Douglas George:  

My Life See facebook - dcgeorgect for more photos After graduating from Hillhouse -`62, the "wanderlust" spirit hit me! I joined the Army in Feb 1, 1963 - US Army, Europe, Unassigned. Following a 'fun filled' basic training in Ft. Dix, NJ - in the dead of winter - I went to the Army Engineer School at Ft. Belvoir, Va for another enjoyable and exciting 6 months. I learned early on the Army didn't have their stuff together! I trained on the Nike-Hercules missile system, only to discover there were NO Nike sites in Germany! Can you spell S-N-A-F-U ?? Next stop - Germany. I was assigned to a newly deployed cutting edge technology anti-aircraft battery - HAWK Missiles. BTW, HAWK is an acronym for Homing All the Way Killer. Doesn't that just tickle ya? The missile site was manned 24/7/365 - with quarterly breaks for field readiness evaluation lasting a week at a time. Camping trips. Our missile battery was rated #1 battery in Europe...THREE years in a row! This had it's perks as we were asked to demo our state of the art air defense missiles to our German counterparts in the Wehrmacht... er...ahh... Bundeswehr :) In between all this serious business - I managed to achieve my original goal of seeing a good part of Europe, including lots of Germany, Austria, Italy, Denmark and France. In 1964, I added to my travel itinerary - as a football player for the 32nd Artillery Brigade team. 500 guys tried out - a week later that number was down to 100. It was a real challenge, but I managed to become the second lightest starting lineman - right guard - in Europe at 225 lbs. This was a first year team, and we had a respectable 4-4-1 season - considerably better than my senior year at Hillhouse :( We only had that one season - a lil country in Southeast Asia was reaching the boiling point, and football was no longer a priority for the US Army. Ironically my roomate in Butzbach, Germany was a Poli Sci graduate from Yale University - small world, eh? He majored in SE Asia, and his insight was prophetic regarding our involvement there. My 3 year military career came to an end in mid January 1966. I hooked up with Pratt & Whitney in North Haven in the Machine Repair department. 6 0f the 9 mos I worked there was spent in the East Hartford plant attending their machine repair classes. But I was more focused on getting an education and a degree, and left P&W, AND New Haven for Rochester, NY. I was accepted at the Rochester Institute of Technology in the School of Printing. I managed to get through by working full time nights (Case-Hoyt) and attending classes full time days - a pretty grueling schedule! I did however find enough time to get married, and have two boys before I graduated in 1970! So it wasn't all work :) I'll add to this saga as time permits - thanks for your interest! My Spouse(s) #1 -- At a party while attending Rochester Institute of Technology. We are still friends; we chose co-operation over animosity -- for the children's sake and our own! #2 -- Through a matchmaker friend who thought we would make a good couple. My Pets Bear, a border collie, incredibly intelligent and affectionate. Gizmo, a female cat of unknown ancestry, may be a Phylis Diller clone gone ...Expand for more