U.S. Navy veteran continues to honor and support vets

For Mike Kitchen of Lovell, it has always been about service. From his Naval career to his long career teaching high school math to his active membership in the American Legion, Kitchen’s pride in his country has translated into helping others.

Kitchen was born in 1950 in Dickinson, North Dakota, and his father was a high school principal in New Salem, east on I-94. When he was 5 or 6, the family moved to Ellendale, North Dakota, where his father was hired as the superintendent of schools. They moved to Dickinson after Kitchen’s freshman year, and he graduated from Dickinson Central High School in 1968.

He attended Dickinson State College (now University) for two years, and midway through his junior year he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in January of 1971 through a delayed entry program that allowed him to finish the current quarter.

Kitchen enlisted into the Navy’s advanced electronics program, signing up for six years of active duty. His training took him to boot camp in San Diego, then to Data Systems Technician A School at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California.

He received orders to report to Norfolk, Virginia, for duty on the USS Dahlgren, a guided missile destroyer that was designated DLG-12 at the time but being recommissioned on March 17, 1973, after being retrofitted with new electronics for its mission. Kitchen was part of the commissioning crew, which he said was “quite an honor.” The Dahlgren was redesignated as DDG-43 in 1975.

Kitchen served for four years on the Dahlgren, sailing the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic. About two years after commissioning, the Dahlgren was ordered to report to Vietnam, unusual for an East Coast (Norfolk) homeported ship, but the Dahlgren’s commanding officer had been on the staff of Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Chief of Naval Operations.

And so the Dahlgren sailed south to the Panama Canal and headed west through the canal to the Pacific, but as she emerged from the canal, she collided with a Panamanian freighter, the SS Eurybates, near Colon. The collision on August 7, 1975, severely damaged the Dahlgren’s bow. An investigation showed that the freighter was entirely at fault, having the right-of-way.

“It was pretty dark when we finally got through, and I remember sleeping and hearing the collision alarm go off, and right after that is general quarters,” Kitchen said. “So you get out of your bunk, get your clothes on and get to your duty station as quick as possible. … I made my way to the computer room and plugged in my sound powered phones and reported all hands are accounted for.

“I don’t remember feeling it, but I’m sure I must have. I mean, everybody felt it, but we were going pretty slow coming out of the canal. So it was more of a gentle collision. But it was enough to bend the nose of our ship.”

And thus, the Dahlgren did not sail for Vietnam.

“We obviously couldn’t continue our mission to Vietnam, so we tied up to a pier, went back through the canal, tied up to a pier in Colombia and waited for our sister ship to come and relieve us. They were not happy, but we were tied up to that pier, I think, for about three weeks, so I got to play golf in Colombia,” Kitchen joked, “and then from there we left Columbia and went to the shipyard, drydocked in Philadelphia for six months when they repaired the ship.”

Aboard the Dahlgren, Kitchen was a data systems technician, which he called “a fancy name for computer repair man. So I repaired computers and their associated peripherals.”

Kitchen’s time at sea took him to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Naples, Italy, Greece and Turkey. The Dahlgren took action during the Cyprus crisis between Turkey and Greece.

“Turkey and Greece were fighting over Cyprus at that time, and one of the times we were there we provided cover for the amphibious Navy ships to go in and take the American citizens off of Cyprus,” Kitchen said. “So we spent 30 days providing that protection.”

Kitchen said his second cruise was more interesting and included France, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Egypt. He said the Dahlgren was sailing to Alexandria, Egypt, when the crew noticed distress flares from a Saudi Arabian ocean-going tug.

“They had an explosion in their engine room, and they were on fire,” he said. “They were sinking. So we rushed to their aid, rescued the crew, and then we made sure that the tug really did sink and was not a hazard to navigation. And we took them to Alexander, Egypt, with us. We spent a good bit of time in Egypt, where we got to see the pyramids.

“Any time you come into a home port, there are opportunities to go somewhere else. So I saw the pyramids. We were in Turkey, and I got to see the Turkish bazaar. That’s a big deal. And when we were in Italy, I took a trip to Rome. The day before, I had impacted wisdom teeth that I had surgically removed. So on the trip to Rome, I was eating aspirin like crazy. I saw the Vatican and Pisa. I got pictures of being on top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. You can’t go up there anymore. Yeah, I saw a lot of places.”

