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Our StoriesMilitary Veterans of Christ the King Parish

Veterans Committee Christ the King Parish Kingston, Rhode Island

November 11, 2018

Their StoriesBill Babcock, US Army 1Lynn Bentley, US Navy 7John Bergantini, US Navy 8David J. Cormier, US Army 9Pat Davis, US Air Force, US Navy 10Perley Doak, US Army 12Elise Hedglen, US Air Force 14Frank Hopkins, US Navy 16Jack Kelly, US Air Force 17Bill Kovacs, US Army 18Mary Mason, US Navy 19Leo J. Masse, US Air Force 21George P. Masso, US Army 23Mike McLinn, US Navy 24Paul L. Muller, US Marine Corps 25Gary Peigelbeck, US Air Force 26Bob Ricci, US Marine Corps 28Nancy A. Sherman, US Air Force 29David Smith, US Army 31Dave Vissoe, US Army Reserve 33

They All ServedThis compilation of profiles and stories of military veterans is a project of the Veterans Committee of Christ the King Parish in Kingston, Rhode Island.In this first edition, 20 men and women of the parish share their experiences, challenges and accomplishments in the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines.They were infantry men, weapons technicians, fire fighters, nurses, a musician, a jump master, intelligence and security specialists, a cartographer and a company clerk. They are officers, NCOs and enlisted personnel. Some served one tour, others were career military. And all served proudly and value the friendships and life lessons from their time in the service.We thank them for their service and for sharing their stories.

Cover photo: Dedication of the Veterans Memorial Garden on Memorial Day, 2016

Lord, I Pray for a VeteranLord, I pray for a veteran. The one who sacri-ficed, served, and did us proud. I pray for the home-grown hero who was on the front lines where fear and fate intersected. I pray for a veteran on a military base, a veteran who served in a hospital, classroom, or office. I pray for a veteran who staffed an embassy, who guarded our leaders. The veteran I pray for is in Your per-petual care, and in my heart forever. Amen

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Bill BabcockUS Army

Friendly FireEver since my arrival in Vietnam in late August 1969 I had been in the base camp at Pleiku serving in a variety of positions until an ear in-fection cleared up. The ear infection began when I was home on leave in July and had continued even after I was sent to Jungle School in Pan-ama. It was a middle ear infection that left me with no sense of bal-ance. Eventually it started to clear up and I was assigned as the Reac-tion Platoon Leader in base camp. The Reaction Platoon was made up of whomever was back in base

camp, usually the sick, lame and lazy. Also the crazy. But that’s an-other story. The job of the Reaction Platoon was to go out and sweep the perimeter of the base camp any time there was an enemy probe or breach of the perimeter. The sweep wasn’t an especially dangerous or exciting job and it could take several days each time it happened. On October 7, my 23rd birthday, I was flown out to take command of my first platoon. I was assigned to Bravo Company, 3/8th Infantry, 1st Brigade of the 4th Infantry Divi-sion. I replaced Lt. Tony Sciacca, who then became the company Executive Officer. The other lieu-tenants in the company were Virgil Judah, Dave Mann and Fred Bullet. The company had made contact with some Viet Cong the previous day and everyone was pretty excited. We set up a company perimeter in the vicinity of the contact and ran platoon-size patrols for the next two weeks. Other than finding a large enemy weapons cache hidden in some caves, those two weeks were rather uneventful. I got to know the men in my platoon and they got to know me.About October 21 we were or-dered to move the company to a new location several kilometers away. The going was slow through triple canopy jungle with the whole company moving single file, the

point element cutting its way with a machete. The first day Lt. Bullet’s platoon led the way. As Fred was leaving the perimeter, I noticed he was walking point for his platoon and had his gold second lieutenant’s bar showing on his collar. It was not the lieutenant’s job to walk point and in fact it was not a good posi-tion to command and control from. I told Fred I didn’t think it was a good idea for him to be walking point with his rank showing. He just laughed and said, “Hey, if your number is up, your number is up.” An hour or so later Fred was shot in the leg and it was later amputated. The second day of the move Lt. Mann’s platoon led the way with-out incident except for occasional sniper fire. The third day was my turn. After moving through the jungle for several hours we were moving up a ridgeline on our way to a hilltop where we were to set up a new company position. Be-cause we had taken fire every day, we were calling in 105-howitzer and 4.2-inch (four-duce) mortar fire on top of the hill as we moved up the ridgeline in case the enemy was waiting on the hilltop. About half way up the ridgeline as we were taking a short rest break there was a tremendous explosion. At first no one knew what had happened. Was it an ambush? Was it enemy artil-lery or mortars? We soon realized it

Retired Army Colonel Bill Babcock shares two stories,

one from Vietnam and the other from Cambodia

(page 2). His military biography is on page 6.

Military Veterans of Christ the King Parish

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was friendly fire from the firebase supporting us. One of the four-duce rounds had gone the wrong way and landed in the middle of my point squad. The forward observer imme-diately called for a check fire to stop the firebase from firing any more rounds. We immediately started to determine who was hit and started to take care of the wounded. The whole thing seemed like a bad war movie I had seen as a kid. People were lying all over the trail scream-ing and moaning. I moved forward to determine who was hit and passed PFC Rodney Collins, a new guy, who had just joined the pla-toon and had turned 19 a few days earlier. He was lying wounded and was being helped by someone. Up front I found two men were dead and a number of others wounded. One of the dead, Specialist Max Pugmire, did not seem to be hit at all; there were no visible wounds. It turned out he took a small piece of shrapnel through his heart. The other, PFC Albert Wayman, had half his head taken off by a large piece of shrapnel. Doc was hold-ing a piece of his brain on a small branch. I moved back down the trail and saw someone had put a poncho over Collins. He was dead. Another soldier, SGT Ronald Westphal, was sitting up crying and trying to push his intestines back inside. He died shortly after he was evacuated.As we began cutting down trees to make an emergency landing zone for the medevac helicopters, a white phosphorous grenade went off. It turned out to be one that one of

the men had been carrying. It had been cracked by shrapnel and finally exploded. The phosphorus burned three men. At one point I attempted to help one of my men who had been wounded. He had some small wounds in his head and blood trick-led down into his eyes preventing him from seeing his other wound. Shrapnel had taken off half of his hand. I remember thinking that it looked like someone had smashed some hot dogs with a hammer, exposing raw meat covered with blood. As I tried to figure out how to put a dressing on half a hand he asked me if he was going to be all right. He had worked in civilian life in an office as a clerk/typist. I lied and told him he was going to be fine. I just couldn’t tell him about his hand.By this time I just wanted to sit down and cry. I suppose I was in shock like all the others. But I couldn’t sit down and cry. I wouldn’t let myself do that. I was the leader. I knew I had to suppress my emo-tions and keep control. That’s what they taught me at Fort Benning. That’s what I had to do. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life. I was walking about thirteenth in the file of thirty-five men in the pla-toon. It turned out that every man in front of me as well as the man immediately behind me was killed or wounded seriously enough to be medevaced. Number 13 turned out to be a lucky number for me that day. The next day my medic pointed

to my helmet and asked how long I had had the hole in my helmet. I looked and saw that a piece of shrapnel had gone through the steel helmet and lodged in the liner. That had been the first day I wore my helmet in the field. I usually wore a boonie hat, a soft, floppy brimmed hat, when on patrol. Lucky again.This was my first major experience as a platoon leader in Vietnam. After that I tried not to get to know my men that well. It was too hard loosing them.

CambodiaDuring the months of April, May and June 1970, the United States Army, together with forces of the Republic of South Vietnam, con-ducted operations that came to be known as the Cambodian Incursion or Cambodian Invasion. U.S. News & World Report reported that by June 5, 1970, 331 Americans had

1Lt. Bill Babcock as Platoon Leader in Vietnam

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been killed during this operation. Six of those 331 men were members of Company A, 3rd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division.Cambodia had long been used by the North Vietnam Army and Viet Cong as sanctuaries. Supplies from North Vietnam came down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the local NVA and VC units who used the area along the Cambodia/South Vietnam border as staging areas to launch attacks against South Vietnam. Up until the spring of 1970, the United States had respected the wishes of the Cambodian government and had not crossed the border in pursuit of the NVA and VC. The enemy was free to come and go as he wished.In March of 1970 the Cambodian Government was internally over-thrown, and President Richard Nix-on took the opportunity caused by the political and military turmoil in Cambodia to attack those sanctuar-ies. On April 28, South Vietnamese Army forces pushed into Cambodia in an area known as the Parrot’s Beak. On May 1, U.S. forces fol-lowed into the Parrot’s Beak and farther north into the “Fish Hook.” On May 6, the 1st Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, commanded by Major General Glen D. Walker, began operation “Binh Tay,” a series of assaults planned against enemy base areas designated as 701, 702 and 740. The 3rd of the 8th Infan-try moved on base 702, fifty miles west of Pleiku. On May 6, Charlie Company, the

lead company of the battalion, attempted an air assault into the suspected enemy sanctuary area. Its first two attempts were met by hot landing zones. The third attempt to land was initially successful and about half of the artillery battery and half of the infantry company landed. As the remainder of the company attempted to land, an am-bush was sprung by an unknown-sized enemy force. Two helicopters were shot down, and the remainder of Charlie Company aborted the landing. Later, an NVA squad attacked the command group of Charlie Company and killed the First Sergeant and the Company Commander, Lieutenant Robert Phillips. The artillery battery com-mander assumed command of Charlie Company. Throughout that night they fought off attempts by the NVA to take the landing zone.On May 7 the remainder of the battalion landed at LZ Phillips. The landing zone, soon to be a fire sup-port base, was unofficially named by the men of Charlie Company for their slain commander. As was the usual pattern, one com-pany remained on the firebase as security while the other companies moved off to begin their mission. The mission was to find caches of enemy supplies and locate a report-ed enemy (battalion-sized) hospital complex somewhere in the battal-ion’s area of operations.Alpha Company was composed of three rifle platoons and the com-mand group, a total of about one hundred men. Some of the men in

