My ancestry.

Hello everyone,

Well, it'a a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life and I am feeling really great at this time.  I am going to start up a new blog about my family tree, the many branches, and right to the roots.  I guess I should start at the beginning, why I got interested in my roots, where my family roots started as best as I can figure out.  Basically I will give a brief overview of where my roots started out over the Atlantic Ocean.

Why did I get interested in my family ancestors?  It started out as a grade school project.  Either Mike, my son, or Michelle, my daughter came home from school one day and said that they had a project at school to trace back their family tree.  So naturally this was a 'daddy' question and not a 'mommie' question.   I had not problems on my maternal side of the family, my mom's dad and mom.  They had lived with us all of my life and  I grew up with them.  My dad's mom and dad died before I was born so I had to ask my mom their names as my dad had already passed away. So I got the grandparents on both sides of the tree and there it set. It set for about 10 years before I was again involved with it.  I was on my way to Germany and my aunt wanted me to do her a favor and see if I could find some of her people while I was over there.  They were from Alsace Lorraine, which I discovered flip-floped between France and Germany for ownership.  I will cover my research there later on in the story as it develops.

Some of the places I have traced my ancestors to is Jamestown, Virginia, USA,   Germany, England, Norway, Denmark, France.  And there were some highlighted names along the way, Pocahontas here in Virginia, some Barons and Knights in Germany, Dukes and Ladies in England, and even the King and Queen of Denmark.

So, hopefully, I will be able to start my writing journal tomorrow or the next day.

Till then my friends, live large.

Back home again.

This blog will take a departure from my normal blog as I have not posted in a while and I want to tell everyone why this is so.

Thursday a week ago, I had an accidental fall at my house.  I was carrying a bowl of brown sugar mixed with mustard that I was going to use as a glaze for ham that I was going to cook.  When I started to fall, I dropped the bowl to the tile floor and it broke into a million pieces.  I then fell down on the tile and my right knee hit first with me finishing the fall on the hand and right arm into the broken glass.  I am taking blood thinner so when I saw all the blood on my right arm and hand, I called 911.  Well the first EMT personnel showed up five minutes later and stopped the bleeding.  They then took me to the ER at the local hospital.

At the ER they put about 10 stitches in my arm, cleaned up my knee, and sent me home.  I had had a bad experience with this hospital before and I was not going to take the chance that something like that would happen again.  I went to the ER at the VA hospital in Tucson Saturday morning.  They said the arm looked okay but I was getting some swelling on my knee.  They took three x-rays of my knee, which made a total of about 7 with the ones taken at the hospital in Sierra Vista.  No broken bones and no broken glass in it either.  So they bandaged me up and sent me home.

Wednesday morning I got up and my knee and leg was swollen where I could not get around very good.  So, back to Tucson.  I set in the ER from 3:00 pm until about 10:00 pm before the doctors could look at me.  One look and they admitted me into the hospital.  More x-rays, no broken bones, no infection showing up in the knee joint, etc.  Just a bad bruise up front.  They started giving me antibiotics through an IV and I was resting up.  Yesterday afternoon (Friday) they took out the 10 stitches in my arm, gave me some antibiotic pills to take, some pain killers, etc.  I was discharged yesterday afternoon and Mila came and picked me up.  I arrived back home at about 4:00 pm yesterday.  It is sure nice to be back home again.

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life . . . Well my friends, till I get to felling better and the next blog, the Lord be with you. Have a blessed season and a Happy New Year.  God bless.

Wilkommen nach Deutschland!

Guten Morgen! It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life my friends, wake up and take time to thank God and smell the roses along the way.

I always wanted to go to Germany all my life and after spending about 17 years in the Army, getting out to work at Civil Service for four years, with just a few trips to teach the U-COFT in various military bases in Germany.  After I started working for the company who underbid General Electric I was finally being stationed to Germany.

There was two main reasons I wanted to go to Germany.  The first was when I was a young lad, I remember visiting with my dad's folks in Lexington, Kentucky.  On the rare occasion when we stayed over night, I can remember setting at the breakfast table being served Black Forest Ham along with over easy eggs.  When the adults were at the table and wanted to say something not for little ears, they would speak in German. I didn't know what it was at first so when I asked my dad on the way home he told me it was German. That started me wanting to see Germany first hand.  Secondly, when my kids were young as a part of a school project they had to list their ancestry back as far as they could.  Of course they came to me.  I did some research into the family ancestry and I was hooked.  I took it all, hook, line and sinker.  In my research I found that my dad's folks came to America in the mid-1700's from Germany and Alsace-Loraine, France.

