the yards in Quonset Point R.I. then Fleet Training in Gotmo, Cuba. Spent Christmas in Jamaica.... Then Key West, Jax for Tender Availability, and Ft Lauderdale for Easter break R&R, then back to Tampa, Aug '62 it was rough but someone had to do it, joined the Navy and hardly left FLA.... Great I though, little did I know... Then things changed when Transferred to Charleston SC, in Desron 4 The Greyhounds, motto "any place any time", on USS Furse DDR882.. This was a dedicated ship... a real steaming destroyer... We were sent to do Gitmo again, there we sailed over to assist in Haiti, riots etc... Then were attached to NASA as part of the first manned Space flight Mercury recovery missions which splashed down in the Atlantic, got to spend time refueling out of Bermuda, saw my first wind surfing in Hamilton Harbor.... We assisted recovery of both Glen & Carpenter.... Interesting duty, did not think I would be part of history, but what did I know then? Well we recovered some Cubans in a small boat off the Bahamas... Then We became the first ship on station off Cay Sal providing Aircraft tracking for all North Western Cuba, anything that flew we tracked it... Refueled in Key West then moved up off Havana Harbor, three miles right off Castor's Palace... Saw Castro with our 200mm Aircraft spotting binoculars, he was mad pacing back & forth on the balcony... Then the next day a Russian Freighter attempted to run the blockade off Havana harbor, ...Expand for more