the rifle platoons had been taken from rear-area jobs such as cooks and other non-infantry-qualified positions to increase the size of the company for this particular mission. Consequently, these men lacked the skills and experience needed to fight effectively in this type of environment. Other men were new to the company and combat due to the constant turnover in personnel created by the one-year tour of duty, which was standard in Vietnam.The leadership of Alpha Company consisted of the commanding of-ficer and three platoon leaders. A 22-year-old OCS graduate who had about two months’ experience in the field as a commander, but none as a platoon leader, commanded the company. He had never been in combat. Leadership of the first pla-toon came from Staff Sergeant John Mull, a platoon sergeant with six months’ experience in the field. The third platoon was led by Lt. Virgil Judah, a twenty-six year old OCS graduate with five months of field time. I was the second platoon leader, a twenty-three year old ROTC graduate with eight months of experience in the field.The company also had a sniper team consisting of a soldier who had spent one week at an in-country sniper school and three men who provided security for him. Although he had been to school, the sniper had no actual experience before this mission and did not know a lot about his weapon. This was evident when he was observed removing the sniper scope from his rifle to


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clean it. Once this weapon had been sighted, the scope should not have been removed. This inexperience and lack of training proved very costly later in the mission.After landing on LZ Phillips, Company A moved off to the west to begin its search for the enemy. Movement was slow through thick, triple canopy jungle that blocked out much of the sunlight that fil-tered through the trees.The company moved all afternoon, calling in the location, direction and size of any trails that were discovered. As we began to set up our night defensive perimeter about 1700 hours, a burst of M-16 fire caused everyone to duck for cover. A lone enemy soldier had decided to surrender and had simply walked into the perimeter. One of our men had taken a shot at him before real-izing he was giving up. The prisoner was questioned by the commander. He told us he was just a rice farmer recruited by the NVA and forced to work for them. He just wanted to be out of any fight that might develop. He was either unable or unwilling to tell us anything else. The rest of the night passed without any contact.Early on the morning of May 8, my second platoon was sent on a patrol to the southwest, while Lieutenant Judah’s third platoon swept south-east. The first platoon secured the CP group. My platoon soon discov-ered a large trail junction. The trail was well used and had bicycle tracks on it. A small thatched hut sat in the middle of the trail junction. It

was obviously part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail complex and probably a major intersection, with the hut acting as a checkpoint direction cen-ter. I set my platoon in an ambush position covering the trail junction and waited.At 1330 hours the CO called and told me to abandon the ambush site and return to the CP. He then sent the four-man sniper team to the same site to ambush the trail. Instead of concentrating his limited firepower on the center of the inter-section, the team leader placed one man on each avenue of the junction. An hour later, three NVA walked down the east trail. The sniper fired at a range of fifty to one hundred meters, missed and was wounded by the NVA, who ran back down the trail and escaped.At the same time that the sniper team made contact, my platoon was searching a cache site about a thousand meters to the north of the company CP. Upon returning from the ambush site, I had been sent to aid the first platoon, which had dis-covered the cache. The third platoon now secured the CP.Staff Sergeant Mull had already called in Cobra gunships on sev-eral hooches before moving into the cache site. As both platoons searched, a lone enemy soldier jumped up and began firing on us. One of Sergeant Mull’s men re-turned fire and the wounded NVA ran off down a trail.The CO called and told me to have the first and second platoons set up

for the night where we were, and join him in the morning. I pointed out to him that higher headquarters had advised all commanders not to split up at night since the enemy strength was unknown. He did not change his order.At 1730 hours the headquarters radio operator called to tell me that the CO and two other men were missing in action. The captain had decided to recon a possible ambush site for Lieutenant Judah’s platoon. He took Lieutenant Judah and three men from third platoon and headed off down the trail that the three NVA had followed earlier that day. Lieutenant Judah pointed out that they should take a radio, but the CO said there was no need since they were only going a short distance.The five men had moved about two or three hundred meters down the trail when they came upon several hooches with bunkers under them. Instead of going back or sending back for help, the CO had the five men get on line and sweep into the enemy complex. Firing broke out from the direction of the hooches, and one man was killed instantly. The CO and two men were now out of Lieutenant Judah’s sight, and someone called for a medic. Lieu-tenant Judah low crawled out of the kill zone and went back to the CP location for help. He returned to the contact area and was immedi-ately pinned down by enemy fire. A second man was killed and another wounded. No more was heard from the CO and the two men with him.

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As the senior officer I assumed com-mand of Company A and moved the first and second platoons back to the CP. I then moved forward with a small element of about six men to the contact area. I felt it best not to take the whole company forward until I could determine the situation and estimate the enemy strength. I found Lt. Judah, and he explained what had happened. Since it was quickly becoming dark and we could do nothing for the three missing men, I decided to pull everyone back into the CP area and form a perimeter for the night. Us-ing smoke grenades to hide us from view and the M-60 machine gun fire to suppress the enemy position, I had Lt. Judah withdraw his men as I went out and got the wounded man to my front. I remained behind with my RTO and M-60 team to provide covering fire for the dustoff evacuation helicopter as it took out the wounded man. Under cover of darkness, my team and I returned to the company perimeter.The next day we got ready to move back into the enemy complex. I sent Lt. Judah’s platoon back the way we went the first day and Staff Ser-geant Mull’s platoon around what we thought was the left flank. I was with the second platoon, ready to move in either direction depend-ing on what happened. Sergeant Mull made contact first. Firing began even before he reached the left flank, and he was immediately pinned down. Bullets flew overhead and around any man who tried to advance into the complex. I called

Lt. Judah, who had the company’s forward observer with him, and had him call artillery fire in front of Sergeant Mull’s position. As the artillery impacted, setting fire to the hooches, Lt. Judah called me saying that the forward observer had been shot from behind and he too was under fire. He could not tell where the fire was coming from. I decided to pull back again and abandon the attempt to penetrate the enemy position.Back in the perimeter, the battalion commander called to say a new cap-tain was being sent out to take com-mand. It turned out to be Company A’s old commander, Captain Hunt.The next morning Captain Hunt decided to go back in again. I moved my platoon up to the front of the enemy complex, just behind where we had left two of our dead the day before. My mission was to support Captain Hunt and the other two platoons as they tried to flank from the left. Also, we were to try to recover our dead, who lay out in an open area between the enemy and us. As Captain Hunt moved in, he was fired on and was unable to move. One of my men, Specialist Brian McCarthy, crawled out to try to recover one of the bodies in front of us. As he started to pull the body back, a single shot ran out and Mc-Carthy was mortally wounded by a bullet in the head. Another man ran out, picked him up, and carried him back to our position. Captain Hunt decided to pull back once again.At this point it was obvious that the enemy was well dug in with plenty

of overhead cover. Artillery had little effect on them. Captain Hunt asked for an air strike on the complex but was turned down by the battalion commander. He felt there might still be a chance the CO and the others were alive and did not want to risk killing them with the air strike. Since it was quickly becom-ing dark, Captain Hunt decided to wait until morning to try again.Early on the morning of May 10, Captain Hunt requested an aerial recon of the enemy position to get a better fix on what we were up against. A helicopter hunter-killer team reported we were on the edge of what appeared to be a battalion-sized enemy complex with a trench line and overhead cover going all around it. Smaller trenches ran out to its front, which gave the enemy flanking shots on anyone approach-ing the main trench. The complex appeared deserted.Captain Hunt decided to have the entire company sweep on line into the complex from the left flank. As we prepared to move out, we heard three single shots come from the direction of the complex. I led second platoon up the left flank of the complex followed by the first platoon, the CP group, and the third platoon. We got on line and started in together, burning hooches and dropping grenades into bunkers as we went. No fire came from the enemy positions. They were gone.Fifteen minutes into the assault, Captain Hunt called and told me to halt my platoon and move to his location. They had found the CO


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and the others. The three men were lying face down in a trench, hands tied behind their backs, shot in the back of the head. They had been captured the first day of the contact. The three shots we heard in the morning had been their execution by the retreating NVA.During the three days of contact, six men of Alpha Company died, six were seriously wounded by the en-emy and eight more received minor wounds from friendly artillery and gunships called in “danger close” to support men on the ground.The principal source for this battle analysis was my own recollection of events that took place 18 years ago (analysis written in 1988). Exact lo-cations and exact times have escaped my memory; the events reported here, however, will never be forgot-ten.

