He grew up on a hog farm in Pea Ridge, signed up for the U.S. Navy when he was 17 under a delayed entry program and went to boot camp as soon as he graduated from Pea Ridge High School in 1976. Over the next 20 years, Jim Gastineau saw the world, literally. He has been to 38 di◊erent countries and lived several di◊erent places in the United States, but says there’s no place like home and returned to Pea Ridge after he retired from the Navy.
“It made me appreciate Pea Ridge,” he said of seeing other places in the world. “A lot of the cities were dirty.”
Gastineau, the son of Avaon Gastineau and Robbie Gastineau, credits Roy Roe, then superintendent of schools, and Jim Cheek, a teacher, who pushed him to complete his education and graduate from high school. He admits he didn’t try and wasn’t especially studious. He said his parents signed for him to join the military. He has a twin brother who went to college, but he said he wasn’t cut out for college. He recalled there were about 33 people in his senior class.
“Roy Roe was an old Navy man. He sat me down and talked to me and told me the military - the Navy - could do me more good than he could,” Gastineau said.
As for Cheek, he said: “He always pushed us to make something of ourselves.”
He said that every time he returned to Pea Ridge, he made it a point to go see Mr. Roe.
“My dad was in the Navy andI’d heard all those stories,” he said. After retiring from the military, Gastineau went to work for a gravel company, then used his G.I. Bill to go back to school to become a licensed electrician.
Now, he’s “fully” retired, he said.
Gastineau said he started his Navy career as an E1 and retired as a Chief Petty O◊cer. He was a boiler technician and worked in the fire room. He went to Orlando, Fla., for basic training and then to Great Lakes, Ill., for A School. From there, Gastineau shipped out of Charleston, S.C.
“I was terrible homesick,” he admits. “I’d a give a million dollars for someone to bring me back to Pea Ridge.”
He said he adjusted with time and was kept busy enough thathe kept his mind o◊being homesick.
“You never get over the feeling of missing home, no matter how long you’re in, but you get used to it. It’s a lot of self-sacrifi ce,” he said.
After graduating from basic, Gastineau came home for two weeks, then again for two weeks after graduating from A School.
Then, he shipped out and was gone for two years.
Gastineau married a girl from Pea Ridge and moved her to Charleston with him. Then, he deployed for eight months to the Mediterranean. He said that pattern continued, gone for eight months, home for two. He said he was in France and did not make it home when his son was born.
When his ship docked at Naples, Italy, Gastineau said he rented a car and drove to Florence. “That was pretty interesting.”
One of his favorite places was Barcelona, Spain.
As for stateside, he said Charleston, S.C., is a lot like Pea Ridge with people waving and being friendly.
He was stationed on fi ve di◊erent ships with one, the USS America CV-66, having 5,000 people on it.
“That was more people than there were in Pea Ridge then.” Other ships were smaller with a crew of about 260.
He continued training and his education while in the military becoming a surface warfare specialist.
“You learn every aspect of the ship from engineering, combat, communications, damage control, supply.”
His hair is below his shoulders in length and his beard falls to his chest. “I haven’t shaved since I retired,” he smiled. His arms are adorned with many tattoos, all but one of which are from overseas. On one arm is a Razorback. But other tattoos have various military signifi cance like the barbed wire encircling his upper arm for prisoners of war.
“Back then, only bikers and sailors had tattoos,” he said.
Gastineau was in Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990-1991. “I was over there for nine months,” he said, adding that he did see combat.
“We were the front line ship and our job, ourmission, was to track our aircraft going in and coming so none of theirs could come back out with them.
They tried it a couple of times. The radar would track for 150 miles. We could lock them up,” he said. His ship was fi red upon from small vessels like barges and small fi shing boats outfi tted with guns.
“When I was 18, I thought I was grown up and already knew everything. The military changed my mind about that and did make me grow up and learn about life. Seeing it fi rst hand from other countries and realizing how lucky I was to be from Pea Ridge …. “
“Every place I was stationed was a big city - Honolulu, Jacksonville, Fla., Philadelphia, Norfolk, Va. - I’d lived in them big cities for 20 years. It was exciting to go to them, but it didn’t take long to learn that it wasn’t who I was. I couldn’t cope very good in the big cities.”
“I enjoyed the military while I was in. I didn’t enjoy being away from family, but the life experiences from it have made me who I am today. I believe every young man should do at least one hitch because itmakes you grow up, teaches you discipline - a lot of self-discipline.”
Gastineau was no stranger to discipline and hard work. He grew up on a farm where his parents raised hogs. “There was always chores to do.” And, he played football. “I knew how to follow orders. For some of the big city kids, it was hard for them for someone telling them what to do. You could always tell a kid from the farm versus a kid from the city because they didn’t know how to work, they didn’t know what manual labor was.”
“I have a real appreciation for the veterans who have served because of their self-sacrifi ce they’ve given for this country. You give up family, time with your family.”
He said his father served four years in the Navy in the time between Korea and Vietnam; he was on a battleship. Then, Gastineau’s son was a machinist in the Navy for fi ve years.
After getting out, he used his GI bill for continuing education in the mechanical engineering fi eld.
Gastineau’s wife is Nickie. He has one son, Wesley Gastineau and a stepdaughter Valerie German.
News, Pages 1 on 11/13/2013