The training at Goodfellow was, in many ways, tougher than at DLI. We would spend 6 hours a day in a SCIF (Special Compartmented Information Facility), listening to recordings of actual Russian voice intercept. We had to listen, identify military vs civilian voice traffic, then figure out if there was anything of military value in the content. The tapes were scratchy, with lots of feedback squeals, static, and background noise. Much different from the live native speakers we were used to dealing with in Monterey! Once again, we were subjected to weekly high-stakes testing. There was so much pressure! Some people couldn’t handle it and kind of broke down and had to be referred for psychiatric support. That was the end for them. Then some people just couldn’t pass the weekly tests. Some would pass those, but at the end, there was a test, I think two hours long, and you had to listen and identify something like 100 bits of important information. No one got them all, but you had to get at least 75%. If you failed, you usually got a retest. Second failure was death. Anyway, by this time, the Army had spent a lot of money on you. You were smart and you knew Russian to a certain level. And everyone already had a high-level clearance. So the people who failed were either retrained as 98C intelligence analysts, the guys who took our voice intercept and repackaged and sanitized it into intelligence that could be reported to higher levels, or they would be sent to the interrogator course at Ft Huachuca.

About halfway through the course, we would be given our next assignment, conditioned on passing the course. This was HUGE. I had dreamed of Germany and Europe since I was a little kid. Nothing else would do. The day came and I somehow was stuck in the back of the crowd at the bulletin board. Cheers were mixed with full-fledged screams of anguish as each soldier found their name and read their assignment. I finally got up to the board, found my name, and after that, “Ft Hood, Texas.” It was the worst assignment I could have gotten. I was crushed. I left the board and went to a payphone and called Vanessa. She heard how depressed I was and asked if I wanted her to come to San Angelo. I said yes! There was a place off base for married students, and I was able to get a room there. I didn’t have a car, so one of the married students said he would give me a ride to class every day. We became really good friends. And that’s how I wound up living with Vanessa. After about 2 months, I finished the course and was told I had to go to Ft Devens, Massachusetts for tactical training. By this time, I’d been in training for a year and a half of a 4-year enlistment, and now I had another 6-week course halfway across the country!

Vanessa and I had to sit down for a long talk. Neither of us were ready to get married, but we also didn’t want to separate. Getting married would mean we’d get a housing allowance and food rations - extra money only married soldiers could get. As an E4, there was no way we could live on my basic pay alone. So we agreed to get married. We left San Angelo and headed to Houston. We were just going to go to the courthouse and get married by a judge, but her aunt convinced us to get married at her home in Conroe. She arranged everything, and we had a family wedding by the justice of the peace there. It was a simple ceremony, but her aunt made a great feast for us. It all happened so fast that none of my family were in attendance. It didn’t seem that important to me at the time. We spent the night there, then loaded everything we owned into our car and started our adventure together. We spent the first night of our “honeymoon” in a pup tent next to a lake in Arkansas. We drove through some beautiful country to the foot of the Appalachian Trail, then drove north through the Great Smoky Mountains until we got to Massachusetts, then checked in at Ft Devens.

I do have one last story to tell as we were in-processing at Ft Devens. This was the mid-70’s, so some social movements were just starting to impact the military. When we got married, Vanessa wanted to keep her maiden name. She was proud of her Greek heritage and wasn’t about to trade that for Smith! I could hardly blame her. Anyway, this clerk tried to put her name down as Smith, and we both said, “NO!” Eventually, he told us that meant we weren’t really married, so we didn’t qualify for housing or food allowances. I tried once to explain that we were legally married and that’s all we needed to qualify. He refused to listen to our arguments. Luckily, since I’d been in the Air Force for 4 years and now the Army for almost a year and a half, I knew all I had to do was say the magic words, “Let me talk to your supervisor.” He called a Warrant Officer over, who proceeded to tell the kid what I had just told him, then he said, “Enter Vanessa X for her name, and process their pay request for rations and housing.” And that was that.

I don’t think we ever spoke Russian at the tactical training. It was sort of learning how to set up a tent, how to sneak up on the enemy, how to behave if captured. It was kind of a fun game. When it was over, I opted for an early re-enlistment that got me a $6,000 bonus! Hilarity ensued. We were paid in cash and hid the money in a box in our apartment for security while we packed up for the move. We didn’t have much, but we had more than we could fit in our car. The army sent a truck to pick up our stuff - it took the movers less than an hour. Vanessa was there for the packing while I was at the base doing last minute admin stuff. When I got back to our apartment, I looked around and then asked, “Where’s the box?” Vanessa was horrified! It got shipped off with our stuff. We frantically called the base, then the company, and found out that our stuff was on its way to Newport, Rhode Island. We jumped in our car and headed for the warehouse there, getting there in time to wait for the truck. I showed my ID and orders and explained what happened. This was back when people could be civil. I climbed into the truck with the guy, he opened the plywood crate that had our stuff, and I rummaged around till I found our money. We were saved! Without it, we wouldn’t have had money for gas for our trip to Ft Hood.

