Command

The high school has a Veterans Day assembly coming up and they want to highlight the faculty members who have served. The head of the ROTC department asked me for an old photo that showed me in uniform.

In February 1977 I took command of a company. The Army was winding down from Viet Nam and there was a shortage of company grade officers. I happened to be standing in the wrong place at the right time and suddenly, as a butterbar with less than two years of service I found myself as a Company Commander of a training company. We were running an AIT unit, training tracked vehicle mechanics (63C10) for the Army. I would make 1st Lieutenant a month later, but the Battalion Commander wanted me to sit for a command photo.



Commanding a company was the highlight of my military career. Once you've been in command, you're ruined for staff work.

This next one was taken in about 1987 while I was in the Army Reserve. Desert Storm was two years away and we were at annual training at Fort Polk, LA. By that time I had transitioned out of Armor and was wearing the MP brass. At that time I was the Provost Marshal of my reserve unit and would be called up for Desert Storm with the MPs I was training that summer.



Little did I know at the time, I'd finish my career in an Armor unit, one of the few reserve formations that fielded M1A1 tanks.

I'll take both these pictures to the school house and let them use whichever they want to use.

Is it possible that it's been thirty years?