The Petersen Family of Georgia

Rich went ahead and proposed to Laura on Saturday, July 19th 2008. He went and proposed to Laura on the deck of his old ship, the aircraft carrier USS Midway which is now in San Diego as a museum ship (http://www.midway.org if you want to check her out).

Laura flew out to be with Rich the weekend between the two weeks he was in California on business, so he arranged with the ship's crew to help him outHere is what happened in Rich's words:

I had called the ship to ask if the 1MC was working (the PA System) and they said yes. So after numerous phone calls to synchronize our effort, this is how it happened:

We arrived at the ship, and I called to say we had arrived.
When we went on board, I handed the lady at the entrance our tickets, plus a message for Rick (the safety officer who would make the announcement) that said what I wanted him to say.
While the lady went to find Rick, I took Laura to the stern of the ship and showed her a ladder that went up to where I use to sleep (a closed off section).
A man, who was looking for two people based on our description, came up to us and said "Did you use to live up there?" I said "Yes, VA93, 1983-1986" which told him he had the right two people.
The man then said "Want to see it?" and I said "I thought it is closed off section?" And he said "Follow me" this gave us time to kill while the first lady was finding Rick.
The man took us up another way, and took us into the closed off section and I was able to show Laura where I slept.
The man received a call on his radio saying they found Rick and nodded to me.
We made our way down and once we got back on deck, the man radioed Rick to start the announcement.
Over the ships PA system, they announced "Laura, there has been two women in Rich's life that mean more to him than any other. One of those woman is the USS Midway, and the other is you. Rich can think of no better time or place to ask you one very important question. Go ahead Rich"
At that moment I went down on my knee and asked her to marry me. Everyone on the ship erupted into applause and of course Laura was balling her eyes out.

The ship took pictures and said it was the first marriage proposal in the history of the ship, and asked us permission to publish an article in the ships quarterly magazine with the pictures. We of course said yes.