The North Atlantic provided interesting places for Kitchen, as well, including Germany and Norway, where he was able to visit Bergen, his grandmother’s home city.

“That was kind of cool,” he said.

In Barcelona, students were protesting against the United States, so sailors had to stand watch in flak jackets. But Kitchen did get to take a three-day skiing trip to Andorra.

“I had a lot of great experiences on the cruises,” he said. “I didn’t partake in what the drunken sailors usually partake in. I always liked going out into the community to get away from the crazies.”

After his years of sea duty, Kitchen returned to shore duty in 1976 as a recruiter. After attending recruiting school in Orlando, he worked as a recruiter for two years in Minot, North Dakota, then Dickinson for a year. He then returned to Mare Island in Vallejo, assigned to the maintenance office at the computer school. He then received orders to report to the USS Bainbridge, homeported in San Diego, the first nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser. But with only eight months left on his enlistment and the Bainbridge heading to the Western Pacific, the Navy sent him to temporary duty at the recruiting station in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Discharged in January of 1981, Kitchen returned to school at Dickinson State University and finished his degree in mathematics in 1984, also earning his teaching certificate.

Lovell High School

Kitchen was looking at teaching positions in Livingston, Montana, Appleton, Minnesota, and Lovell. He drove to Lovell and interviewed with LHS principal Grant Goodrich, superintendent Glenn Engelking and middle school principal Norm Opp.

“When I got back home I had a couple more interviews scheduled, but Norm called me up, said ‘Your contract’s in the mail. Sign it and send it back.’ I had to cancel those interviews,” he said.

School District No. 2 had Kitchen slated for the middle school, but when Steve Martin moved on to Powell, the district placed him at the high school, where he taught geometry and algebra until 2006.

He also said he “invented” a course.

“I wanted to teach some seniors, so I created a class called Senior Math so seniors didn’t go into college without a review of their basic algebra, trigonometry and geometry,” Kitchen said. “I created that class. I don’t know if it’s still available or not. And I taught computer programming, very limited, in business class.

Kitchen said he very much enjoyed teaching, other than the state and federal mandated paperwork.

“I was a pretty traditional type teacher,” he said. “I enjoyed working with the kids. I hated all the other requirements that the state and the federal government was putting on us, and we had to spend more time dealing with that instead of just teaching.

“I enjoyed teaching. I always got to work early in case somebody needed some extra help and wanted to come in. I wanted to be available, and I enjoyed that part of it. The teaching part is what keeps teachers doing it. It’s not the other stuff. Definitely not salary.

“I enjoyed my colleagues like Caroline Butters and Mike Greenlee, Kevin Robertson. We were all kind of in the same area. I enjoyed collaborating with them.”

During his time in Lovell, Kitchen enjoyed his home life with wife Phyllis, who he met after his Naval career at Dickinson State. The two married in December of 1981 and graduated together in 1984, Phyllis with a degree in accounting. In Lovell, she worked a variety of jobs, most notably working in the Red Apple Supermarket variety department.

The Kitchens have one daughter, Dawn Geer, who lives in Whitefish, Montana, and three grandchildren: Kristin of Missoula, Montana, Faith of Salisbury, Maryland, and Paul of Beaverton, Oregon.

Kitchen is also a top golfer and an active bowler in Lovell, activities he has enjoyed for many years.

The American Legion

Kitchen joined the American Legion shortly after his discharge from the Navy, but he didn’t become active until Rich Fink revitalized Robert Boyd Stuart Post 11 in Lovell as commander. He has remained active ever since, participating in Memorial Day, Flag Day and Veterans Day programs and veterans’ funeral ceremonies. He believes it is simply important to serve those who have served their country.

“I feel a pretty strong responsibility to other veterans,” he said. “The ceremonies that we perform mean quite a bit to me -- Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Flag Day, providing honor guards for funerals, things like that. It’s kind of personal, but it means quite a bit to me. You know, sometimes it’s pretty sad, but I get a lot of satisfaction out of helping other veterans, and I really wish we could recruit more younger members, because the groups that are providing honor guards for some of these veterans are getting pretty old, and it’s getting pretty hard for them to provide that service.”

 A legacy of service, teaching and pride in America and our nation’s service members has marked the life and career of Mike Kitchen.