After 4-1/2 years at the University of Minnesota, in art education, I left, with no degree. I took a number of courses I didn't need, had more than enough credits, but had avoided physical education and history of education. I had decided in my last quarter of practice teaching that I wasn't going to spend my life teaching, so I quit, to take some time to figure out what I was going to do.

But what was I going to do instead?   I had brain-fag at the time, and decided that Uncle Sam was going to take me away sooner or later anyway, so let's get it over with. I looked at signing up with either the Navy or Air Force, but both of those organizations wanted four years of my life. No way; two years was already too much. I wrote a letter to the draft board: "I am no longer a student at the U of M; please include me in your next induction call."   Can you imagine, those cooperative people at the draft board did just that!

Trained at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri (that's pronounced "misery") in engineer training. Got sent to a refrigeration technician school at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

Luckily, I didn't go to FECOM (Far East Command), for the Korean mess which was going on, but was sent to Germany, where I was assigned to a quartermaster company which had, counting me, three refrigerator technicians; One set of refrigerator tools; and no refrigerators other than the ones in the mess hall. That's the army. During the time I was in that company I was never called on to service a refrigerator.

After a few months the local Army Finance office, which paid the troops in that area, needed help, and my quartermaster company loaned me to them until I returned to the U.S.

The upshot is that no-one ever fired a shot at me, I'm pleased to say. What's more, two things happened to me that were NEVER supposed to happen to a soldier in his time in the army: I never fired a weapon of any kind after basic; and I never spent one night in the field after basic.   A charmed life, I guess.

Dave Oesterreich