I was born in Oakland, California on February 3, 1948 after graduating high school in 1966 I enjoyed life to the fullest and then after summer was over, I enlisted in the Army for Nike Hercules Missiles.

You might ask why Nike Hercules Missiles? Well, there were two reasons. I had an interest in rockets and such because my father worked at the National Laboratories in Livermore and Berekley. He traveled alot to the Nevada Test Site to blow up bombs and traveled extensively with Dr. Edward Teller.

However, that was not my main reason. You see, I did not want to go to Vietnam or any other country where I would get shot at. Nope, not me! So I enlisted in something that had nuclear bombs, knowing that I would not be going to any of those countries as long as I was able to stay in those programs. Mind you, if they told me I had to go, I would! But why go if you do not have too?

My basic training was at Fort Lewis, Washington. This was also the same place where by parternal grandfather had his basic training in World War I. This was a closed base for basic training. That means that once you enter, you did not leave until your eight weeks were up or you dropped dead, whichever came first.

Well, I did not drop dead, so eight weeks later, I graduated basic training and went to Fort Bliss, Texas for my Advanced Individual Training or AIT. There I learned how to not get in trouble in Mexico and, oh ya, how to operate the Acq Radar. After another 8 week of AIT, I had my orders for Germany, that only lasted for about one day. You see, they changed my orders and for my overseas duty, they sent me to Fairbanks, Alaska instead of Germany.

I remember landing in Anchorage, Alaska where the rear of the plane opened up for us to disembark. This was in the winter time, around February. I had not been very far out of California prior to joining the Army. So when I got out of the plane and took a deep breath in the cold air, I'm telling you, it was hard to breath at first.

Our Plane than took off for Fairbanks and landed shortly after. Again, I was surprised, as I had thought that Fairbanks was a fairly desent size city. I got in the jeep at the airport and enjoyed the views; beautiful country. After awhile, I asked the driver where Fairbanks was. He told me that we had just drove through it.

We than drove through the Air Force Base and up a mountain road until we got to the top. Here I was, home for the next 18 months at B Battery, 2nd Missile Battalion, 562nd Artillery, AKA Site Peter. This battery was the only live firing battery there was. It was a great place and a lonely place. It was not very often that you were able to drive anywhere or see anything. The land was beautiful and the Northern Lights were fantastic, but a person needs more than that. At least I did!

It took me 21 months to make E-5, which was fairly fast! During my time there, I developed a lot of fond and not so fond memories. KP was not the greatest! The cooks name was Jenkins and not a bad guy. I remember cutting patatoes and putting them in a garbage can, clean one of course. We would set the tables and set the line for the food. After everyone left, we would than dry mop the floors.

Than there were the drills that would happen, and some could last for a long time, sometimes for more than a day. I believe the longest drill was for three days. We would go on shifts until the drill was over.

I worked in the control van on the acquisition radar, turning a dial to place a circle on the scope over an object showing up on the radar screen. I would than press down on the handle of the dial to lock on the target. There was a lot more to it than that, but basically that was the end function of the acq radar operator.

When it warmed up in the Winter,(30 below zero), we would go out for 3 days and nights for training. There was even a replica of a Ho Chi Minh Trail that we went through. I'm telling you, these were fun times...

USO shows did not come very often, but when they did, they were appreciated. During my stay there, I think that there were only two.

The big game during my stay was acey-dosey where you could win or lose a lot of money. The most popular TV show at the time was Dark Shadows. The TV room was outside the mess hall just before the stairs up to the barracks. We had a pool table in the middle of the rec hall and a small PX. That was about all the entertainment we had.

After my so called overseas duty, I was transferred to D Battery, 4th Missile Battalion, 1st Artillery at Tolchester Beach, Maryland. I spent the next 10 months there until I was discharged from the service on June 21, 1969 with a 3 month early out to go to collage.