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C.D. Williams known as Chuck by his friends or Doc by his old shipmates was born in California in 1939. Just after turning seventeen, he forged his parent’s names on the enlistment papers and joined the U.S. Coast Guard. During the next 27 ½ years Williams completed his formal education and received extensive technical, medical, leadership and management training. During this same period he served on four ships and traveled to many parts of the world. During his Coast Guard career Chuck ventured above the Arctic Circle and walked the streets of Bangkok, Thailand. Williams has been to all 50 U.S. States, 47 islands in the Pacific and a dozen countries. He has flown missions in two classes of helicopter and three types of fixed wing aircraft. During search and rescue operations at sea Chuck has put out in small boats in terrible weather conditions to save the lives of others. He has participated in wildlife and medical research expeditions, typhoon relief operations and a number of other humanitarian actions. One search and rescue operation that he worked in 1974 involved an Italian Super Tanker which exploded and sank 900 miles northwest of Honolulu with 41 crewmembers aboard. Of the 33 who survived the initial explosions and fire, at least two of the badly burned survivors lived as a direct result of Williams’ medical skills and treatments that he provided over a period of more than four days. They are alive today and living at home in Italy. The son of one the survivors contacted Chuck a few years ago to thank him for saving his Father’s life and thus allowing him to be born. Talking with this survivor’s son was a proud moment, but it was also one of the most humbling experiences in Chuck’s life. Williams served in Vietnam in 1967. From 1969 to 1971 he was the Medical Corpsman assigned to an isolated Coast Guard station in the Southwest Philippines. On this tour he provided emergency and routine health care not only for the other fourteen members of his crew, but also for an indigenous population of about two thousand. This included pirates, smugglers, fishermen, Muslims and Christian pioneers. At this unit he delivered babies and treated everything from Tuberculosis and tropical diseases to combat wounds. When Williams retired from the service in 1984 he held the rank of Chief Warrant Officer W-2. His final duty assignment was, Chief, Health Services Branch with the Seventeenth Coast Guard District in Juneau, Alaska. Chief Warrant Officer Williams received 18 medals and awards for his service, including; the Coast Guard Commendation Medal, the Coast Guard Achievement Medal and the Vietnam Service Medal. After leaving the Coast Guard, Williams remained in Juneau, Alaska and worked as the Risk Manager for the local municipality. In 1991 Chuck retired again and became a licensed Independent Insurance Adjuster. He traveled throughout Southeastern Alaska, in small planes flown by bush pilots, to investigate property losses and casualty claims. During his more than 16 years as an Alaska resident he was an avid boater, angler, hunter, camper, hiker and motorcyclist. He has boated, fished and hunted most of the waters and islands up and down the Alaska Panhandle. He has hiked and camped in many areas of the State. When not doing that he would take long, solo motorcycle odysseys. He has ridden the Alaska/Canadian Highway, the Canadian Rockies and the Cascade Mountains in Washington State. On one particularly long trip he put his motorcycle aboard an Alaska State Ferry in Juneau, Alaska. He got off in Prince Rupert, Canada and rode from there to the Baja Peninsula in Mexico, mostly along the Coast Highway. On the return trip north he traveled through the California and Nevada desert country, returning to Alaska after about six weeks with twelve thousand new miles on his motorcycle. After their son Marty left home and many of their friends moved south, Chuck and his wife Maripi started to think about relocating to a warmer climate. His wife suggested Las Vegas. In the summer of 1994 they made the move. In Las Vegas Williams became a Realtor and worked in the booming Real Estate Industry in Southern Nevada. In December 2001 he retired once again, this time to pursue his ambitions as a writer. He studied creative writing under Robert Cawley an Emmy Award winning screen writer and Novelist at the College of Southern Nevada before writing his first novel “Palawan”. Since then Chuck has completed a short memoir, “SOS Rescue at Sea”, and a compendium of humorous stories titled, “Bent Humor”. In March of this year he was published in the U.S. Coast Guard Combat Veteran’s Association Magazine, The Quarterdeck Log. That short story was titled “Then There Were the Buoy Tenders” His new book “Realm of the Golden Dragon”, an historical fiction sea story was released by Pocol Press in late March of 2016. Chuck has written several articles for publication on the internet and has nearly completed a Las Vegas murder mystery which will be titled, “Dance until you Die”. He has also outlined a future Coast Guard based novel he will call “November Patrol”. In their spare time Chuck and his wife, of 45 years, Maripi enjoy taking road trips around the Country and particularly enjoy the beautiful scenery that can be found throughout the American Southwest. When Chuck is not reading or at his computer writing, he spends time in various coffee shops around town. His current favorites is the Panera Bakery Café at the District in the Green Valley section of Henderson, Nevada. Williams will be 77 this year and has no plans for slowing down anytime soon. Semper Paratus Website: www.cd-williams.com
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