Commander David D. Bruhn, U.S. Navy (Retired) served twenty-two years on active duty and two in the Naval Reserve, as both an enlisted man and as an officer, between 1977 and 2001.

Following completion of basic training, he served as a sonar technician aboard USS Miller (FF 1091) and USS Leftwich (DD 984). He was commissioned in 1983 following graduation from California State University at Chico. His initial assignment was to USS Excel (MSO 439), serving as Supply Officer, Damage Control Assistant, and Chief Engineer. He then served in USS Thach (FFG 43) as Chief Engineer and Destroyer Squadron 13 as Material Officer.
 

After graduation from the Naval Postgraduate School, Cdr. Bruhn was assigned to Secretary of the Navy and CNO staffs as a budget analyst and (Future Years Defense Plan) resources planner before attending the Naval War College in 1996, following which he commanded the mine countermeasures ships USS Gladiator (MCM 11) and USS Dextrous (MCM 13) in the Persian Gulf.

  

Commander Bruhn's final assignment was Executive Assistant to a senior (SES-4) government service executive at the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization in Washington, D.C.

Since retiring, he has been a high school science teacher and track coach, and is currently the senior naval science instructor for a high school Navy Junior ROTC program. He lives in northern California with his wife Nancy and sons David and Michael.

He is the author of Wooden Ships and Iron Men: The U.S. Navy's Ocean Minesweepers, 1953–1994, published in 2006 by Heritage Books, and of Ready to Answer All Bells, published by the Naval Institute Press in 1997. He may be contacted here and would particularly like to receive correspondence from former crewmembers
of minesweepers, minesweeping boats, and other mine craft, and the people who designed and constructed them.