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PANAMA CITY, Fla. – Ask any military diver today or from
yesteryear about what makes their military community so special and
you'll hear one word: Brotherhood. For two men stationed on board
Naval Support Activity Panama City (NSA PC), Florida, this
brotherhood allows them to share both a personal and professional
bond in the home of military diving during this, the Year of the
Military Diver.
Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center
(NDSTC)'s Training Officer Lt. Jason Junker, USN, today serves in
the U.S. Navy's diving community as an explosive ordnance disposal
Officer just across the base from his father, David Junker, a
retired master chief machinist's mate and diver, serves as the
in-service engineering agent for the explosive ordnance disposal
(EOD) systems at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City
Division (NSWC PCD). The latter Junker retired in 1997 after 20
years on active duty and four years in the reserves.
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February 25, 2015 - Naval Diving Salvage Training Center Training Officer Lt. Jason Junker, U.S. Navy, stands with his father, Dave Junker, and a photo of his great-grandfather who was a U.S. Navy submariner. Dave, who is a retired Navy diver and master chief machinist's mate, is the Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division's Explosive Ordnance Disposal in-service engineering agent and now serves his former community of dive community from the Department of Defense's acquisition community. (U.S. Navy photo by Ron Newsome, NSWC PCD)
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“Being a Navy diver to me means being part of a long
legacy of Navy divers, conducting work under extraordinarily
difficult conditions. That was very rewarding for me,” said
Dave Junker. “On many occasions during my career, I
reflected on how much I enjoyed the work and camaraderie,
ultimately leading to a full career in this field.”
Following in his father's impressive and successful
footsteps, Jason graduated from Bay High School in 1997 and
enlisted in the Navy in 1999. Working his way up through the
enlisted ranks and the EOD community, he advanced to chief
petty officer before he was selected for the
Seaman-to-Admiral program in which he earned his commission.
Since first enlisting, Jason has served in Operations
Enduring Freedom and OIF. He has been stationed at EOD
Mobile Units Two, Six, and Five. Today, Junker is NDSTC's
third in command.
“Being a military diver means
having the honor to follow in the footsteps of some of the
bravest men and women who have served our country,” said
Jason. “It's also about maintaining the proud tradition and
heritage they built for us, while moving forward in today's
Navy and creating new milestones for future military divers
to be proud of.”
While his most memorable dive job or
duty station to date remains with EOD Mobile Unit Two in
Kandahar, Afghanistan, he can embrace the legacy of being in
the military dive community during the Year of the Military
Diver commemoration. This year, 2015, is also the 100th
anniversary of the Mark V dive suit and NDSTC's 35th
anniversary.
“The year of the military diver offers
a time to gather the diving communities from all DOD
services together to share experiences and discuss our
history,” said Jason. “It provides a rare opportunity for
young divers to give something back to those that went
before us. It also offers education and quality interaction
between our diving community and Bay County leadership.”
For Dave Junker, who grew up in Galion, Ohio, enlisted
in the Navy's submarine community in 1972. He fondly
remembers when the facilities that now embody the home of
military diving were being built on the Navy base in Bay
County, Florida. It's an area that he proudly calls home and
has worked at NSWC PCD now for 10 years.
“I was on
staff at the Washington Navy Yard until 1978, and I went
through first class dive school here in 1980 when the old
YDTS were here,” said Dave. “I had a four-year break in
service and was in the reserves with the Harbor Clearance
Unit in Seattle. A chief petty officer I had worked for
persuaded me to return to active duty.”
Initially,
Dave was a “nuke” before he became a Navy diver and was
stationed on board USS Proteus (AS 19), and served in a
staff billet at Navy First Class Dive School, Washington
Navy Yard before the function was transferred to NDSTC by
1980. He was also stationed at Naval Medical Research
Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, MV Seaforth Clansman with the
British Ministry of Defense diver exchange program, USS
Ortolan (ASR 22) as a saturation diver, and the Submarine
Development Group One, where he worked deep submergence
operations support. Finally, he worked at the Navy
Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU) located onboard NSA PC in
Panama City, Florida, where he served as an unmanned test
director and unlimited dive supervisor. Of all the wide
range of experiences Dave had throughout his 20 years of
Navy diving, he fondly recalls his work as a research
subject between 1984 and 1987 at the Naval Medical Research
Institute.
“What made this job so memorable for me
was the testing and understanding the limits of
physiological and psychological limitations for extended
underwater missions,” said Dave.
Today, Dave
reflects on what being a Navy diver has meant to him.
“To be part of a long legacy of Navy divers, conducting
work under extraordinarily difficult conditions was very
rewarding,” he said. “On many occasions during my career, I
reflected on how much I enjoyed the work and camaraderie,
ultimately leading to a full career in this field.”
Today, Dave continues to support his dive community but
these days it's as a federal civil servant working on EOD
systems at NSWC PCD, which is a research, development, test
and evaluation facility. Over the years, he has not only
watched the base grow into a military dive hub, he has been
a major part of it.
“Certainly, in our local
community, Navy divers are well known and are hopefully well
regarded,” said Dave. “Panama City has been the hub of Navy
dive training since 1980 when NDSTC opened, and with the
Navy Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU) being here since 1970.”
Military divers have been stationed or trained at the
Navy base for almost 60 years when divers worked at the base
– then called the Mine Defense Laboratory – on mine
countermeasures, and diving and life support programs. Those
programs have endured and are now supported by NSWC PCD
where Dave Junker is employed working engineering and system
development for EOD and diving.
“For many divers, Bay
County feels like your hometown because at some point, we've
all come through the dive school for training,” said Jason.
“Small, specialized communities, like EOD or divers, tend to
go unnoticed most of the time to the public. Panama City and
Panama City Beach are unique in that they are exposed to
such a large number of men and women divers from all
services and Department of Defense (DOD) organizations. The
local public seems to recognize the work and sacrifice that
the diving community has made and has supported our service
members extremely well.”
At NDSTC, Junker is
responsible for all NDSTC training courses for each branch
of service, foreign national and interagency programs.
Annually, NDSTC trains more than 1,300 students in various
subjects in all ranks.
Specifically, NDSTC houses 23
certified diver life support systems, which include six
hyperbaric recompression chambers, two diving simulation
facilities capable to 300 ft, an aquatics training facility
which is the second largest pool in the U.S., a submarine
lock-out trunk and two 133-feet Yard Diving Tenders (YDT)
for open, ocean-diving support with recompression chambers
and mixed gas diving capabilities.
"Jason Junker is a
tribute to Panama City. He grew up in this city and
graduated from Bay High School,” said NDSTC Commanding
Officer Cmdr. Hung Cao, U.S. Navy. “Today, he is not only
walking in his father's footsteps but he is also the
training officer responsible for developing the next
generation of divers."
NDSTC students are trained in
basic gas laws, diving medicine, recompression chamber
operations, salvage mathematics, and salvage operations. The
schoolhouse is the largest diving facility in the world and
it trains military divers from all services. More than 1,300
students train each year in the 23 courses. Students include
candidates for submarine scuba, U.S. Navy deep sea divers,
Seabee underwater construction divers, joint service diving
officers, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) divers, diving
medical technicians, diving medical officers, U.S. Army
engineer divers, U.S. Marine Corps combatant divers, U.S.
Coast Guard divers, and U.S. Air Force pararescue operators
and combat controllers. A limited number of U.S. law
enforcement, U.S. government agency and students from allied
and coalition nations also train at NDSTC.
By U.S. Navy Jacqui Barker
Naval Surface Warfare Center
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2015
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