I would like to honor my father, a retired Lieutenant Commander named Tim Crowley who served for 21 years in the United States Navy. I'm not honoring him as my father, but as a good role-model, a shipmate who served in the Vietnam war, and a future teacher of our proud and strong Navy (HOOYAH!)
As I am a "grown-up" now, I joined the United States Navy Reserves as a Master-at-Arms (military police) to give a good chance to finally make my father proud of something I did. My father had the rarest form of cancer, stomach cancer and was terribly sick. He went though chemotherapy for one year and had a feeding tube inside him most of that year. The surgeons had to remove his stomach and make part of his large intestine into a mini stomach. My father has recovered now but is still very sick and is struggling with everyday occurrences.
I honor him because of how strong and committed he was for our country serving as a surface warfare officer as executive officer at a couple bases and for many ships.
Having to go through 21 years of training future sailors to raising a crazy daughter (myself) and plowing through a deadly cancer is a lot for one person to take. Not many people have the courage and ability to take on what Lt. Commander Crowley did. For that, I have to say God bless my father and God bless America.
Thank you for your time,
USNR MASN Karen Sakai