September 15
After college graduation I continued helping mom develop the family business (DaLe Monogramming & Signs). The Viet Nam war had started and I decided that I would join the army reserves instead of waiting to be drafted.
My choice was a pretty good one and I attended reserve meeting once a month in an available reserve unit in Cherokee, Iowa about an hours’ drive from my home in Sac City. There was a unit in Sac City but they were at maximum strength.
I returned from my training after 4 ½ months. I was trained as a personnel administrative specialist. In just a few months I was given the job as company clerk for the Cherokee unit. That was a very good job, as I discovered later. I was aware of everything that went on in the unit.
This memory happened while I was company clerk and I remember it well. It has to do with my meeting and getting acquainted with a friend that I would know and love for the rest of my life. He is the one that inspired me to write this memory.
I recall the company commander and the company’s first sergeant were discussing what they were going to do with a man that was supposed to be transferring from a Sioux Falls, South Dakota to our unit. He had not reported for a couple of months so they were considering asking that he be activated into the regular army.
The very next monthly meeting he showed up. He explained that he and his family had moved to Spencer, Iowa, (my home town I had spent my first 13 years) and had spent some time getting settled. His name was Jim and we began getting acquainted right away. I was dating my first wife, Sharon, at the time.
Our reserve unit was an artillery unit and we received orders that we would be going to Camp Rippley, Minnesota for our two week reserve training shortly after he started attending our meetings.
I am a bit foggy as to how we ended up being together in a jeep in the convoy as we travelled from Cherokee to Camp Rippley but nevertheless He drove the jeep as he had an authorized army jeep driver’s licence and I was his backup driver and rode in the jeep with him.
The trip was long and it rained like cats and dogs at one point in our trip. The jeep had a vacuum activated windshield wiper (just one) but for some reason wasn’t working very well. It had a back-up system and, I was it. I had to manually operate the windshield wiper from a lever on the top part of the inside windshield. It was a part of the trip we discussed many times during our lives.
While at camp we lived in tent type shelters and it was pretty uncomfortable. The weekend between the two week training we had off and could do whatever we wanted to do. My birthday fell on the Sunday of that weekend.
Jim said that he was going to call his wife and have her come pick us up and take us back to Minneapolis for the weekend. His wife arrived and we road with her back to their parent’s homes in Minneapolis.
That ended up being one of my best birthdays ever. Saturday we went “bar hopping” down Hennipin in Minneapolis an saw some things ....well I won’t go into detail but it was very interesting to say the least
On Sunday after we had recovered from the night on the town Jim’s mother fixed a wonderful beef roast dinner with all the trimmings. It was fantastic, and I still remember it very well.
We returned to Camp Rippley for the second week of our training. That is one memory I recall and I will continue with others in up coming Blogs.
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