Since yesterday’s collection of various veterans was so popular, I’m going to post another bunch of pictures of people with whom I’ve served over the years and some notable friends and others I admire who served honorably. Some of these are reruns and others may not be. I’m feeling less lazy today, so I may caption these.
To all of you pictured below, to those colleagues not pictured below and to all who have served honorably, thank you!
Staff of Army Forces Central Command – Saudi Arabia in 2000. Some great Americans in this group. Loved this job.
The ORIGINAL Joint OPERATION TRIBUTE TO FREEDOM Class photo at the Pentagon’s River Entrance.
Family portrait, Dad, me and Jefferson, now a lieutenant colonel.
Dad immediately after his release from active duty, circa 1970.
Dad and Mom.
Riyadh Air Base, Saudi Arabia circa 2000.
Signal Officers Advanced Course, 1985.
Official Photo, first as a colonel, 2002.
Hank Minitrez, Shawn Woodbridge and me at Shawn’s birthday party, I think.
Me on TV as a second lieutenant.
Retired 3-star Ed Soyster and retired colonel Larry Brom during the WWII 60th.
Finance Officer Branch Qualification Course, Fort Jackson, SC in 1999
This one has a built-in caption.
Garold Holcomb, Bill Carnegie and Daryl Pooler on our way to Korea for an EXEVAL of the U.S. Army Finance Command at Yongsan.
My brother, Jefferson, with his unit in Columbus, Ohio.
A reunion of members of Southern California’s 326th Finance Group at National Harbor, MD some years ago.
Rather than post a whole bunch of useless words, I’m going to post a whole bunch of pictures of people with whom I’ve served over the years and some notable friends and others I admire who served honorably. These are all reruns, so don’t get overly excited about new content. And they’re not all captioned because I am lazy.
To all of you pictured below, to those colleagues not pictured below and to all who have served honorably, thank you.
Lt. Col. Speedman, me, Lt. Col. Stan Kensic and Master Sgt. Jeanie West.
George Lopez, me, Shawn Woodbridge and Eric “Chuckles” Harding.
Then Major Mike Downs at the Grand Canyon of the Middle East.
The Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines of Joint Task Force – Los Angeles.
ROTC Advanced Camp. Some of these folks probably never made it to veteran’s status, but I’ll bet most did.
MG Anders Aadland announcing the start of OPERATION Tribute to Freedom in 2003.
The Department of Defense World War II 60th Anniversary Commemoration Committee. Click to enlarge.
Left to right: Shawn Woodbridge, Jeff Keane, Yours Truly, and Jeff’s wife, Ethel Keane. We were celebrating something or other at the Ritz Carlton’s Suinday brunch in 2003.
LTG (Retired) Ed Soyster and I at Nellis AFB outside Las Vegas in 2005.
The late Commander Bob Moran, a friend of mine.
Just ’cause he’s awesome.
Former Coast Guardsman and fellow actor Ken Parham
This is a ten-day record of the activities of a combat unit during WWII in which my father served as a young lieutenant. Always found this to be a fascinating and sobering read.
Reposted from January, 2014. Much to my great disappointment, it’s only gotten worse. These days, you’re either all in or you’re a total asshole with no redeeming social value and ought to be banished from existence.
I lived in Los Angeles from 1990 until 2004 when the Army permanently relocated me here to Virginia. During that period, I was trying to make a career in the entertainment industry as an actor. For a period of about 3-4 weeks smack in the middle of badly mismanaging my early life in LA, I was literally homeless, sleeping on the couches of fellow friends and other starving actors. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t romantic. It was frightening, demeaning and humbling. But I got through it and while I never did establish myself as a working actor as I had wanted, I did build a career as a technician in the entertainment industry for much of my time in LA and loved every minute of it.
This time, my homelessness is not as a result of my own gross mismanagement. In fact, this time, my homelessness is not a physical one but an ideological one. There’s no place at all for me to hang my hat when it comes to politics.
I am politically homeless.
The Republican Party as a group doesn’t seem to want to include anyone that doesn’t adhere to its strict conservative set of ideals. Sure, there are things about which I agree with the Republicans among them defense, fiscal responsibility (though no one in politics seems to be practicing this anymore) and personal responsibility above government responsibility.
The Democrats, on the other hand, deride anyone whose ideals conflict with a generally liberal perspective. I observe the Democrats pulling out the race card for things that generally aren’t racist, but that’s their opinion, I suppose, and they have a right to it. And there are things about which I agree completely with the Democrats including broadening the definition of marriage, legalization of marijuana and the easier provision of health care, though I disagree with the approach which is the Affordable Care Act.
So you see neither party will have me. And frankly, I don’t want either of them.
Since I disagree with the ACA, there are many in the Democratic Party who will state unequivocally that I hate poor people and actively want them to be sick. I don’t, and such charges are ridiculous. No one wants people to be sick if we can make them well. I’ve seen the ups and downs of the American health care system during my former spouse’s dealings with multiple cancers and other serious maladies and I welcome health care reform. I just disagree with this particular approach.
