Once upon a time

I should add that shortly after arriving in Oklahoma in 1977, I was promoted to Major in the reserves since I had been in long enough and had completed the Field Artillery Officers Advanced Course. I never actually wore a uniform as a major.

I plan to later write some detail about individual assignments or events. This is a high-level summary of my military experiences.

My first encounter with the Army was in September 1962, my freshman year at Oklahoma State University. I had to take ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) which was then mandatory at OSU. All males had to take ROTC during their freshman and sophomore years. For these four semesters, you took a two-hour course each semester and one hour of drill (called lab) each week. You had your choice of Army or Air Force ROTC. I chose Army (since my eyes would prevent me from being a pilot, I thought the Army seemed like a better choice).

I enjoyed the military courses I took. Drill was easy although I didn't like being out in heat, rain, and cold. I particularly enjoyed a military history course I took. I enjoyed it so much that a couple years ago I used ebay to purchase a used copy of the book that was used for the course. The course was taught from a military perspective, so it focused on the conduct of the battles, not on the personalities of the commanders involved. One battle that made a big impression on me was the Battle of Cowpens during the Revolutionary War. It was one of the rare battles where the Revolutionaries won big. Once when Charolette, JJ, and I were on our way from Maryland to South Carolina to visit Mother, we stopped at the battlefield to look it over. The battlefield is near Cowpens, South Carolina.

I went ahead and took the optional two years of ROTC during my junior and senior years. Each semester consisted of a three hour course plus one hour of drill per week. I also took a six week summer camp at Fort Sill between my junior and senior years. During those two years, I was paid $50 per month during school and paid as a fulltime private during summer camp.

In summer camp, we were divided up like an infantry unit. There were about 10 of us in each squad living in a squad tent together. We each had a twin-sized bed and footlocker in the tent plus about one foot of space each for hanging clothes in the center of the tent. The beds were around the outside of the tent. The sides of the tent rolled up for ventilation. We had the sides up when we were in the area and we rolled them down for security when we went out to training each day. We took turns pulling KP (Kitchen Police) which meant we peeled potatoes, washed dishes, etc. for all three meals on the day we did KP. I think I did KP three times during the six weeks. I would get there early in the morning to avoid being assigned the job of washing pots and pans, which I considered the worse job.

Fort Sill was hot in the summer, but I don't remember too much unpleasant about living in a tent. The unpleasant part was the bathroom facility. About 200 of us shared one bathroom building. It had a large shower room with about 20 shower heads in it. There was one room with 20 commodes facing each other in two rows of 10 with no stalls or dividers anywhere. There was a room with lavatories. There were some urinals also.

During my junior year, I pledged Scabbard and Blade, an honorary military fraternity. In my senior year, I was a member of their drill team. We carried swords. It was fun.

I was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant on July 29th, 1966, the day I graduated from OSU. I didn't go on active duty until the next summer as I went to graduate school. I had gotten a Fellowship that paid all my fees plus about $200 per month to live on.

In June of 1967 I reported to Fort Sill to begin taking Officers Basic Course, the primary training for new officers assigned to Field Artillery. I belonged to the U.S. Army Field Artillery School. I believe the course was 10 weeks long. This was my thing. I enjoyed going to this school a lot. I finished second in my class with my average being only a couple hundredths of a point less than the guy who finished first. The school averaged all your test scores for the 10 weeks. Anyway, because I finished so well, I was asked if I would like to teach Gunnery at the school. Gunnery is about half of the training I took at the school. Gunnery covers the particulars of how to be a Forward Observer (call for and adjust artillery fire), how to run a Fire Direction Center (how to take the information the Forward Observer sends you and convert it to data the howitzers can use), and how to operate the guns/howitzers. The rest of school was things like tactics, communications (how to use radios), maintenance of vehicles and equipment, and such. I took the job to be a Gunnery Instructor. The Gunnery Instructors were considered to be the best of the best at the Field Artillery School.

