Harrison
February 8th, 2008, 11:47 am
My kids' dad joined the Army in October 1972, just a few months after we graduated from high school. He went to Fort Knox for basic training, and to Fort Jackson for AIT (advanced training). He was then assigned to Fort Clayton in the Panama Canal. While he was stationed there, I was here in Michigan and gave birth to my first son in June 1973. He was at Fort Clayton for 18 months. Then he was assigned to Fort Stewart, Georgia and my son and I joined him there after a couple of months. In January 1976, I gave birth to my second son at Fort Stewart. We were there about 2 1/2 years and David was assigned to Husterhoeh Kaserne in Pirmasens, Germany. I remained in Georgia for a time and went up to Michigan for a couple of months. After he was in Germany a year, my two sons and I joined him there, where I had my third son in December 1978. While I was there, I worked for the Army as a civilian. I really loved my job there! We were there an additional two years and in late 1979 was transferred to a small post at Fort Ritchie, Maryland, which was right on the border of Maryland and Pennsylvania. In January 1981, he got orders for Korea but would have had to re-enlist in order to go. We would not have been able to join him because families were not allowed to go to Korea. So he decided to leave the Army. I tried to talk him out of it, because Michigan was really battling hard times in the job market at that time and I knew he would have a really hard time finding a job, let alone a job with benefits. But in March 1981, he got out, anyway. Our merge back into civilian culture was really difficult. We were absolutely broke but he refused to go back in. In July 1983, he died of a heart attack at the age of 29. Despite all that, I was blessed with good friends during out nearly ten years in the service. A few have passed away since then, but I still have two friends left that I am still in constant contact with to this day. One friend named Barbara whom I met in 1977 in Germany and one friend Nancy (who is now retired Army) whom I met in 1980 in Maryland.
We were really poor in the military. He was just a "lowly enlisted man" and it was really difficult living on such a low-income with small children to boot. But one thing it taught me was to be resourceful. We bartered babysitting back and forth so that we could go to the dollar show on base once in a while, we swapped recipes to stretch our meager dollars (did you know you don't need a whole pound of hamburger for hamburger helper? ;)) and exchanged baby clothes, went "junking" for old furniture, and learned to do without and learned to be content with what we had.
Harrison
We were really poor in the military. He was just a "lowly enlisted man" and it was really difficult living on such a low-income with small children to boot. But one thing it taught me was to be resourceful. We bartered babysitting back and forth so that we could go to the dollar show on base once in a while, we swapped recipes to stretch our meager dollars (did you know you don't need a whole pound of hamburger for hamburger helper? ;)) and exchanged baby clothes, went "junking" for old furniture, and learned to do without and learned to be content with what we had.
Harrison