Picked him up at HNL when he reported aboard with Mike Rosa and Al Parker. All three were WDE techs and when COCHRANE replaced WDE with JPTDS their services were no longer needed and they all got transferred. Dave went to Mk 39 school and ended up getting orders back to COCHRANE now working in the Mk 39 room. I left in January 75 and went to IT school and then Mare Island where I was an instructor on the SPG-51 radar. I was at home one night when there was a clatter on my door and when I opened, bot it here was Dave and Jim McConnell, both had just arrived at Mare Island, Jim if I remember correctly for a systems course and Dave for SPG-51 school. Dave was my student in a couple of areas. I got out of the Navy in Dec 76 and moved to Oxnard, CA where I eventually got a job with NSMSES and next ran into Dave when I came aboard COCHRANE to do a CSSQT supporting the SPG-51 equipment. That was a fun trip as Dave was one of the few crew members who knew I had served onboard COCHRANE. I was having problem trying to explain to one of the radar crew how some of the things worked onboard and when it was obvious that I was getting nowhere I picked up the phone called the chiefs mess and asked for Dave. My end of the conversation was something like "Dave get your ass up to the radar room now". When he got up there I asked him to provide my history onboard and after that we had no more problems when I would explain how things worked. After the TARTAR program died down I moved to AEGIS and while their one of the things we did was to go back to their school in Dahlgren, VA and explain what support would be available from the NAVSEA tech community. Was surprised when I got there and found that LCDR Melges was stationed there as part of the AEGIS school command. After that I changed my slides and the one after I introduced myself and provided my background was a picture from one of the cruise books with Dave and myself in it. I would then remark that they now knew two people in the photo and they had no clue that it was Dave. Best one was one time he happened to be in the room during the start and had no clue until I said "LCDR would you like to help them out?" I haven't seen Dave in probably 20+ years but I think he lives about 2.5 hours north of me in Spokane, WA.
Guess you could say I know Dave.
I did get back to COCHRANE again when she was in Japan in the 88-89 timeframe. They were having problems tracking targets with one of the radars and from all the symptoms I knew that it was related to the COSRO and all they had to do was reverse two wires. They didn't want to do that so I had to go to Japan, put the radar on the collimation tower, confirm the problem, reverse the wires, back on the tower to prove proper operation. CO wouldn't let me leave until he could see the system track a live target and the way he was berthed there was no way I had a clear bearing to radiate so I ended up having to ride them all the way to Singapore. That was the last time I was onboard COCHRANE.
