Hello all, first let me introduce my self; I am Duane Donecker and I am 44, have a wonderful wife named Sandi and a 4 year old son named Jesiah. We currently live in Santee, Ca. which is a suburb of San Diego in the eastern part of San Diego County.I was born in Scott City, Ks. and lived much of my childhood in two locations. First after I was two my family moved to San Marcos, Ca which is were I lived until I was about 12 then moved back to Scott City to live with my father, Terry Donecker. Their we lived on a farm, my dad was a farm laborer working for a farmer named Jack Frick. It was a large farm and had a lot of people employed there including myself shortly after arriving. I learned my life long work ethic working for Jack. Going to Jr. High and High school and working on a farm at the same time was a very demanding schedule on a teen age boy, however when I look back on it I find that it was actually fun and I learned a lot.
I was attending Scott Community High School, when in my Junior year I was trying to decide what I was going to do with myself, I felt very strongly about two things. First I did not want to go to school any more and second I didn't want to stay in Kansas, I loved California when I was a kid and made getting back there my goal. Trying to decide what I was going to do I remember as a kid seeing US Navy ships in the San Diego Bay and off the coast and how much watching them coming and going intriguing and from there my descion was made.
I signed my enlistment agreement that year and was soon off to bootcamp once I graduated from high school. I went to bootcamp in San Diego, Ca. (therefore realizing my desire to get back to California) and was in Company 001, the first company of 1985. After graduating bootcamp I reported to Naval Air Technical Training Center in Millington, Tn. which is right outside of Memphis. I attended training to become an Aviation Support Equipment Technican or "AS" which was our rating designation in the navy. Like I mentioned above I really had no desire to go to school so I wasn't and outstanding student in this class but I passed and soon graduated.
From there my duty stations over the next twenty years was the USS Constellation, CV-64, Naval Air Station Lemoore, Ca., USS Kitty Hawk, CV-63, Naval Air Maintence Training Group Detachment 3033 at Naval Air Station North Island, Ca where I was an instructor teaching navy, marine corp, coast guard and forgien military members how to perform mechanical maintenance and trouble shooting on aviation support equipment. My next command was the USS Dubuque, LPD-8 which is the ship I happened to be deployed on when 9/11 occoured. From there I was again an instructor at Naval Air Station North Island's aircraft maintenance department. Finally on 31 Dec 2005 I retired honorably from the United States Navy.
Now comes the reason for this blog, currently I am using the 9/11 GI Bill attending college full time at San Diego City College with the goal of obtaing a bachelors degree in history and because my love of teaching when I was active duty in the navy I plan to teach in the elementary or Jr. High school level. This blog is part of my US History class I am currently attending this semester.
First let me warn you right away I am very much an amature blogger but I will do my best to keep this intresting as possible for you history buffs like me and even for those of you who are not. Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions on anything you may want me to research and post in this blog. Thank you for having patience as walk the halls of learning. May God bless you and your family.
The picture in this post is of an aircraft carrier flight deck crash crane, which is one type of equipment I maintained and taught others to maintain.
