A Hard Ride

Book excerpt: I have always had a fierce independence from my earliest memory. However, I was always shy and uncomfortable in social situations, which always frustrated me to no end. I still struggle with my social shortcomings to this day. My confidence in my solo actions were always strong. I have always marveled at the military's ability to train men and women how to run things who did not have a lot of formal training better than a lot personal who did. During the summer of 2018, I was selected to attend the four-day training seminar at the US War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. I think that I was the lowest-ranking commissioned officer at the class since I was only a Navy lieutenant, and all the others were Army lieutenant colonels and above. I tried to persuade them of the desirability of the need for having senior enlisted soldiers in attendance for their input on how to run things more efficiently than the high-ranking officers did since they were the ones assigned to conduct the operations. I came away with the conclusion that my thoughts were not appreciated for the most part, but I still have this belief. During my preteen years in the Arkansas Ozarks, I read the novel The Yearly by Marjorie Rawlings, and it was later made into a movie starring Gregory Peck. Many of the kids that I knew in the Ozarks were exactly like many of the kids portrayed in the book, which only enhanced the story for me. I also read the books Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, which also brought to life for me what I was living in the Ozarks. Also, while in school in the fourth and seventh grades in the Ozarks, I was well-respected, which also enhanced my experience while in Arkansas. In the Navy, while I had never been in a small airplane in my entire life, I discovered that I had a talent that I did not know that I had. I had mistakenly assumed that many of the other trainees with more abilities than I had were actually washing out of the program while I continued to hang on until getting my wings and commission. This caused a lot of consternations in my mind: why was I succeeding, and they weren't? After being released from the Navy, I couldn't get a job with any airline due to an oversupply of pilots from Vietnam. Eventually, I got a job with East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) and moved back to my home in Angels Camp, California. I worked at EBMUD for twenty years, and during that time, I also served on the elected board of directors for Calaveras County Water District (CCWD), which oversees twenty separate water, wastewater, and hydroelectric systems scattered throughout the county. That's a brief biography of my life. If anybody wishes to communicate with me with questions or observations, please contact me through my e-mail address, [email protected]. Please refer to this book so that I do not mistakenly delete it thinking it is junk mail.