Albert Spangler:  

My story, I enlisted inn the Air Force upon graduation from hi school. Following basic training and basic medical school at Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio Texas, I was assigned to Gunter AFB in Montgomery Alabama for 20 weeks of Medical Equipment Repair School. Upon completion I was assigned to the 7520th USAF Hospital at South Ruislip AFB which is just outside London. We serviced the medical equipment at all our military installations throughout the UK and Scotland. This was great duty and it is hard to beat London as a duty station especially back then when you could live very well on enlisted mans pay in London. It was a real eye opener and I saw first hand how well we had it in USA. I played softball on both the squadron and base teams. The last year our squadron won the base championship and our base team the London Rockets came in 2nd in the UK tournament. I built my career on the training I received in the USAF. I am very proud and thankful for the experience of serving in the USAF. My long term goal was to be a professional race driver. Ideally in Formula 1 Grand Prix cars. I had the opportunity to go through Jim Russell Racing Drivers School while stationed with the USAF in England. I believe I went through in the 4th year since Jim Russell founded the school. So Jim was my primary instructor. The school now has branches' internationally and many of the current auto racing stars of today are alumni. I was able to obtain my FIA International Racing license prior to my discharge from the Air Force. I moved to Los Angeles California after a few months back in Reading in hopes of being able to continue pursing a career in motor racing. I worked as a Field Service Engineer in Dental Equipment then X-Ray Equipment during this time. I also went to a school, for Movie Stunt people which was located just outside LA at Corriganville Movie Ranch. I was hoping to break into this field to earn enough money to continue my pursuit of a career in motor racing. I worked 5 days a week as a Field service engineer and weekends at the ranch where we put on shows based on old west events. It was a hoot and since everything was live there were no retakes. Funny things would happen such as the blanks in our guns misfiring so instead of a loud gun shot you would get a small ping from the primer going off failing to ignite the main charge. You can imagine the scenne with Billy the Kid who had just broke out of jail and was up on the roof with a shot gun when the Marshal returned after hearing shots from the jail. In this scene Billy would shoot the Marshall who was pleading to him not to fire. As the tension mounted Billy pulled the double barrel shot gun triggers and instead of loud blasts, only the primers went off with two small pings. We had to follow though as if all went according to plan. The crowd would crack up but it was still embarrassing for us doing the scene. During this period I felt God's hand in my life and started attending Church on a regular basis. Jim Russell had opened a school at Willow Springs which is about 80 miles from LA and I finally had a chance to reactivate my auto racing career. Well by that time I was very active in the Church and a moment of decision arrived. I felt I was being called to the ministry. As much as I loved and still to this day love auto racing, I felt I had to choose one or the other and I chose staying active in the church. I met my wife in Church and we were married in 1969. In 1971 I was ordained a Deacon and served in that capacity until I was ordained an Elder in 1979. We moved to Seattle in 1971 to accept a promotion...Expand for more