There was some Russian involved in my assignment to Ft Hood, but not much. We had 3 hours a week of language maintenance, run by an NCO, but not monitored. We could basically study textbooks, read Russian stories or newspapers, listen to tapes, or watch Russian films. Most people wasted the time, but I actually studied, because every year we had to take a Russian proficiency test. If we passed, we got to keep our jobs, if we got over 80, we got $100 a month Foreign Language Incentive Pay, and if we got over 90, it jumped to $300 a month! I always got the highest level, because we really needed it!

Next: a shorter entry about life at Ft Hood. It was all about transition.

Almost all the students in Basic Russian had come right after high school, so aged 18 or 19. Since I had been in the Air Force for 4 years and already had a Bachelor of Arts degree, I was older and better educated than most of my fellow students. Out in the Army in the real world, males made up over 80% of the force, but at DLI, it was pretty close to 50/50. Considering the age and mostly single population, you can imagine that romantic complications ensued. While I was home after the Air Force and before joining the Army, I had met and fallen in love with Vanessa, who would eventually become my first wife. We wrote lots of letters, but didn’t call much because back then, there were no cell phones and long-distance calls by land line were expensive. So I didn’t get pulled into a romantic relationship that might have distracted me from studying Russian.

Attrition was high. It’s funny the Army used the same word for failing at DLI as they did for combat losses in war. For some students, the cost was high. Weekly failures led to monitored, mandatory study hall. Failure of monthly tests could lead to recycling - being sent to a new class a month or two behind, meaning instead of finishing in a year, you would finish in 14 to 18 months. If teachers and military personnel thought recycling wouldn’t help, you could just be kicked out of the program and be sent out to take whatever job the Army chose for you. The Army tended to blame the students for failing, since we were heavily tested and screened before selection. In other words, if you failed, it was your fault. You would be made an example for other students who might not be working as hard as they should. Typically, wash-outs would be sent straight to training for infantry, or cook, or laundry and bath specialist. Some people would get REALLY lucky and just be moved to an easier language. The people who received this treatment usually had some sort of influence - daddy was an officer or politician, or there was a cadre-student relationship. That was only possible the first year I was there. In subsequent years, the rules for fraternization were extremely strict and punishment was harsh. In some circumstances, the senior ranking person could be demoted or even discharged from the Army.

In the Air Force, I was stationed in eastern New Mexico. It wasn’t beautiful and there wasn’t much to do. That’s why I wound up going to college and finishing my bachelor’s degree. In the Army, except for Ft. Hood, I was sent to beautiful places and I spent most of my spare time off base in taking advantage of the places I was stationed. I did that in Monterey. It was the first place I fell in love with and it still has a special place in my heart. After I retired from the Army, I would have lived there, but it was just too expensive. By then I was married with two kids and a third on the way.

When I finished Basic Russian, I had a good working knowledge of the language and could read and listen at the Upper Intermediate level. Speaking was not taught simply because we were going to be “listeners” - intercepting Russian radio communications for intelligence purposes. It was an extremely important and sometimes exciting job during the Cold War.

I will always remember that first morning. I woke up 2 hours early, so I put on my Class B uniform and walked outside. My barracks was high on a hill overlooking Monterey Bay. The sun was just coming up, and I decided to head down the hill toward the bay and loud and continuous braying. I got down to a bank at the water’s edge. I could see Fisherman’s Wharf, private boats floating in the still water, sea lions lying on outer piers, barking at each other, at the few people moving about so early in the morning, and maybe at the rising sun. I was transfixed. The Monterey Bay area is one of the most beautiful places in the world.

I didn’t really want to go back to the Army yet, but my in-processing would be starting in an hour, and I still had to eat breakfast. I was absolutely elated as I walked up that steep hill. I didn’t know it yet, but I would walk up and down that same hill a thousand times or more in the next year, since my barracks were at the top of the hill and my classroom was near the bottom. That transitional year was a turning point in my life. Until then, I had no commitment, no direction. Studying Russian would define my life for the next 18 years.

