Trending
Donald Lomison joined the military in hopes of being sent to Korea to fight.
He never made it there, but he did see a lot of the world aboard a ship.
"I wanted to be a Marine," he said. But "Dad wouldn't sign the papers."
Lomison ended up enlisting in the Navy.
Growing up in Howard and later Jersey Shore, Lomison described himself as a patriot who had long dreamed of being in the military.
"My brother-in-law was an inspiration. He was in Gen. Patton's Army," he said.
Lomison was just 16 when he graduated from Jersey Shore High School in 1950, but had to wait a year before joining the Navy.
After basic training in Bainbridge, Maryland, he went to diesel engine school before being assigned to a Landing Ship Tank (LST).
It was 1952, and Lomison and his shipmates headed to Thule, Greenland on the vessel loaded with equipment and materials.
"We were there for the whole summer. I maintained diesel engines. We were building a SAC (Strategic Air Command) Air Force Base," he said. "It was part of the Cold War to keep an eye on Russia."
Over the next few years, Lomison traveled the globe.
"I have many memories since I was able to sail on three oceans, the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic, and through the Panama Canal," he said.
Lomison recalled spending three months in the Arctic Circle where it remained daylight 24 hours a day in the summer.
"The main mission of our ship was to train Marines to make landings," he said. "We were training them to go to Korea."
Lomison said he would have been perfectly willing help the U.S. fight in the Korean War.
"The only combat we saw was against the Atlantic Ocean," he said.
His ship was off the coast of Virginia, he said, when Hurricane Hazel hit.
The October 1954 storm killed more than 400 people in Haiti before striking the U.S. near the state line between North and South Carolina as a Category 4 hurricane.
Lomison recalled the intensity of the storm and the high winds of well over 100 m.p.h.
"You could see the waves coming at you. It was wild," he said. "We had seven days of that. It's just hard to describe."
Other memories include the filming of "Battle Cry," at Vieques Island, Puerto Rico, while his ship was there. The Hollywood movie starred Tab Hunter, Aldo Ray, Dorothy Malone, and Anne Francis.
Lomison married his wife, Betty, in 1954.
The couple remain married to this day. They raised three children.
After the wedding, Lomison was sent to Long Beach, California, and then San Diego where he spent his final months of military duty assigned as a guard at a Naval prison.
By then, he had attained the rank of Third Class Petty Officer.
Lomison came home in 1955 and went to work farming with his father-in-law.
Eventually, he started his own farm.
"I've been a dairy farmer most of my life," he said.
When not working, he spent time hunting, including trips out West to Colorado and Wyoming for deer and elk.
Now retired, he and Betty live on a hill in a home he built sitting on 80 acres of land in the Pine Creek Valley, where deer and other wild animals are not strangers.
"I love it here," he said.
Lomison said he feels fortunate to have lived his life and cherishes the freedoms Americans enjoy.
And, he has no regrets about having served his nation.
"If you love God and your country then I believe President Kennedy said it well, 'Think not what your country can do for you. Think what you can do for your country.'"
These days, Lomison remains active with the Korean War veterans, serving as chaplain.