Post Retirement Years
My retirement ceremony was held at Fort Lewis on the 31st of October 1977, effective the 1st of November. I retired with 23 years of service: one year of national guard and inactive reserve and 22 years active duty.
My initial gross retirement pay was $800.59 and a net of $631.72. A surprising discovery was that my pay equaled that of a lot of people working full time. It was a surprise because while on active duty the general belief was that all civilians made much more than soldiers. Thanks to nearly annual cost of living increases, my retirement pay 47 years later has grown to $3,781 gross and $3,183.73.
Initially, I took retirement too literally, but soon learned how bad daytime television was, so I let everyone know that I was available to help them with anything they needed. That was a mistake. I was quickly overwhelmed by requests for assistance. I was, in general, not happy. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was quite depressed. It was years later until I realized it.
In September 1978, I enrolled in The Evergreen State College, just outside of Olympia, Washington. Besides being a highly ranked school, I could easily commute from home. I planned to major in Counseling Psychology. I’d had quite a bit of counseling experience in the Army and thought I’ d like it would make a good second career. During my apprenticeship I came to the conclusion that counseling was not for me. I couldn’t attain the necessary degree of separation.
I then took a course in Electronics Repair. I did extremely well on tests, but didn’t do well on actually working on devices.
With no clear direction I became more and more depressed. During this depression my marriage went rapidly downhill, with me blaming all my troubles on my wife. I realized much later that most of my problems were my fault, not hers. My wife wanted to get counseling, but I declined. We were divorced in 1982.
In early 2004, I walked into a computer store and met my former troop commander when in the 14th Armored Cavalry (61-64). He told me that the 1st Squadron had been reactivated at nearby Fort Lewis. He also let me know a 14th Cavalry Association had been formed and that I could find the details online. I signed up in October 2004 for a one-year membership but changed to a lifetime membership the following year.
In early 2005, the secretary of the Association wanted to retire, and they were looking for a replacement. I figured I could do that and volunteered. A short time later I was vetted by two retired colonels. I apparently impressed them as they recommended that I get the job, and I was appointed shortly thereafter. The office of secretary included the extra duty of webmaster. I knew absolutely nothing about handling a website but dove in anyway. One of the first things I did was create a relational database, which greatly improves the maintenance of member records and the creation of meaningful reports. I also managed to “get by” with the maintenance of the Association’s website, but I never got the hang of Microsoft’s Dreamweaver website software. Eventually I managed to convince the executive committee to finance the conversion to a WordPress site which allowed our website to maintain and modernize the website. See https//www.14cav.org.
The Association really helped me to mitigate my depression. Reconnecting with my old regiment was just what I needed.