Hello everyone,
I am still here in Las Vegas. I have been busy of late and will remain busy through the first week of June. Sadly, I will not be able to be with you and share memories with my classmates.
That does not mean that I will not be thinking of you all … because I will be. One of the things that I am sorry to be missing is catching up on everyone’s lives. I had a couple of my classmates visit me in DC while I was at Walter Reed Army Medical Center after my return from Viet Nam. For the most part, I have not been a part of the lives of my classmates and that is one of the regrets I bear for the life that I have chosen.
One thing that FUMA taught me is that I am a poor commander as I expected way too much from my people. I was able to refine that lesson (s) as I went through the Army and early career in the government – I was much better as the “leader” of a very small group rather than a “commander” of the unit. I have led an interesting life – not always fun or pleasant and I have had a boss or two that if I ever see them in the parking lot while I’m driving that I will serve to try and hit them … but I can honestly say that I haven’t been bored. After a miserably failed first try at marriage, I found a woman that will put up with me and who has made a “home” for me. Both of my children seem to be happy and are on a track to what I see as successful lives.
A note of possible interest that I will pass along to my classmates who may remember me as the cadet who wrote “FUMA Joe” stories is that after several magazine articles and monographs and a book on “High Altitude Air Surveillance Platforms” published in classified form, that I have recently finished a manuscript of a fictional story – an action-adventure story that I am shopping around to publishers. Hopefully, things will go well for this effort.
I moved to Las Vegas three years ago and I live in the extreme upper Northwest part of the valley. There are 12 houses between mine and protected wilderness.
