Eric Douglass:  

I was born into a military family and moved around nearly every other year, or so it seemed. In the 12 years of education, I attended 13 different schools. At least the last two years were relatively stable and spent at S.P. Waltrip. Any of you that remember me, I joined the Air Force three days after graduating. Actually, I Delay Enlisted the summer of our Junior year. After spending half the summer at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, I went to Chanute AFB in Illinois for Weather Observer training. Now some of you may think that there isn't much training to observing weather, but it's not just checking it out, but learning all the weather equipment (which you wouldn't believe what there is out there) as well as learning to code it and chart it. After completing the Observer course, I was assigned to an Army post in Massachusetts, Fort Devens. (Now it's just called Devens and is the place where the Boston Marathon bomber is being held.) In July 1982, I married Kathryn Matchette. She attended a sister church from Pasadena, TX. We've been married for 33 years, have one daughter, a grand daughter and a grand son to be joining us in October. Her last name now is Brooks. She married the son of Larry Brooks, our classmate. That's another story (no shotguns involved). In January 1983, I went back to Chanute AFB to attend Weather Forecaster training. That was six months of intensive training. What most people don't understand is that military training (at least back then) was eight hours a day, five days a week. None of the college type classes where you go for an hour or two, two days a week. Then they taught what you needed to know to do the job and not all the fluff that you get in college. I graduated from the program in August 1983 just in time to take my leave time between duty stations to go back to Houston and run into Hurricane Alicia. As we approached Houston, I turned on the radio only to hear the announcer say that Hurricane Alicia was 150 miles SSE of Galveston heading NNW at 15 Knots. "SSE... NNW? Oh, Man, it's heading right for us" is what I thought. You see, we were heading for my in-law's house which is half way to Galveston. Then I wondered, "Why didn't I know about this? I just finished weather school and I don't know about this?" Well, the reason was that I was so busy packing and getting moved, I hadn't watched any of the weather and cable TV was still relatively new. So, we got to meet Hurricane Alicia up close and friendly and spend the next two weeks cleaning up after it. My next duty station was Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, AZ. We arrived in Tucson on September 1, 1983 and have lived here ever since. I can't believe that I've lived here for the past 32 years. At least I finally found some place to put down roots. After spending six years in the Air Force and not seeing eye-to-eye with Uncle Sam on a couple issues, I got out in 1986. I love my country and will still defend her, but me and the Air Force had to go separate ways. I ended up working in the flooring business for the next seven months but between Christmas and Valentines Day, the bottom just falls out. Later in 1987 I saw an ad for the Arizona Department of Corrections. I was needing something that paid better than what I was currently working and something that provided benefits. I had a young family and couldn't afford to keep pay directly out of my pocket for everything. In October 1987, I graduated from the Correctional Officer Training Academy (COTA). I spent my first two years w...Expand for more