Lt. Brian Luebbert
Commanding Officer
Patrol Coastal Crew Bravo
HARRY GERWIEN
Iwas born in Henderson and raised in Cadiz, Ky., a small town, not a lot going on there. I knew that I
needed to do something with my life other than staying there and working construction. The Navy was a
good fit for me. I liked being on the water. I thought I
would enjoy it and I have.
I became an opticalman on the sub tender USS
Dixon. My primary focus was submarine periscopes.
Through the Enlisted Commissioning Program, I
attended the University of Texas at Austin, majored in
economics and was commissioned through the
NROTC [Navy Reserve Officers Training Corps] unit.
I served on two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, USS
McFaul and USS Oscar Austin, and obtained a master’s
degree in finance at the Naval Postgraduate School.
I volunteered for the patrol coastal ship (PC) com-
munity. I enjoy the small crew: four officers and 24
enlisted men. In the patrol coastal navy, you spend
more time with your shipmates than you do your fam-
ily, not just while we’re on deployment. When we’re
back in the states, we spend a lot of time on the ship
getting ready to turn around and deploy again. I usual-
ly see my kids about three hours a day on good days; a
little bit more once we first return from deployment. It
draws my family closer because the time that I am at
home, we don’t take it for granted.
“I’ve had some great mentors as commanding officers and department heads
in the past who have taught me and led me down the path of ‘Always take
care of your people and they’ll do the job and they’ll take care of you.’”
