As a teenager, Homer Stinson knew he wanted to join the Navy. On Oct. 12, 1982, just three months after graduating from Shawano High School, he enlisted for what would become a 30-year career.
“I enlisted at the Military Entrance Processing Station in Milwaukee,” Stinson said. “The next day, I celebrated the Navy’s 207th birthday by starting boot camp at Orlando, Florida.”
During his three decades of service, he served aboard several ships, had multiple responsibilities, visited two dozen countries and endured a handful of harrowing experiences.
He retired with the rank of commander master chief.
“Initially, I was trained as a cryptologic technician and served as a Morse code intercept operator. I also performed general duties such as standing fire and security watches, painting, moving furniture, etc.,” Stinson said. “When I lost my sensitive compartmented information access in 1986, I transitioned into the Seabees where I served as a yeoman (i.e. administrative clerk) and combat communications operator.”
He would eventually regain his access and returned to his duties as a cryptologic technician.
“Later assignments involved more long-term communications analysis, managing cryptologic personnel assignments to collection duties, intelligence community and counternarcotics missions instructor,” he said. “During my last tour as a cryptologic technician, I served as an afloat cryptologic leader, an in-port watch section leader for 309 people and training coordinator for a crew of 1,100.”
In 2002, Stinson was selected for command master chief service, which allowed him to advise commanding officers on enlisted personnel matters.
Decades later, Stinson still clearly recalls a dangerous situation during the Gulf War of the early 1990s.
“On Feb. 18, 1991, we were one of the escorts assigned to cover the USS Tripoli as its group of minesweepers prepared to clear lanes for an amphibious invasion of Kuwait,” he said. “Tripoli struck a mine in the early hours. Shortly after, USS Princeton also struck a mine. Both ships retired, and minesweeping operations were suspended.”
Stinson’s ship, the USS Paul F. Foster, was the only ship with a large enough deck to support coalition helicopters operating in the northern Arabian Gulf, so it was ordered to remain on station.
“We recovered our SH-60 Seahawk helicopter late that afternoon,” he said. “The helicopter barely landed when another large helicopter declared an air emergency and headed to our landing deck.
“Things quickly grew exciting when our landing crew could not remove the pin, which allowed our helicopter’s tail to fold. That meant the helicopter could not be pulled into the hangar to make room for the incoming air emergency. While the crew struggled with the pin, the commanding officer ordered the destroyer to higher speed to lessen the movement of the flight deck for the wounded helicopter.”
Then the USS Wisconsin warned Stinson and the crew they were headed for a floating mine.
“At that moment, adrenaline levels peaked as we faced a potentially near simultaneous helicopter crash on the flight deck and mine hit forward,” he said. “Fortune smiled upon us when our helicopter’s pin finally gave way. The air detachment folded the tail while pulling the Seahawk into the hangar. The wounded helicopter arrived on deck, and the pilot shut down the engines as the landing team quickly attached chocking chains to fasten the helicopter firmly to the deck.”
Finally, the captain ordered the Paul F. Foster to make a hard turn to port. The entire ship heaved more than 45 degrees to the right as it turned to the left at 30-plus knots. The ship cleared the mine with a mile (about three minutes) to spare.
Stinson’s overseas adventures began in 1983-86 when he was stationed at Naval Security Group activities in Misawa, Japan, and Clark Air Base, Philippines. He deployed with cryptologic support teams aboard six different ships.
Two years with a mobile construction battalion took him to Spain and Guam.
From 1988-91, Stinson was a crewmember of Paul F. Foster, which participated in Operation Earnest Will (Kuwaiti oil tanker escort operations) in 1989 and in the Gulf War of 1991.
“There is a lingering dispute as to whether we or the USS Bunker Hill fired the first Tomahawk missile against Iraq from the north Arabian Gulf,” Stinson said.
From 1998-2002, he participated in the 1999 Kosovo War and rendered assistance to Turkey after its 1999 earthquake. During 2001, he completed a port visit to Marmaris, Turkey, the day before the 9/11 attacks.
“Words cannot describe the feelings of helpless and anger felt by our sailors and Marines that day,” he said.
A 2003-04 deployment included a visit to Bar, Montenegro, the first U.S. Navy ship to do so since World War II.
In 2006, he and his fellow sailors engaged pirates near Mogadishu, Somali.
“The three pirate boats were destroyed and survivors taken into custody,” he said.
His last deployment took him to Camp Bucca, Iraq, in 2009 with Navy Provisional Detainee Battalion SIX.
“Assembled from various active and reserve units from across the Navy, we looked after the worst of the worst Iraq War detainees,” Stinson said. “I was part of a group that escorted over 100 detainees to Camp Cropper in Baghdad as part of the closure of Camp Bucca’s theater internment facility.”
During Stinson’s time in the Navy, he visited Japan, Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Oman, British Indian Ocean Territory (Diego Garcia), Australia, Kenya, Wake Island, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Morocco, Gibraltar, Italy, France, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Malta, Kuwait and Iraq.
For Stinson, his best experience was his promotion to chief petty officer.
“It only would have been better if my family had been there,” he said.
The former Shawano resident has no regrets about his decision to enlist and serve for those 30 years.
“The experiences and life lessons learned have made me a better man,” he said.
Stinson, who lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia, currently works as an education specialist with Voya Financial. He provides education to Virginia state and local employees so they can effectively manage their defined contribution plans.
A few years ago, Stinson began writing a series of weekly Facebook posts about his time in the Navy.
“Initially, I started Sunday Musings to vent my perspectives and opinions of things happening in the world,” he said. “Then I posted a short biographic series called ‘Turning Point,’ which described the impact of an unplanned pregnancy with a young Filipino girlfriend upon my security clearance, my Navy career and personal life. The complimentary feedback from former high school classmates and Navy shipmates was humbling.”
The late Chris Kyle’s “American Sniper” inspired the direction of Stinson’s longer biographic series that he calls “I Identify as US Navy.”
kpasson@newmedia-wi.com
