Michael Cooper:  

After I graduated that following Monday morning I was enlisted in the Army. That was a big change for me, I just wanted to get away from everything and start making my own life. I had really no idea of what I wanted to do for my life, and the Army was an easy escape. Seven years later with a divorce, a son, and an honorable discharge I was back in Radcliff wondering what I was going to do now. First I went and signed up at ECC to get a college education, trying to go to school while in the Army was a joke, spent all my time in the field and busting my tail while the desk jocks got to take advantage of all those benefits. Combat Arms was the wrong choice if you wanted to get an education while serving the Army. Well college was fun, but then the reality struck that I had to do something to make a living, so after a year of looking for work I finally was able to get a job at Fort Knox working Civil Service as a mechanic working on tanks. If someone would have told me that after getting out of the Army I would be back working for them I would have said they were smoking dope, but there I was. Needless to say that tryig for over a year to do the college thing and working took it's toll, so school went to the wayside and work became my life. Right after Iraq was attacked I volunteered to go overseas and help with getting the gear ready to progress on, so for three plus months I worked in Saudi Arabia getting a lot of Army equipment ready for war. Tried to work out a transfer withiin Civil Service to a promotion, but Fort Knox stepped in and informed my chain that I had thirty-six hours to get back in country or I was out of a job. Well with the money I was able to save while in Saudi I took flying lessons there in Vine Grove at the grass strip there behind Bashams Lumber, yes Bob Nall and Randy Morris had a little airport with flight training there in Vine Grove. Just before 9-11 I had finally had enough of the RIF's, reduction in forces crap at Knox, and in Johnny Paychecks famous line I said, Take This Job and Shove It. Between the time that I started to learn to fly and the time I quit Fort Knox I meet the Love of my life. Bertha was a very beautiful person who came to one of the fly-in's we had at Vine Grove and I fell all over myself with wanting to meet her. Long story short we finally talked, and then talked some more and more. With-in a year we were married on St. Patricks day at Bible Baptist church in 1995. Pretty crazy of me to throw away a great job in some eyes and go off to a life of flying for the airlines, but there Bertha was encouraging me to follow my dream. But like many dreams the reality sunk in, 9-11 comes about, flight training gets stopped, and I return to Kentucky from Florida to wait and see what is next. While at home in Clarkson Bertha and me went over what it had cost me so far with the flight training in Florida in preperation for an opportunity to fly with the airlines, well in short the cost to benefit ratio was way out of line with what I was getting. Getting into the airlines was becoming very clear to me that it was for the rich and those with the connections to get there. No easy route for a forties plus man. Anyway after they finally opened up the airs and the training to continue I went to Sanford, FL to inform the school there that I was through. In fact with-in a month and a half of working my tail off there in Elizabethtown with some of what I consider Top knotch instructors I finished up my Instrument, and Commercial ratings. I also earned my A&P ratings a few months later so I could work on aircraft. Just after I earned my Commercial ticket I met a gentleman who offered me a flight position with his company fliying the engineeers and architects to different job sites, and I could still work at Elizabethtown. The catch was that I needed a multi-engine rating on my pilots certificate, so back to training this time in Bowling Green where I did just that, had my ticket in record time and back to the company. Then the insurance comapny said I had to have twenty hour's in type, ten with an instructer rated to that aircraft, and ten hours solo. Well I knocked that out in a weekend which included an overnight trip to Fort Meyers Florida to visit a friend of mine that had also used to live in Rineyville. Funny thing was that after I earned my A and P, I approached the manager at Elizabethtown about an increase in pay since I now had my ticket, but for me the start of the year was to be informed that it would not work out, so there I was un...Expand for more