After a total of 24 years in the Navy, Homer James Mead, 1156 NCC (E-7) USN, Ret. became a minister, a social worker, and a Program Manager for the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). While in the Navy, he was a Program Director for the Navy’s Crisis Intervention Suicide Prevention Hotline and Drop-in Center at the Substance Abuse Evaluation And Outpatient Center. He has won numerous awards throughout his civilian career, including 3 letters of appreciation from Governor Locke, and several “Outstanding Employee” Awards from the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). The time of his life that has most distinguished this accomplished man was his time in Vietnam as a Disbursing Clerk First Class in Vietnam from 11 March 1970 to 1 March 1971. He was assigned to the Navy Mobile Pay Team.

This team consisted of 2 third class Petty Officers, DK3 Hess and DK2 Ford, and Mr. Mead. Their primary objective was to pay all 22 Navy Bases twice each month. The team was out in the field as many as 26 days each month, sometimes for 9 days straight.

Mead started this assignment with intensive training. He was sent to 6 months of Counter Insurgency Training in Monterey, CA, where he was taught Vietnamese for 12 weeks. Then came the hard part: explosive demolition training, diffusing and creating “booby” traps, small arms training, water survival training, combat training, and finally, Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training. Of the nineteen seamen that Mead started training with, only 6 made it home alive.

From there, he was sent to the Navy Disbursing Office at Nha Ba, 35 miles SE of Saigon. After his first month in country, his team became solely responsible for paying the staff at all 22 Naval Bases and Advanced Fire Bases. Their continuing orders were to pay each base and unit, stopping for no one, and to protect the money that they were accountable for at all costs.

Mead proudly states that he is personally responsible for $217,000.00 U.S. Military payment certificates and 1,120,000 Vietnamese Pasters, but wants it remembered that what he did was indeed dangerous. The team was always armed. Each time the team went out into the field they knew that the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Military were looking for them, because they carried all of the payment certificates, which were very valuable to the enemy.

Mead made a total of 419 missions by land, air, and small craft, with 296 individual combat flights for a total of 156.3 Combat Flight Hours. On his last flight, a sailor asked him “Are we going to crash and die?” When Mead asked why, the sailor pointed out the starboard window to the propeller, which was frozen and not rotating! The aircraft made its destination without incident, but they did have to fly at a low altitude for 55 minutes with one engine over the Mekong Delta.

Mead has been receiving care at the VA hospital for several years, and is very pleased with the care that he receives. Although he will never forget his time in Vietnam, he is thankful for the opportunity to serve his country, and very pleased that his country is now taking care of him.