Little did I realize how tough it was to become a Gunnery Instructor. They laid out a schedule of preparing and giving dry runs of the 12 hardest classes you have to teach. I would prepare and give one or two dry runs per week for the next eight weeks along with several special outdoor training sessions and being an assistant instructor for real classes going on. The dry runs (called rehearsals) were attended by one experienced instructor who graded them very critically. Giving any bad or wrong information was considered fatal. There were three possible grades from each rehearsal: Satisfactory, Unsatisfactory, and Unsatisfactory Rehearse. The first rehearsal was called FB 2/5 which stood for Firing Battery class 2 and class 5. Many years ago I believe they had been two separate classes, but now all the material was taught as one class lasting six hours. In a few months it would be renamed GFB 020 meaning Gunnery Firing Battery class 020 when everything got renamed to uniform lengths for the purposes of entering them in a computer database. Anyway, the rehearsal of this class usually took three to four hours. The whole six hours was not needed because some of the time was for student exercises. The class covered the real basics of operating a howitzer, to include how to get the howitzer pointed in a very precise known direction. I was one of the rare people who did not get an Unsatisfactory or Unsatisfactory Rehearse on this rehearsal. As I recall, I got only one Unsatisfactory and no Unsatisfactory Rehearses during my 12 rehearsals. I did much, much better than the average instructor trainee.

When I finished my training, I went on to instruct the Gunnery portion of the training to four different OCS classes. We stayed with each OCS class for about four months. We also worked as assistant instructors for other peoples' classes. There were field exercises and classroom instruction. We didn't teach every day, because we needed some preparation time to get ready for some of the classes. The officer candidates also were going to other classes besides Gunnery. We did stay busy. I can remember having some very busy days and working lots of evenings. During both my Officer Basic Course and my Gunnery Instructor days, we worked on Saturdays until noon (nominally). The Army had 5-1/2 day work weeks.

One of the more enjoyable classes were the OP (Observation Post) classes where students would call for and adjust artillery fire. Each OCS class would have about 10 of these classes, to include a couple where they would be in airplanes. I used to get very sick in the Army's lightweight airplanes. I probably flew a dozen times doing classes like these.

After teaching four OCS classes, I taught part of a Field Artillery Officers Vietnam Orientation Class beginning in August 1969. These were classes taught to artillery officers going to Vietnam who had not used their artillery schools lately and needed a refresher. I was supposed to teach the Gunnery part for the duration of one class, but I had a collapsed lung after a couple weeks and ended up in the hospital for several days. The class only lasted about four weeks, so someone else took over and finished it. I was assigned to teach the class because I was under orders to go to Vietnam in September 1969, so I didn't have time to teach another OCS class.

I had finished my initial two year obligation on active duty while assigned to the Field Artillery School. I would have been released from active duty with the obligation to serve four years of duty with the reserves as a civilian. For various reasons, I was not sure I wanted to be a civilian at this time. I ended up going Volunteer Indefinite and signing up to stay on active duty until either the Army or I decided to call it quits. Immediately upon doing that, the Army issued me orders to go to Vietnam (as I knew they would). During my tour as an instructor, I started off as a Second Lieutenant. I was promoted to First Lieutenant after one year of active duty and then to Captain after another year of active duty. Promotions came fast during the Vietnam War because the Army needed people of higher ranks to fill all the positions they had due to a large turnover of personnel.

I flew to San Francisco in late September 1969 after renting a house in Oak Park in Bartlesville for Charolette to live in while I was gone. My flight to Vietnam left from Travis Air Force Base in California. Travis is located about halfway between Oakland and Sacremento. I flew into San Francisco where my Dad's brother, Bill Hawkins, picked me up. He took me to Fisherman's Wharf for a meal. Then we stopped briefly to see my Dad's sister and her husband, Louvenia and Paul Aragon in Pinole, California. We crossed the Bay Bridge to get there. Then Bill took me to Travis where my flight left about 9:00 in the evening.

