Richard Whittington:
CLASS OF 1972
Niceville High SchoolClass of 1972
Niceville, FL
Mowat Junior High SchoolClass of 1972
Panama city, FL
Lucille Moore Elementary SchoolClass of 1972
Panama city, FL
Richard's Story
After graduation the family moved back to Panama City and I joined the Air Force, got stationed in Missouri at Whiteman AFB. Since Jr High I had been dabbling in electronics and computer theory, so they USAF snapped me right up, trained me, and slapped a top secret/cryptoghaphic endorsement on me, then put me to work on the Minuteman ICBM computers. Rather mundane crap, and I burned out after a couple years, and the stress of literally being watched day and night got to me also ... I couldn't live off base, me AND my family were REQUIRED to live on base. I'm sure you remember what the baddies were up to in the early to late 70s. (If we only knew what was in store 20 ans 30 years later, huh?) We did in fact have a half dozen or so idiots that actially climbed over the fence into the base housing and promptly got taken away by the FBI. All in all the USAF was ... interesting.
I got out in 1978, worked offshore Texas in the Gulf on oil rigs for a while, worked up to souse chef at a Panama City Beach Resort, worked several restaurants in the Panama City area as cook or Manager and developed a following for my cullinary talents. You may recall the Sandy Creek Murders back in the early 80s in the Florida Panhandle, I was a police informant on that one and had to take an extended sabatacal from Florida, I lost my wife to divorce & ended up in Tennessee for several years. While there I got to talking with a woman in Fort Myers Florida on the internet. Over the year or so we advanced to telephone, and out of the blue, she said she wanted to meet me, but not as a visit, she asked me to move down there, she found me an apartment, but a month after I got there, she said she didn't like the set-up, and since her daughters liked me so well too, she asked me to move in. I was there 11 years, until she had a mental breakdown and that changed her personality to where we were no longer compatable. Since my parents were having medical problems I moved back to Panama City, and a few months later divorce papers followed. It took about another month to get my parents medical problems squared away, and I went to a 9 day outdoors Renaissance Festival where most folks were dressed out in costumes date to the 1500 to 1600 era up in Atlanta. Would you believe I met someone else?
This time I stayed in the Atlanta area 9 years ... she proposed to me! We got married in Dec 1999, and Jan 2000 she had a grand mal seizure. 22 months later we confirm she has a stage 2 glioblastoma multiformi, and incurable, untreatable, inoperable brain tumor, and that the stage 2 tumor is 100% fatal within 5 to 8 years. Well, we found a clinical trial. There was a months long schedule of chemo and radiation, I've never seen someone so sick. Before they stopped the treatment she was also given 2 or 3 units of whole blood every week for the last several weeks, & when they called off the 'treatments' they estimated she has only 20% of her bome marrow left, and they could not gurantee it would regenerate. You see, calling a treatment a "clinical trial" is a polite way of saying, "In desperation of your condition, you will subject yourself to experiments that may kill you while in search of a cure ... but there are no gurantees because we are experimenting on you." Well, the good news is 6 months after treatment ended the high rez MRI detected NO TUMOR AT A...Expand for more
LL!! and her marrow did regenerate, The BAD news is, the brush with death, and the poisons and radiation to the brain cells caused her to change, she grew sullen, morose, and hateful. And yes, they said the treatments more than likely caused the personality shifts. We're still married, but there's no hope of going back.
Currently I'm in Missouri ... again. Followed a job out here. In June of 2007 I was online in a chatroom going on and on about how my van had just cracked the head due to a radiator leak. This woman says she has a van she'll sell me, emails me her phone number, and we start talking, for hours we talk. Well, I decided to buy the van, even though she was 700 miles away. I didn't have any time off I could take, and the nearest bus terminal is 65 miles away in St louis, so she says, she has a week off coming up, just send her $500 and she'll drive it to me and take the bus back. She stayed all week, we hit it off so well we both cried when she got on the bus to go back ... In September she tells me she's coming back with her son to stay with me, she's already got several possible jobs rounded up, and it's a done deal! And believeme, I didn't protest at all.
All was fine until April 28, 2008. We get a phone call from the Trauma center in Roenoke VA, her daughter and son-in-law are almost killed in a one car accident, and they may not live. June 1 she has her car packed with all she can, her stuff in storage, takes a LOA from work, gives up her place and uses the rent money to drive her and her son 800 miles to VA. Mid July her LOA ran out, Walmart agrees to let her have an 'unqualified transfer' for a signed one year contract to not leave that store for another walmart, and she tells me, "You have a choice to make, either continue this relationship long distance until God knows when, but for at LEAST a year, or find a way to move out there with her ... September 23 she & her son will be here with the Uhaul to clean out her storage, and gather up MY things too. By the 26th we'll be in VA.
WOW! I went thru all that, geeeze, guess I should stop writing.
One last thing however, you know how they say the happenings of 9-11-2001 were far reaching, that the events touched almost everyone personally? Simply this, on the plane that hit the Pentagon, there was a Whittington on the passenger list, and on the plane that went into the ground in PA, one of the flight attendants was a neighbor from Fort Myers.
I think that by being a VET, I feel betrayed by those that have forgoten how they felt that day. Perhaps it hurts them so much they would rather forget it than stay the course. And it sure doesn't help to have a Presidential candidate the spit in the face of the American military men and women by voting AGAINST English as the official language of the USA - when over 85% of American old enough to vote FAVOR it. I won't name names, but EVERY DEMOCRAT that tried for the office of President in 2007-2008 voted AGAINST making English the official language of AMERICA. THAT SIMPLY MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL! Abraham Lincoln said, "ANY politician, in time of war, that votes in such a way to promote their political ambition as opposed to offering an unpopular vote in support of America, her people, and the military effort, are to my mind a traitor, and should be shot as such."
And that's up to date as of August 2008
Register for Free to view all details!
Reunions
Photos
