When I was about 11 years old and my thoughts were turning to girls, two of our neighbor boys who had just arrived home from the Navy was helping me paint my grandparents picket fence. When the conversation turned to girls, they said “David you should join the Navy when you get old enough… the Navy will clothe you, feed you, teach you a trade and pay you for doing this, but most important,  you will find beautiful maidens all over the world…. you may even see some in grass skirts”.  After graduating from Union High School in 1961, I soon joined the Navy and found these stories somewhat true.

 

 

 

 

David Sizemore – joins the Navy

 

 

 

 

 

I found the 2nd “LOVE” of my life, “THE” beautiful USS Jonas Ingram DD 938.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, how I loved this “LADY” then and still today.  She took me all over the world to places a poor old farm boy from WV could only dream of.  I saw thirteen countries the first year  that I was on board.

So to honor the memory of  the late Bill and EB Glover (on Veteran’s Day), who started me on this wonderful voyage in my life, I wore my Navy uniform to church on Sunday to honor them, and their sister, my aunt Marie Glover Nickell.

 

 

 

Marie Glover Nickell and David Sizemore

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David and Paulette Sizemore

 

 

 

Paulette and I went to Applebee’s after church and one young man told me I looked very old to be a 3rd Class Petty Officer. Jokingly…. I told him I had been in the brig for 45 years for fraternizing with an officer and that I was now out of the brig and married to this officer.  She is my “last love” Paulette Boggs Sizemore, who served as Captain in the US Air Force.

 

 

 

Capt. Paulette Boggs - 1968

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the way…my “first love” was “Crickets Paulette” who won Grand Champion Guernsey at the West Virginia State Fair as my Union High School FFA project in 1961.

 

 

David – 1961

 

 

 

 

 

My “3rd love” was the late ”Wonderful” Nancy Barton Sizemore, mother of my children.

 

 

 

David and Nancy Sizemore – 1962

In front of  the USS Jonas Ingram

 

 

 

 

 

 

And to you my dear Friends…. the “Navy Blessing”.  May you always have “FAIR WINDS AND FOLLOWING SEAS”, the rest of your lives!

 

By David Sizemore

Class of 1961

This article has also been published in The Monroe Watchman, Union, WV.