This ended the study of languages for a little over 2 years. When I graduated from high school, I was hoping to pick up Russian again, but none of the colleges I could go to offered it. I went to San Jacinto Community College, then Sam Houston State University, then back to San Jacinto College, then Golden West Community College, and finally to Eastern New Mexico University. I signed up for French every semester during that time. I didn’t finish my first semester at San Jacinto, but managed squeak out a C in the spring semester. At Sam Houston State, I got distracted by literature and history and theater. I barely attended French class, still took the final, then received my first F in college. Next semester, back at San Jacinto, I was back in French. The French teacher was really nice and loved theater. She actually became part of our theater group and even got a little too intimate with our best leading man. As a result, she was worried that if any of us (many of our theater participants were taking her class) got a bad grade, we might let it slip that she was in an inappropriate relationship, so we all passed. I think I would have gotten a C anyway, and to my knowledge, no one actually threatened her. We were better than that. Anyway, the best thing about that semester was a performance by the language classes (again!), and I sang Dominique, a song popularized by the Singing Nun. The teacher wanted me to sing Eau Claire de le Lune, but I couldn’t quite get the melody right, so we settled for Dominque. I wore a puffy sleeved shirt and pastel plaid pants and pranced back and forth on the stage. It was well received, so both the teacher and I were pleased.

I began the next semester at San Jacinto College but left abruptly. My old high school girlfriend had graduated from high school and had begun her studies there. I tried to accept it, but seeing her nearly every day, sometimes even playing ping pong with her in the Student Union, was just too much for me emotionally. I dropped out of school, packed up my Ford Falcon, and drove west to California, showing up on my Uncle Clyde’s front porch, seeking refuge. He and Aunt Margaret never hesitated. I stayed with them for a year and began classes at Golden West Community College in Huntington Beach, California. I took and finished my third full semester, eking out a “mercy” C from a very sympathetic French teacher. For our final, we had to make an oral presentation. I chose to demonstrate the rules of playing chess. I studied and practiced for hours, but when the time came, I freaked out. I got the names of the chess pieces mixed up, forgot key verbs for the moves, broke out in profuse sweat, and spoke in a quavering voice. It was a train wreck. I’m sure she passed me out of pity.

My final semester of French came after I joined the US Air Force, went to San Antonio for basic training, then Denver, Colorado for electronics technical training, and finally to Clovis, New Mexico begin my “career” as an avionics technician for F-111 aircraft. I was miserable at the job and had a terrible boss. He knew I was smart, but thought I was just being lazy for not learning what I need to in order to be a good technician. We clashed so badly that I was reassigned to a night shift administrative position. This turned out to be a very positive turning point. I went to work at 10 pm every night, assembled all the maintenance reports for our training aircraft, the F-111’s, and our brand new very cool A-10 ground support aircraft. I put all the information together into a very condensed summary of our overall maintenance status for the 7 am Commander’s briefing the next morning. I was allowed to leave as soon as I finished the report. Since it only took 2 or 3 hours to complete, I began taking classes at Eastern New Mexico University full time.

My fourth semester of French (required to qualify for a Bachelor of Arts degree) was a bit of a tragedy. I had scraped through 3 semesters by the skin of my teeth, so I had no idea how I was supposed to pass this final hurdle. Fate took a hand. I hung on till about a third of the way through the semester. Suddenly, our teacher stopped showing up for class. It turns out his wife and children had been killed in a horrific highway crash with a semi tractor-trailer rig. Class was suspended for two weeks, but when we resumed, the teacher just showed up and told us to study our books. We never received another lesson. The university decided the only fair thing to do is give us the grade we were carrying when the accident happened. So I got my 4th semester C by default, and would graduate with a BA in Literature with a double major in Speech Communication a year later.

After I graduated, I still had a full summer before I finished my air force enlistment. One of my best friends was Gracie, a very nice, very pretty, very smart Latina. She was majoring in Physical Education, with a minor in Speech Communication. We shared lots of classes together and played handball and tennis whenever we got the chance. I beat her in handball, but she killed me in tennis. Anyway, for a surprise, I took a summer Spanish class. I studied pretty hard and thought I was getting pretty good, A popular Latino expression back then was “Viva la Raza,” so I learned it worked it into a conversation. She said something about working on voting rights for Hispanics and I said, “Viva la ratsa!” thinking the “z” was pronounced “ts”. Gracie started laughing so hard, she was crying. She nearly fell off of her chair. When she finally caught her breath, she told me, “You just said ‘long live the rats’.” And that was the end of my trilingual detour from Russian.

