Franklin Martin:  

ted second tour in Iraq, returned home in December 2010 Oldest son promoted to Captain, assigned to Staff, May 2011. Oldest son graduated from US Army's Captain Career course finishing his Masters in Engineering Management from U of M, University of Missouri at Rolla. My oldest son and his new wife of one year welcomes their first son Louis, born a few days ago. My oldest son has been given his first mid-sized command. He is the Company Commander for C Company, an Armored main battle tank company. He has approximately 15 Abrams and about 100 soldiers under his command. Oldest son completed mid-sized field command and has been given a second command of the Brigade Headquarters company. (215 solders are under his command) Youngest son finishing final year in College, begins Marine basic training in February 2010. Completed Marine Basic training and Advanced Infantry Training. Presently in Reserve Marine Company C Lansing Michigan, Graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering May 7, 2011. My youngest son is married and has a 14 month old son. He works in Dearborn MI., at Ford Motor Co., as a product development Engineer. Youngest son has been promoted to Senior product development Engineer and was transferred to the Ford complex in Kansas City. He leads a group of other engineers on a vehicle launch. He is still in the Marine Corp Reserve and drills with a heavy weapons Brigade stationed in the area. Youngest son is now a Sargent in his Marine Reserve unit. Both sons, honorably discharged at separations date and gainfully employed. I am the Battery Pack (large format 28 kw to 40 kw) Test Lab Manager for Navitas Systems. While I have not retired from anything, I have left Navitas Systems as their company was acquired by a larger Battery manufacturing company. So my days do not include the long commute of 125 miles, round trip, each day to Ann Arbor Mi. For the last couple of years I have pursued my own interests in Science and research and building projects for the Grandkids to stimulate their interests in Electronics, Chemistry, Geology and inventing. It beats the heck out of troubleshooting, evaluating, testing and repairing, large scale 50Kw battery storage systems, which on occasion can be a bit dangerous when parts fail or the software, in the Battery Management System, faults doing test or operational evaluations at elevated or depressed temperatures.