Jewells of Thought

“As soon as I got to the states they said everybody’s orders have been flagged. So you go home and about 2 weeks later almost time up for my leave time and I had received a package with my new orders. They sent me to Fort Riley Kansas which was still close to home and turned out to be a nice duty assignment because it… there were a lot of fishin’ holes.”

“Uh we went on trips while I was stationed there we went to Germany for like 5 or 6 weeks at a time. Once a year, sometimes twice a year and uh then we went on tool exercises and then we’d come back to the states. I went on 5 of them, then I got orders to go to Germany. That’s when my first-born Kenny, he was getting ready to be born, he was real close. When I was closing up housing, cleaning up house and everything getting it ready everything packed and shipped and removed. Helen had Kenny and I didn’t get to see him born and so he was about 3 days old when I did get to see him 3 or 5 but anyway I got to see him when I got home and I got orders to go to Germany.”

“As soon as I got there their communications chief had rotated back to the states and I got to do some investigating and found out that the past 3 years they had failed their IT inspections, which was inspector general inspections I found out that the past 3 years they failed. I told 1st Sergeant I said I can make this place go I said I can make it run I said I am a very well trained communications chief and I said I can make it pass the first year. If not you can fire me and so he says alright I” make that deal with you.”

“Well I had about 6 months to work on not quite a year and my god what a mess their radios were gone all over the place they didn’t know where everything was at so they didn’t keep proper records and stuff. I finally located everything and I got everything logged in like it was supposed to be. Finally got everything in the log books there was log books missing and I finally finally got new log books built for them made up and uh I got all the vehicles in top-top shape except they weren’t missing radio’s because they were up for repairs and uh when the IT Inspector came I missed it by 1 point of passing I had 69% instead of 70%, but the 1st Sergeant didn’t say anything he was he was very happy with it he said it was better than the last time. The last time they 43% was very bad, big improvement and uh… he was so very pleased with it and he said well keep up the good work. Oh the next year, the guy, the Inspector came, I made uh 84% so he was very well pleased. Uh 3rd year, 4th IT inspection came-rolled around I passed it with almost 97% almost 100% and they were still very well pleased with me and then we got word that I only had like… 6 or 7 months left in the Army.”