ARMED FORCES

ARMED FORCES

VETERANS

Marines’ reunion

YOUNGSTOWN

Retired Marine Master Gunnery Sgt. Robert Hogan, a 1982 graduate of Austintown Fitch High School, is guest speaker for the Marine Corps League’s Tri-State Detachment 494’s 33rd annual Marine Corps Reunion.

The Aug. 18 reunion is at the Saxon Club, 710 S. Meridian Road, Youngstown, and is open to all Marines, past, present and their friends and guests.

The social hour begins at 6 p.m. Dinner is at 7 p.m. followed by the speaker and then music and dancing until midnight. There will also be door prizes, an auction and a 50/50 raffle. Tickets are $25. For reservations, call Chester Kaschak at 330-533-6084.

Hogan recently retired after 29 years of service, five deployments and a Bronze Star, and assignments as a recruit drill instructor and senior drill instructor at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, S.C.

Hogan’s deployment assignments included Okinawa, Japan; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Joint Task Force Horn of Africa; Al Anbar Province, Iraq; Kandahar, Afghanistan; and Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

His decorations include the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, Navy/Marine Corps Commendation Medal, Navy/Marine Corps Achievement Medal, and Combat Action Ribbon.

USS Missouri reunion

MOBILE, ALA.

The USS Missouri (BB-63) Association is having its 39th annual reunion Sept. 12-18 at the Holiday Inn Downtown in Mobile. All sailors, marines, officers and midshipman that served on the battleship are invited to attend. Call Bill Morton at 803-469-3579 for information and reservations.

PROMOTIONS

Naval supply leader

Navy Capt. Daniel Allen, a childhood resident of Newton Falls and a 1981 graduate of Jackson-Milton High School, has been appointed commanding officer of the Naval Supply System Command Business Supply Center in Mechanicsburg, Pa.

Allen was sworn in a formal change-of-command ceremony attended by nearly 500 people including his wife, Justine, and their daughters, Danyelle and Alyssa; his parents, Howard and Barbara Allen, and a brother, Don, and a sister, Laura Young, all of Newton Falls; a brother, David of Bainbridge; and several aunts and uncles of northeast Ohio.

The base in Mechanicsburg provides information technology and serves as the integrator of business processes and informations systems that support the entire Navy supply chain. The base employs 3,700 military and civilian personnel.

During his career, Allen, a 1985 graduate of Wittenburg University and the Navy’s Commanding Officer Candidate School in Newport, R.I., in 1988, has seen sea duty in the Middle and Far East.

Poland man moves up

Navy Gunners Mate 3rd Class Watie Murrell Alberty IV, son of Paul and Maria Alberty of Poland, has been promoted to Gunners Mate 2nd Class and will serve aboard the destroyer USS McCampbell in Yokosuka, Japan.

A 2005 graduate of Cardinal Mooney High School, Alberty joined the Navy in 2008.

Army promotion

Army Staff Sgt. Joseph Revetti, son of Antimo and Larene Revetti of Austintown, was promoted to his current rank after completing Leadership School at Fort Bliss, Texas. Revetti has been transferred to Salt Lake City, where he is assigned as a recruiter at Brigham Young University.

Revetti, a 1998 graduate of Austintown Fitch High School, is married to the former Dayna Vivacqua, daughter of Linda and Joseph Vivacqua of Canfield.

RETIREMENT

YARS supervisor

Air Force Reserve Master Sgt. David A. Gurnak, electrical supervisor for the Electric Shop in the 910th Airlift Wing’s Civil Engineering Squadron at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Vienna, retired from the military Aug. 4 after 33 years in the Navy and Air Force.

Gurnak of Youngstownserved three years on active duty with the Navy, eight years with Navy reserve and 10 years with the Navy Seabees Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 23, and 12 years in the Air Force Reserve.

A 1975 graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School, Gurnak is a son of Stella Gurnak of Youngstown and the late Peter Gurnak of Campbell. A brother, Robert, lives in Cleveland, and a sister, Karen Jonosik, lives in Youngstown. A brother, Gregory P., is deceased.

His military career began in 1975 with three years active duty in the Navy, which included a tour of duty on the coast of Vietnam. He was deployed to Kirkuk, Iraq, from April to October 2010, and his last active duty was 44 days completed on Aug. 1 this year, working with a new 60- by 120-foot training building erected by Civil Engineering Squadron personnel.

He received numerous decorations and awards during his career, including the Air Force Commendation Medal, Joint Meritorious Unit Award, Air Force Outstanding Unit Award, Navy ‘E’ Ribbon, Air Reserve Forces Meritorious Service Medal, Naval Reserve Meritorious Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Southwest Asia Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Global War On Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.

BASIC TRAINING GRADS

Air Force: Airman Bradley M. Weddell (Liberty High School, ’11), son of Laura Yekel of Akron and Michael Weddell of Girard.

ACADEMY NEWS

Air Force Academy

Air Force 2nd Lt. James D. Evans Jr. of Berlin Center was commissioned after graduating from the Air Force Academy with a bachelor of science degree in economics.

Evans, a 2008 graduate of Western Reserve High School, had several leadership positions at the academy and his military performance was ranked in the top 5 percent of his class of 1,087 graduates.

He was awarded the 1st Lt. Roslyn L. Shulte Award by the Center for Character and Leadership Development, presented to the “cadet who embodies the same impeccable character, unwavering leadership and spirit of service.”

He is stationed at McChord Air Force Base in Washington State as an aircraft maintenance officer. He is the son of Jim and Pam Evans of Berlin Center and the grandson of John and Nancy Dudley, Lola Evans and the late Earl Evans.

Cyber Warfare training

Air Force 2nd Lt. Chelsea D. Esenwein, daughter of Ed and Carol Esenwein of Washingtonville, graduated from the Air Force Academy and was commissioned by her cousin, Air Force Capt. Christopher Clark, who is stationed at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla.

She is scheduled to report later this month to the 333rd Squadron at Keesler AFB, Miss., for Cyber Warfare Training.

She was one of 20, and one of five women, chosen out of a class of 1,200 for training in the Unmanned Aerial Systems Program, and also trained in the Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Education Program. Esenwein, a 2008 graduate of Leetonia High School and valedictorian of her class, made the dean’s list, athletic’s list, and commandant’s list at the academy, and was second-highest female for physical excellence average while there.