William Fraunfelder:  

I got a letter one fine day.. The letter looked pretty official from the Rock County Draft Board.. Upon opening this letter I was invited to join the U.S.A. Military and become ,....whatever..!!!lol..Well I was given a date to report to a place I think the bus depot in Janesville, and to accept a ride to and from AFEES, in Milwaukee, Wi.. Man what a trip it was.. Upon arriving in Milwaukee we were herded into a rather impressive building, that was busy as a bee hive...Little did any of us that had just arrived, have any idea what we were in for..This place had something for having everything fillied out in triplicate, for whatever reason , just a duplicate wouldn't do, but it had to be three of everything..Well after a full day of being ,poked, stabbed (for blood, temps taken, etc, etc, the one thing that really stands out, besides the turn and cough routine, was the (and any guy that went through AFEES, will remember this is the ), bend over and spread them routine, sheesh!!!!!..After all was said and done, I received a letter informing me that i was accepted in the military, and with Viet Nam escalating, i thought , oh brother, what am I in for.. Well later on a bus load of us arrived at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in the wee hours of the morning.. Those Seargents sure like to yell at you..Anyways, after we were officially inducted and hit the sack around midnight or so, we were told to get some shut eye, that wake up call was 05:00a.m. We were walked over to supply I think ,where we were given our fatigues, khakis, and dress uniforms..That was day one of "zero week".. The mess hall was pretty decent, but K.P. was a drag, depending on which job you were given.. I heard that later on the worst job on K.P. was cleaning out the "grease trap"..Then stench from there when the cover was taken off was enough to gag a maggot...We had one D.I. that told us if we made it through , zero week, we'd make it through basic training, and he was right...After that 8 week session we were transfered to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. Where we were taught the basics of survival, honed our combat skills and were trained further in our M.O.S..which for me was "Combat Engineer". Which came in handy over in South Korea where I became pretty good at blowing things up , besides running a dump truck.. Upon returning to the U.S. I got back involved in my favorite sport, bowling..Later on in years, I was fortunate enough to obtain tickets to the (then ) " Firestone Tournament of Champions", held in Fairlawn , (Akron) Ohio, Riveria Lanes.. There I got to meet a lot of the pro's that I've been watching on t.v.,and chit,chat with them, and shake hands with a lot of them..The two people i really enjoyed talking with were , the announcers, Chris Schenkel, and , Nelson Burton Jr. The year was 1992, and during one of the sessions (Ibefore the live broadcast of the television finals) we were asked to vacate the building due to a bomb threat...That was the year Marc MacDowel from Madison Wisconsin won the tournament..Life goes on and I'm happily married to my wonderful wife, and wouldn't trade her for all the women in the world. We've gone travelling, ( or what some people now a days would consider--day--trips) and have had a ball.. We've visited such small places like the "Grand Canyon", National Railway Museum in Green Bay, Elkhorn Wisconsin, 4th of July and ridden on the electric trolley there, the Zoo, here in Milwaukee( may sound boring to some people), but in actuality it's very educational..Looking forward to visiting the Museum of Science and Industry and Shed Aquarium in Chicago, going to a cranberry harvest in northern wisconsin, going over to the Dells and see what it's like after things have been fixed up, going to Canada to visit with some of my wife's friends, Family reunion here in Wisconsin this year and hopefully able to make it to next years reunion , in Alaska, what a drive that will be, lots of photos to take and things to see on the way up and the way back...All for now..I just got to thinking, how many of us "baby-boomers" have or go to "Family Reunions"? Family whether we have a great family or not so great family, they're still our family...Unfortunately I never had the chance to meet my Wife's Mom and Dad, nor did my Wife have the chance to meet my p...Expand for more