A note from Al Schmidt

After enlisting in the US Navy in October of 1957, enduring "boot camp" at Great Lakes Naval Training Center all through an intense winter, nine weeks of Aviation Preparatory School in  Norman, Oklahoma and twenty six weeks of Aviation Electronics School in Memphis, Tennessee, I was sent to Brunswick Naval Air Station, Brunswick, Maine, attached to Anti-submarine Warfare (ASW) Squadron VP-23.

I remained with VP-23 at Brunswick until I was discharged in May of 1962. This amounted to four years, seven months, twenty three days of mostly spectacular experiences. I logged approximately 2600 hours of flight time in the P2V-7 (click buttons above), visited 19 foreign countries while still in my teens and four more after that, was on one ship for one day and that was a British frigate out of Ireland, was the youngest [Third Class Petty Officer] aviation electronics technician (ATR) ever selected for the Commanding Officer's flight crew (Crew 1).