About the AuthorBill Babcock graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 1968 and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant, Infantry Branch, through the ROTC program. He served on active duty from 1968 to 1970 to include assignments with the 5th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado and the 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam. After leaving the Army in 1970, he worked as a college adminis-trator until 1985 when he joined the Rhode Island Army National Guard.Assignments with the Rhode Island National Guard included: Training

Officer, Headquarters, State Area Command; Commander, 110th Public Affairs Detachment; Battle-field Circulation Control Officer and S-3, 43rd MP Brigade; Plans and Operations Officer, Headquar-ters, State Area Command; Assis-tant Commandant, Rhode Island Military Academy; Commander, 243rd Regiment, Regional Train-ing Academy; Chief of the Train-ing Division, Headquarters, State Area Command; and Deputy Chief of Staff-Operations, Joint Forces Headquarters, R.I. National Guard. His last assignment was Command-er, 56th Troop Command Brigade, R.I. Army National Guard from June 2004 until his retirement in October 2006.Additional overseas assignments include Chief of Staff, Office of Military Cooperation-Afghanistan from November 2003 to April 2004 and Team Chief, Joint Center for Operational Analysis – Lessons Learned, Baghdad, Iraq from June 2005 to September 2005.Colonel Babcock is a graduate of the Infantry Officer Basic and Advance Courses, Military Police Officer Qualification Course, Civil Affairs Officer Advance Course, Public Affairs Officer Course, Command and General Staff College and the Army War College. His civilian education includes a BA in History, an MA in Education and an MBA in Management.His awards and decorations include the Combat Infantryman Badge, the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit,

Bronze Star Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Meritorious Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Purple Heart, Air Medal, Joint Service Commendation Medal, Army Commendation Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the Army Achievement Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster, the Rhode Island Cross, the Rhode Island Star with one oak leaf cluster, the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan Campaign Medals, the Global War on Terror-ism Service Medal and the Republic of Vietnam Service Medal.Military Organizations include: Reserve Officers Association, Association of the United States Army, Military Order of Foreign Wars, Veterans of Foreign Wars, 4th Infantry Division Association, Military Officers Association of America, National Infantry Association, and the Combat Infantryman Association. Awards from military associations include the Order of Saint Barbara (Artillery Branch), the Order of Saint Michael (Aviation Branch) and the Order of Saint Maurice (Infantry Branch).In retirement Colonel Babcock volunteers for several organizations including the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve and the URI ROTC Alumni Association. He is the Veteran Mentor Coordinator for the Rhode Island Veterans Treatment Court.He lives in Narragansett, Rhode Island with his wife Judy.

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Lynn BentleyUS Navy

Upon graduation from the University of Minnesota in 1964, I was accepted to Navy OCS, Newport, Rhode Island. I completed training in March 1965 and was awarded the rank of Ensign. Then I received orders to duty on the USS Oriskany (CVA 34), an Essex-class aircraft carrier. The orders included attending Naval Justice School through May 1965. I took a military flight from California to Manila and was transported from Subic Bay, Philippines on an Ammunition Ship to meet the Oriskany in the Gulf of Tonkin.I reported aboard my ship in June 1965 and was as-signed duties as Discipline Officer which included su-pervising two Petty Officers and processing all Captain’s Mast proceedings. I also stood two bridge watches per day as a member of the underway watch officer team. The ship was conducting flight operations in the Gulf of Tonkin, flying combat missions in North Vietnam.Our first cruise ended in November 1965, during which many successful missions were completed, a number of pilots were lost or captured and interest-ing ports like Hong Kong, Japan and Subic Bay were visited. One of the pilots captured was Commander of the Air Group, James Stockdale, who was the highest ranking officer held captive in the Hanoi Hilton. We returned to San Diego in December 1965.We departed for our second cruise in April 1966 arriving on station in the Gulf of Tonkin in May. During the cruise, I received a promotion to Lieuten-ant Junior Grade, stood watches as Officer of the Deck, overseeing a team of three officers and three enlisted personnel during ship and flight operations, and be-came the Administrative Division Officer. Flight opera-tions were very intensive, successful but with a similar loss of pilots. We visited the same ports when we left the combat area. In October 1966, fire broke out in the

hanger bay which caused serious damage and 55 crew members lost their lives. I was able to get out of harms way but narrowly missed death. A major story of the in-cident appeared in Life Magazine soon after. We were ordered back to the U.S. and the ship entered Hunters Point Ship Yard, San Francisco in December 1966.I received orders for transfer to the Naval Recruiting Station, Boston as a Officer Candidate Recruiter, in March 1967, reporting for duty April 1967, where I served until discharge in March 1969. During this period, I was promoted to Lieutenant, became Of-ficer Programs Officer and recruited at most major New England colleges. My team of officers, enlisted and Civil Service personnel recruited college gradu-ates for OCS, Physicians and Nurse programs. We also processed commissions for Navy ROTC and Merchant Marine graduates.

Lynn Bentley’s first duty assignment was aboard the USS Oriskany in the Far East.



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John BergantiniUS Navy

By Jack Kelly

John Bergantini enlisted in the Navy in 1942 and was sent to tech school in North Dakota where he was trained to be a Machinist’s Mate. He served aboard the battleship Colorado which saw action in the Pacific in the pre-invasion shelling of Tinian, Saipan and Guam.As a Machinist’s Mate, John served below deck where temperatures often exceeded 100 degrees and when general quarters sounded, all hatches were closed. This meant John and his fellow seamen below deck were locked in place, and there was no escape if the ship went down. His ship was shelled in those battles from island shore batteries and a number of the shells hit the ship. The hits killed and wounded many sailors, and caused extensive damage to the ship but the Colorado did not go down.The ship limped home after the battles to be repaired, and was subsequently returned to action. This time out, the ship was hit by one or more kamikaze suicide planes. John was on deck at the time, not below, and one of the planes crashed into a five-inch gun place-ment that John was near. He was not hurt.

Machinist Mate John Bergantini served aboard the USS Colorado in the Pacific during World War II.


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David J. CormierUS Army

Now I’m a social studies teacher. Time and again, the history books point out one glaring issue: armies with-out training and experience are prone to failure. My primary job for 30 years between wars and operations was to train my people to be skilled at their specialty, experienced at life in many different climates and ter-rain, and wise in the ways of leadership. Every opera-tion I was part of, you could tell who was better trained and who wasn’t. My final tour on active duty was from 2005 to 2008. I was a trainer of headquarters units who were preparing to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan. My cadre of teachers put 197 units through exercises with problems derived from real-world issues they could ex-pect to encounter. This meant a great deal to me, since my father was a trainer in the Army Air Force during World War II. As a member of the Army Signal Corps, responsible for installing, operating and maintaining a wide range of communications technologies (radio, wire and cable, computer networks, satellite etc.), it was imperative to get all sorts of Army personnel qualified to use the latest and greatest equipment. But since I was trained by Viet-nam veterans in the early 80s, I’ve always kept in sight the need to not be totally dependent on any one form of operating. The Signal Corps teaches us that noth-ing is entirely safe and secure, and one always needs a back-up for every system. We use the saying “Semper Gumby!” It’s a tribute to the old Claymation character Gumby, and it implies we are “Always flexible.”

David J. Cormier, Lieutenant Colonel, US Army (Retired)



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Pat DavisUS Air Force and Air Force Reserve, US Navy

I joined the US Air Force Nurse Corps in 1970 after graduating from Rhode Island Hospital School of Nurs-ing in 1969. My initial training to Air Force life was a two-week orientation at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls,Texas. We learned the basics of military life, customs and courtesies. We were taught to march forward, turn right, left and about face. Unfortunately, our graduation ceremony included a march on a horse-shoe driveway. It didn’t go well.I was off to Andrews Air Force Base and the Malcolm Grow Medical Center. My assignment was to the Major Surgical Ward under the tutelage of Major Mary Loffstrum, a career Air Force officer. This is where my real orientation to the military and the Air Force began. Andrews was one of the major East Coast medevac bases and we could have several medevac flights arrive on any given day. Some of the patients were walk-ing wounded, others were stretcher patients and some were severely wounded requiring ICU level care. Most of these patients were “Remain Over Night” (RON) patients on their way closer to home and we didn’t get to know them well. The number of wounded airmen, soldiers, sailors and marines that passed through our doors was dramatic and when I realized it was just a small portion of the total, I was thankful that I chose to serve but it also stoked my anger over the Vietnam War and our government’s management of it. I left active duty after my initial tour of duty but stayed active in the Air Force Reserves. Six years later I realized I missed the military life. A bit of maturity and distance from my first experience told me I didn’t want to be sta-tioned in Texas, North Dakota, or Arizona, I wanted an ocean nearby so I went to see my local Navy recruiter. I was accepted and assigned to Naval Station Newport for Orientation and Training. The year was 1978 and I was to report to Newport on a Sunday in February. Unfortunately, the week before I was to report for duty, it started to snow and didn’t stop for several days. The

Blizzard of ’78 closed the state and buried my home in Providence. The airports and major highways were opened first but upon report day I was still stranded by three feet of snow. I was not going to miss the report day in my new career so I strapped my luggage to my sister’s sled and walked two blocks to the nearest plowed street.Of course my parents, brother and all the neighbors were out to send me off to begin my Navy career. The Navy training was six weeks and much more intense than the Air Force version. After graduating it was off to San Diego and three years at the Navy’s largest medical facility, Balboa Naval Hospital. From there my next assignment was to one of the smallest medical clinics in the Naval Medical system. The Naval Facility at Chinhae, South Korea was comprised of one doctor, one nurse and two Navy Hospital Corpsman, one an X-Ray technician and the other a laboratory technician. We provided 24 hours-a-day coverage for an average of 120 military, dependents, contract workers and tran-sient personnel. There was no hospital in the very small

Pat Davis, Commander, US Navy Nurse Corp (Retired)

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town for backup so we improvised a lot. That was the longest 13 months of my life but I was rewarded with a next assignment back on the East Coast, attending school at Marymount University to get a BS in Nursing and decided to work on my Master’s Degree at the same time. After school was done, I asked to be assigned to the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda where I served as a charge nurse on several different units. As I became more senior in my career, the administrative assignments became more varied. An assignment at the Navy Personnel Command was next and it included assignment and career counseling of Navy Nurse Corps Officers along with travel to many of the Naval Medical

Facilities in the United States and Europe. Recruiting civilian doctors and nurses to join the Navy was my next assignment and I came back home to Rhode Island to work in the New England area. It was in this assign-ment where I was awarded the honor of Navy Medical Recruiter of the Year for the entire Navy. Being back home with aging parents encouraged me to request a final assignment at the Naval Hospital in Newport.During my years of military service, I have been hon-ored to meet, serve with and care for a group of amaz-ing people who shared a special dedication to the United States of America. I have never regretted my decision.