My flight was on a TWA aircraft (Boeing 707). The military didn't have enough planes to handle all the personnel going to and returning from Vietnam, so they hired civilian firms to do it. I flew from Travis to the Honolulu Airport where the plane was refueled and the crew changed. I spent an hour at the Honolulu airport. I did get to walk around and I called Charolette. I think I still have the dime that I used in the pay phone for that call. Since I called collect, the dime was returned. Then we flew to Okinaw where we landed right at sunrise. The plane was refueled and the crew changed. I walked around for about 30 minutes. The next stop was Long Binh Aiport in Vietnam. This is right outside Saigon. There were 100+ people lined up on the tarmac waiting to get on our plane as we got off. We were sat down under a metal roof and given an orientation. Then we were bused to a replacement facility in Long Binh to await our individual assignments. I was issued jungle fatigues and boots. I had to order and get name tags sewed on them. There were vendors at the replacement facility you could pay to do that. Since I was an officer, the military didn't do it for me. I got everything ready. After two nights there, I left to go to Dalat, Vietnam to my assignment. I was assigned to the Provisional Artillery Group of the First Field Forces Vietnam (IFFV). Apparently they needed more artillery groups than were currently activated in the Army, so they created an unnumbered temporary (provisional) one which would go away when it was no longer needed. I was assigned to Group Headquarters which was commanded by a full colonel whose name I can no longer remember. Since I had been a Gunnery Instructor, I was going to be used to go around to all the various units in the group and check out their gunnery abilities. The units were scattered over about 200 miles, including one battery located on the hilltop where Group Headquarters were. The Headquarters building was an old French plantation house which was painted white and we called it the "White House," which name was even painted on the side of the building. There was a 20-foot high chain link fence around the building to act as a standoff across rocket fire. If the Viet Cong were to fire a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) at the house, it would hit the chain link fence about 30 feet from the house and explode there, instead of hitting the house and exploding. That fence was one of the many reminders that you weren't in a friendly place anymore. The enlisted people assigned to the headquarters lived in partially bermed wooden barracks with the roofs covered with sand bags and sandbags along the part of the walls that stuck up above ground. The bachelor officers quarters (BOQ) was the building that had been the servants quarters for the plantation. I was assigned to a room with another officer (another captain). There were sandbags covering the lower part of the windows and around the porch. There was a tarp covering a hole in the roof where an RPG had hit the roof about a month before I got there.

Being a provisional group, we didn't have a full complement of troops, so our perimeter was manned during the night by "Ruff Puffs," Vietnamese Regional Forces/Provincial Forces, which is like their national guard. These guys lived in Dalat and came over everyday to guard us at night. We had to have an officer continually go around all night and keep them awake. Most of the Vietnamese troops also had a day job, so they were working two jobs and getting paid twice. Needless to say, they were always sleepy.

I was only at group headquarters for a few days. I can remember going to see a movie being shown in the mess tent one night. I can't remember which movie it was. I was sent to Pleiku to attend an orientation course for a week. I had to catch a flight to Nha Trang and then another one to Pleiku. The Air Force ran the equivalent of a scheduled airline all over Vietnam using planes designed to carry either freight or people. You used your travel orders to get issued boarding passes for flights if room was available. I can remember that all the flights from Nha Trang to Pleiku were full the day I was trying to go, so I went to some place called the "Hot Spot" where you could bum rides on non-schedule aircraft going to various places in the country. I caught a ride on a Lear Jet. It was used to move generals and VIP civilians around the country. It was going to Pleiku to pick up some general, so several of us got to ride in it on the way to Pleiku. I think it held 8 people besides the pilots.

I got to Pleiku, to a location called Artillery Hill, and attended the course for five days. I graduated first and got a Zippo cigarette lighter for that honor. On my last day in Pleiku, I was waiting for a ride to the airport, there was an explosion up the hill towards the headquarters building. Then there was another one down the hill by the heliport. We were being hit by Viet Cong rockets. I went into a bunker near where I had been standing. One more rocket hit the hill. We later learned that an Army helicopter had seen the rocket firing and called in its position, but that the Viet Cong packed up and left before permission to return fire was obtained. Whenever you wanted to fire into an area with civilians, you had to get permission from the senior civilian in the area first. That slowed things down a lot.

I got back to Dalat by catching a couple of the scheduled flights. While I was gone, something had come up and I was going to be sent to the boondocks as the artillery liaison to an infantry battalion. Apparently something had happened to the person who had been assigned that duty. The night after I learned of my assignment, my lung collapsed again. I was taken by a two Jeep convoy to the limited Army medical facility in Dalat. The Army doctor there sent me to the civilian hospital in Dalat to get an Xray taken. The Xray showed the collapsed lung, so the Army doctor sent me to a major Army medical facility in Cam Ranh Bay. I can't remember how I got there. It might have been a medical helicopter.

