Arthur Gregory:  

Community Service Aides and saw that disabled youth and adults received services. I was involved in this for about four years. Still later i began a twenty one year career in mostly Childrens Services with Riverside County DPSS... I had experiences supervising Children and Adult Services and later carried a specialized caseload in child abuse cases and worked with the Juvenile Court until my retirement in 1997 after which I worked part-time for a few years. Over all I would say my employment was often a frustrating experience as the ostensible aims of dealing with the issues of poverty often clashed with conservative agency politics and the increasingly right-wing ideology that was taking hold of society since the early sixties. The "safety nets" and rights conferred by the Social Security Act were being eroded. But the value of my relationships formed with co-workers and the people I served was worth more than mere gold. My work experience is still a valued commodity but I choose where to use it in volunteer work and service to the community. One thing though that occurs to me is that one has to make choices and priorities as life moves along..since none of us will live forever the choice of what we do each day comes down to the quality of life we live and how we can improve or support the advancemnet of human consciousness. Military I began my Reserve Training quite early at the age of seventeen in 1957 with the consent of my father who was also my Commanding Officer... in a year I had my six months training at San Diego Recruit Depot and Camp Pendleton. Nothing much occurred except helping fight a brush fire in San Clemente in 1958. There was also the "Labanese Crisis" in which Marines were ordered by President Eisenhower to land on the beaches on Labanon, but I later learned the ice cream vendors welcomed the Marines on the beaches there and the only casualty sadly was a Marine who forgot their password. We were told we could be sent to Labanon and this terrified many of us. I night you could hear the beads and prayers of many Catholic Marines. During training one Marine lost his eye while cleaning his rifle (He was our best Sharpshooter/Marksman), another got a fungus on his feet from not changing his boots... another wet the bed (rack) and all these Marines were discharged. A fine looking young man who was healthy and our Guidon Bearer was tested and found to have too low an IQ and so was demoted. During flame thrower training I (and the entire platoon) witnessed a Marine engulfed in flames as he let loose the front grip of his flame thrower. It had gotten too hot. Several returned from liberty in Tijuana with venereal disease after being warned of the risks and there were some incidents of brutality by a drunken Drill Instructor who was later promoted over the entire Recruit Training in San Diego. All in all I'd say I was pretty fortunate to have gotten through training intact and whole. A few years later I requested to be discharged from service.