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Perley DoakUS Army

By Jack Kelly

It was 1946 and Perley Doak was a high school senior in Portland, Maine when he received a notice that he had been selected for the draft. When he graduated in the spring of 1946, he reported to the induction pro-cessing center in Fort Fairfield, a small town in eastern Maine along the US-Canadian boarder. He completed forms and answered a lot of questions, and went home. Four years later in 1950, he heard again from the draft and was ordered to report for military service to Fort Devens, near Worcester, Massachusetts.Perley spent only seven days at Fort Devens. He was issued his military uniforms and was asked if he pre-ferred any particular service class. He selected Airborne because it paid $50 a month more than regular pay. With that, he was told to pack his duffel bag and off he went to Fort Campbell, Kentucky for basic training. After completing his five weeks of basic training, he was shipped out to Fort Benning, Georgia for jump school.Initial jump training consisted of jumping out the door of a mock-up of an aircraft on the ground, and learn-ing how to land and roll. This training lasted about a week. Next stop was the 24-foot tower. You hook up to a cable line at the top of the tower and simulate jump-ing out of a plane door. The jump takes you forward and down, pretty much like a zip line. You do this five times and are graded each time on how you pushed off from the plane door and landed on the ground at the end of the zip line. If you do well, the next test is the 250-foot tower. You are hoisted up to the 240-foot level in a parachute rigging, given an instruction on how to pull on the chute to make it steer away from the tower on the way down, and then you are released. You do this only once, and if you pass, it’s on to jumping from a real plane at 1,500 feet with 31 other jumpers.The 32 jumpers are seated on either side of the plane, 16 to a side. As the plane reaches altitude and nears the

target jump area, the jump master stands at the front, and uses hand signals to tell the jumpers what to do. Hand signals are necessary because engine noise makes it difficult and unreliable to give verbal commands. The first signal is to stand up; the second is to hook up to the jump line; the third is to check the parachute rigging of the jumper ahead of you in line. (The jumper at the end of the line turns around and has his hook-up and rigging checked by the person ahead of him in line.) The jump master then moves to the plane door, and when the jump light comes on, gives the signal to begin the jump. He jumps first to lead the way. The jumpers on the left side of the plane jump out the left door, and those on the right side jump out the right door. To ensure that everyone lands in close proximity to each other, time is critical and all jumpers should be out of the plane within 29 seconds. Perley completed his required five jumps, graduated, and got his para-chute wings. That was definitely a good day.

It was on to Fort Bragg after graduation for more training and war games, back to Fort Campbell for a

Staff Sergeant Perley Doak was a Jump Master with the 101st Airborne Division.

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short stay, and then on to Fort Drum, New York for winter training in anticipation of possible assignment to Korea. It was –25° F to –30° F on many nights and there were no barracks to go in and get warm. You had to build your own snow shelter – build a snow wall on three sides, cover the “roof” with branches and pine boughs, cover the floor with more pine boughs, cover the boughs with your poncho, and get into your double mountain sleeping bag! That doesn’t sound like much fun, but knowing how to do it might save your life some day.Back at Fort Campbell, Perley continued his jump training, became a Jump Master, and in one period, jumped 20 times in 20 days, including two night jumps. In a ground exercise, with only 37 days left on his enlistment, Perley and his squad were taken to the

middle of nowhere, given a radio with a homing bea-con, and left to find their way back to the base. They did well and followed the homing signal to a lighted building ahead. As they approached the building, lo and behold, it was a bar! It was filled with other Air-borne who were waiting for them, and a grand time was had by all.Perley is proud of his Army service and is glad that he served. He met a lot of very nice people from all parts of the country and had two years of exciting new ex-periences that he would not have had elsewhere. Perley was a member of 511th Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division and had been promoted several times over the two years and attained the rank of Staff Sergeant. He was honorably discharged in 1952 and returned to his family in Maine.



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Elise HedglenUS Air Force

I began my Air Force career on a bit of whim. Post-college, I was bored and looking for an opportunity for some excitement and travel. When I came across one of those pull-out postcards in a magazine to request information about the Air Force, I filled it out and sent it in. The next thing I knew, I was on a plane to San Antonio to begin Officer Train-ing School (OTS). Other than the

early wake-up calls, I enjoyed OTS and thrived. Being a runner and an athlete, I’m very disciplined and somewhat competitive, so it was right up my alley. I was a Distin-guished Graduate in September of 1985, and was commissioned as

a 2nd Lieutenant. After gradua-tion, I spent nine months at Lowry Air Force Base in Colorado, where I completed Intelligence Officer School. From there, I went back to Texas where I was assigned to the 7th Bombardment Wing, Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth. The Cold War was still going on, and our B-52 wing was part of the mili-tary’s nuclear triad designed to deter and retaliate against a Soviet attack. I learned a lot about this mission and had the chance to fly in a B-52 many times! After three years at Carswell, I was reassigned to Headquarters, United States Air Forces in Europe at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and promoted to Captain. I arrived in Germany on November 8, and on November 9, the Berlin Wall fell. It was an exciting time to be in Eu-rope, as the Eastern European bor-ders opened, making travel possible to the former Soviet Bloc countries, such as Czechoslovakia and Hun-gary. Those years also saw the end of the Soviet Union, but just when it looked like peace was finally break-ing out, Iraq invaded Kuwait, start-ing the Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm. The world watched as CNN broadcast round-the-clock coverage and footage from smart bombs as they struck their targets. The war was over in the span of five

weeks, but resulted in the displace-ment of millions of Kurdish people in northern Iraq, who fled toward the Turkish border. Shortly thereaf-ter, Operation Provide Comfort, a humanitarian relief effort to provide aid and military protection to the Kurds, was initiated. I deployed to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey to orga-nize an intelligence courier service to support outposts in Turkey and Iraq. It was eerie to be in Iraq so soon after the war, but I enjoyed meeting with the Kurdish children in the camps, whose beautiful smiles I’ll never forget. They followed us around asking for candy or anything American, and we obliged! In 1992, there was a Reduction in Force, and I took an attractive sever-ance to separate from active duty. My first child was born that year, so it was time to be a full-time mother! I returned to Rhode Island and eventually found a position as a Re-servist at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts, doing intelligence systems research and development work. It was a good fit for me as I could be home with my children, and once each month, I went to Hanscom for drill weekend. In the summer I would do two weeks of active duty, and many times I was able to bring the family with me, either staying on base or in a nearby hotel. We have fond memories of

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those days and the fun things we did on base and off. It was a good life. All that changed on September 11, 2001.I was at home with my two young-est children when I heard a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center Towers. I thought it was a small plane that had lost control, but soon realized it was much more than that. I heard my neighbor shriek when the tow-ers crumbled to the ground and I went outside to meet her. We immediately hugged each other and consoled one another. It was a scary and sobering day. My fellow Reservists at Hanscom were eventu-ally called to active duty one by one, but our commander held off calling me because he knew I had small

children at home, the youngest just nine months old. But as fate would have it, a call came from Eglin Air Force Base in Florida - they needed more Reservists to augment their staff during 24 hour operations. I was the only one left and had to go. While the other Reservists from my unit were called to augment Hans-com, close to home, I was the only one who ended up far from home. I was in tears as I drove away on my way to Florida. After a month at Eglin, I went back to Ramstein for another month to fill a need there, then was able to serve the remain-ing time on my one-year orders at Hanscom, so I was home for Christ-mas. It was a wonderful homecom-ing.The next few years passed without

any more call-ups, my kids grew, and I felt it was time for a change. After a promotion to Major, I put in a request for a change of station to the Pacific theater, where I had never been. In short order I was assigned to a position at Osan Air Base, Korea, and spent the next sev-eral years traveling halfway around the world once or twice a year to support annual Command Post ex-ercises there. Korea was unlike any other country I had been to before. It was a completely different lan-guage (unreadable for me), a com-pletely different culture, and a much higher level of military alertness due to the threat and volatility of North Korea. The exercises involved long hours and complicated work, but I gained valuable experience and embraced the local culture, food, and shopping!Three years later, my unit at Osan decided to cut most of its Reserve positions, and a large group of us were transferred to 13th Air Force at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. It was tough duty, but someone had to do it! I served the remainder of my career at Hickam, which eventually became Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in 2013 after 28 years. I never expected to make a career of the Air Force, but as the saying goes, time flies. Looking back, it was a great decision. I had some amazing experiences, traveled to many coun-tries, and proudly served my coun-try. I’m proud to say I’m a Veteran!

