I entered the US Army on April 13, 1961 at the Armed Forces Entrance Station in Kansas City, Missouri. We then took a bus to Fort Leonard Wood Missouri.

There my life changed. As I stepped off the bus this little 5' 5" Corporal got a hold of my you know what and did not turn loose for the next week. Man was I glad to go a few blocks down the street to Basic Training.

I had enlisted for Airborne and Infantry. Well so much for that, I fell off the top of the Ice Box where I was shinning pipes and broke my arm. Later they called me in and said you will not get what you wanted because of your broken bone.

Well, they were nice about it. They offered me training as a Cook or a Supply man and I said it's Infantry or I am out of here. About that time some old NCO pulled me over and said look how about something like Infantry. He said it is called Combat Engineer. It sounded good, so I said ok. Well the rest is 20 years of history. I retired from the Corps of Engineers on June 30, 1981.