John Childers:  

Life After leaving Emerson HS, my friend Homer DeLaGarza and I joined the Army in Oct.'61. We went to basic training at Ft. Carson, Colo. I won a contest for top soldier in all of basic training, and one unusual prize I won was a deed to 1 sq. ft. of Pike's Peak. I then went to school at Ft. Gordon, Ga. for cryptography (secret code) and Homer went to the paratroopers at Ft. Benning, Ga. After school I was sent to "A" Co. 69th Signal Battalion just outside Orleans, France. A year or so later we were sent back to the states at Ft. Eustis, Va. While there I went on several interesting trips, 2 weeks in the desert outside Needles, Ca., 3 1/2 months at Eglin AFB (SAC base) near Ft. Walton Beach, Fla., and a month in Iran (2 weeks at Vahdati AFB outside Dezful and 2 weeks on a Navy ship in the Persian Gulf). While there we took a side trip to Persepolis - an ancient Persian capitol. Neat! Before I got out of the Army I was in Alexandria, Va. (outside Washington, D.C.) on training at the time when JFK was assasinated in Dallas. We were on the street when they took his body from the White House to the capitol building. I returned to Gary in '64 and went to work at the Post Office (6th Ave & Mass.). Left there and went to work at US Steel. I worked at the 44 Bloomer plant, and also at the blast furnaces and merchant mills after lay-offs. While there I started to attend DeVry Tech in Chicago. In '74 I left Gary and moved to Phoenix, Az. I got a job at Sperry Corp., which later became part of Honeywell Corp. I worked there for 28 years, at which time they were purchased by Allied Signal (previously Air Research) and our jobs were outsourced to I.T.& T. They did not retain us so I retired when my severance p...Expand for more