Walter Fiske:  

After LAHS I stayed at home and attended MSAC for a year. It was like high school all over again but I had an opportunity to meet new people and ease into college. My closest buddies were from the heights- Paul Ekstrom, Tom Grycel and Ray Schmidt. We had a great time! Being the youngest, it was like having three older brothers. We have gotten together periodically over the past 40 years. Recently, I had the realization that it had been almost 20 years since we had last gotten together. In trying to contact Tommy, I learned that he had passed-away in December 2007. It really upset me that I had not made an effort to contact him sooner. Although I had not seen him in about 20 years, I will miss him none-the-less. In 1969 I transferred from MSAC to Cal State LA. In the process of transferring I lost some units and my student deferment. My lottery number was #20 and I was drafted three times in 1970 and once in 1971. Each time I had to go before the draft board to beg them to reinstate my deferment. Well, on three occasions I gave a convincing performances, but on the fourth appearance one of the board members said "son, it's your turn". I went to the LA Induction Center for a physical. It was a real experience- guys were trying everything under the sun to fail the physical/psych exam. One guy admitted to swallowing balls of tin foil hoping that they would appear as ulcers on the xray. One guy kept walking into walls and closed doors claiming he was blind. A third guy had lined his crack with peanut butter. When we were told to bend over and spread our cheeks, he grabbed a hand-full of peanut butter and smeared all over his face. Several guys puked but WE ALL PASSED THE EXAM! Being one who does not like the hot/humid surroundings of Southeast Asia I joined the army reserves as a "cook" before receiving an induction date. I was sent to Fort Knox, KY for basic training. My first day was a disaster. I was assigned to a WWII wooden barracks building. There were bars on the window, the paint was peeling from every surface and one could see daylight shining through the sides of the building. As I entered for the first time I noted that there were two rows of bunks and a shiny wide walkway down the middle of the room that reflected light like a fine crystal. I had never seen such a shiny surface. Even the million-dollar marble floors of Hearst Castle did not compare. As I walked onto that shiny floor I commented out-loud that the place looked like a prison, with bars on the window and all. Just then a rock in the shape of a carbon-based creature and dressed in a military uniform leaped out of the shadows. He began barking something about "Disrespecting His Home" and that I had "DEFILED HIS SHINY FLOOR". He continued his tirade at a volume sure to have destroyed my hearing if it had continued for more than a minute. There was a question in his barking but I had frozen in place at the onset of his deafening growl. The puzzled look on my face begged of a need for more information, but my status was not worthy of his explanation. He demanded a hundred push-ups as the penalty for my transgression. Lacking the common sense necessary to survive basic training with anonymity, I advised that I was incapable of performing twenty push-ups, much a hundred. And so began my eight weeks of unrelenting hell. Well, I survived the ordeal and returned home to resume my course work at Cal State. In 1975 I received a BA in Anthropology and a BS in Police Science. I worked on a master's degree but never finished the program. I guess I realized that I had recognized my own level of incompetence and decided to stop before others came to the same conclusion. I married a classmate at CSULA and got a job as a Special Investigator with the State of California. In 1978 we divorced and I took a job with Oxnard Police Department. A year later I moved back to the LA area and reinstated with the State of California. Two years later I became a Special Agent with the California Department of Justice where I remained for the next 15 years. I got to do all the "exciting" law enforcement things- hours of surveillance of the wrong location and the page-by-page review of thousands of musty old business records for a case that the prosecutor decided not to prosecute. I did have the opportunity to work on some major drug cases and one homicide case. The closest I came to shooting anyone/thing was a police dog that concluded I was a threat and was intent on performing a field castration on me. Well, it all worked-out, the dog is still working for Oxnard Police, we captured the suspect and I am not singing in a falsetto voice with the Four Seasons. In 1996 I retired after a number of on-duty auto accident related injuries (four cars totaled). I married a second time but apparently had not learned anything from my prior marital fiasco. The marriage produced one wonderful child, Rachele, who just turned 21. She has completed her two year degree at the local community college and will be transferring to a state school to work on a degree in organic chemistry. After my career as a state peace officer I worked as a private investigator for a couple of years but it was too sleazy for me. I just could not perfect the art of lying and digging in trash cans got old fast. I had been a member of the Army Reserve/Army National Guard since November 1971 and I decided to go on active duty for a year as a Counterintellience Agent with the California National Guard. In April 2000 I took a contract job as an Intelligence Analyst with the INS. I became involved with asset forfeiture (seizure of assets derived from the proceeds of specified unlawful acts-sounds good). In 2003 I was transfered to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and worked in the San Diego area for the next three years. In August 2004 I was medically retired from the California National Guard after 32 years, 9 months, 11 days of service. During my military service I had the opportunity to travel through-out the US and the far east. It was a long association but I felt I owed it to those who had served/died in Viet Nam. In mid 2006 I took a position as the Asset Forfeiture C...Expand for more