Steven Streeper:  

Whew!! What a challenge...to condense 48 years of life experience into a few sparse paragraphs! Well, here goes... After high school graduation, I went to one semester at Idaho State College (now ISU)(majoring in Student Union Activities)...didn't do well at all, one semester at BYU (passed all classes AND had a lot of fun!! YIPPEE!), worked summer with survey crew in AZ, CA, NV (Lake Tahoe), UT and ID. It was a seriously fun summer, especially AZ and Tahoe. Became a Certified Diver while at Tahoe, learned how to sail...AND dance to surf music! Every weekend a fresh load of hotties from San Fran and all points east of there. Following completion of our surveying projects for the summer, I returned home to go on an LDS Mission in Nov. '65 to Denmark, where I spent 2-1/2 wonderful yrs. Many adventures and experiences. I lived all over Denmark , but mostly in Copenhagen or the immediate area. Completed mission in May '65 and took ferry/train to Wolfsburg, Germany where I picked up an off-the-line VW beetle. It had 1 mile on the odometer..the length of the assembly line! Toured Europe for ten days, seeing bits of Germany, Austria, Italy, Lichtenstein, Belgium, Holland, France. On the way, I stopped at Kitzbuhl, St. Moritz, St. Anton, Chamonix, Innsbruck, and admired the icy spring slopes from afar...icy spring snow. It was quite an experience, though travelling alone isn't as much fun as having someone along to "Oooh" and "Aaah" with. At the end of the "tour", I shipped the car home from Rotterdam and jetted off to NYC in time for the '65 World's Fair in NJ. Got home, worked, went back to ISU (now ISU!) and studied Geology. Met my lovely wife, Pat (Henson from McCammon) at the LDS Institute on campus, became engaged, got hitched in Aug 1966. We're still living happily ever after. Changed my Major to Pre-Pharmacy in '67 and was accepted into the pharmacy program in Jan '68..made Dean's list. Was working a summer pharmacy intern job at Super-Save Drug when I received my draft notice. It seems the deferrment I'd received for my mission was all the break I'd get from our local Draft Board. I was also getting old enough, near 25, that they were going to lose the ability to draft me. When Uncle Sam says, "I want YOU!", he gets what he wants. Rather than going in as a "grunt", I enlisted for Operating Room school. On Aug. 16, 1968, I reported for induction in Boise and , the next day, was shipped to Ft Lewis, Washington for Basic Training. I was about killed by the physical training. There I was, 25 yrs old, 20 pounds overweight, out of shape, trying to keep up with 18-19 year olds. Nasty deal! Finally completed Basic Infantry Training, got Honor Graduate (automatic rank advancement to E2). Went to Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio, TX for Combat Medic Trng (91B), followed by Operating Room Specialist (91D) training (another Honor Graduate advancement to E4). After the training in San Antonio, I went to Ft. Sill, OK for On-Job-Training in Surgery. Saw some "interesting" stuff there. Completed that trng and went through a brief Jungle Warfare training, took a 30-day leave in Pocatello, then flew out of there on an icy June 15, 1969 for Vietnam, via SLC, Oakland, Hawaii, and Guam. After 20+ hrs of air time, we landed at Tan Son Nhut airbase near Saigon right in the middle of a rocket attack. Welcome to Viet-Nam!! The airline pilot definitely got our attention when he made a fighter-type landing approach...SWOOSH and you're down! Just to make the welcome more impressive, there were Cobra gunships circling the airstrip and firing into the jungle. Scared witless, we FNGs (you'll have to look that one up!) scrambled off the plane and caught the bus to Long Binh for inprocessing. The bus ride was nearly as terrifying as the landing!! Boy, this is a FUN place... What a screwed up deal in-processing was! Just before lea...Expand for more