At Cam Ranh, it was decided to send me to Japan for medical treatment. I flew there on a big Air Force Jet. I ended up at Camp Zama Army Hospital. Then I was sent to Travis Air Force Base. Then to Brooke General Hospital in Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. I had an operation and a 30-day convalescent leave. Then I was assigned to the U.S. Army Field Artillery Board at Fort Sill. I got the assignment because of my technical background (math degree and gunnery instructor). I got to the Board about mid-January 1970. I stayed there through March 1971. I worked on developing statistical procedures related to testing equipment. I participated in several tests. In one test, we were testing new, classified bomblet munitions. An artillery shell would fly over a target and drop a hundred or so bomblets on the target area. The bomblets were designed to be both anti-personnel and anti-materiel. After dropping a set of bomblets over a target array, we would go and document the damage. The target array consisted of several jeeps, several 2-1/2 ton trucks, several armored personnel carriers, a couple tanks, several simulated people, and one Soviet T32 tank. I still have a piece of the T32 tank. During that test I also got several tank and artillery rounds which I still have (inert ones).

I was also involved in testing some fuses which were causing rounds to detonate in the air when they passed through clouds/fog in cold weather. They weren't supposed to do that.

I also led a group of three privates with technical degrees. We developed a new procedure for calculating the location of where artillery rounds exploded based on the azimuths reported by two observers at known locations.

JJ was born right before I got out of the Army. I left on April 1, 1971. Since I had served another 21 months of active duty, I no longer had any reserve obligation. However, while I was living in Maryland, I did complete the Field Artillery Officer Advanced Course by correspondence and by attending some classes at a reserve unit in Wilmington, Delaware. This is a nine month course for people on active duty (normally majors). Then for about six months in 1976 I was in a reserve unit in Alexandria, Virginia. We met on two Saturdays per month. I would leave Bel Air, Maryland about 6:00 in the morning on Saturday to be in Alexandria by 8:00. We would get through at 5:00 and I would drive back to Bel Air. I was an assistant operations officer for the reserve unit. One thing I had to do was inventory all the equipment (desks, chairs, cabinets, rifles, etc.) in the armory and sign for them. I got tired of the drive after six months and quit. I would get two full days of captains pay for each Saturday I attended.

After we moved to Oklahoma in 1977, I did not get involved with the military again, and I eventually asked to be discharged.

I had a collapsed lung in Vietnam in October 1969. When it happened one evening I knew immediately what it was since I had had several others. I was at the BOQ at the First Field Forces Provisional Artillery Group Headquarters in Dalat. I told my boss. He had a couple people take me to the local U.S. Army clinic in Dalat. It had one doctor and limited facilities. We went by Jeep and we were armed as we were driving through the countryside after dark. The army doctor sent me to the civilian hospital in Dalat for an xray. It took a while to find someone there to run the xray machine. It was after midnight when I got there. It was a Vietnamese doctor who took the xrays. After they were developed, he looked at the xrays and said he couldn't see anything wrong. We drove through town again in the dark back to the army doctor. He put the xray on his light and immediately said I had a collapsed lung and showed me the area where it was. I stayed in the clinic for the rest of the night and then I was sent back to the BOQ to get my things. I was sent to Cam Ranh Bay.

At the Cam Ranh Bay hospital, I had a tube inserted to remove the air leaking from my lung. I spent at least a week there, maybe more. I was sent by a medical flight from Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam Camp Zama Army Hospital in Japan. Since it was a short flight, I was designated as ambulatory and I got to sit in a regular seat instead of riding on a stretcher. I got asked by a doctor at Camp Zama what I always considered the most stupid question I had ever heard, "Did I want to get my lung repaired in Japan and go back to Vietnam, or did I want to go to the States to get my lung fixed?" I chose the States. I can remember getting a haircut at the PX barbershop at the hospital. It was the first time I had ever gotten a haircut from a woman (Japanese woman even). After about three days in Camp Zama, I was sent on a medical flight to Travis Air Force Base in California. While I was at Camp Zama, I bought my first 35mm camera. I think it was a Yashica. I used it until I got a new camera for Christmas in 1984 (a Pentax Super Program which was a gift from Charolette, JJ, and Jeff).

On the way to Travis I was not considered ambulatory, so I was on a stretcher. They were concerned that my lung might collapse again. The stretchers were stacked three high in four rows at the back of the plane. We had several Air Force Nurses checking on us during our flight which took about 10 hours. I was wearing hospital pajamas and a robe. As we prepared for takeoff at Yokota Air Force Base, Japan, we heard a loud bang and the plane, which was taxiing, lurched. One of the tires on the plane had a blowout. The plane stopped right there while the tire was changed. Most of us stood around on the taxiway and talked while we waited. The rest of our trip was mostly uneventful. I remember getting to brush my teeth using a small sponge on a stick that had toothpaste built into it. It was meant to be used without water. It was much better than nothing.

