| General Fiction posted August 29, 2020 | Chapters: |
...13 14 -15- 16... 
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I and I... Instructor and Inspector
A chapter in the book Attack of the Fifty States
Attack of the 50 States: Iowa
by Bill Schott
My final duty station in the United States Marine Corps was at the Iowa Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Station located, appropriately, in Waterloo.
Reservists are military personnel who live civilian lives most of the time, but become active duty one weekend a month and for two weeks in the summer. Iowa is an artillery station, so we went to nearby Wisconsin on weekends to shoot, and as far away as California or New York in the summer.
Having reached my twenty-year goal for retirement from the military, with two years left on my enlistment, I accepted a post as an active duty instructor for reservists.
This would be a four to six year duty station, so at some point I would be expected to re-enlist to complete that commitment. The plan for my wife and me vacillated between re-upping for eight years and retiring at thirty years, or leaving after twenty-two years. The decision was eventually made for me.
Before that, I have to talk about my family.
My wife was in her mid-thirties when we married. She was used to being a respected professional and an individual. After marrying me, she became my dependent, subsequently falling under my social security number for all access. She was literally told that her SSN didn't matter. She left her career, which paid her double what I made, to marry me and live on my pay check. So, it was a culture shock. We had been married ten years when we moved to Iowa.
My two children, Adam and Katie, nine and seven at the time, made this final move within the Marines with all the maturity they could muster. Adam had moved from North Carolina, where he was born, to Oklahoma, when he was two. Katie was born in Oklahoma, and both moved to Michigan with their mom two years later when I was sent to Okinawa, and then Kuwait. They eventually moved back to North Carolina before this last transfer.
We found a house for rent in nearby Gilbertville. It was a small town, literally built around a Catholic Church. All the inhabitants were catholic -- except us. We found a Methodist or Nazarene Church in Waterloo.
Iowa is a flat state. Lots of corn, pigs, and farmers.
There's no Iowa professional football team because, as the joke goes, if THEY got one, then Minnesota would want one too.
Two things of note happened while we were there. Almost six thousand Serbian refugees immigrated to Iowa and took all the jobs others wouldn't do. As a whole, Iowa was the better for it.
Also, tens of thousands of ancestral farmland was being sold off to building speculators, so the state legislature had to pass a law preventing sale of farming property to anyone who wasn't going to farm it.
I had been in the Marines for twenty years and never been seriously hurt. I went through the Beirut bombing in 1983, Desert Storm in 1991, Somalia in 1993, Haiti in 1995, but only broke a toe once. In Waterloo, Iowa, within a year, I fell chasing a fly ball at a baseball game and dislocated my shoulder so badly, I received 10 percent disability when I retired. Also, while running down a steep embankment during PT, I ripped the meniscus in my left knee. During a scope surgery they discovered arthritis all over. They recommended a knee replacement, but the military wouldn't do it and allow me to remain on active duty.
So, it was decided I would retire with twenty percent disability and let the VA handle it. That was the end of my military career.
One thing I recall about Iowa was learning of the Sullivan Brothers. Five brothers from Waterloo asked especially to serve together on the same ship during World War II. They did, but all died on the USS Juneau when it sank during the Battle of Guadalcanal. A navy destroyer was named for them, the USS TheSullivans.
Leaving Iowa was a sad and happy time for us. This would be the family's last move, hopefully, and the end of a world I'd known for half my life.
My final duty station in the United States Marine Corps was at the Iowa Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Station located, appropriately, in Waterloo.
Reservists are military personnel who live civilian lives most of the time, but become active duty one weekend a month and for two weeks in the summer. Iowa is an artillery station, so we went to nearby Wisconsin on weekends to shoot, and as far away as California or New York in the summer.
Having reached my twenty-year goal for retirement from the military, with two years left on my enlistment, I accepted a post as an active duty instructor for reservists.
This would be a four to six year duty station, so at some point I would be expected to re-enlist to complete that commitment. The plan for my wife and me vacillated between re-upping for eight years and retiring at thirty years, or leaving after twenty-two years. The decision was eventually made for me.
Before that, I have to talk about my family.
My wife was in her mid-thirties when we married. She was used to being a respected professional and an individual. After marrying me, she became my dependent, subsequently falling under my social security number for all access. She was literally told that her SSN didn't matter. She left her career, which paid her double what I made, to marry me and live on my pay check. So, it was a culture shock. We had been married ten years when we moved to Iowa.
My two children, Adam and Katie, nine and seven at the time, made this final move within the Marines with all the maturity they could muster. Adam had moved from North Carolina, where he was born, to Oklahoma, when he was two. Katie was born in Oklahoma, and both moved to Michigan with their mom two years later when I was sent to Okinawa, and then Kuwait. They eventually moved back to North Carolina before this last transfer.
We found a house for rent in nearby Gilbertville. It was a small town, literally built around a Catholic Church. All the inhabitants were catholic -- except us. We found a Methodist or Nazarene Church in Waterloo.
Iowa is a flat state. Lots of corn, pigs, and farmers.
There's no Iowa professional football team because, as the joke goes, if THEY got one, then Minnesota would want one too.
Two things of note happened while we were there. Almost six thousand Serbian refugees immigrated to Iowa and took all the jobs others wouldn't do. As a whole, Iowa was the better for it.
Also, tens of thousands of ancestral farmland was being sold off to building speculators, so the state legislature had to pass a law preventing sale of farming property to anyone who wasn't going to farm it.
I had been in the Marines for twenty years and never been seriously hurt. I went through the Beirut bombing in 1983, Desert Storm in 1991, Somalia in 1993, Haiti in 1995, but only broke a toe once. In Waterloo, Iowa, within a year, I fell chasing a fly ball at a baseball game and dislocated my shoulder so badly, I received 10 percent disability when I retired. Also, while running down a steep embankment during PT, I ripped the meniscus in my left knee. During a scope surgery they discovered arthritis all over. They recommended a knee replacement, but the military wouldn't do it and allow me to remain on active duty.
So, it was decided I would retire with twenty percent disability and let the VA handle it. That was the end of my military career.
One thing I recall about Iowa was learning of the Sullivan Brothers. Five brothers from Waterloo asked especially to serve together on the same ship during World War II. They did, but all died on the USS Juneau when it sank during the Battle of Guadalcanal. A navy destroyer was named for them, the USS TheSullivans.
Leaving Iowa was a sad and happy time for us. This would be the family's last move, hopefully, and the end of a world I'd known for half my life.
 Recognized |
#221 2020 |
Image is of the Sullivan Brothers, taken the day their ship, the USS Juneau, was commissioned.
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