Here I was, just new out of the Army. It was a strange feeling. Once I was out of the Army I told myself that there would be no more waking up at 'zero dark early' for me. Guess what? Even to this day, I find myself going to bed early and rising about 4:00 A.M. each and every morning.
For the first two years after being kicked out, I took jobs with small, local, loan companies. One was located in Radcliff, Kentucky and the other was in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Like I said this lasted for about two, two and a half years. I worked mostly in the loan collection department. Which means that nearly every Friday was spent out of the office, on the road collecting outstanding debts. At the end of this time, I remember this one Friday very clearly. On the next to last stop, I went up to the door and knocked. The man who answered opened the door and told his dog to get me. I got back into my car just before the dog could rap his teeth around my leg. I drove away from there and wrote up the incident. I was glad that I only had one more stop before I could call it and go home to rest.
The last stop of the day. I went up and rang the door bell and the lady who had the loan answered the door. I told her who I was and what I was there for. She told me to wait a moment she would be right back, and closed the door. A few minutes later she opened the door and had her purse in hand. She was reaching into it to pull out some money, I thought. Instead, she pulled out a pistol. Pointed it at me and told me to get off of her property. Needless to say, I got into me car, expecting to be shot in the back at any time. I went home and did not mention any of this to my family. Monday morning, back at the office, and told the manager I wanted to talk with him in the back room. I told him of what happened Friday evening and that he needed to get some else to work my job because I no longer was working there. I walked out of the back room, got into my car and drove straight to the employment office at Fort Knox. I applied for a teaching job with the Weapons Department. Then I went home and let myself wind down.
About two weeks later I accepted a teaching position with the Weapons Department at Fort Knox as a temporary civil service employee. We had to pitch the class to a bunch of our peers before we were qualified as instructors. Being I had previous experience teaching, it wasn't long before I was rated as a platform instructor on all subjects and also rated as a small group instructor. After being with the Weapons Department for about two years, the Army bought a tank simulator from General Electric and I was transferred to the Simulation Section of the Weapons Department. This new simulator was called U-COFT, which stands for Unit Conduct of Fire Trainer. This simulator was used to train up tank crews (minus the tank driver) to combat effectiveness.
Let me explain about how the temporary civil service ranking worked at that time. It has been so long and I have not kept up with the changes so I may be different now. At that time you could be a temporary employee for 3 years and 364 days. If you had 4 years as temporary, they had to make the position permanent. This all had to do with insurance. After working in Simulations for about a year, I started going TDY (Temporary Duty Change) to teach operators how to run the simulator. The course was 5 weeks long and I was only authorized to teach in the continental United States. Only the Military was authorized to teach the course overseas. I was getting close to my four years when I was approached by the Major who was in charge of the Department. He told me that he did not have any military instructors who wanted to go on a three month teach to various locations in Germany and he wanted me to go. I did some quick calculations and figured that would definitely put me over my four years. Yes, I went as the backup for the primary instructor who was in the military.
He was an old military man and he ended up not showing up for most of his classes so I had to take over. Halfway through the course in Fulda, Germany, they called me from Fort Knox and told me to cancelled the class and come home because they did not have enough money to pay for me to being overseas. This was on Tuesday when they called and they told me to be back to Fort Knox by Friday of that week so I would be able to process out of civil service. I went down to the local Army ADCO office and told them my predicament. I was told due to the hurricane that had hit the east coast of the states, they were only letting active duty military go back to help their families. Friday was my last official date, but I did not get back until Tuesday of the following week.
I picked up my clearance papers and finished out processing in one day. The next day I went to visit my next door neighbor who was in charge of the General Electric side of the house. So the very next day I went to work for General Electric doing the same job I was doing for civil service.
More the next time. It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life. Have a good day my friends.
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