CW4 (R) Jim Doran

CW4 (R) Jim Doran sat down with me for Heroes I Know.

Navy. Aviation ordnance. The shirt said gunner. McHenry, Illinois. Twelve miles south of Lake Geneva. Thirty-five miles west of Great Lakes. Town of 3,600 when he left. Village outside it still has about 600. Party lines. Gravel streets. Unlocked doors. Hay lofts. Water skiing on the river.

He caddied. One day for Gabby Hartnett. Cubs catcher. Hall of Fame. Another round paid ten dollars plus a hundred-dollar tip. Later he found out that man's daddy was the Godfather for Chicago. His own dad drove semis around northern Illinois and Indiana and Iowa. Mom was president of the PTA. The wood shop teacher made her a paddle so she would quit breaking wooden spoons on him.

One Navy enlisted code. The Air Force needed five MOS to do it. Nukes. Bombs. Guns. Small arms. Missiles. Rockets. The aircraft systems. Flight deck is one of the most dangerous places in the world. Adrenaline. He loved it.

Squadron ordnance shop as a teenager. About 25 of them. Shore duty he taught nuclear weapons on the West Coast. Then the East Coast. Then the Navy sent him to the Mekong Delta. He was an E6 who had not been to sea since E4. He needed haze gray and underway time. Detailer offered the USS Ticonderoga. Jim had been there. Chu Lai. Then Helicopter Attack Light Squadron Three. He said if you are sending me to Vietnam I want flight pay. Six months. He made warrant. Enlisted men who make officer get transferred. Warrant officer school. A ship. Straight back. Home with his wife and kids three weeks in eighteen months.

Crew chief in the slicks. Not the gunships. Fresh water to ARVN outposts in the U Minh Forest. Mail to Australian ships. SEAL infiltrations when they were tasked. They took him off flight pay when the warrant list posted. Bombs came up from the magazines with fins and a fuse well. He lifted 250 and 500-pounders four feet onto the rack. Thousand-pounders two and a half. Arming wire in the fuse so the vanes would not turn until it left the aircraft. He was 18. 19. 20. He is 76 now. Right shoulder replacement. Thank the bombs.

1972 they flew him off Constellation toward Subic Bay Naval Hospital. Infectious hepatitis. Da Nang first. His brother Jerry was Air Force. They ate on the enlisted side. Jim told the mess sergeant he had hepatitis and maybe they did not want his tray in the scullery. Buddy Carl checked in two hours earlier. Sonobuoy launcher. Lost the tip of a finger. Doctor threw it in the bucket. Thirty days in that hospital together.

He would tell high school kids to join the Coast Guard. Same education. They stay home more. Trade school is as good as college. A lot less expensive. He has a titanium joint. On the x-ray it looks like a golf tee. That is why we hit record. Get the story on tape before we are too old or too sick to tell it.