John Gettys:  

s in seventh grade I had an assignment to write a paper on the subject of government. Part of the assignment and the final grade to be awarded was based upon a presentation of the paper before the entire class. In those days just the thought of standing in front of a crowd and delivering a speech was enough to bring on cardiac arrest. My grandmother encouraged me to not only research and write the paper but to memorize the entirety of its eleven handwritten pages and deliver it to the class without significant reference to note cards. My grandmother, Martha, passed away suddenly during summer vacation of 1965. My young heart was broken as I was introduced to the vaccuum of loneliness and thrust into essentially the beginning of being on my own. I completed the final year of high school in 1966, somehow graduating with a group of wonderful people and receiving a diploma. Like so many others, I graduated with no skills or marketable resources. I then began to search for that which would restore me to wholeness (like I was ever a whole person), a search that I continue today with as much vigor and enthusism as ever. After graduation from high school there was little direction and few resources available to escape from Carson City. Without money, education, or confidence I was, or at least felt as though, I was trapped and the struggle began. Part of the struggle was the attempt to act as though everything was fine and to portray to others that things were going swimmingly when they were not. The clock was ticking though and matters concerning my destiny would soon thankfully be taken out of my hands. In these days the draft was still very much alive and well and there was one of Uncle Sam's most historically bogus wars raging half a world away. Because of the need to stoke the fires of war with what seemed at the time an endless supply of warm bodies, soon after registering for the draft I received my induction notice and off to Oakland I went for my first in a series of physical and mental evaluations. Needless to say, the bus ticket out of town that I could not afford to buy was generously provided by the government. Seeing this as an opportunity to take a step up, rather than allowing myself to be inducted into the Army or seeking Canadian citizenship, I enlisted in the Air Force and spent four years on active duty. In the course of my tenure there I went to technical school at Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, Texas studying the intricacies of the Minuteman and Titan II communications and control systems. Following graduation from technical school I was stationed at McConnell AFB, Wichita, Kansas and spent the next three years there as a part of a team performing maintenance on the Titan II sites and command post equipment. While stationed at McConnell I studied for and obtained a First Class Commercial Radiotelephone License thinking this would be my ticket to success as a civilian. It turned out to be just another worthless piece of paper to hang on the wall. But that's ok: I began to realize that it't not about the destination, it's about the ride! My life began to course in a kind of Mobius fashion although I did not realize it at the time. Truth be known, that's the way it is and that's why we do not know it is so but, that's another story entirely. Although a life is composed of many individual and discreet moments and events, each one becoming the words on the pages of a story, remember that time is a quantum, not a smooth slide into oblivion without meaning. Its sort of like floundering in a body of water and thrashing for survival. What is most important is that moment when we are thrust above the surface of the water and we take a deep breath and realize thankfully that we are still in the game. Everything we have done up to that time is consumated by the inspiration of just one deep and life saving and sustaining breath of clean and clear air. Reminds me of a statement made to me some years later by a very dear friend: "The only thing that separates the living from the dead is the breath of life." Then one day, a number of years ago, my eyes were miraculously opened and as a result, I moved the focus of my life from the past and the future into the now. Since that day I became a different person and things have never been the same. I began to see that my life had a unique purpose and I realized that my fears were the only things holding me back.