I think we had the show first in the school auditorium. Mom said we had over 500 people and she should know - head counting is part of the process in food service. I don’t know if our choir went first, but that’s the only part of the show I remember. My favorite part was Running Away with the Gypsies, because it was raucous and a duet. I do remember getting pretty good applause when we were done. There was also a Russian dance segment. I think Jack or Jim did the traditional Russian squat kicks. I did the Russian splits, but dancing was never my forte. The show and all the food and the displays from each of the language classes made for quite a spectacle. To my knowledge, it was never repeated, perhaps because it was just so much work.

Mr. Guidry left that year to go to Baylor University. With that, Russian classes ended. I wanted to continue learning a language, so my sophomore year I studied Latin. That was the beginning of a years-long language diversion from Russian, but it would only be a detour.

My father was a hero. He served in WWII as a gunner in a bomber flying out of England and raiding targets in Germany. At one time, he did tell me of one mission where they were supposed to destroy a ball bearing factory in Germany. I don’t know if that’s the mission he was on when his plane was shot down, but he survived the crash with a serious neck injury, then was held in a German POW camp until he was liberated by US forces. He came away with 2 souvenirs, besides the permanent, painful neck injury. He showed them to me and talked about them a little when I was in the 3rd grade in Waco, Texas. One was an aluminum fork, large and clumsy, stamped on the upper handle with a Nazi symbol. I thought this was kind of interesting, but it didn’t impress me nearly as much as the pamphlet he’d saved all those years. It was a booklet, if I remember correctly, and it was given to every bomber crew member who flew from England to targets of Germany. If their plane was damaged and couldn’t make it back to England, they were instructed to fly east until they were behind Soviet lines. The pamphlets were designed to help them communicate with Russian soldiers once they were on the ground. There were various useful sayings like, “Don’t shoot! I’m an American!” or “I’m hungry.” or “I’m injured and need a doctor.” Each expression was written in Russian, English, and transliterated phonetic versions of the Russian. This fascinated me, especially the strange Cyrillic alphabet. I somehow wound up with the fork, but I think I gave it away to someone who was more interested in it. I have no idea what happened to the booklet, but it was the beginning of a life-long involvement with Russian that shaped my education, my professional life, and my subsequent romantic and family life.

We were only halfway through building our family. Basically, there was Donna, the eldest. She eventually became the surrogate mom, since our growing family required two incomes. I think she lost the most from our family dynamic, since she never really got a childhood. John was next, 11 months later. He was my father’s image of an ideal son. He was athletic, loved fishing and hunting and baseball. He also became the family enforcer when mom and dad weren’t home. Eleven months later, I arrived. I somehow became the “smart” one. I could read before I started school and I truly loved reading. We all eventually had chores, but Mom decided that if I was reading, I didn’t have to do chores. This would eventually cause resentment among the other kids, since they had to do more work than I did.

A note about being the “smart” one. I bought into the concept and accepted the title. After all, I got the highest grades in school. In second grade, my teacher suggested to my mother that I jump to third grade. My mother nixed the idea, because she saw possible conflicts occurring if I were moved into John’s class. Disruptions to the pecking order could have been calamitous. Now that we are all senior citizens, I know that we all had varying intellectual strengths and weaknesses. I make no claims to being smarter than any of my brothers and sisters.

The fourth member of our family, Jimmy, was born a full 17 months after I was. We somehow created a grouping. The first three became “the big kids.” Jimmy and the rest of the children were permanently excluded from this status. Jimmy was bold, outgoing, likeable, and in constant trouble. I will add some of his adventures in a later post. Ricky came next, then Sheleigh, William (nobody called him that; he was Buddy), and finally, Pat (called Bubba until the Big Kids moved out). An interesting thing happened here. Sheleigh became the senior member of “the little kids.” That left Jimmy and Ricky in the middle, but we never called them “the middle kids.” They missed out on having a group identity, which may be common in large families.

There were two other children born to my mother. Max would have been the eldest, but he was a blue baby, born Rh positive while my mother was Rh negative. Modern medicine has solved this problem, but in 1946, this was often a fatal conflict. Max died soon after he was born. After Buddy and before Bubba, Little Max was born. He was healthy, but I remember one night waking up and seeing my dad running outside with Little Max, patting his back and trying to get him to breathe. It was explained to us that his head had lodged between the mattress and railing of his crib, and he suffocated. I think we lived on Randolph AFB in San Antonio at the time. I remember Mom and Dad left for the funeral and burial in Waco, Texas. I think my maternal grandmother stayed with us until they got back. It’s sad and ironic that Mom and Dad had named him after the first Max.

