my biography

my biography

This is my life....

My name is Karl Kristiansen. I was born in Connecticut. I spent most of my childhood in Stonington, a small, seaside town on the Connecticut-Rhode Island border. My father was a commercial fisherman and since he was from Norway, life on the sea was a natural for him. My mother was a housewife. We were the typical '50's family. Much of my childhood was spent around the docks and fishing boats of Stonington. In 1954, my father and a few of the other fishermen decided to try their luck at shrimping in Brownsville, Texas. After a few months, and very little success, we returned to Stonington. Most of the Stonington boats were selling their catches in New Bedford, MA, so it was no surprise that in 1959, we packed up and moved.

New Bedford remained my home through my secondary school years. I graduated from New Bedford High School in 1965. I had the opportunity to go to college, but I opted for a hitch in the Navy. If you recall, at that time, you only had a few choices: go to college, wait to be drafted, enlist or get married and hope for the best.
After an exciting ten weeks at NTC Great Lakes and a couple of weeks leave, I flew to Subic Bay in the Philippines, to catch my ship, the USS Mansfield DD-728. Our main mission was plane guard duty with the carrier USS Kittyhawk. We also alternated three day support fire missions with the other ships in our group along the Vietnam coast and up the Saigon River a couple of times. A lot of excitement for an eighteen year old kid. We had liberty calls in Hong Kong, Yokosuka, Subic Bay and Pearl Harbor. In June of 1966 I went to CT (Communication Tech) school in Pensacola, FLA. Upon graduation, I was sent to Bremerhaven, Germany for two years or so. After being discharged My Photo 65-98from the Navy in 1969, I returned home and met the girl I would end up marrying in April of 1970. We have two grown daughters and four grandchildren. We live in Acushnet, MA., which is right outside New Bedford....

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