Honor Pages Index

Honor Pages

QM1(SS) Jess D. Pennington • 1956 – 2022

Ordered crosses stand as reminders that we will never forget... (American Cemetery, Manila, PI)
Ordered crosses stand as reminders that we will never forget... (American Cemetery, Manila, PI)
 
jess penningtonJess D. Pennington 

Jess D. Pennington, went to be with our Lord on May 29, 2022 on Sunday. He is survived by his four children; 

Annette (Randy), Troy (Dianne), Racheal, Mona (Gary). Grand children; Dominic, Natalie, Brenden, Arron, Troy, Olivia, Joseph, Donovan. Great-grandchildren; Cureyn, Makilee, Jet, Hadley.
 
 

Jess served on the USS WILLIAM H. BATES from 1976 to 1979 in OPS/Navigation. His profile can be found here.

 

Jess was like a Big Brother to me in many ways. He always welcomed anyone of the crew to come over to his place in Navy housing. I can't tell you how many times I was crying from laughing so hard at someone's antics there.

I also became a sort of "Big Brother" for his kids, and I cherished that as my family was on the Atlantic side of the world at that time. We went to Knott's Berry Farms a couple of times and had a blast each time seeing the world through the kids' eyes.

His wife was a wonderful cook and I learned just how good Tex-Mex food really could be. We also went to Tijuana (when it was safe to do so in the 70s) for some shopping and eating at a family diner she knew and we left there near to busting from all the food.

I will miss his short laff, and the literal twinkle in his eye, when he was about to tell a sea story of his earlier days on surface vessels. And another one when he ultimately was hoodwinked to come into submarines.

~ QM2(SS) Lee Johnson, Shipmate - SSN 680

 

He was one of the best. I really liked him. He was always ready good with some sort of sea story. BTW thanks for finding Jess. Good or bad, he has been on my mind throughout the years as well.

~ STS2(SS) Dave Gordon, Shipmate - SSN 680

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Our shipmate has passed on before us.

Whether by enemy action, the remorseless sea, or the ravages of time and age,
we must accept that God has called you to where we cannot yet follow.

We commend your body to the deep, and your soul to God Almighty.

May God grant you fair winds and following seas.

 

Godspeed, shipmate.

 

We will miss you...

 

 

 

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another...

"No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

John Donne

Meditation XVII
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions
Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris.
Now this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.
1572 - 1631

 

 

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