I hear a lot of Democrats say that the Republicans want dirty water and filthy air since they don’t support the same environmental concerns they do. That’s crazy talk, too. No one WANTS dirty air and water. No one. Not even the vast majority of corporate entities who are often falsely accused of relegating environmental concerns to the basement of the priority stack. They want to be good corporate citizens because it’s good policy and it’s better for their bottom line.
Republicans often say that if you support abortion under any circumstances that you want unborn babies to die. That’s ridiculous. Do you know one person who actually WANTS unborn babies to die? Do you know anyone who thinks that’s a great idea in every case? Again, no one wants that, but to hear it told by some staunch conservatives, if you have a (D) after your name, that is precisely the belief you hold along with ALL of those with (D)’s behind their names. That’s just nuts.
You get the idea.
Life is not now nor has it ever been an “either/or” proposition. Why has politics become this way?
And it’s not like a relationship with either party can be like one of those Venn Diagrams that you did in school:
Lately, it seems to me that neither party ideologically allows you to overlap even a little bit. (Not publicly anyway.) You’re either all in or your all out. You either agree with them 100% on everything or you’re a horrible person who wishes bad things to happen to everyone else.
Yes, I am aware of the Libertarian Party. In fact, ideologically speaking, I probably overlap with libertarians the most. But right now, the (L)’s are not influencing the national dialogue to any significant degree and therefore, not a practical entity in my opinion.
Ok, I admit it. There are a few people – very few — on whom I’d wish bad things. And no, none of them are ex-significant others or spouses or anything petty like that. So no, I don’t wish for bad things to happen to the sick, the well, the poor, the rich, the homeless, the unemployed, the heterosexual, the homosexual, the bisexual, the trisexual (or any sexual I can imagine — and I have a vivid imagination) or the purple people eaters of the world.
I’m just me and I have my own ideas and thoughts about things. And I’m smart enough to draw conclusions from the available data for myself. I have an equally smart, terrific circle of friends and acquaintances most of whom don’t share my every perspective and I don’t hate them and they don’t hate me. Sometimes I agree and sometimes I don’t. Yes, we have been known to have heated discussions, but we have far more in common just as people then we do politically.
And herein is the lead for this essay: We ALL have far more in common as people than we do politically. The two well-established political parties have lost sight of the American populace as people FIRST. People have nuance, color and diversity of thought. Voters don’t. And that’s how the two well-established political parties now view all of us – as voters not as people. You’re either all in or you’re all out.
In today’s political climate, this leaves the thinking person with no place to go. This leaves me homeless.
I am often told that I have a great face for radio. This much is certain.
I am also often told that I have a great voice for radio. Someone at work today told me that I missed my calling as a radio announcer and to a great degree, that’s the truth. I missed my calling. Or more correctly, I miss it.
I miss radio. I miss it every time I listen which is at least every work day.
WFOB as it looks today. It’s not changed much except that the studios are now downtown.
My first awareness of the medium goes back further into my past than you’d think. I know I was no older than five years old, though from memory my precise age is unclear. My father took me out to rural Fostoria, Ohio where hometown station WFOB maintained its studios and transmitters. It was in a little brick building behind which were three tall towers painted red and white. He drove us up the long driveway and took me inside.
My first question of the man who greeted us was “Where do all the people sing?” As a four or five year old, I was a little unclear on the concept of radio. I recall being a little confused that there was no big studio for the musicians to perform in. And no musicians. If there was no studio, where was the music coming from? Being too young to articulate this question, or perhaps too young to understand the explanation, I was whisked in to the announcers booth and told what to say while the Man who Greeted Us worked some equipment. After a couple of missteps, and an eventual “Great job!” from the Man who Greeted Us, I heard the sound of my own voice coming from the monitor in the booth:
“You’re listening to WFOB and WFOB-FM Fostoria with studios in Bowling Green.”
I had a slight speech impediment as a kidling* so “Fostoria” came out more like “Fos-tohweea.” I might have said “full-time studios” but that may just be me remembering their long standing station ID that I heard for years every time I listened.
I remember little else of that visit other than being completely wowed by the experience. I felt like quite the celebrity when I got home and Dad turned on the radio in the house for me so I could hear myself doing the station ID a few times an hour. I absolutely loved hearing my own voice on the radio!
That hasn’t changed a bit since.
A few years later, I saved my nickels and dimes and Dad took me downtown to the Montgomery Ward’s store on Main Street in Fostoria to help me buy a transistor radio. It was a little, red pocket model, a Zenith, I think, with a speaker in the front. A small tuning dial allowed me free run of the AM radio band. Included at no extra charge was an old-school earphone for listening without disturbing others.
If memory serves, it looked like this:
Amazing what Google can find!
I’d remove it carefully from the box in which it came and once I was done listening, I even more carefully replace it in its box. It was, after all, my most valued possession and I wasn’t about to leave anything to fate.