Captain Elise Hedglen with Kurdish children in a refugee camp in Turkey



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Frank HopkinsUS Navy

In 1974 our country con-tinued to have some of the tumult of the preced-ing decade. Vietnam still simmered and Congress kept cutting its support, the Ayatollah began his takeover of Iran, the Watergate Scandal was in

full swing with Nixon eventually resigning and Gerald Ford taking over as our 38th President, and a revitalized Mohammed Ali KO’d George Foreman in the “Rumble in the Jungle” in Zaire. As a young man growing up in Scranton, I wrestled with what I wanted to be when I grew up. Three semesters at a local Jesuit college were not showing great results. An interest in marine biol-ogy and an infatuation with the great explorer Jacques Cousteau drove me to pursue two options, a transfer to Florida Institute of Technology for Marine Biology or a tour in the Navy to pursue a diving career. The Navy won out. The path to a diving career took me out of the coal mine town of Scranton to the cold lake front of Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois in February of 1974. Boot camp was followed by Hospital Corpsman Train-ing including advance training as a Laboratory Tech-nician. Assignment to the Naval Submarine Medical Research Lab in Groton, Connecticut would provide training as a diver but also provide exposure to the medical field and direct my eventual career choice. I thrived in an environment of MDs and PhDs and ex-cellent NCOs who mentored me in the areas of subma-rine and diving medicine, including a Hyperbaric

Nursing certification to assist treatment for decom-pression sickness (Bends) and hyperbaric wound care. The Navy provided the first exposure to a diversified community of men and women all working for a com-mon cause. The homogeneity of a small Pennsylvania coal town was transformed by opening my eyes to the complexity and commonality of the many races, reli-gions and cultures this great country truly embodies. My discharge after four years as a Hospital Corpsman Second Class sent me north to Rhode Island College in Providence to pursue a nursing career.After graduating from Nursing School and gathering experience as a Critical Care RN, it was time to seek an experience as an officer and return to the Navy. In 1988, working at the VA Medical Center in Providence in a full-time position, I secured a new commission as a Lieutenant in the Navy Nurse Corps. I was assigned to the Marine Reserve Unit in Providence. The Navy called looking for support as the first Gulf War came around. Fortunately, that conflict did not last long and there were only minimal assignments to Operation Desert Shield. Following that conflict, billets were being reduced and officers were encouraged to resign. Having small children, it was time to focus on family and my Navy career ended in 1992. The Navy provided great experiences, wonderful train-ing, and lasting relationships. It helped a young man who was a bit lost, find a great career, a special lady, and a wonderful state in which to settle and raise a family. It also brought me to Rhode Island College during Father Joe Creedon’s stint as Campus Minister and a lasting friendship that brought our family to Christ the King Parish.


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Jack KellyUS Air Force

I enlisted in the Air Force on March 5, 1962 soon after I turned 18. This is what many guys my age did when they graduated from high school. It was a right of passage of sorts and I was proud of the 1A status on my draft card. I had never heard of Vietnam and my service experience was my first big adventure.It began with a subway ride on a freezing cold March morning to the military induction center on White-hall Street in downtown Manhattan. I was sworn in later that day with

a room full of other guys and we eventually boarded a bus that took us to the airport for a flight to San Antonio, Texas. The airport was called Idlewild at the time, and was re-named JFK after President Ken-nedy’s assassination. The plane was a TWA Super Constellation. It was surprisingly small inside compared to the planes we fly on today. We were delayed quite a while at the gate before we took off because the plane had to be de-iced. It was like going through a car wash.We arrived in San Antonio at dawn, and boarded a bus that took us to nearby Lackland Air Force Base for basic training. I can’t say that basic was fun, but it was okay. Even the TI (Training Instructor) who tried to act mean was okay. In one of his weaker moments he told me that he was from Tennessee, his family was poor, and he lied about his age to enlist at 16. I don’t remember his name but I came to like him and respect him. My trip to San Antonio and Lack-land Air Force Base was my first trip out of New York and my first time in an airplane. Subsequent assign-ments to Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, MacDill Air Force Base in Florida and Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson gave me my first views of the Rocky Mountains, palm trees and a desert. Also, while

I was at MacDill, a number of us were sent on a three-month tempo-rary duty (TDY) to Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach to attend a tech school on the weapons control system on the F-4C Phan-tom II. The tech school was fine, but did you ever see what happens when a carrier full of sailors comes home after months at sea and they hit downtown on the same night? That’s another story, but let me put it this way: OMG!All of my assignments in the Air Force were good, and the tech school electronics education I got was priceless. I liked my job (MOS) too, a weapons control systems mechanic on the aforementioned F-4C, a jet fighter/bomber that played such a vital role in Vietnam. The F-4C was a great plane to work on and I remember how thrilled I was the first time I got to sit in the pilot’s seat to work on the plane’s radar. I was not a pilot but I loved the excitement of working on the flight line with all of its noises and smells. My commanding officer was Colonel Frank K. Everest. He had an Indian Chief feathered headdress painted on his white helmet and it was so cool looking. I would not trade my military experience for anything, and I have never for one second regretted serv-ing in the United States Air Force.

Jack Kelly was a weapons control systems mechanic

working on F-4C Phantoms and other jets in the Air Force.



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Bill KovacsUS Army

By Jack Kelly

Bill’s parents could not afford to send him to college when he graduated from high school, so he enlisted in the Army in 1953 in order to take advantage of the GI Bill when he got out. Little did he know that his earn-ing the Surveying Merit Badge when he was in the Boy Scouts (Bill was an Eagle Scout) would lead to a great job in the Army and a rewarding career afterwards. In an interview, the Army had asked him what he was interested in and Bill mentioned the Surveying Merit Badge. Bingo! He was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Army Corps of Engineers was an excellent assign-ment. Bill was stationed in Alaska in the summer and at the Presidio in San Francisco in the winter. His job in Alaska was to survey the Distant Early Warning Line of radar stations (the DEW Line) from a small plane that had no door to keep him in the plane. This enabled him

to get the best view of the terrain but it was a little scary at times. Also, the plane was equipped to land on water or ice, and he was on board for both types of landings. Bill’s assignments in California were mostly conducting surveys of numerous rifle ranges. While not as exciting as flying around northern Alaska in a plane with no door, it was an important assignment because it ensured that the ranges were configured correctly for safety. Bill wasted no time after he was discharged to take advantage of the GI Bill and he enrolled in Civil En-gineering at Cornell. Upon graduating with a BS, he took a position in engineering practice in San Francisco because he enjoyed being stationed there in the Army. He furthered his education while there with Masters and PhD degrees in civil engineering from the Univer-sity of California at Berkeley. He next moved to Indiana to take a position as a Civil Engineering Professor at Purdue University, a university known for its excellent research in science, technology, engineering and math. While there, he and a colleague wrote Introduction to Geotechnical Engineering, a best-selling textbook, which was translated initially into French, and then to Malaysian, Turkish, and Chinese. A younger geotechni-cal professor from Northeastern University later joined Bill and his colleague for a second edition, and now the publisher has requested a third edition to be spearhead-ed by Bill’s colleague professor from Northeastern.Finally, and lucky for all of us at Christ the King, Bill capped his academic career here at URI, first as a Professor of Engineering, and then as Chairman of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department.Bill reminds me in a way of the Matt Damon character in Saving Private Ryan. In the closing scene, with his Army service many years in the past, Bill asks his family if he has led a good life.Yes, Bill, you have.

Bill Kovacs time in the service led to a career in civil engineering that included serving

as the Chairman of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at URI.


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Mary MasonUS Navy

I joined the US Navy Nurse Corps in May of 1973 while attending Hartford Hospital School of Nursing in Connecticut. I attended the six-week Officer Indoc-trination School in Newport in August 1974 and then proceeded to my first duty station at Naval Regional Medical Center, Camp LeJeune, North Carolina (where I was born). My father was thrilled since he is a former Marine and spent the majority of his USMC time in Camp LeJeune.

Additional duty stations included Naval Regional Medical Center, Newport (1976-1979); Naval Regional Medical Center, Philadelphia (1979-1982); and then my favorite duty station, Naval Hospital, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (1982-1983), where I was the charge nurse for GTMO’s 26-bed hospital. We cared not only for the military members on this small base along with their dependents but also for Cuban nationals who defected from Communist Cuba by way of the shark infested waters. As Americans, we could not go into the surrounding Cuban countryside because the base was surrounded by live minefields as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Our drinking water was produced by a

desalinization plant because the fresh water lines from mainland Cuba were cut after the missile crisis. The hospital was extremely limited in some medical resourc-es, which required the doctors and staff to be creative (and successful) in treating many emergency patients. I particularly remember a newborn whose lung collapsed shortly after birth and the pediatrician and nursing staff improvised using suction catheters for a chest tube and an improvised ventilator since we had no infant ventila-tors. We medevaced the infant out once he was stable. He made it. We had three minefield accidents while I was there. The Marines were always out checking the minefields and accidents were sure to happen. We were able to save two of the three Marines. After my 13-month tour in Guantanamo Bay, I was se-lected to attend school full time at Marymount College in Arlington, Virginia to obtain my Bachelors Degree in Nursing and was also successful in completing my Masters Degree in Nursing Administration while there. I then completed a short stint at National Naval Medi-cal Center, Bethesda before being selected as one of two Navy nurses to help develop the nursing component of the very first Department of Defense integrated com-puter system for military health care. It was an honor and privilege to be able to work with other health care workers and nurses from the Army and Air Force in developing an automated health care system that is still in use today, albeit much more sophisticated and func-tional than it was in 1989.My next duty station was to return to Officer Indoctri-nation School in Newport, but this time as an instruc-tor and eventually the Assistant Director of the school-house. My clinical nursing skills were turned in for teaching doctors, nurses, lawyers, dentists and health care administrators new to the Navy on how to march, salute, properly wear a uniform and to acclimate to the Navy culture. More significantly, I believe I played an integral role in assisting these young men and women

Mary Mason, Commander, US Navy Nurse Corp (Retired)


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to begin to develop the leadership and management skills that were necessary to excel in their dual roles as naval officers and health care professionals. After four years in this assignment, I went back to Naval Hospital Newport as the assistant and acting director of nursing. This is where I completed my Navy career with 23 years of service in 1996.It was a true honor to serve a career in the Navy as a Naval Officer and a registered nurse. I did not plan on making the Navy a career. I was going to fulfill my

initial obligation of two years and then get out. Then I would say, I’ll try one more duty station to see what it is like. Opportunities and new challenges presented themselves each time I moved and before I knew it, I was eligible to retire.It was also a privilege to serve the greatest country in the world. I have no regrets, and I am truly blessed to have worked with and cared for so many wonderful people.