Anyway, Travis was just a stopover point as I was enroute to Brooke General Hospital at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. I don't think I even spent a whole 24 hours at Travis. I played cards with a lady volunteer who was one of many volunteers that greeted and talked with all the evacuees arriving from Vietnam. I do remember arriving early in the morning and getting to watch a space launch. Since the first Apollo to the moon had happened on July 20th of that year, I'm sure it was another Apollo. The TV camera downrange got locked on the rocket and followed it up for a long time, the longest I ever remember seeing. It was an awesome sight. I can remember thinking that I really wanted to see a launch someday, but that it was probably never going to happen. In checking the internet for history, I had difficulty finding a launch that matches with my memory. Apollo 12 launched on November 14. I thought I was doing this traveling in late October or early November. Maybe I'll figure it out someday.

At Brooke Army Hospital I was scheduled for surgery a few days after I arrived. I remember telling my family to not come down. I know that Charolette and I could not have afforded a motel for her to stay in for a couple weeks. At this point in our lives, we had absolutely no savings other than a couple hundred dollars. Charolette was also working at Montgomery Wards in Bartlesville.

I had the surgery very early one morning. I believe it was called a right anterolateral thoracotomy, with scarification of pleura and oversewing and resection of blebs. I had a nine inch cut on my right side between two ribs, from my armpit to the end of the ribs. One rib was moved on top of another and they used self-dissolving surgerical thread to tie it in place on top of the other rib. This gave the surgeons room to fix up my lung which had now collapsed five times (only two of which the Army knew about). I had one collapse in college during spring break of my senior year. I didn't know what it was, but the inside of my chest felt like it was burning. It went away after a few days. When it happened again, I went to the OSU infirmary. An xray showed that I had a minor lung collapse. It was not serious, so the doctors just let it fix itself. The next time I was stationed at Fort Sill. It was more serious and I had to have surgery to insert tubes to suck out the air that was leaking out of my lungs until the leak healed itself. I was told that if it happened again, I would be given surgery to correct the problem. That's what happened at Brooke.

The surgery lasted four or five hours. I can vaguely remember getting a telephone call from Charolette and my Dad while I was in the recovery room. I started throwing up while Dad was on the phone. I spent about three days with two tubes coming out of my chest hooked to a machine to suck out the air that was leaking from my lungs. I spent about 10 days altogether in the hospital after my surgery. Then I was released on 30 days convalescent leave to go visit Charolette in Bartlesville. The Army bought me airline tickets. I flew from San Antonio to Austin to Dallas to Oklahoma City to Tulsa. I'm pretty sure I changed planes once, but I'm not sure where. I got served a Coke on every leg, which I thought was great. I was a real Coke fanatic back then.

At Brooke, I was in a surgery ward. It was a big room with about 25 beds, most of which were empty, but other patients came and went. I spent a lot of time before my operation with a sargeant who was waiting for throat surgery. We went together to the cafeteria to eat. We talked a lot. The night before my surgery, I read a whole book, M*A*S*H. I thought it was hilarous.

I came back to Brooke on January 1, 1970 (30 days after I left). I know I changed planes at Love Field which was the major Dallas airport back then. As we took off, I could look down and see the players on the field for the Cotton Bowl. That's the only bowl game I've ever seen in person.

I had to spend a few days at Brooke while the Army arranged for my next assignment. I rented a car and went to downtown San Antonio to see the Alamo and the zoo.

I got assigned to the U.S. Army Field Artillery Board at Fort Sill. I went back to Bartlesville to get Charolette and go to Fort Sill to look for a house to rent.

I wish I could work up the gumption to write my life story - not because I think it would be interesting reading, but because I feel I have been so fortunate as to have had a very, very happy life and so few people seem to have happy lives. Not that I didn't have plenty of less than happy moments - loss of a loved one, moments of extreme stress at work, other bad times, doing yard work - but when I view my life as a whole, I realize how tremendously lucky I have been. That's part of the reason I started this particular journal - just to document my thoughts about my life. I've had fantastic grandparents, parents, kids, grandkids, and other relatives plus a lot of nice friends. I've enjoyed myself most of the time. I thank God often for my fortunes. No matter how bad things seemed from time to time, I always had a strong feeling that God was taking care of me. I hope that's not egotistical, but that's how I have felt since I was in my late teens.

