SNAPSHOTS page 1 of 4

I enlisted in the army, and no one was more amazed by this than me.  Wondering what’s up with the cartoon taped inside my locker?  Just a little reminder to myself who I “really” was.

After basic training, I spent a year assigned to a remote desolate location: downtown San Francisco!  My classmates and I were to spend the next twelve months learning to read and write the Korean language.  Here we are on an outing to San Francisco’s Japantown.

SCUBA certification in Monterey Bay.  The next day, a twelve-foot Great White was caught near here.

On leave between assignments, I spent a little quality time with the folks…

…and without the folks, as well!

After San Francisco (and a few months near Boston), I was assigned to another God-forsaken hole: Monterey, California (actually nearby Fort Ord).  Of my four years of enlistment, I spent three of them within driving distance of home!

We had a good group at Fort Ord.  We were a bunch of wise-asses who thought we were smart enough to get around the rules.  The trouble was, we were.

I decided to get my midlife crisis out of the way early, and I bought a Fiero two-seater with a transverse V-6.  Vroooom.  I’m posing in my parents’ driveway, having traveled up from Monterey in so short a time as to challenge the laws of physics (and some other laws, as well).

Here’s the other vehicle I drove during that time.  This was taken while on a field exercise in South Korea.  It was nice, after having spent a year learning the language, to have a four-week opportunity to use it!

COMING UP NEXT: THE POST-ARMY DAYS!

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