I prepared the following personal statement for my Marine Corps Basic School Class reunion several years ago. The Commandant, classmate Jim Conway; instructor, Medal of Honor recipient Wes Fox and classmate Emilio Garza Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit were in attendance with about 150 of us former Marines. I believe this statement is a good description of who I am.
After TBS, it was Naval Justice School in Newport Rhode Island and then off to Parris Island, the best kept secret in the Marine Corps, for the next two years plus as a Judge Advocate. It was a great tour where I learned much more than I gave. The Commanding General at the time, Robert Barrow, later went on to become Commandant, certainly in spite of his limited contact with me.
In January 1974, I went to work in the Special Operations Section of the U. S Department of Justice, Organized and Racketeering Division in Washington, D. C. After a few months it was off to the Philadelphia Strike Force. For four years in the Philadelphia Strike Force and two with the Newark New Jersey Strike Force in South Jersey it was Grand Juries, wire taps, bugs, informants and prosecutions, all from the Government side.
When the bureaucracy became too intense (January 1980), it was time for a change, so out went my shingle. I tried most areas in the practice of law and by process of elimination became, after several years, almost exclusively, a criminal defense lawyer. I quickly found that it was all the same things as when I was a prosecutor; Grand Juries, wire taps, bugs, informants and prosecutions, but now from the other side and no bureaucracy. I like to think I help make the criminal justice system work as it was designed.
The next 28 years were full of good times and some lean ones. Work could have often been described as boredom punctuated by panic. Along the way I acquired; a variety of animal shelter dogs and cats, Harley Davidson riding, scuba diving, some traveling and a deep regard for Freemasonry. Always paramount in my life was and is the wonderful family that I am fortunate to have. Rita was with me from the beginning in 1970 and for reasons I will never fully understand, she is still by my side. As the children grew, so did her career. From stringer reporter to political editor to Press Secretary for Governor Christie Whitman to Director of Communications for the Department of Health and Senior Services; she has always kept me level. She has truly been my rock. She now has her own Public Relations Consulting business.
We have been blessed with two daughters who have far exceeded anything I could ever accomplish. The oldest, Kimberly is a graduate of the University of Virginia where she was President of the student body. She has an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a MPP from the Kennedy School of Government. Presently living in Bogota, Columbia with her husband, a career foreign service officer, they will be soon relocating to the D. C. area where she will be the Director of a group with the International Development Bank. They have two wonderful daughters, Cecilia who is two and a half and Aliza who is one. They are their grandparents’ great joy.
Our youngest daughter Rebecca, an M.D. in Baltimore, is in the middle of a Fellowship in Rheumatology at Johns Hopkins. She will also soon be receiving a Masters Degree in Health Science. Becca and her husband, Nick, a manufacturer’s representative for commercial surveillance cameras and other electronic devices, balance an extremely busy life style with travel and family.
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