I figure that if I eventually document enough of my story in this journal, I can rearrange it into my life story.

I first came to Yellowstone in probably either 1950 or 1951 (I'm getting old and can't remember). About the only natural feature I can remember is being on a boardwalk sort of looking into a cave and seeing mud bubbling. I can remember Mother was holding my hand. After seeing almost all of the park the last two years, I have decided the thermal feature that I remember is called The Mud Volcano, located between Fishing Bridge and Canyon.

The other thing I remember is my Dad feeding potato chips to the bears. Bears came up to cars everywhere begging for food. Most people fed them. I can't remember whether Dad got out of the car to feed them.

In 1961, I can remember staying in a cabin that used a wood-fired pot-bellied stove for heat. I don't know where this cabin was in the park. I can also remember walking above a canyon. I can remember we stopped at a picnic area for lunch and I used the pit toilet. When I came out, there was a bear about six feet from me. I stopped and watched the bear walk over to a trash container. In those days, the park used in the ground containers that had a metal lid. You stepped on a lever and the lid opened for you to dump your trash in. The bear stepped on the lever, put his two back feet on either side of the hole and lowered his front feet, head, and the top of his body into the hole to eat the garbage. It was years later before the park service put in bear-proof trash containers and made people stop feeding bears.

Interestingly enough, I don't remember Old Faithful from either of my first two trips. Mother also tells me that on one of these trips we went through the Grand Tetons but I didn't pay much attention. I was in the back seat reading comic books. I guess I've changed over time.

I got some information from the National Personnel Records Center that indicate that Dad crossed the International Date Line on October 28, 1944, just four days before I was born. He was assigned to CUB 12, Unit 431, which was a Communications Unit put together for the purpose of the invasion of Leyte Island of the central Phillipine Islands. His record shows that he participated in the initial landing on Leyte Island on October 20, 1944. I found this webpage that lists some of the Operation Plan for the invastion of Leyte Island.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/Leyte/OpPlan/13-44-K.html

I'm guessing Dad was assigned to one of the Radio Station Operating Bases listed under unit 431. That would mean that he went ashore to set up a radio station. He was listed as being assigned to CUB 12, Unit 431 from August 14, 1944 until December 21, 1944. He was assigned to Naval Station Navy 3149 from January 11, 1945 until November 15, 1945. I haven't yet found any information about this assignment. He was separated from the Navy on December 17, 1945.

A summary of his Service as shown in his offical records is:

Headquarters, Eighth Naval District fromDecember 9, 1942 until July 21, 1943. He enlisted on December 9, 1942 and went on active duty January 12, 1943. I guess he was assigned to the Eighth Naval District pending going on active duty. His ranks during this time period were AS & M-1 (whatever they mean).

RecSta., New Orleans, La. from July 20, 1943 through October 5, 1943. His rank was S2c.

NavTraScol, Pre-Radio, College Station, Texas from October 1943 through February 29, 1944. His rank was RM3c. Since February 1, 1944 is nine months before I was born, I assume I also spent a few days at College Station although I've never seen it.

USNABPD, San Bruno, California from March 5, 1944 through May 11, 1944. His rank was RM3c.

Comm. Scol. PhiTrainPac from May 12, 1944 through June 24, 1944. His rank was RM3c.

Comm Unit 43 from August 1, 1944 through August 11, 1944. His rank was RM3c.

Then CUB 12 and 3149 as mentioned above. His rank was RM3c (Radioman 3rd class). His discharge papers also show he held the temporary rank of Radioman 2nd class at the time of his discharge. Back then they gave temporary promotions to give a pay raise but you would go back to your permanent rank in the event of a reduction in the number of military people needed.

I've been trying to sort through some of the family tree information I have. It's difficult reading, but it appears that Hansel is a very prominent name in the tree. If I understand this right, there was a Hansel Hawkins born July 7, 1822, in Blount County, Alabama. He served in the Civil War while is wife, Susanna Hawkins, ran their farm. Here is the text of a short note he wrote 8 months before he died on March 23, 1889.

Paris Mississippi, July 1, 1888

I am 66 years old to day. I never swore an oath in my life. I never have bet on anything. I never went in a saloon and called for a drink of liquors of any kind. I never saw a still I have never sold or measured a drop of spiriteous liquors of any knd. I never had a bottle of whiskey in my pocket. I never had a pistol in my pocket nor a deck of cards. I never tried to play a game of cards. I never danced a set in my life. I never have had a fight. I never have had a case in circuit court. I never was a witness in any court. I never was at a horse race of a shooting match. I never saw a person hanged. 41 years I have belonged to the Baptist Church. 22 years I have belonged to the fraternity. There never was a charge preferred against me. 44 years I have been a leader in vocal music.