As I stated before, my headquarters over there was in Grafenwoehr, but I made my headquarters out of Vilseck.  While in country, I rented a small but nice room in the Gasthof Goldener Greif in Edelsfeld, Germany.  I was over there alone so the one small room was nice, in a nice, quite town.  On Saturday morning when I was not on the road tracing down ancestors, I was at the local soccer field, cheering on the team from Edelsfeld.

A little over half way through my obligation to the company, my daughter, Michelle had graduated from High School and she came over to join me in Germany.  I was sending just about all of my salary home to Mila so I could not afford two rooms at the Gasthof.  I got to looking around at found a nice up stairs, two bedroom efficiency apartment in Dorfgmund, Germany, which was half way between Vilseck and Grafenwoehr. This suited us just fine.  We only had German TV there but there was a VHS hooked up to the TV.  I picked up a Walt Disney film, Pete's Dragon, at the PX in Grafenwoehr.  Michelle and I just about remembered all the songs and words to it because we played it so much.

I was busy with work during the week but on weekends we traveled to different places sightseeing.  I never did get into the Volks Marches over there like so many Americans.  I was mainly interested into family history.  Mila did finally come over to join us there but she was cold and bored with the place so she went back  to Sierra Vista to get ready for us when my time was over on the contract.

On one of my trips to Germany, I was there to see the Wall come down and many other interesting things. I visited many places while I was there, Berlin, Bonn, Frankfort, Baden-Baden, Heidelberg, Stuttgart,  Nuremberg, Munich and Hamburg, just to name a few of the towns I worked in.  I visited in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Austria and Czech Republic. I did get to see Europe.

I will update you on what has happened since I have returned on the next blog. Til then . . .
Auf Wiederschen . . .
 

Daytona Beach . . then Arizona . . then Germany..

So, I was hired by General Electric at Fort Knox to do the same job that I had been doing at Civil Service.  General Electric decided that I needed the Instructor Course that had set up at Daytona Beach, Florida.  So, I reported in at the General Electric building on Valencia Blvd., right across the street from the Daytona 500 Raceway.  We spent the first couple of days in-processing and getting to know our way around Daytona Beach.

I was setting in back of the classroom the first couple of days.  As I said before, the building is right across Valencia Blvd. from the raceway.  At the start of day two of the class, I moved up to the front so I could heard way the instructor was saying over the sound of the cars going around the track. Boy, was it ever noisy.

After four or five days, the instructors come to realize that I was way ahead of the class on the subjects being presented, so I was called out of class to help the instructors with the flight simulators.  This was really interesting to me.  No longer worrying about tanks but how to fly planes, bombers, fighters, etc.  After that they fairly left me alone as long as I reported in first thing on Monday morning.  At this time something interesting happened.

I was at the Valencia Mall one Tuesday and to my surprise I ran into a whole bunch of security guards.  They were protecting Tom Cruse and Nichole Kidman.   They were in town getting ready to film their new movie, "Days of Thunder".  There was a sigh up sheet for extras in the movie.  I was ready to sign when I got to thinking, I work for General Electric.  So they were going to be there for another day of signing so I went to the boss at General Electric and was told in not uncertain terms was I to sign up to be an extra.  Well, there went my shot at Hollywood.

I finished up the course and got my certificate saying I was a certified Instructor/Operator of the U-COFT system.  When I got back to Fort Knox, I reported back in to George, and he he said I have some bad news and some bad news.  He said pack your bags.  They were sending me to either one of three different places and I had my pick.  The three choices were: 1) El Paso, Texas, 2) Tucson, Arizona, and 3) El Centro, California.  All were to train up the National Guard.  That night I talked it over with the family and we decided on Tucson, Arizona.

It was just Mila, Michelle and I that was moving.  Michelle was fixing to start her senior year at Buena High School.  Mike was already going to the University of Louisville, so we decided to leave him there.  When we got to Tucson, it was Cinco de Mayo.  Tucson was really crowded so we did not have much of a choice of Hotels or Motels to stay at.  I was informed that I was to train up the Arizona National guard.  They would come from Phoenix, Tucson, and Fort Huachuca.  The next day we moved down to Sierra Vista, Arizona.  This is the Fort Huachuca town.  All the national guard units did their training down at the Fort.  Sierra Vista was similar to Radcliff, Kentucky where we had been living, so we felt right at home.

