Gene Roose:
CLASS OF 1972
East High SchoolClass of 1972
Phoenix, AZ
Gene's Story
Life
September 2007
Ah LIFE - where to start (we'll postpone ending as long as possible).
Life has been a mixture of both good and bad. I'm currently embroiled in my second divorce (she filed, not me) - one I thought I'd never see.
It's been nine months since I was served with papers and life has been on hold ever since. I've moved on mentally and physically, but financially - oh my God.
So can I claim I've had a good life so far? Yes, I think I can. There certainly has been much pain and sorrow, but I still believe there is hope for better things and better events.
I sincerely hope many of those who read this have been more successful than I. My parents are still married after 55 years - what happened to our generation?
So life is good - I still have my health, my family, and my children (David -22, Cassie - nearly 13, and Jake - 9 next month). I'm back in school working on a Master's in Education (Secondary Ed) and plan to begin teaching Fall 2008. This has been a dream of mine for more than 30 years.
Thanks for stopping in...
Gene
School
Gotta love that first question (Who was your biggest crush?). I started at East as a junior in the fall of 1970. That period was really interesting - the Vietnam War, hippies, free love - and Karen Carpenter's "Close To You".
How "interesting"? Well, for me, considerably. I'd never been on a date, never kissed a girl, and never been to anything as terrifying as a school dance. But my cousin Tony Cusimano worked hard to change all that and pretty much acted as matchmaker for several months.
So I "dated", but I was pretty dreadful. So my apologies to those first several dates (no need to name names, right?).
My first real effort came during basketball season (we had an AWESOME team!). Gene Brent and I both had our eyes on Terree Parlett. With that flowing strawberry blond hair and slim silhouette, she was quite a dream.
Hey, but we were kids, and the whole boyfriend - girlfriend thing just didn't last.
Senior year I was only at East in the mornings. Afternoons were spent at Phoenix College. My family moved out to Bell and 14th Ave (which was practically Nevada way back then), so the whole dating scene really took a hit. I also couldn't play sports anymore (football, track, and baseball) because there was little time left after driving all over the place and attending two schools.
Did I have fun and did I like East? You bet! I interacted and was friendly (if not friends) with many different groups on campus. I've got a head full of great memories. To Linda and Mike Sullivan (who shared my birthday), I hope life has brought you great things.
To Tom and DeEtte Faith - great to see your love blossom with children - and great to work with Tom at IBM.
To Tom Lange - who did us all proud by attending the Air Force Academy and being the kicker on the football team (I tried to get in the Air Force as a pilot through AFROTC, but got "riffed" when the Vietnam War ended) - you were a real inspiration.
And to the many, many others that I remember in my head and hold in my heart - thanks for everything. I took a bit of each of you with me on my journey through life, and I hope I left good memories with you.
Gene
Workplace
September 2007
My work life has been both varied and challenging. After high school, I supplemented my Air Force ROTC college scholarship with stints at Motorola, American Express, General Instruments, Coco's, Jack-in-the-Box, Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor and more.
29 years ago I started with IBM as a computer programmer in San Jose, California. I'm still with them today and will retire in just under a year.
IBM gave me what the Air Force could not - the ability to travel the world and live abroad. I did three tours with IBM in England. The first was in 1984 and 1985. My new wife and I lived in the center of Wimbledon, right next to the Common and about 1/2 mile from the tennis courts. My son David was born in Queen Mary's hospital in Roehampton, England in June 1985.
The second tour was from 1990 through June 1995. Still worked in London, but lived just southwest of Wimbledon in the neighboring community of New Malden. My daugther Cassie was born during this assignment at Kingston Hospital in November 1994.
The third tour was in 2000. I went alone and lived in Winchester just 150 yards from the cathedral (yes, the one in the song). I worked at IBM's facility in Hursley.
I've had a couple of extended short-term assignments as...Expand for more
well. Six months in San Francisco during 2003 and seven months in Munich, Germany during 2004 (Octoberfest was quite the experience).
IBM has been very good to me and my family. I've spent time traveling extensively throughout Europe, a fair amount in the Middle East and Africa (Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain), South/Central America (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia), and far-flung Japan and Australia.
And all on IBM's money - hotels, restaurants, and plane flights. Yes, IBM has treated me well.
Military
I was one of the lucky ones in our era (early 70s). The major Vietnam offensives (like Tet) were already behind us. We still had the draft (and the painful memories of "Hanoi" Jane [Fonda]), but the war machine was winding down.
Even before my draft number was known, I had made my decision. There was no way I was going to wait and let the government tell me what service branch needed me. No, I could at least have some control over the decision.
I'm no hero - so it was darn easy to eliminate the Marines and the Army right away. And since I get queasy in the bathtub, the Navy wasn't a remote possibility (who needed weeks and months on end of daily heaving over the side?).
So the choice was clear - follow my Dad into the Air Force. Even then, though, I still wanted some control - and some flair!
So I went straight down to the local Air Force recruitment office, took some tests, filled out a background profile and went whistling off to college in St. Louis, Missouri as an Air Force ROTC cadet - Category 1A - Pilot candidate!
The next three years, honestly, were some of the best times in my life. I advanced well within ROTC, had a total blast at boot camp in San Antonio during the summer of 1974 (Lackland AFB), and spent the following year letting the Air Force pay me to fly Cessna 150s at Scottsdale Air Park twice a week.
And then the unthinkable happened - the Viet Cong overran Saigon, and we anxiously watched the nightly news as chaotic scenes of people being airlifted off the US Embassy to safety aboard floating stamps of America were displayed.
April 1975 - a major turning point for me. I was only 6 credits shy of graduating from ASU and getting my slot for Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) in T37s and T38s.
However, fate had other ideas. With the war machine winding down, we weren't losing as many aircraft (and their pilots and navigators). The Air Force kicked off a massive Reduction In Force (RIF) and targeted upcoming pilot and navigator candidates.
Despite having great support from my CO (and a couple of nice letters from Generals at Lackland), I was tripped up by a clerk - a Staff Sergeant reviewing all pilot and navigator applications to look for easy targets. And I was real easy - back as a senior at East High School, I naively was extremely honest in supplying my background information. When asked if I'd ever been unconscious, I responded with yes - when I was knocked out at age 5 after a spill from my bike - and spent a night under observation at the base hospital in Toul Rosiere, France.
This little detail was decidedly unimportant when the war machine needed fresh blood, but when the ranks were overflowing, suddenly I became a high risk - how would you explain to the American public that someone with a known impediment was allowed to irresponsibly pilot a $20 million investment and ultimately lose it by blacking out?
So, I was offered options. The Air Force still needed a few good men to sit 10 stories underground for a week at a stretch with a finger on the trigger of a Titan or Minuteman missile (no thanks). They also needed scientists with my skill set in Math and Physics to help refine designs for our nuclear arsenal at Los Alamos (uh, anything else?).
As a last resort, there was a stellar open req for a "chief meteorologist" (weatherman to us novices) at Minot, North Dakota.
I know - I was spoiled for choice, wasn't I? The last alternative was the worst - I was bound to serve at least 4 years active duty as an enlisted man at a post of the Air Force's choosing. I was resigned to taking my lumps like a man, when the final surprise came. After having my college education paid by the Air Force, $150 a month spending money, and more fun than I deserved with a great team of cadets, Uncle Sam thanked me for my commitment and service to date and said "Gene, have a great life. You're free to pursue your dreams."
<Sigh> My dream was to travel the world and fly jets. :-(
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