Hansel Hawkins

It was actually written one week before his 66th birthday. Maybe he didn't know the actual date of his birthday.

Anyway, one of his kids was Emmanuel "Man" Bullock Hawkins (born August 1, 1855 in Banner, Calhoun County, Mississippi, and died May 7, 1936, in Poteau, Leflore County, Oklahoma). Here is a note he wrote.

Poteau, Oklahoma

Aug. 1, 1918

I am 63 years old today.

I am the founder of whisky and stills, have made whisky most of my life. And made my start selling it on the sly. Had a case in court every term. I was known as the champeon dancer and card player. I always carry from 2 to 4 pistols in my pockets all the time. was never known to be without whisky of some kind.

I have raised 3 sons and 3 daughters. All are somewhat like their father, kind, gentle and moral, temperate in all things.

I have never belonged to any lodge except to the A. H. T. which I was ring leader.

E. B. Hawkins

He was a little different than his father. One of Man's sons was Virgil Stephens Hawkins (born December 13, 1886, in Banner, Calhoun County, Mississippi, and died February 12, 1961, in Red Oak, Latimer County, Oklahoma). One of his sons was Hansel Eaves Hawkins (born February 11, 1922, in Poteau, Leflore County, Oklahoma, and died December 20, 1983, Tulsa, Tulsa County, Oklahoma). His son was Joe Hansel Hawkins.

Now, if you follow a different line from the first Hansel Hawkins (born in 1822), He had a daughter named Nancy Susanna Hawkins who had a daughter named Minnie Lee Ragland (born June 2, 1895). Minnie Lee Ragland married Norbin Arch Lambert.

Norbin Arch Lambert, Sr. was born in Lee County, Mississippi in 1891, He came with his parents to the Oklahoma Indian Territory at a very early age. He grew up on a farm just north of Red Oak, Latimer Co.,Oklahoma. After graduating from Red Oak Highschool, he attended Oklahoma A&M at Stillwater, Okla. He was a member of the Ok. A.&M. Quartet. He became a school teacher and returned to his home town where he married Minnie Lee Ragland who had also grown up in Red Oak and became a teacher, having obtained her degree from the college in Durant, Okla. Before their second child was born, Arch and Minnie decided to go into the mercantile busness in Red Oak, then opened a store in the oil boom town of Bowlegs, Okla., and later in the oil refinery town of Allen. The family then made Allen their home and all five children attended school there for most of their school years. Arch was a 32 Degree Mason and a member of the Eastern Star. Also, he was secretary on the board of education in Allen. The family suffered a tragedy when Minnie died in 1932 in Allen, the children's ages ranged from 5 to 14 yrs.

I believe that Arch (Norbin Arch Lambert) was my grandmother's (Edna Lambert Stalcup) brother. The daughter of Arch and Minnie Lee Ragland was Melba Lee Lambert know known as Melba Lambert Straigis, our cousin in Florida that does a lot of geneology. We are double cousins to her since we are related to both of her parents, one through Edna Lambert and one through the older Hansel Hawkins.

I didn't start out to write this much, but it is kind of interesting.

I can remember living in a basement apartment in Casper. It was set up with rooms in single file, so you had to walk through every room to get to the room farthest from the door. I seem to recall that we walked down a set of steps at the back of the house and entered into the kitchen. We had an icebox in the kitchen. Yes, not a refrigerator, but an icebox. The iceman came every couple days to put more ice in the icebox. Things stayed cool, but probably not cold.

We were living in this apartment when Ma & Pa gave me my first electric train. The engine was black and was a model of a steam locomotive. I currently have the engine and tender setting on top of one of the file cabinets in my home office. I'm guessing I got it for Christmas 1949. That makes my train 55-1/2 years old. I can remember making one track setup that was long and went through a couple rooms in our apartment. The train would go down the track, I would stop it, and then back it up to where it had started. The track did not make a loop because I wanted to go as far through the house as possible. See, I was doing strange things even at the age of five.