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Leo J. MasseUS Air Force

Biographical Information for Technical Sergeant Leo J. Masse, US Air ForceSpouse: Jennifer Nappi; daughter: Krystin Gildea; sons: Joseph Masse and Jonathan MasseI joined the Air Force on a delayed enlistment program October 21, 1988. I was recruited by Staff Sergeant Tony Mota in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. I entered active duty on January 30, 1989 from the Boston Military Entrance Processing Station and reported to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for basic training, after which I was assigned to the Chanute Air Force Base Fire Apprentice School. The first duty assignment was Pease Air Force Base, New Hampshire as a member of the 509 Civil Engineer Squadron (CES), where I started a firefighting career while assigned as a member of the Fire Department.I completed upgrade training and had a couple of interesting calls. The first one was when the base gas boiler exploded. The second call was a mutual aid call to Portsmouth to Market Square. Upon arrival, we saw

a full city block was burning. The last most memorable call would be after the base flight line was down for the night. At about 1:00 a.m. the crash bells went off fol-lowed by “Attention in the station. We have an in-flight emergency. We have an aircraft with low fuel. No other information at this time.” As we mounted our trucks and took up standby positions, we were informed we had multiple aircraft with low fuel. The first one, a Navy A-6 Intruder, took the barrier for 2,500 feet. He was stuck in the cable as the hook bent around it. We had only one runway, so the tower requested permission to land the second aircraft at the other end. A few min-utes later the tower requested to land the aircraft over the top of the A-6. Moments later, a Navy F-18 almost landed on the now freed A-6. At that point, we left the runway with 18 full armed aircraft. This was the first night we never went back to sleep after a call. The best part of this assignment was presidential support. We would go to Kennebunkport, Maine to President Bush’s summer house to provide fire protection.The next assignment was in Germany with the 564 CES, and then later the 86 CES, otherwise known as the Vogelweh Fire Department. Some everlasting friendships were made during this assignment. The call volume at the station was unique, with three stations 12 miles apart located primarily in downtown Kaiserslaut-ern. No aircraft, all structural and medical. Too many calls to even talk about. It was just said that you would see it all at this department and we pretty much did, right down to World War II bombs. On my first day on the rescue truck as a crew chief, I sent three people to the hospital for smoke inhalation. We also had a person thrown from third-floor window, a stabbing victim, a motor vehicle accident, half a dozen minor injuries calls, a few fire alarms and a human bite victim. This was just not your normal day. However, the travel and the friendships made the workdays possible. While off duty, I started working with the American Red Cross as

Jay Masse was a fire fighter in the US Air Force and Air Force Reserve in the

United States and Europe.


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a volunteer working with youth.My next assignment was the 27th Fighter Wing at Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico. I started as a driver operator, and then was a crew chief. I attended airman leadership school in residence. I was promoted to fire protection supply office representa-tive as a senior airman replacing two retiring master sergeants and assuming responsibility for all fire de-partment purchases and equipment. I was assigned as inspector for the fire department base Inspector Gen-eral, and was responsible for a complete exercise during the absence of the deputy chief. One day at year-end, I spent $80,000 in four hours for the fire department.This assignment had some interesting calls as well. During the time we had four or five plane crashes, and some wildland fires. During the off-duty time, I became involved with American Red Cross again, this time running the volunteer program for the hospital, and becoming Volunteer of the Year for the American Red Cross.In 1997, I left the fire department to become a non-pri-

or service recruiter, with the ability to go anywhere and stayed in Clovis, New Mexico to recruit, as a member of 367th Recruiting Station in Colorado Springs. This presented many unique challenges, and allowed me to meet many different people. I was accepted into the Knights of the Round Table for making goal. At one point, I recruited the most people the Clovis office had in any year.Next assignment was with 66th CES at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts serving as a crew chief and station captain. We responded to HAZMAT calls and in-flight emergencies. This assignment turned out to be my last active duty base. Time here was short but like any of the bases, friendships were made and they last forever. The unique thing for the base was that I was one of the last active duty firefighters assigned.On January 6, 2001, I joined the Rhode Island Air National Guard as a member of the readiness office. I worked there for almost one year until a spot in the fire department opened up and I transferred to it. I retired in January 2014.


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George P. MassoUS Army

By Jack Kelly

George is a WW II US Army veteran who was inducted in the Army in March 1945. His first assignment took him to Camp Wheeler in Macon, Georgia where he trained as an infantry rifleman to replace soldiers who were killed and wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, a major German offensive in the Ardennes Forest in December 1944. He was on his way to Germany as a replacement but the war ended before he arrived. He was assigned instead to the Army of Occupation and served for a short time in a quartermaster unit in Frankfort, Germany. It was there that he saw what war can do, as Frankfort had been virtually leveled to rubble by Allied bombs. The devastation is as vivid to George today as it was more than 70 years ago. So are the hardships of the people who managed to survive the bombings, the women who ran behind coal trucks and the children who came to the camp’s fences to beg for food. The children knew what time the soldiers ate, and George and his fellow soldiers would go to the fences after their meal and give the children whatever food from the mess hall they could. Having worked as a professional musician prior to military service, George was then assigned to the music center in Frankfort as a trombonist. He was later trans-ferred to an Army Service Forces Band in Bad Schwal-bach, Germany where he served as 1st trombonist and arranger in the 314th ASF Band. The band entertained the troops by broadcasting over the Armed Forces Net-work every Sunday from the Weisbaden Opera House. Tony Bennett was a member of the outfit, and he and George became close friends and still keep in touch.

George was honorably discharged with the rank of Staff Sergeant in October 1945. He is an accomplished musician who still today writes scores and arranges, and plays beautifully on the piano.

Staff Sergeant George Masso was First Trombone and arranger for the 314th Armed Service Forces

Band in Germany.



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Mike McLinnUS Navy

I was commissioned at the start of my freshman year in dental school. The summer after my junior year, I at-tended officers’ indoctrination at Newport Naval. After graduation from the University of Minnesota in 1969, I served my two years active duty at Quonset Point Naval Station as a dental officer.My low memory was the amounts of fiscal waste. The high point was life time friends that I met. One of my new acquaintances is still my wife of 47 years.Having enjoyed my time on the East Coast, did decide to settle here and start my private practice. As we say, the rest is history.

Lieutenant Mike McLinn was a dental officer at Quonset Point

Naval Air Station.


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Paul L. MullerUS Marine Corps

Colonel Paul L. Muller, originally of Torrington, Con-necticut, was commissioned in May of 1988 upon graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

A career armor officer, he commanded tank platoons with 1st Armored Assault Battalion, 2nd Tank Bat-talion, 3rd Tank Battalion and the Marine Barracks Ground Defense/Security Force, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He had the honor to command a tank platoon in Task Force Ripper throughout Operation DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM.Additional operational positions included company command with 2nd Tank Battalion, Inspector-Instruc-tor of Charlie Company, 4th Tank Battalion, Boise,

Idaho; J-3 Plans Officer for Joint Task Force-160, Operation SEA SIGNAL, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Pacific Theater Policy & International Affairs Officer in Marine Forces Pacific, and as the Executive Officer, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines. His last operational assign-ment was as Director, J-5 Policy and Plans, U.S. Forces Afghanistan for Operation ENDURING FREEDOM.He commanded 1st Recruit Training Battalion, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, as a Lieutenant Colonel. Staff and higher headquarters assignments included: Joint Staff J-5 Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate, Detainee Affairs Division and subsequently Chief, Coalition Operations Branch/J-5 Liaison for the Joint IED Defeat Task Force; Deputy Future Opera-tions Officer, G-3, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Okinawa, Japan; Joint Staff Branch, Plans, Policies and Operations Department, Headquarters, Marine Corps; and Secretary of the General Staff, Office of the Director Marine Corps Staff. His final assignment was serving as the Senior Marine and Holland M. Smith Professor of Marine Expeditionary Warfare at the U.S. Naval War College.He is a graduate of the Command and Control Systems Course, the USMC Command and Staff College, and the U.S. Naval War College, obtaining a Master’s De-gree in National Security & Strategic Studies. His personal decorations include the Legion of Merit w/ gold star, Bronze Star Medal, Defense Meritorious Service Medal w/oak leaf cluster, Meritorious Ser-vice Medal w/three gold stars, Navy & Marine Corps Commendation Medal with combat distinguishing “V” device and four gold stars, Joint Service Achieve-ment Medal w/oak leaf cluster, Navy & Marine Corps Achievement Medal and the Combat Action Ribbon.He is married to the former Jacqui Flinn of Torrington, Connecticut and they have two children, Keller (12) and Raegan (9). Colonel Muller retired from active duty after 30 years of service on May 31, 2018.

Colonel Paul Muller recently retired from the US Marine Corps after 30 years of service.



