|
Terry served our country for 29 years and 2 months up until 30 June 1996. Terry was first trained as a SK-2815 – Independent Duty Afloat Storekeeper and served as such for
19 years.
Following this he was trained as a SK-9580 - Command Master Chief and served as such for another 10 years and 2 months. Terry earned a Honorable discharge for his years of Honorable and Faithful service.
During his enlistment, Terry earned: 4 Good Conduct Medals, The Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, 3 Meritorious Unit Commendations, 2 National Defense Service Medals, The Navy 'E' Ribbon, 4 Navy Commendation Medals,
2 Navy Achievement Medals, The Vietnam Campaign Medal, The Republic of Vietnam Service Medal, Marksman M-16 Rifle, 2 Armed Forces Reserve Medals, Naval Reserve Meritorious Service, Designated Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist, and the Meritorious Service Medal.
|
Obituary
Terry Allen Risley passed away at the age of 75 on Sunday September 3rd, 2023. He was blessed
to pass peacefully at his daughters home, with his family by his side.
Terry was born on June 7th, 1948 to John and Margaret Kay Risley in Albany, OR. Shortly
after graduating from Coquille high school, he enlisted in the United States Navy in 1966. He
was quickly deployed to Vietnam in support of
the Vietnam war effort aboard the USS Paul Revere. This was the first of many duty
stations that saw him through 30 valiant years of Navy service
A few other duty stations included, the USS Implicit, Washington Navy Yard, Naval
Construction Battalion in GulfPort Mississippi
and, finally retiring at Naval CBC Port Hueneme.
After retiring from the US Navy in 1997, Terry continued to serve the nation at the Stennis
Space Center in Mississippi for 8 years and he finally retired and moved to Vancouver, WA.
Terry wasn't one to stay in one place too long. He and his wife Dayle, became mostly full time
Snowbirds with a home base in Pahrump NV.
After 9 years of travel and adventures, Dayle Dayle and Terry
decided to mave back to Vancouver, WA to be closer to
family.
Terry was strong willed and stubborn at times, a trait that he
may have passed along to his kids but he also had an
enormous heart and wonderful sense of humor. He was
sarcastic, generous, loyal, and brave. He was clever and full
to the brim with knowledge gained through all of his life
experiences.
He will be remembered for all the heart he shared with his
friends and family. He truly loved each of them- and if you
knew him, you knew it. When his time came, he carried
himself with strength, and full of love for those who went
before him. He will be missed dearly
Terry is survived by his children Christopher, Traci and
husband Devin, Kyle and wife Sarah. Grandchildren Joshua,
Jonathan, Kayla, Autumn, Chloe, Felicity, and Mira,
He was preceded in death by his wife Dayle Risley who
passed away in Dec 2021. His parents John Risley and
Margaret Kay Parrett and his sister Judy Risley.
Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers for
Terry and our Familyl |
| A couple of stories from our hero from his
time of service..
USS Paul Revere LPA-248, (Feb 1967-Aug 1970)
In our main General Storeroom (GSK) we had a crate of weird looking metal tubes (16 each). We hunted through every catalog, equipment manual, repair guides, etc trying to identify what they were... Finally we sent a description of them along with some pictures to the Ships Parts Control Center (SPCC, Mechanicsburg, PA requesting assistance in figuring out what they were. After a couple of months with no response, I had had enough, the ship was moored at pier 6, Naval Station, San Diego. Late one night we dumped them over the fantail into the San Diego harbor. About a week later, we received an urgent message ordering us to ship them to Naval Supply Center (NSC), Charleston, SC. Apparently, the tubes are part of a nuclear engine cooling system that had been misplaced. After we got over the anxiety of what was going on, I went to the Navy Diving school located at pier 8. I didn't realize who I was dealing with at the time, but it was BMCM Carl Brashear, who was in charge, it cost me a twenty pound can of coffee to have him schedule a training dive for his students to recover the tubes. I was able to do all this without the Stores officer or Supply officer finding out about it.
------------------------
Being a troop transport the Paul Revere has a Marine detachment permanently assigned, led by a Marine Captain. We had a new Captain report on board and he came down to the Supply Office acting like a total ass demanding that when his sea chest arrived from Little Creek, VA we should notify him ASAP. He than came down every other day demanding that we find out where it was. Well, it showed up about two weeks later. It was delivered by a truck from the Naval Supply Center San Diego. While we were unloading all our normal freight, I went back to the supply office and typed another Bill of Lading and shipped the sea chest back to Little Creek. The Captain went nuts trying to locate his sea chest. It showed up again in about three weeks, we sent it back to Little Creek. We did this three times before he happened to be on deck and recognized his chest on the truck. Needless to say he was pissed once he saw all the shipping labels on it. He could not prove who did it but he spent a lot of effort trying to get back at us supply folks with no joy. For example, when ever he found us covered/on deck he would make us stop whatever we were doing and salute him.
-----------------------------
I had ordered thirty feet of welding cable for around $ 35.00, I missed the status card that NSC San Diego sent changing the unit of issue from FT to RL (reel). When the truck showed up on the pier it had 30 Reels of welding cable with 100 FT on each one with a total value in excess of $ 36,000.00. As you can guess, this was not good. I had another Sk keep the truck drivers attention while I measured and cut off thirty feet of cable from one of the reels. I customer rejected the delivery, so he took it back. Then I sent cancellation to NSC for the cable. Bottom line; we got the cable for nothing.
----------------------------
The ship was anchored in Hong Kong harbor, the Executive Officer (XO) bought a mahogany chest, it was about 6 foot long and four feet wide and must have had 6 layers on inlaid carving on the lid. He had us put in our bulk storage area just off hole six. Up to this point everything was okay. Once we went back to sea the XO came to the duty SK about every third day ordering us to show him his chest, he wanted to confirm it was still okay. When we got to the storeroom he would have us unlock it and stay there by the door he didn't need any help. After the second time he did that to me I went in behind him and peeked trying to figure out what he was doing. He opened the chest and it was packed full of Chevis Regal scotch. He took out a bottle and closed it up. Hid it under his jacket and he left. By the time we got back to the states the chest was empty. He had so many bottles in it he did not notice two were missing, or if he did, who was he going to complain too?
When I first reported to the Paul Revere I was assigned as a mess cook, I lucked out and was made the “Jack of the Dust” , which meant the lead cook would give me a list of supplies he would need for the following days meals and I would break them out from the main storeroom, reefer/ freezers and deliver them to the galley. One night a few of the mess cooks decided we would go to Tijuana, Mexico. We had a few beers and we were walking as a group down the street, which were not paved in those days. As we crossed the street a buddy and I stepped into a pot hole and bumped shoulders. There was a police car sitting there and the arrested us for fighting in the streets. We tried to bribe them in letting us go, no luck. The jail was terrible, one toilet, men and women in same cell (about 20 of us) about an inch of water on the floor mixed with puke. Our buddies went back to the ship and told the Mess Deck Master at Arms, who came down and bailed us out (300 pesos, $ 25.00) we had to pay him back and restricted to the ship for two weeks.
-------------------
The ship was in Okinawa white beach piers loading ammo to take back to Da Nang, we had brought a load of Marines from Da Nang for some R&R the Officers club was on the cliffs above the beach where the enlisted club was located. You had to be careful when out on the beach at night, in the six days we were in port, three Marine Corp officers were fragged by being thrown off the cliffs (about 150 ft high).
|
