Jim Bridges joined the U. S. Coast Guard in June 1966 from his home at the time in Ft. Myers, Florida. He and I were in the same recruit training company, Romeo 63, at the Coast Guard Recruit Training Center at Cape May, New Jersey. His bunk was across from mine due to alphabetical arrangement and we had numerous conversations during what little spare time that we had. We also went to New York City on charter buses on the two weekends that we were given off and we shared a hotel room in Manhattan with two other Coasties to save money. We graduated from boot camp in mid-August 1966 and he was assigned to the 17th Coast Guard District in Alaska and I went to Group Baltimore. He made the Coast Guard a career and I decided to get out but I stayed in the Reserve for extra income while going to school and I stayed for 30 years. He was assigned to different units in South Florida and we never ran into each other until a party for Coasties at CDR Fred Remen's home in Loxahatchee in the early 2000's. He had retired in 1996 as a CWO4 (ENG) after 30 years of active duty and Fred assisted in getting him a job with the South Florida Water Management District where he had a management position overseeing pump stations in South Florida. We talked and realized that we knew each other from somewhere and initially we thought it was CG Station Lake Worth Inlet on Peanut Island but he was there a year or so after my tour there. He then realized that we were in the same recruit company at Cape May and that we had gone to New York together twice. We had a good time catching up on what we did for the previous 35 years or so.

I was very sorry to hear of Jim's passing because he was a good level-headed guy and great buddy when I knew him so many years ago in boot camp. Our condolences to Penny, his wife of 42 years, his children and his family members.

Photos of our recruit training company are at: https://pbase.com/image/54331921 and https://pbase.com/donboyd/image/54331928