Life Afer Spinax: Robert Phillips

I joined SPINAX in January 1960 fresh from SubSchool as a LTjg. After serving 3 1/2 years and a promotion to LT, I was ordered back to Washington for Intelligence Post Graduate School.

After getting PCS orders my wife and I with two girls and one son set out for Washington, D.C. After school I served one tour at the Naval Scientific and Technical Intelligence Center. Next we went to Pearl Harbor for a tour on USS BLUEBACK (SS581) including a WestPac deployment.

In 1968 I switched my Designator to 1630 Intelligence Specialist and was sent to Yokosuka to COMNAVFORJAPAN for three years. We left Japan in 1971 to return to Washington for a tour in OPNAV and then another Pentagon tour with the JCS Staff. Next, orders back to Okinawa and the job of Assistanct Chief of Staff for Intelligence with COMPHIBGROUPSEVENTHFLT hauling Marines around the Far East.

Back to Washinton and a job as Deputy Commander at the Naval Intelligence Systems Support Center running computers for Naval Intelligence. We moved to DIA for a tour and then moved to Tampa, Florida for duty with the J2 Staff at US CENTRAL COMMAND.

I retired in 1984 with 26 years service and moved aboard our sailboat for some busman's holiday. Spent a year sailing around the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico putting all those things I really learned on SPINAX with sextant to navigate. We built our next boat, a 42 foot catamarran sail boat in Corpus Christi and managed to do some more time living aboard in the Caribbean, transitting through the Panama Canal and into the Pacific.

Since 2000 we have been living in an RV and playing touristas from Texas to California and points between. In 2002 we toured the Gulf Coast to Florida, north to Maine, and back. We try to spent winters south of the "freeze line" in south Texas.

We would welcome hearing from any old shipmates to share sea stories, lies and other unimportant stuff. The e-mail address is w5nz@earthlink.net

Our mailing address is

2805 Oak Trail Ct. #4392, Arlington, TX 76016.

Robert (Bob) Phillips