Dennis O'Connor:  

The Outline: 1955 to 1959 - Laneri High School, Fort Worth 1959 to 1964 - Arlington State College. BS Mechanical Engineering, Distinguished Military Graduate. 1964 to 1966 U.S. Army. Artillery officer in the 82nd Airborne Division, Ft. Bragg, N.C. Participated in the Dominican Republic Expedition. 1966 to 1967. Stress Engineer at Bell Helicopter, 1967 to 1971 - Sales Engineer in Dallas for commercial air conditioning equipment. Married Ann in 1968. Finished graduate school at TCU in 1970. MBA 1971 to 1987. Houston. Homebuilder, general contractor, real estate developer. Son Ryan was born in 1972 in Houston. 1987 to 1997. St. Charles, Maryland (just south of Washington, D.C), Interstate General Company.Vice President of Project Development. Exec. VP for a subsidiary, American Family Homes. 1997 to 2006. Back to Dallas. Intervest Companies, Development Manager for apartment, townhouse and self storage projects. 2006 to 2008, SVP for Icon Partners, Dallas. Early 2008, left full time work and dealt with some health issues, and still do some special assignments for Intervest and Icon from time to time. When I graduated from ASC in 1964, I intended to be a career military officer. There are, however, always forks in the road. Not bored yet? The longer version may do it. Proceed at your own risk: Warning, Will Robinson! Its summer 2009 and I have time to write this stuff. Its OK if no one has time to read it. Laneri was a Catholic Boys high school in South Ft. Worth. Only about 200 students. The corresponding girls school was Our Lady of Victory (OLV), south on Hemphill that had more students and strict nuns running it. Other than the times I got a ride from Dan Unsworth, I was never part of the morning Lipscomb street races from OLV to Laneri after the guys got done schmoozing with the girls. Being somewhat - um - unsure about behavior around girls, I avoided adventures in brain lock by not going there. In an all boys school there were no social pressures during school, and there were correspondingly fewer constrictions on certain behaviors. Former Micks will remember the cherry bombs in the toilets, the cigarette timers on firecrackers in lockers, and the spitwads splattered on the black boards (proper technique involved mastication of at least two full sheets of notebook paper in order to achieve the proper SPLAT and dispersion on the blackboard). There were the cracker balls put in seats that exploded when the victim sat down, the match gun fights with flaming matchheads flaring across the classroom when Fr. Ignatius' back was turned, stink bombs on the heaters in the back of the room, the packs of b b's tossed onto the metal awnings for the enjoyment of the class on the lower floor. There were the pea shooter fights and water gun fights in class with the Weegee water guns bought at the Mott's store near the Tivoli theater. Multiple rubber bands tied together could propel an aerodynamically folded piece of paper across 4 rows of desks to hit an unsuspecting classmate in the ear. Then there was the time a classmate, urged on by other miscreants, lit a baby giant firecracker, intending to throw it out the door, over the landing and down the stairs. It hit the door jamb instead and bounced back under Jim Wade's desk. Jim's eyes got real big just before the loud BOOOOOM! Smoke filled the room while the teacher grabbed his stuff and hurried down stairs. I don't think those kinds of things would have gone on if girls had been in the class. 1959. So, graduate from high school, go to ASC, which had just become a 4 year college, and it was cheap. I had always liked the military, so I joined ROTC. Also, there was a draft at the time so you got a deferment if you were a cadet. In Junior year, SFC Ray Calvert formed a pistol team and I joined up. We had a lot of success in shoulder to shoulder competition against the likes of Air Force Academy, Texas A&M, and University of Oklahoma. We also did well in postal matches against teams like West Point and the Naval Academy. Led by All-Americans Bob Kizer and Bob Wood, we won a National Championship. Unlike Laneri, there were women at ASC. However, because of a lack of experience with them I was careful how I acted around them. I was somewhat of a naif in that arena. I had done passably well in my major courses. But, since I liked it a lot, I did very well in the military science studies. I was designated a Distinguished Military Student allowing me to apply for a regular Army commission. I did so just before graduation since I had decided at the time to make the Army a career. By senior year, I was generally pretty sure of myself (some would say arrogant, even). Still, however, not so much socially. I recall being particularly maladroit in dealings with those few women in whom I had a real interest. Graduated in late May of 1964. The Army then assigned me to the 1/319th Artillery of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. Arrived on June 13th without having been to my branch school or to airborne school. I was pretty useless to the Battery Commander so I got lots of s___ details. After about 2 ½ months at Bragg, the Army sent me to Artillery OBC at Fort Sill, OK then to Airborne School at Fort Benning, GA for parachute training. During these schools the paperwork for the regular Army commission got to me . I had spent enough time in the Army by then to know I would not survive the bureaucratic environment well enough to have a successful career, so I turned it down. I sometimes envy my classmates who made the Army a career (C A Potter, Jerry Houston, et. al.) because I enjoyed my time in the military, but I knew that I would never have done well given the bureaucratic nature of the organization. Got back to Bragg on my birthday in November fully trained as an airborne artillery officer. Assigned to A Battery in the 319th. Almost immediately I went on a field training exercise as a forward observer for the Battery that involved a jump out of a C-130 following a heavy drop of a ¾ ton truck out the back ramp of the airplane. Then, once on the ground, we proceeded to an observation post to adjust fire of the battery's guns on imaginary enemy targets. Wow! They paid me to do this stuff. Should I re-consider the Regular Army commission and a military career? Probably not. Barracks life was where the bureaucratic nature of the organization was most oppressive and a lot more time was spent in barracks than in the field. An example of the kind of stuff I hated: I was safety officer for the battery. In a freak accident a trooper dropped a generator on his foot and was injured. A report was required by Divison headquarters. I sent in the form, freak accident nothing can be done to prevent it. The form came back twice, each time requiring a description of what was being done to prevent this accident in the future. I wrote that personnel have been counseled to not drop generators on their feet. The form sailed right through. I would never have made General with that attitude. In late April 1965 parts of the 82nd Airborne were sent by President Johnson in Operation Power Pack to the Dominican Republic to help suppress a communist supported rebellion against the elected government. While there, our battery helped the infantry maintain the separation corridor through the capital city of Santo Domingo between the opposing forces. After about a month things had calmed down and our unit was sent home. Since we were the first unit to come home, Sen. Bobby Kennedy who had flown down from Washington welcomed us home when we got off the airplane at Pope Air Force Base. At Ft. Bragg, it seemed lots easier to get exp...Expand for more