Everything went fine from May to December.  When I called my weekly status in to Fort Knox, I was told that General Electric was underbid on the U-COFT contract so I needed to find me another job.  I ask who got the contract and was given the run around.  Finally I called and got the secretary on the line and she said a place out in Maryland and gave me the name.  I went straight to the library and pulled out the Standard and Poor book and looked them up.  I got the name of the recruiting officer and his phone number.  I called him up and explained why I was calling.  He sounded interested but was fixing to go to an important meeting and he said he would call me as soon as he was free.  Twenty minutes later he called, wanted to hire me on the spot but he told me to talk it over with the family.  He was offering a nice salary, all tax free, the only catch was I had to relocated to Germany.

That evening I talked it over with the family, called him up the next morning and got the details.  They would be relying heavily on me because of my experience with the equipment.  Their headquarters over in Germany was at Grafenwoehr, the Armor Center, and I would be staying in the little town of Vilseck, Germany, which is very near to the headquarters. They told me even though I was stationed there, I would be doing a lot of traveling on the Autobahn.  They said not to worry as I would be driving a company station wagon with all my tools and equipment in the back.

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life my friends, til the next time . . .God Speed.

Civil Service, or civilian servant.

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.

Fort Knox . . or not . . .

After being frozen in Korea, I had orders in hand and reported back to Fort Knox.  This time I was assigned to the Weapons Department at the Armor School.  General Patton's son, General Patton, was head of the Armor School at that time.  General Patton, the son, was just like his father before him, you did not want to be on his bad side.  I was a platform and also a small group instructor, in any subject that pertained to tanks, how the move, shoot and communicate.

We, my wife and I, had to kids at that time, our oldest, son Michael, and recently born daughter Michelle.  They assigned us quarters at Pritchard Place this time, it was for senior NCOs.  Being I was the senior NCO in our quarters, I had to make sure that everyone cut their grass, that they did not accumulate trash behind their assigned quarters, everyone had name plates on their doors and that no junk cars were littering the parking slots in front of the quarters.  From our upstairs window, you could look out across Dixie Highway and see the gold Depository across the way.

Everything was going great.  Up til now . .  The U.S.Army had in effect at that time the following suggestion: If you had completed a hardship tour (Korea) then you were given 18 months at your home base, mine being Fort Knox.  Then they would send you on a long tour (Germany) for two to three years with your family.  I had been working for about 8 months of my 18 months home base tour, and I only had about 6 months left before I needed to re-enlist.  I was coming up on 17 years of service.  I had 6 months left before I could re-enlist and finish up my home base tour and then be sent on a tour to Germany.

One morning at formation, the first Sergeant called me out of formation and wanted to see me in his office.  I was thinking, what did I do wrong now, I could not think of anything to be called out for.  Well, he told me that I needed to report to a certain Captain at 401st Personnel Services Company.  The First Sergeant told me that he had heard through the grape vine that I had come down on levy for overseas duty.  Before going and reporting as ordered, I visited my friend, the Sergeant Major who had connections in the Pentagon.  He called his friend and was told I had come down of levy for Korea again.  I asked the Sergeant Major how that could be as I had just finished up a tour there.  Well, his friend at the Pentagon said that there was nothing I could do because the Brigade Commander over there said I did such a fine job for him he wanted me back, requesting me by rank and social security number.  What he said was that I should just accept the assignment and go on.  So with this information in hand, I headed to the 401st PSC.

I reported to the captain as ordered by the First Sergeant.  I did not like this captain's attitude one bit.  I was really in not mood to be doing this right now.  I should have waited a day before reporting to her.  Off the bat I told her that I did not want to go back to Korea.  She said I was going.  So, there we were, in a Mexican standoff.  Yes you are, No I'm not.  Finally I pulled up the idea about serving one short tour right behind another short tour.  She said no regulation for that.  I pulled up another card to throw into the pot.  My ETS (Separation date from the Army) is in 6 months, a tour in Korea was 13th months.  I also told her I had saved up a little over 60 days leave and I would take it.  So, finally she said "West, when you re-enlist you will have enough time to finish the tour in Korea.  I told her that there would be no re-enlistment unless she changed my orders to Germany, then I would re-enlist to finish up my time.  She told me that I had to re-enlist.  West you are a career soldier and you have to re-enlist to finish your time to retirement.  Finally she said I will send you over for only 6 months if this is the way you want it.  She had me backed up into a corner with no other way out.  You go right ahead and send me.  I will take my 65 days of leave after I report into Korea, that after that I will be sent to clear country for my ETS.  Then I will write to my senator, Mitch McConnell and tell him about the waste of time and money on this circus.  By this time she was red in the face and told me to come back tomorrow and sign a letter of intent not to re-enlist, basically finishing my military career with only 17 years.