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Gary PeigelbeckUS Air Force

I served in the United States Air Force from 1964 to 1968. It was an incredible experience for me. I loved the Air Force and if it were not for coming back and marrying my wonderful wife, Fredz, I would have made it a career.I served at a time when Southeast Asia was getting very hot and things were not looking good. My Major Com-mand was the Security Service. At the time I was think-ing air police but it really was electronic intelligence. When in basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, I took many aptitude tests. One dealt with international Morse Code. I knew the code very well and could send and receive it in many forms from years of using it as an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts. Needless to say, I aced the tests. The next thing I knew I was in the Security Service going to tech schools for almost two years. One school was at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. This is where this Yankee learned about segregation, the KKK and a lot more! The next school was Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas. After this school, the top students in the class were given the choice of world wide assignments. We all put in for Germany, England, Scotland, Hawaii, and Japan. My good friend from South Dakota and I were the top two. Our orders came together – Peshwar, Pakistan. Where was this? This must be a huge mistake or a joke! It was neither! We were going to a no-name air station (at the time very top secret) 1,500 miles north of the Indian Ocean; 20 miles east of the Khyber Pass; 50 miles south of Kashmir and 300 miles from the huge Russian missile base at Turytuom. As we landed at the tiny airport ( which had train tracks across the main runway) there were rows of gray, un-marked U-2 planes lined up. This turned out to be the place that Gary Powers flew out of in 1960! This was really big time and the Air Force wanted the best there. It was a 16-month tour in the desert. It turned out to

be an incredible learning experience. Much happened there including two Pakistan-India wars over Kashmir. I had the opportunity to read raw data from all over the world on a daily basis.I also had an experience that any young kid at the time in any service didn’t think about - orders; do your job; regardless of danger or death. There was the largest sugar cane refinery on the sub-Asian continent 40 miles east of the air station. There they cut the cane, refined it and shipped it by tank cars and ships to England to make alcohol for medicinal purposes. There were many four- and five-story tanks of this stuff stored all over the place. One day two blew up and many more threatened to blow and destroy the plant and the town! The Paki-stan Army and Air Force tried for three days to put this inferno out with no luck. They were using foam but the mixture was incorrect and the foam itself burned and added to the fire. They finally called the air station for help. Our Colonel sent three of us and one Pakistani out to help. All we had was an old Korean War vintage fire truck and a ton-and-a-half truck filled with barrels

Gary Peigelbeck was in the US Air Force Security Service serving in Pakistan.

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of foam. (I also served part time on the fire department with my top secret clearances to fight any fires in our compound.) We drove there on dirt roads and wagon trails across the desert. It took 45 minutes to set up the trucks along side of each other. Foam was pumped from the barrels into the fire engine and mixed. Then through hoses it was pumped up to us, each standing on two of the next tanks to blow. In about 20 minutes

it was all over. The tanks looked like giant beer glasses with a great head of foam on top.The President of Pakistan flew out to us with all his en-tourage in six choppers. They gave us a huge dinner and cleaned all of our equipment. Somewhere in this city is a monument with our four names on it.I have never felt so proud to be an American and to be in the United States Air Force!



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Bob RicciUS Marine Corps

Robert Ricci, Veteran United States Marine Corps: 1954 to 1957Parishioner: Christ the King Parish 1990 to PresentFollowing my graduation from Central High School in February 1954, I enlisted in the USMC and was off to Parris Island in March for 10 weeks of boot camp. My first as-signment was with the 10th Marine Regiment, Second Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. I was assigned to the artillery fire direction center. We trained at Fort Bragg for a number of days and then prepared for amphibious sea landings along the Carolina coast. Very early into my three-year enlist-ment, when offered three overseas options: Vieques in Puerto Rico, the nine-month Mediterranean Cruise, or assignment to Korea (then in the first years of the truce that continues until this day), I chose Korea. We were transferred to Camp Pendle-ton, California for training for our overseas assignment. On arrival at Camp Pendleton we were informed that marines slotted for duty in Korea would instead be assigned to bases in Japan. At Pendleton, we completed advanced combat and cold weather training. We then boarded troop ships that would transport both Marines and SeaBees first to Kodiak, Alaska and then on to Japan.

I was then reassigned from artillery to a motor transport unit where I spent several months at the former Japanese military base at Camp Gifu and Camp Magill. One of the benefits of being in a motor trans-port outfit was the opportunity to drive across the country and get to see, up close, the people and the beautiful country of Japan. My final two months in the Far East were spent on Okinawa. Following overseas service I arrived back in the USA. I still vividly remember sailing in under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fran-cisco and receiving my orders to report to the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia. I was finally transferred to Newport, Rhode Island to serve out the remaining months of my enlistment.I am proud to have served my country as a United States Ma-rine and doubly grateful that the government financed my under-graduate education. With a college degree, I was able to succeed in my life’s profession as teacher and superintendent of school districts in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

PFC Bob Ricci in November 1954 with his future wife Josephine

Chirico, who is now deceased. “She supported me throughout my three years in the service,” says Bob “and

another 57 as my wife and the mother of our three children.”


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Nancy A. ShermanUS Air Force

Sergeant Nancy A. Sherman is the Military Personnel Management Officer for Joint Force Headquarters, Rhode Island National Guard, Command Readiness Center, Cranston. She is the state-level military person-nel programs manager and primary staff advisor to the Adjutant General, Assistant Adjutant General for Air, Director, Joint Staff and the Director of Staff relating to these programs. She joined the 281st Combat Communications Group, Rhode Island Air National Guard in March of 1989 as an Information Manager and attended Basic Military Training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas in September of the same year. She then fol-lowed directly on to her technical training school at Keesler Air Force Base, Biloxi, Mississippi graduating in December of 1989. Sergeant Sherman was assigned as a Drill Status Guardsman until being selected for an Active Guard Reserve full-time position at the Rhode Island Air National Guard State Headquarters in Sep-tember 2000. In May of 2005, Sergeant Sherman cross-trained to the personnel career field and continued her assignment at the Rhode Island National Guard State Headquarters in a new capacity as the Assistant Military Personnel Management Officer. Then she went on to complete the Personnel Apprentice professional course at Keesler Air Force Base in August 2006.Sergeant Sherman volunteered for a deployment in sup-port of Operation Enduring Freedom to Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait from August 2010 to January 2011, where she served as the night shift Flight Chief for a team of third country national escorts in the Force Pro-tection Section of the 386th Expeditionary Civil Engi-neering Squadron. Since November of 2010, Sergeant Sherman has been a certified Victim Advocate. She as-sisted the National Guard Bureau in April of 2014 with the processing of Air National Guard General Officer promotion board packages at Arlington Hall, Arling-ton, Virginia. In June of 2015, Sergeant Sherman also

volunteered for a 30 day tour at the National Guard Bureau A1 Officer Promotion and Accessions Section at Joint Base Andrews, Camp Springs, Maryland. Since March of 2015, Sergeant Sherman has served as a Task Force Blue Liaison to the Rhode Island National Guard Joint Operations Center for state emergencies and natu-ral disaster responses. From 1983 to 2000 in her civilian career, she worked full-time in various industry capaci-ties from a receiving inspector at an electrical wiring manufacturer to a plan file and data entry clerk for a submarine designer and constructor. Then as a shipping and receiving coordinator for a heating and ventilation manufacturing company and a home planning consul-tant at a local lumber yard. Prior to her current posi-

On October 1, 2018 Nancy Sherman was promoted to Chief Master Sergeant, the highest enlisted rank in the Air Force, capping a distinguished career in the R.I. National Guard, which includes deployment to Kuwait in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.


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tion, she was the Assistant Military Personnel Manage-ment Officer for the Joint Force Headquarters, Rhode Island National Guard.

EDUCATION 1994 Noncommissioned Officer Preparatory Military Course, by correspondence 2001 Noncommissioned Officer Academy Military Course, by correspondence 2005 Senior Noncommissioned Officer Academy Mili-tary Course, by correspondence2011 Associate of Information Resources Management Degree, Community College of the Air Force 2014 Joint Senior Noncommissioned Officer Academy Military Course, by correspondence 2017 Intermediate Incident Command System Expand-ing Incidents 300 Course, Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency

ASSIGNMENTS 1. March 1989–October 1989, Student, Basic Military Training, Lackland AFB, Texas 2. October 1989–December 1989, Student, Technical Training School, Keesler AFB, Miss. 3. December 1989–September 2000, Information Management Craftsman, 281st Combat Communica-tions Group, Coventry Air National Guard Station, R.I. 4. September 2000–April 2005, Information Manage-ment Craftsman, Joint Force Headquarters Rhode Island National Guard, Command Readiness Center, Cranston, R.I.5. May 2005–March 2015, Assistant Military Personnel Management Officer, JFHQ RING, CRC, Cranston, R.I. (August 2010–January 2011, Force Protection Flight Chief, Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait)6. March 2015–Present, Military Personnel Manage-ment Officer, JFHQ RING, CRC, Cranston, R.I.

