In January 1975, I reported for duty at Fort Lewis, Wash., home of the 9th Infantry Division. We still sported heavily starched fatigues until a new version came out, permanent press. This was still the days of a divided military, men and women with the Women's Army Corps. Their uniform was more like the jungle fatigues worn in Vietnam. Being that my MOS was Mobile Generator Operator/Mechanic, I was placed with the 1/84th Field Artillery, 155 mm howitzers. And the mechanics were ordered to pull perimeter duty at night during firing missions. I stayed with this unit for almost two years.
I was able to be reassigned to a communications unit that had the first computers for pay purposes. Unfortunately, these computers had been vibrated so badly being driven on military tires from Lexington Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky, an IBM repairman spent most of the time attempting to bring these online. All of us learned through mistakes about refueling the large generators - how bad diesel smelled, how just showering didn't get the odor off, etc.
I re-entered civilian life in June 1977. I stayed with the active local Reserve unit for 25 months until I decided to re-enlist in 1979 with an MOS of Heavy Equipment Operator at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. Turned out that it also became my permanent duty station later on. In what was termed "The Million Dollar Hole," army, airmen and Marines were trained on a wide range of equipment, from vintage D-7 bulldozers, Case front-end loaders and more. My job tasks split my time from working at the rock quarry with students there after blasting rock in the quarry, helping to prep the holes with dynamite, and hauling hot asphalt in Army dump trucks in the summer. Summers in Missouri have temperatures in the 90s and humidity hovering around 95 percent. Wintertime was not slack time. We snowplowed at night in sub-zero cold, and during the day we still trained our students both in the classroom and outdoors. The positive part of the winter was that a person didn't have to worry about the ticks, chiggers, brown recluse spiders, black widows or cottonmouth snakes.
In 1983 I again returned to civilian life, and in 1984 I began classes at the local junior college on the GI Bill, graduating in 1986. I still believe in the oath of enlistment I swore to, especially the part regarding "to protect the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic."