Page 47 - Senior Link Magazine Spring 2021- Online Magazine

navy
army reserves
korean War

surgery on a painful cyst at committee members. He was
the base of my spine. After a “impressed from the get-go
month, they put me aboard with the entire organization.”
the USS Navarro (APA-215) The Korean War and Vietnam
for three months.... When I memorials were two of his
hit 90 days to re-enlistment, I favorites on the trip, along with
decided to leave the Navy. I the changing of the guard at the
went back to college. I had been Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
in Petroleum Engineering but at Arlington National Cemetery.
changed to Pre-Med. When I Looking back, Preston said, “It’s
was a Navy Gunner, I worked been a rich, full life. I’ve always
in sick bay on the ship and liked had a can-do attitude.” His
it. While I was in Pre-Med at service record and his dedication
the University of Tulsa, I met to his community as a doctor,
a nurse named Clara. My proposal of marriage are evidence of the indelible mark Deshan left on all
was contingent on my med school acceptance. I was of those he encountered during his life’s journey.
accepted, and we married in April 1957. We had
one son, David, who is now an OB/GYN doctor in
Midland, Texas.”

Eventually, Dr. Deshan joined the Army Reserves
and went in as a physician at the rank of Lieutenant
Colonel. “The Army had a different mindset. We
had an AIDS problem at that time – we didn’t know
what it was or how to treat it. I stayed in the Army
Reserves for two years and hit mandatory retirement
at age 61. The Navy would allow you to retire at age
65, so I went back in as a Commander.”

Three terms of service and many years later, Deshan
finally moved on to being a physician in civilian life.
He and his family moved to Lubbock in 1965, where
he and a group of other doctors opened an OB/GYN
Clinic on Main Street first and later at Broadway and
Ave. M. He and two other doctors built a new clinic
in 1976. Preston retired in 1991, but wasn’t through
working yet. He became a Department Chairman
at UMC and taught classes in Drane Hall. He went
into emergency medicine for thirteen years, mostly in
Levelland, and retired for good in 2013. Divorced in
1978, he met his current wife, Alma Studer, at South
Plains Church of Christ. They married in November
2018.

Preston heard about the Texas South Plains Honor
Flight at a local grocery store from one of the

Lubbock Senior Link 47
Lubbock Senior Link
47