First Posted: 4/29/2015
Two Pittston Area graduates recently met at Officer Candidate School at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.
Matthew Sharr and Brian Walters, both Duryea natives, randomly ran into each other during training. Neither had any idea who the other was but soon learned they grew up a few blocks from each other.
Walters is a 2005 graduate of Pittston Area, while Sharr is a 2010 graduate.
Currently, enlisted members of the Coast Guard who seek to advance their leadership may do so through Officer Candidate School. The school is a highly-specialized, 17-week course of instruction in leadership, management, navigation, law enforcement and military subjects.
Staff officers asked the two to tell them something about one of their shipmates. When Sharr heard that someone was from Scranton, he knew they weren’t talking about him. Walters asked Sharr where he was from and Walters, thinking no one would know where Duryea was, said he was from Scranton. That’s when the two realized the magnitude of the random meeting.
Over the next 16 weeks, the shipmates developed a friendship and a band that went far beyond the program.
They relied on each other during hard times at OCS and often joked about things they had seen that would never be seen in Duryea.
Sharr graduated from Penn State Wilkes-Barre in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in Surveying Engineering. He is the son of Phil and Robin Sharr, of Duryea, and grandson of Phil and Barbara Sharr, of Old Forge, and grandson of Ethel Weeks, of Scranton.
He wanted to serve his country and thought the Coast Guard was the best way for him to do something with his background in surveying. He had an internship with the National Oceanic and Athospheric Administration (NOAA) and his experience there made him want to continue working for NOAA doing remote sensing and hydrographic surveying.
Walters is a 2012 graduate from the American Military University with a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and a 2014 graduate from AMU with a master’s degree in homeland security. His parents are Bill and Lois Walters, of Duryea, and his grandmother is Lois Balchune, of Duryea.
Walters has served at Small Boat Station in Oak Island, North Carolina and Alexandria Bay, New York. He and his wife, Blair, have a 20-month-old daughter, Wren. His next duty station will be as an enforcement officer at Sector Honalulu, Hawaii where he will be responsible for enforcement operations in the pacific, as well as interagency operations to the Hawaiian Islands.
Sharr will be aboard the NOAA Ship Fairweather out of Ketchikan, Alaska. He will do hydrographic surveying/charting in Alaska and the Artic this summer.
Both men will receive commission on Wednesday, May 6 at graduation at the Coast Guard Academy. Both of their families will make the trip for the graduation.