MAJOR AWARDS AND DECORATIONS Meritorious Service Medal with oak leaf cluster Air Force Commendation Medal with oak leaf cluster

Army Commendation Medal Air Force Achievement Medal with two oak leaf clusters Air Force Outstanding Unit Award Air Force Organizational Excellence Award Air Force Reserve Forces Meritorious Service Medal with eight oak leaf clusters National Defense Service MedalGlobal War on Terrorism Expeditionary MedalGlobal War on Terrorism Service Medal Air Expeditionary Service Ribbon with gold border Air Force Longevity Service with seven oak leaf clusters Armed Forces Reserve Medal with hourglass and “M” device Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon Air Force Training RibbonSTATE AWARDS AND DECORATIONS Rhode Island Commendation Medal with oak leaf clusterRhode Island Defense Service MedalRhode Island Service Medal with eagle deviceRhode Island National Guard Recruiting Ribbon with two oak leaf clustersOTHER ACHIEVEMENTS 1991 281st Combat Communications Group Out-standing Airman of the Year1992 281st Combat Communications Group Out-standing Airman of the YearPROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS AND ASSOCIATIONS Air Force Association, Member, 2005 to Present Rhode Island Enlisted Association of the National Guard, Treasurer, 2008 to Present Rhode Island National Guard Retiree Association, As-sociate Member, 2013 to PresentEFFECTIVE DATES OF PROMOTION Airman, March 1, 1990 Airman First Class, November 1, 1990 Senior Airman, May 1, 1991 Staff Sergeant, March 1, 1995 Technical Sergeant, March 8, 1998 Master Sergeant, December 1, 2001 Senior Master Sergeant, March 15, 2015(Current as of February 2018)


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David SmithUS Army

Seventeen of us were gathered around the table on Thanksgiving in 1969 when I caused a great deal of consternation by announcing that I would report for induction into the U.S. Army the next day. It was not that my aunts and uncles were concerned that I would come to an end in Vietnam, or that my cous-ins objected to the war or military service. The “You’ll do what?” came from the fact that I picked the wrong service (actually, the wrong service picked me). You see, up to that point my family was all Navy, starting with great-grandfather James “Jimmy the Tinker” Sheehan from County Kerry who earned his citizenship by serving during the Civil War, first as a cabin boy

aboard the USS Macedonian.I was already an outlier having just left the seminary and ending a five-year deferment. In October, I responded to the draft by signing up for Officer Candidate School (Armor OCS, I naively thought).Before the 17-way conversation moved on to high school football rivalries or some other Thanksgiv-ing Day topic, my cousin Jack, who had just spent the last five years at the Naval Academy and who would eventually become “Admiral Jack,” said to me, “It will be good for you. You’ll learn a lot.” I bristled at his tone, a tone I would later learn was typical of ring-knockers.Well, Jack, I did learn a few things as I reported for induction, went to the wrong OCS (as dictated by the “Needs of the Army”) and served honorably for the next two years, ten months, three days and a wake-up.

These will be on the testSome of the things I learned were bits of military doctrine (as opposed to the church doctrine that I had been studying) articulated in field manuals or captured in oft-repeated sayings (that will be on the test).Some lessons echo years later for no apparent reason:“Good drainage is the most impor-tant factor in a military road” (from Combat Engineering Training at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri).

“Two up, one back for the best perimeter defense” (heard often during Infantry OCS, Ft. Benning, Georgia)“Beginning Morning Nautical Twilight starts when the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon” (an invaluable nugget from Military Intelligence School, Ft. Holabird, Maryland).“When making a contact positive, place the film emulsion to emul-sion” (surprisingly valuable advice practiced at CONTIC, Ft. Bragg, North Carolina).There were also unrepeatable nos-trums from drill sergeants, and the experience of dealing with the great variety of personalities that resulted from the draft that winter during Basic Training at Ft. Dix and Combat Engineering Training at Ft. Leonard Wood. After a three-week holdover working at the rifle ranges at Ft. Leonard Wood (I was a “ca-sual”), I left the Ozarks for Infantry OCS (not Armor, not Engineering, “Needs of the Army”) at Ft. Ben-ning, Georgia.

She will get you throughThe majority of candidates who reported to the 55th Training Com-pany, Infantry School, Ft. Benning in May 1969 (Class 23-70) were drafted after either graduating from or dropping out of college and were ready to act gung-ho enough to get

Jimmy Sheehan enlisted in the Navy in 1864 at the age of 16. He served until January 1868.


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through the program. The TAC officer (the OCS version of a drill sergeant) for my platoon had a very different background. 1Lt. Alphon-so White was schooled in the streets of East St. Louis and three tours in Vietnam before going through OCS himself. He took great delight in testing the commitment of his “Frat Boys” and me, the “Monk.” One day I was braced against his office wall as he opened a care package that my then fiancée Rosemary had sent me. As he took out the two nips of gin, the cheddar cheese and saltines, he declared, “Well, Monk, you keep that woman and you can get through anything.” On October 22, 1970, having been declared an officer and a gentleman, I left Ft. Benning with a security clearance, orders to attend six weeks of Mili-tary Intelligence School and my gin. On October 25, I married “that woman” who got me through.On December 14, 1970, I reported for duty to Headquarters and Head-quarters Company, Continental Army Command Intelligence Cen-ter (CONTIC), Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. CONTIC produced intel-ligence studies on 80 different coun-tries. Because CONTIC already had a surplus of 2nd Lieutenant ana-lysts, I was not tasked to apply my recently acquired skills to analyzing the enemy, weather and terrain of Yemen, Gabon or Uruguay. Nor was I able to use my training in perime-ter defense, building military roads, or monitoring a rifle range. Instead, because I had worked on my col-lege yearbook, I was assigned to the

center’s Graphics Branch, where a few months later I became Officer-in-Charge when my predecessor secured an early out.The Graphics Branch was housed in one of four repurposed mess halls in an old barracks area on the northwest corner of the post and was equipped with drawing boards, light tables, flat files, an opaque projector, Varityper Headline 820 (with no supplies) and a dysfunc-tional window air conditioner. I inherited a situation comedy. The cast of eight in Season Two included five enlisted men (two short-timers and three newly minted PFCs), a woman PFC, and two civilian em-ployees: Lydia was a German-born Army wife who was a skilled retail advertising artist and Charlie was a young local guy who could have been played by Jim Nabors. There were also guest appearances from the print shop and photo lab in the mess halls next door, and every

episode included calls from my su-pervisor, a retired Air Force Lt. Col., who used secure two-letter country codes because nobody would guess that JA referred to Jamaica. Our job was to draw organizational charts, illustrate uniforms and in-signia, and annotate maps for the intelligence publications, and, of course, create visuals for command presentations. My role was to drive the schedule, write resumes for the short-timers, resolve the genera-tional, gender, racial and civilian-military conflicts, and get the air conditioner fixed before the North Carolina May temperatures melted the wax holding the layouts togeth-er. Amid the dramatic episodes, the crew produced an amazing body of work with their Rapidograph pens, tapes and EXACTO knives, defi-nitely low-tech compared to what is available now. In one instance, we converted a French tourist map of Baghdad into a seven-color tactical map. It took hours of inverting and editing sheet film just to change the grid system. Today that map can be made online with satellite photogra-phy and distributed electronically.On August 30, 1972, I exited Ft. Bragg with a DD Form 214, a low ribbon count and many valuable lessons in adaptation. I was very for-tunate that the “Needs of the Army” resulted in my serving far from Southeast Asia, and the printing and publishing experience would serve me well in a career of marketing and technical documentation.Yes, Admiral Jack, I did learn a lot.

1Lt. David Smith in 1971 at Ft. Bragg with Rosemary, she who

got him through


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Dave VissoeUS Army Reserve

Turning My Life AroundIn May of 1964 I flunked out of North Adams State College in west-ern Massachusetts and in retrospect it became the best thing to happen to me. After meeting with Academic Dean Komorek, I enlisted in the US Army Reserve in Hartford on October 19, 1964 reporting to the 1117th Army Garrison, a headquarters company, with the rank Private (E1) and with no basic training yet. Off to Fort Devens in early Fall of 1964 to help organize a tennis tournament as well as a trip to see the Boston Patriots (New England Patriots) and New York Titans (yes, the New York Jets) of the American Football League in a preseason game. WOW, this Army stuff is pretty nice at this point.Basic Infantry Training at Fort Dix, New Jersey began in December 1964; that’s when reality hit and my personal life changes began. Mental-ly I wanted to be the best I could be with the idea that I may find myself in a real combat situation some day. In a letter to my father from the Commanding Officer, Major Joseph D. White, wrote “Your son was appointed a ‘Trainee Squad Leader’ with a rank of Trainee Sergeant based on his leadership potential, his cooperative spirit, his adaptabil-ity, and his desire to excel, which reflect great credit upon him and

the home from which he comes.”After basic training I became the clerk for Company B, 4th Train-ing Regiment, for which I received a letter of commendation from the Company Commander, Lt. Stephen F. Ledger upon leaving active duty. “Despite your short tenure as a clerk,” he wrote, “the administrative efficiency of this unit was enhanced and increased. This I attribute to the dexterity, spirit of cooperation, and conscientious effort you have dis-played in the performance of your assigned duties. I have no doubt that your effort here will serve as a springboard for even greater success in your future endeavors.”When I returned to college I joined an Army Reserve unit in Pittsfield, Massachusetts where I was a 3.5 Rocket Launcher. My experiences in this particular unit were disap-pointing to say the least. It seemed that weekend drills were not well planned – wasted resources – wasted time. For example, one time, we painted our helmet liners and steel pots with one paint brush for the whole company. Another moment that made me wonder was when we were at Fort Drum, New York at the range where we were firing our 3.5’s and I had a misfire which caused some concern on the range. I became very anxious when no one seemed to know what to do, so they then took out a manual and read

what to do. Did not seem very reas-suring at the time, to say the least! There were some highlights - many players from the Boston Red Sox farm team were in this unit. Dick Mills a pitcher from Weymouth, Massachusetts is one that I remem-ber.In September of 1965 I returned to North Adams State College to finish my degree in Biology and Second-ary Education and while doing so I became president of the student government. In November 1968, I began my teaching career at Mt. Anthony Union High School in Bennington, Vermont teaching biol-ogy and chemistry.When Bev and I moved to South Kingstown in June of 1970, I joined the Army Reserve unit at Fort Greene in Narragansett. That sum-mer, we went to Fort Polk, Loui-

For Dave Vissoe, Basic Training at Ft. Dix was a “game changer.”


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siana to train troops. Since I was a teacher, I thought I would be able to train troops, at least in a classroom setting, but was not allowed until the very end of our commitment there. So I kept my self busy with recre-ational activities to help make the time pass.

I left on December 22, 1970 with an “Honorable Discharge” and many memories, but the bottom line was that Basic Infantry Training at Fort Dix was a game changer for me. It set the stage for continued growth in my life but always with a commitment to hard work and to excel in all challenges that I take on.


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