Anyway, I was just getting to the age when music meant something to me and I wanted to listen to the Friday night request show on WFOB (“We’re Full of Baloney,” as they came to be known.) So Friday nights, once Mom sent me off to bed, I’d sneak out the box with my Zenith radio in it, carefully remove it, plug in the earphone and listen to rock ‘n roll until I either fell asleep or got caught.
That radio was with me for a long time. I seem to remember having it quite a few years later at my grandparents’ house on Lincoln Avenue listening to a hockey game and trying to figure out what the hell was going on from the play-by-play. That was mission impossible and I immediately and permanently lost any interest in hockey.
Other radios have come and gone but the love for the medium and the technology persisted.
When I was in Military School, my friend, Jeff Tobin expressed a similar interest in radio and armed with a cassette recorder and a little creativity, wrote, performed and recorded radio shows and skits. Jeff had been a successful community theater actor and is an extraordinarily talented guy to this day. But it was my interactions with him back in the day that made me realize that being on the radio wasn’t something that other people did. Working in radio was within my grasp.
Jeff and I went to Westminster College together in 1976. His Dad was the director of admissions there and me, as a “path of least resistance” kinda guy, applied there and was accepted. Jeff and I performed live at Westminster’s annual newcomers talent show a radio skit that we’d written, performed and recorded the year before at military school. We were a big hit.
The next day, Jeff and I went to the campus radio station, WKPS (now WWNW), to see about volunteering there. We were greeted by one of the students who we’d later learn was Jim “Geem” Boyd who took one look at us, eyes widening, and said in a loud voice “Oh my God, they’re here!!!” I checked with Jeff during his visit this weekend and he confirmed that this actually happened as I’ve described it.
Jeff and I worked at WKPS that year and throughout our respective tenures at Westminster. So enamored with radio were we both that we got paying jobs at commercial stations the next year. Jeff went to WGRP-AM/FM in Greenville, PA and Geem Boyd, now the news director at WHO Radio in Iowa, went to WFAR in Farrell. Before trudging off to ROTC Advanced Camp that summer, I interviewed for an on-air job with WKST Program Director, Steve Mechling. He told me that he’d write and let me know if I was hired before the summer was over. I remember vividly receiving the letter at Fort Lewis and reading that I was hired. And I probably still have that letter tucked away somewhere.
I had arrived.
Yes, there’s no doubt that I was unjustifiably impressed with myself. I was a jackass kid who thought he had talent. But Steve and others at the station tolerated me, taught me and let me make mistakes. Folks like Bradley W. Baker, Gary West, Herb Morgan, Mike Grenci, Joey Macy, and many other talented broadcasters made that experience overwhelmingly positive in spite of myself and my over active ego.
After WKST, I went in the Army with the hope of working in Army broadcasting. I weaseled my way into an assignment as the Radio and TV Officer at Fort Gordon’s WFG Radio. Aside from my radio duties, the PAO, then Maj. Mike Miller handed me a 30-minute TV show to produce, write and anchor, so I had tons to learn. Maj. Miller also gave me the freedom to learn and make mistakes and I made more than my share of real whoppers at that job.
After my experience at Fort Gordon, I worked in radio at:
The American Forces Network, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
WCKJ Augusta, GA. I only worked there two weekends. It was a hideous experience. You could play every record in the building in a six-hour air shift. I’m not joking – literally every record. On the upside, my sister got to hear me on the air for the first and only time.
KXDZ-FM and KABN-AM, Anchorage Alaska. I did mostly voice over work for them producing 60-second “Good News” spots for the automated stations. Though I was the morning man for a week or so when KXDZ went live from the Alaska State Fair in 1989. I was told at the time that I earned the distinction of being the first on-air deejay to do a live, in-state radio show via satellite. I have no way of verifying the truth in this statement but it’s fun to think about.
The American Forces Network, The Balkans, Tuzla Bosnia. I led the radio and TV mission there, though I did no on-air work.
I did a ton of voice over stuff destined for radio broadcast over the years and of course, the on-camera stuff as well. Plus the occasional acting gig. But when I punch the “AM/FM/Sat” button on the Prius, it’s all about radio and I can’t help but sigh wistfully.
I’d love to get back into it but of course, it’s a very different industry far inferior to that of my formative years as a radio performer. I know that if I were to go back, I’d be disappointed in what’s become of radio. Still, I can’t help but miss it.
AT-40 used to be delivered on vinyl.
On weekends when I’m in the car and I punch the “Sat” button, I get a kick out of Sirius/XM’s weekend playbacks of old American Top 40 radio shows. I used to engineer those shows on WKST. As soon as I hear Casey Kasem’s voice and that familiar theme music, I’m right back in that dingy little studio at WKST playing the shows off of standard 33 1/3 records.
“And now, on with the countdown!”
* I’m not exaggerating about having a speech impediment. It was bad enough that Mom and Dad sent me to speech therapy classes in elementary school for at least a year. I had problems articulating “r” sounds. I remember repeating the phrase “wed wabbits wun wappidly” until I was sick to death of it. I finally mastered it but strangely enough, I never did see any wed wabbit wunning.