Department of Veterans Affairs

Name	Military Service	Biography	Personal Comments
Ballard, Fred W. *	First duty station was the USS Philippine Sea (CVS 47), located in Long Beach, California.  Subsequent duty stations were:  Commander Naval Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, VP 42, USS Persistent (MSO 491) which included one deployment to Vietnam, Naval Recruiting Station, Los Angeles, CA, USS Winston (LKA 94) which involved one deployment  to Vietnam, Associate Degree Completion Program at Palomar Junior College, San Diego, CA, USS Joseph Strauss (DDG 16) (Pearl Harbor, HI) involving two deployments to Vietnam, and final duty station was as a Career Counselor and Commodore’s Writer for Commander Naval Surface Group, Middle Pacific also at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  Retired after 22 years as a Chief Yeoman in 1977. *	Born May 11, 1938, Glendale, California.  Graduated from Van Nuys High School, Van Nuys, California with a degree in Business Administration.  In 1955 enlisted in the Naval Reserve. Following graduation from High School in June 1956. After military service  relocated to Oceano, California.  Worked for a small town police department in Grover Beach, CA as dispatch and records supervisor for 8 years.  Married to Sandra Jo Ballard for 45 years, two children, son John married living in California and Cindy, living in Honolulu. *	Along with wife Sandy, bought a small office supply business in 1985 in Pismo Beach, CA.  Business was expanded to include running a Greyhound Bus stop; UPS pick up station, a typing service catering to Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, and a bulk mailing service.  Business was closed in October 1992.   Became involved with the Fleet Reserve Association (FRA), Pearl Harbor Branch 46 in 1975 while still on active duty.  Accepted volunteer position as secretary and treasurer for the Arizona Memorial Museum Foundation, a nine member sub-committee of Branch 46, and held those positions until retiring from the Navy and leaving for California.  The foundation was formed to raise 6 million dollars to build what is now the existing USS Arizona Memorial shoreside facilities.  To achieve this goal, the committee conducted an intense nation-wide fund raising drive that raised close to the first million before turning over the project to the Park Service.  Became a board member of the USS Arizona Memorial Association and have been involved in a $35 million dollar fund raising campaign to build a new USS Arizona Memorial Shoreside Facility to replace the existing one.  Groundbreaking is scheduled for the latter part of 2008.   Returned back to Hawaii in 1992 to accept the position of executive director for Branch 46, FRA until December 1999.  Position involved overseeing day-to-day branch, enterprise and lounge activities.   December 1999 accepted position with the Department of Veterans Affairs, Pacific Islands Health Care System as a Public Affairs Specialist advancing to the position of Public Affairs Officer.   Active in several veteran service organizations besides the FRA.  Have served as secretary of the Oahu Veterans Council for past 10 years.  Along with wife Sandy, chaired the building committee overseeing the construction of the Oahu Veterans Center located in Foster Village, a 10 year dream of the Council.  The center opened its doors about two years ago and continues to serve Oahu’s veterans and the community.    Have been serving as legislative chairman for the FRA, Oahu Veterans Council, and various posts and chapters for many years.  *
Egge, Dennis	U.S Navy (Ret) Active Duty Stations: Served on  MATS C-121 1960, Gulf of Tonkin and Lualualei Naval Radio Station		My first glimpse of Hawaii occurred as I entered the glide-path past Waikiki aboard a Navy MATS C-121 bound for Hickam AFB in 1960.  I said to myself “so that’s the Waikiki Author Godfry has been broadcasting from.  How nice, I’ll have to come back again sometime. I did come back, on the 4th of July fresh from the Gulf of Tonkin, to begin a 3-year tour at the Lualualei Naval Radio Station with a wife and two children who joined me in the intervening years.  I received my Aloha training from good friends Albert Silva and Walter Okuma. Their instructions have done me in good stead.  I left three years later, thinking “I would be back”.  It turns out; returning to Hawaii was an adventure of epic proportions:  On May Day plus One, in 1977, when I finally slipped the anchor and sailed off on my own. I had already found a Hicks Home in Maili but no job to support the mortgage and my family.  After getting my feet wet, as an engineering analyst for Planning Research Company, a firm contracted by the Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard to develop Ship Alts for auxiliary class naval vessels, I decided this was not where I needed to be either.  I headed to Kuwait, Thanks Giving week, to build the two Kuwait Air Force bases we tried but failed to destroy, 12 years later in the Gulf War; I saw my handi-work, pretty well beaten up and burned out by the Iraqis, over Thanks Giving weekend, 1993.  Following that adventure, I returned to California via Palawan, to work for Hughes Aircraft Company, in Fullerton.  That lasted for nearly 10 years; wife number one and our children exited the scene during that time-frame,  and I was off to the Middle East again, with Hawaiian-born and raised wife number two; this time to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.  At last I had had funded my return to Hawaii. Fully equipped with a Raytheon job at NCTAMS Wahiawa and a Salt Lake box-in-the-sky, I was good to go:  The job lasted 120 days helping me decide it was time to move into the retirement phase of my life – I’m still there! For me, retirement has evolved into a life filled with busyness opportunities; to serve my comrades in arms as an advocate for divorced uniformed service personnel and more recently a member of the Honolulu neighborhood district 18 board.  Through these involvements I have learned to see past the smoke and mirrors from which those we elect to represent our interests on Capitol Hill and in Honolulu Hale speak behind, with great authority and presumed diplomatic immunity. When ever anyone tells me they “hate politics and politicians” I urge them to join me in the harsh light of reality.  The last thing we want to assure them of is an indefinite mandate to govern our lives but we do just that, by crawling into the safety of our bunkers to watch the shadows on the walls and eventually suffocate to death, politically.
Goldsborough, Romaine
Taltavall, Richard (Dick)	Navy	*	*