Rob Reilly: Following Family Tradition

On that hot, sticky New Trier West graduation day in 1971, Rob Reilly might have been surprised to learn that 40 years later, he would be retired Rear Admiral Rob Reilly.

He might also think that saying he has truly traveled the world was just hyperbole. After 30 years at sea, it's no exaggeration.

Earlier:

At that time, Rob was getting ready to attend the University of Washington in Seattle to study oceanography. Joining the military was not his immediate goal, rather something he had loved since he was a child.

“The hook was set in me as a youngster,” Rob said. He can pinpoint the exact day that he fell in love with the U.S. Navy.  “My interest in the Navy started when my uncle, a U.S. Navy captain, decided to take a nine-year-old aboard his ship and tour San Diego Bay.”

A Family Tradition

Rob has always been aware of his family’s outstanding record of military service, which goes back several generations. A relative joined the Navy in 1861. Relatives served with distinction in the Civil War, World War I and World War II.  There were commissions signed by Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Teddy Roosevelt.

Family military medals now hang in the Smithsonian Institution. Relatives served in Cuba during the Spanish-American War and volunteered to serve in Key West during an outbreak of yellow fever. That was at the same time that Dr. Samuel Mudd was in prison there, convicted of aiding Lincoln’s assassin. The same relative went to China during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion, where he was fatally shot.

There have been so many Reillys who have served in the Navy that there was bound to be some repetition. “I went out to command this Navy destroyer squadron, which was Destroyer Squadron 50. That was the squadron that my father served in during World War II.”

Rob’s parents were naturally concerned about him when he first decided to join up. He said his mother said, “’You don’t have to do that.’ And I said, ‘Mom, I kinda want to.’ Some of it was because of the family, but some of it was just maybe the opportunity to get out of the Midwest and see a lot of new things.”

Around the Globe

Rob has seen more than a lot of new things. He has literally seen the world, including living overseas twice, stretches in the Philippines and in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Rob has seen the pyramids in Egypt and the Panama Canal, the Arctic Circle and the South China Sea. And most places in between.

Back on the homefront, Rob and his wife have three grown daughters age 24, 20 and 18. “I have two in college at the same time and they like to have the out of state tuition plan.” One is at the University of Washington and the other is at Northwestern University.

Now retired from the Navy, Rob is working for a scientific applications company in the Washington D.C. area as a liason to the Navy. “It’s a great place for an old sea dog like me to land. It was hard for me to wrap up 30 years a naval officer.”

But with three grown daughters, the near future will likely be plenty expensive. “I’ve got three weddings downstream and that’s kinda why I’m still working.”