So that’s it. Our family. I often say if you want to know what it was like growing up in my family, read Lord of the Flies.

Next: Mom and Dad.

1. Life is short. There are so many quotes that use this as the premise. Just do it. Seize the day. No time like the present. It’s encouragement to take risks. I agree with it in principle. I have had my moments when taking bold action turned out to be the right thing to do. In the fall of 1969, I was starting my sophomore year in college. The girl I loved in high school, the one I couldn’t get over, had graduated in May, and started classes at the same college. It was a small school, so we couldn’t help but see each other. We even met occasionally to play ping pong. And I was dying inside every time I saw her. I knew I had to do something, or I would end up back in a psych ward. So…I asked my roommate to drop me out of college. I packed up everything I owned (it wasn’t much), got in my Ford Falcon, and drove all the way from Houston to Los Angeles. I showed up at my uncle’s house and asked for sanctuary. He never hesitated. It probably saved my life. He and his wife both passed away this year. I’m so glad I got to see them and thank them again for their help.

   After a year with my uncle and aunt, I felt like I was going nowhere. I’d worked at 7-11 for a year while going to college. But I needed to figure out what I was going to do with my life. It was 1971. The military was having a tough time recruiting, so when I walked into the Air Force Recruiting office, they were happy to see me. I hadn’t expected that, since I had a seizure disorder. They asked if I was on medication. I was. Had I had any seizures while I was on the medication? I hadn’t. Not long after that, I was on a plane to San Antonio, Texas, for basic training. I’d signed up for electronics training, so as soon as I finished basic training, I was off to Denver, Colorado for technical training. I became an avionics technician for the F-111 aircraft. Back then, it was cutting edge, so I guess that was cool. I passed the course and was sent to Clovis, New Mexico.

   There was nothing to do in Clovis. At first, I started drinking heavily, along with most of my air force buddies. That was never going to be good for me, so I opted to sign up for classes at the university in Portales, 20 miles away. For the next three years, I worked the night shift in the air force, then went to college during the day. For the first time since I’d left Houston, I felt alive again. I made friends, I studied hard, took theater classes, had fun, and in 1975 I got my bachelor’s degree in English with a second major in speech communication. Later that same year, I got out of the air force. At last, my life seemed to be on track.

1. We are not a very nice country anymore. Lies, hate, racism, insults, misogyny, and fear are all winning political strategies. And that empowers liars, haters, racists, and fear mongers. It doesn’t bode well for 2025 or for the future of our country.

2. Travel is still good for me. Now that I’m over 70, travelling is hard on me. It takes

   longer and longer to recuperate. But I had a wonderful trip to San Francisco. Beautiful weather, great food, spectacular scenery, and precious time with my oldest son and daughter-in-law more than offset the temporary discomfort of travel and recovery. Vera and I also took a couple of road trips to Houston, where I saw family and loved ones. We took the long road home both times, and that boosted our enjoyment even more. I bounce back from road trips even faster.

3. I can no longer take my health for granted. I have to be aggressively proactive on blood sugar, blood pressure, weight, and cholesterol. All of these can be managed through healthy diet and exercise. But as my body ages, it becomes less and less efficient, which means I don’t get to cheat on diet or skip my exercise routine - ever.

4. My relationship with Vera has long been the most vital and important aspect of my life. But I see it, notice it, appreciate every day now. She’s a joy to live with, to share life with. She’s amazing.

   

What do I do with these lessons? Lesson 1: I will try to be kinder. I will try to do something every day to make the world a little better. I will try to see beauty. I will try to avoid the FAFO schadenfreude that will arise for the next four years. I will not respond to anger with anger, to hate with hate. Lesson 2: Already in the offing for this year is a trip to Ft. Worth to see my big sister. Vera will be going to Japan, Vietnam, and Cambodia (vicarious travel works for me). Then this summer she and I will go to San Francisco together. That might be enough for me. Lesson 3: I have to keep looking for ways to be healthier. My goal is not to live longer, but to be healthy enough to enjoy the years I’ve got. And I have to rediscover the self-discipline that served me so well in the Army. Lesson 4: Pay attention to Vera. Help her as much as I can with chores and errands. It’s not always easy, but it hasn’t been for her, either. Our trips are great ways to add adventure to our shared life. Even with all that happened in 2024, life is still good.

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