I can remember the excitement of moving into our new house at 1003 W. 21st Street. It was a two-bedroom house without a garage. It had an unfinished basement with a dirt floor. When we first moved in, they still had trenches in front where the utilities were being put in. The yard was all dirt. There were no sidewalks. Shortly after we moved in, the trenches were filled and sidewalks were put in. My Dad had to put in the yard. He put in Kentucky Bluegrass. It required lots of manual labor, including rolling the yard many times with a heavy roller (which I'm guessing was rented). I remember once falling into one of the utility trenches. One of my friends' mother pulled me out. I had several good friends close to us. Johnny and Karen Sayles were next door (our house was on the corner). Lexie Richards was next to the Sayles. Cheryl Delgarno was right across the street (21st Street) from us. Her Dad owned a trucking company. John Albert Monikee (not sure of the spelling) lived a few blocks away. I remember playing with him a lot, but I'm not sure how I met him. Since he didn't live close enough to meet by playing in the yard, I must have met him at school.

One of my most vivid memories was playing in our backyard. There were a lot of leftover things from all the construction, one of which was a board stuck in the ground. It was like a 1" by 6" inch board sticking straight out of the ground. It was about four feet tall. It must have been marking a utility valve or something. Anyway, I decided it was something I needed to play with, so I tried to pull it out of the ground. I wasn't strong enough, so I started rocking it back and forth. The board was not very strong because it broke off near the ground, but it broke off with a very sharp piece sticking up out of the ground. I fell down on the sharp piece and it stuck into my thigh. I was wearing a new pair of jeans and it put a one-inch hole in the jeans and then a one-inch hole in me. I can't remember how I explained this to Mother, but I can remember her doctoring my wound. I still have a large one-inch scar on my thigh. For some reason I have remember this incident as if it happened yesterday instead of almost 55 years ago.

My earliest childhood was spent in Red Oak, Oklahoma, a town where both sets of my grandparents lived within two blocks of each other. Some random memories:

1) Swinging on a swing hung in Ma's & Pa's pear tree. I was probably three years old. I can remember some of my Dad's sisters being there. Ma & Pa are my Mother's parents, Edna May (Lambert) and Simon Henry "Bud" Stalcup.

2) Standing on Ma's & Pa's screened in back porch talking with some of Dad's sisters.

3) Watching the construction of our new house just across the driveway from Ma's & Pa's house.

4) Making ice cream using snow. I don't know for sure what the snow was used for. I suspect it was in place of ice to cause the freezing. Snow of much depth is fairly rare in Red Oak.

5) Waking up one morning in our new house and going to Ma's & Pa's garage, getting my fold-up kid's lawn chair, going into Ma's & Pa's house, and sitting in my chair beside their bed until they woke up. Since they always got up at 6:00, I must have been up real early. Ma's & Pa's garage was an unpainted, unattached wooden structure with no doors. There were stalls for two cars. A "smokehouse" was also attached. The smokehouse had a regular house-type door and was used for storage. It was full of junk. I suspect a lot of it would be very valuable these days. Ma's & Pa's back door was never locked. The front door was always locked and never used except on Sunday mornings to go to church which was just across the street from their front door.

6) I can remember my Dad coming back to the house after going being in a parade in his Navy uniform. Dad served in the Navy in WWII. I'm guessing this parade was Armistice Day (now called Veteran's Day) in 1947. I think it was in McAlester. Apparently they wanted all WWII veterans to march in the parade in their uniforms. Winning WWII was still considered a major event back then, if not a miracle.

7) I can remember catching the train in Red Oak to go to Casper, Wyoming where my Dad was working for AT&T. This was probably around March 1949. I was four years old. My Mother, my sister, and I were going together. I can remember the train pulling into the Red Oak station. I can remember that at another station we went by we looked at the window to see if we could see Uncle Dick who worked for the railroad at that station. We didn't see him.

8) I can remember someone (maybe my Dad) wringing a chicken's neck and then the body walking around for a few seconds afterwards. Back then, a lot of chickens were raised in Red Oak for food.

I remember two different nicknames I was called as a child (3-10). Everyone in Red Oak, Oklahoma called me Joe Hank since my middle name was Hansel, the same as my Dad's first name. He was called Hank, thus I was Joe Hank.

For a short while, my Dad called me Jocephus Orange Blossom. The Jocephus was probably based on Hank Williams calling his son Bocephus. I have no idea where "Orange Blossom" came from.

I've never been on a blog before. I've set up this one to test how they work.