By Jessica Ginet
Kitsap County veteran and self-employed entrepreneur Ronald Greene fits the bill, at least when it comes to statistics provided by the Small Business Research Summary.
After a four year stint in the Navy and 37 years with the Department of Defense, Greene owns and operates his own home repair business – Ron’s Reasonable Repairs. It opened in 2001 and business is brisk.
Statistics show that military service is highly related to the probability of self-employment. Likewise, the number of veterans who served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War era are shown to be more likely to be self-employed (10.9 percent) versus veterans from 2001, or Gulf War veterans (3.6 percent), states the Small Business Research Summary.
Greene enlisted in the Navy in Coos Bay, Oregon, at the age of 17. Two of the most prominent industries in that area, logging and fishing, weren’t as prosperous as they once were. While his parents thought he should stay in school and attend college, Greene wanted something different.
“I wanted to be a machinist like my dad,” he said. “I used to go where my dad worked in the evenings (he worked swing shift). I would have lunch with him and stand near him for a couple of hours and watch him work until I would have to go home. Then when I went into the Navy, I saw a picture of a man standing by a lathe was a machinist, so that was what I wanted to be.”
Greene served in the Navy for four years, from August 1971 through August 1975 as a Marine Machinist Mate E-5 aboard the USS Hector AR-7. His specific job while at sea was to make enough fresh water for everyone to shower, avoiding specific ‘water hours’.
Greene was a part of Operation New Life (April 1975 to September 1975). This maneuver involved the U.S. military evacuation of about 110,000 Southeast Asian refugees displaced by the Vietnam War out of South Vietnam.
The USS Hector AR-7 provided service to the fleet for the rest of 1971 in Long Beach. Hector departed for WESTPAC via Pearl Harbor on January 3, 1972 and arrived in Sasebo in January 1972 where she served as the flagship for COMSERVGRU THREE.
While providing service to the fleet during this deployment, Hector visited Vung Tau, Vietnam, Hong Kong, DaNang, Vietnam, Subic Bay RP, Okinawa, and Keelung, Taiwan. On Aug. 26 Hector was relieved as COMSERVGRU THREE Flagship and departed Sasebo for the USA and arrived in Long Beach on Sept. 9, 1972.
In 1972, Hector was awarded a Meritorious Unit Commendation that read in part: For meritorious service from 26 January to 25 August 1972 in direct support of United States Seventh Fleet combat operations in Southeast Asia. USS Hector contributed materially to the success of these operations by rendering vital fleet repair services to united States and friendly naval forces operating in the Republic of Vietnam.
Hector also received a Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation and three additional Vietnam Service Medals during this deployment.
For Greene, this period can aptly be described as the best of times and the worst of times. Greene’s favorite memories from his service in the Navy include walking through the streets of Vietnam with a little boy, whom he describes as, “I always felt he was protecting me.”
Greene also looks back fondly to his time in Guam, where he enjoyed scuba diving. It was also in Guam that the crews had baby cribs in their rooms so they could feed the babies from the refugee camps.
“That was a real wake up call for me,” he said. “Seeing all those people without a home or even their families.”
The year 1974 began with Hector in Sasebo, Japan, and after visiting Yokosuka, that deployment ended with a return to Long Beach in the middle of February. In March, Hector’s homeport was shifted to Mare Island, Vallejo, California. It underwent an overhaul in Richmond, Calif., in April, and visited San Diego during the same year.
Greene was with the ship when it was dry-docked at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Mare Island Naval Shipyard was the first United States Navy base established on the Pacific Ocean. His least favorite duty station was while the USS Hector was docked at Mare Island, he said.
“Long Beach just wasn’t my kind of place,” Greene said.
Shipyard periods are not vacations. Unless the gear is being upgraded, repaired, removed, or replaced, crews will still have all the regular preventive maintenance to do, as well as normal training. Sailors, in some cases, attend several schools to increase and/or refresh their professional working knowledge and skills.
Greene worked for the Department of Defense from 1975 until 1994, when the Mare Island Naval Shipyard closed. In 1994, Greene was transferred to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS) at Bremerton. He retired from PSNS in March 2012.
Greene places a great deal of importance on staying busy.
“The less you do, then the less you want to do,” he said. “I have my home repair business and I see that with a lot of my customers. If they get out and go, then they sure seem a lot happier.”