Richard Simon is a Navy veteran. Born in 1925, he grew up on a farm in Fremont, Minnesota. At 18 years old, and year and a half after Pearl Harbor, he signed up for the draft and chose to enter the Navy. He was sent to Idaho for boot camp, then school in Memphis and New Orleans for aviation radio monitoring and a machine gunner on dive bomber. Eventually he was stationed at the Panama Canal, Pacific side, as a radio signal tower operator and port director, and he spoke of stories of his time and experiences while being stationed there for 2 years. After the war, at age 21, he was discharged, went back home to Fremont and entered the masonry business. At age 30, he settled in Glendale, California and started a business building trailers then another masonry business. He met his wife there, and has 4 children and 7 grandchildren. He eventually bought land in Oregon and settled there. He looks back at his naval experience as positive and says he enjoyed servicing his country.