After this slight altercation, I went back to the Weapons Department to finish my work for the day.  Before I left for the day the First Sergeant called me and wanted me to stop by his office to see him before I went home for the day.  When I entered his office he was smiling and he asked me what was I thinking?  The captain had called him up and really chewed him out for my actions.  I spent about an hour telling him about the little 'card game' we had about my assignment.  West, he said, you are throwing away 17 years.  I said yes, but I was not going to go back to Korea.

So, after about 6 months, I said the same thing General MacArthur said at his fair well speech to Congress,  Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.  So I bid fare well to the U.S. Army.  Welcome civilian life. 

Korea - Land of the Frozen Chosen.

Now that the Thanksgiving Holidays are over, I can continue where I left you all hanging.from the last time.  I try my best to post a new blog every other day.

Korea, in all of its travel brochures calls itself 'The Land of the Morning Calm,' those of us in the military who are sent there call it 'The Land of the Frozen Chosen.'  Nothing, I mean nothing, is colder that a winter morning in Korea.  I thought I was cold a few times on the farm growing up, going out on a winters day to get wood to burn in the stove at home.  Quite a few times I would go to bed, frozen, wake up in the middle of the night, frozen, and wake up in the morning, frozen.  I don't care how cold it was outside, we still had to take care of washing up clean, and shaving each morning.  Many the morning out in the field where we had to take out our steel pots, helmets, put cold water in them and place them on the back of the tanks where the exhaust came out to get the water warm enough for this necessity.  Forget skipping it on cold morning because that is when the platoon leader and platoon sergeant would come by to inspect just for that.

When I reported in, the Brigade S-3 (Operations and Planning), asked me, 'Are you THE Master Gunner that we were promised?  I told him that I did not know anything about a promise, but, yes, I was in the first class of Master Gunners to graduate from Fort Knox.  They called in the brigade Sergeant Major and introduced me as the new 'Master Gunner.'  The Sergeant Major said good, we were expecting you earlier, but the Colonel wanted to talk with me the minute I came into the unit.  I marched right into his office after being told to 'Enter' and reported to him.  After the salute, he got up stuck out his hand and introduced himself to me and asked me to have a seat.  He told the Sergeant Major to have some coffee sent in to us.

He started it off by saying that the position of Master Gunner was new to him and he asked me about the school, what it taught and what we were told to expect to do out in the field.  After explaining all this to him we got down to the nitty gritty.  He gave me all the statistics of his last tank gunnery program.  How many tanks they had that was ready at the time to be able to perform at 100 percent for gunnery.  He explained that for all the crews to fire qualifying rounds in his last gunner program was 72 percent.  He asked me what I thought we could do.  I explained that I had nothing to do with the tank maintenance, that was up to his motor pool mechanics.  I said we need to set up gunnery programs for the crews to be able to maintain their proficiency from one tank gunnery to the next one.  He told me that he was making me responsible for the next tank gunnery qualifying tables.  If I had any supplies that I need to see his S-3 and S-4, and that if any of his company commanders had problems getting their people to my classes to come to his office and he would take care of the problem.

So, for the next few months I was bounced around between companies measuring they readiness for tank gunnery.  As it got closer and closer to tank gunnery, I was expected out on the tank ranges day and night.  After putting all of his tanks through the course, he called me into his office and told me that 89 percent of his crews qualified.  He asked me what I wanted to do next.  I told him that after a few days off for the crews, I needed to get them back to the classroom and continue on with the training so they would retain what they had just learned.  His words were, SSg. West, you are a man after my own heard.  Job well done.

Mila, my wife, had decided to visit with her parents and brother and sisters in Manila while I was in Korea, which was an unaccompanied tour.  While there, our daughter, Michelle Elaine was born in Manila. Mila had by this time become a naturalized citizen, so when Michelle was born, she was recorded as a U.S. Citizen, born on foreign soil.

I had finished up my 13 months over there, and the Colonel extended me two months to finish up on the training cycle I was working on.  I got my orders assigning me to the Armor School at Fort Knox.  Heading back to Kentucky.

Til the next time, my friends, have a wonderful time.