("Now photo of Bill Dodge)
After I left good old Okinawa, I put in almost a year at good old DLIWC (the new name for ALS). Barbara and I didn't have a very good time at Monterey, mainly because I really had to buckle down and study the Arabic. I mean study!!! As far as I'm concerned, Chinese Mandarin was a walk in the park compared to the Arabic. That by the way was my first choice, the next being Turkish and Polish. I made a point of selecting three languages (as required by Bupers) that were offered only at Monterey, and were 47 weeks long. Barbara put up with it for a month or so, then packed off to Texas where she promptly met up with an old boyfriend who had a much more glamorous lifestyle to offer. One divorce later, She was remarried and Lau Tau (or rather I should say Sayyid Durayd) was quartered aboard the good old Presidio. Later on in the school year NSG informed me that my keeping company with a gal who was separated from her CT husband wouldn't be the kosher thing to do, and that I should take steps to correct the situation. Well, we were at the time kind of quasi serious, and when I told NSG of my noble intentions, they weren't too awfully happy. Hell, they sent a commander down from Skaggs Island about three or four times to try to talk me out of one thing and into another. You just wouldn't believe what they went through. In the end, they spouted off a bunch of stuff about destroyer duty, etc..etc.. but I wouldn't budge. I hated to quit the group, but it was unavoidable. They debriefed me at Skaggs, let me take the finals six weeks early (don't even ask me how I pulled a score of 81 out of that, but I did, even though myself or the Navy would never benefit from the 40 some weeks of schooling.) Next came a real surprise though. Since my wife had gone off and run up some major bills in my name, the Navy offered me a hardship discharge (honorable and all that..) but I couldn't see giving up a steady job just when I really needed it. I asked to stay in, but not as an RM as they strongly suggested. That at the time was an automatic step to a destroyer somewhere God only knows where. I asked for PH, (it was what I had asked for in boot camp to begin with, but since it was a closed rating, I didn't get it), and lo and behold they not only ok'd my request, but sent me over to the Post Graduate School for a month and a half for familiarization with the at the photo lab, and cut me a set of order for N.A.S. Patuxent River, MD. Talk about luck, I spent a real nice tour of duty there (3 years), met and married my wife (Regina), got out of the canoe club, and settled down in Maryland. My aim was to be a Maryland State Policeman. I passed all the necessary preliminaries, but on the morning I was to report to the police academy at Pikesville, MD, I aborted and took a Civil Service job with the Department of Defense. All that Navy time counted and I retired in 1993 (early retirement with a neat buyout) with a total of 35 years and 1 month (counting 6 months of unused sick leave). At this point I must ask you all to please be sure to pay your income taxes on time each year. Someone has to support us heavy retired Federal Civil Servants. I forgot to mention that Regina is also retired from the govt. The two of us are a real strain on the system. Regina is really enjoying her retirement, but I just can't stand the quiet months of winter, so I have a part-time job a couple of mornings a week. It's with the newspaper, and when I'm not dispatching calls in the Transportation Dept, I'm out on the road in one of the radio vans getting into some kind of trouble. It's a really early shift, and not very long at that, so it suits me to a tee. I think I'll keep on into the better weather, 'cause I can be finished in plenty of time to hit the links or whatever the Tai Tai can come up with.
William E. Dodge / CT2 Bill Dodge / Lao Tao
33 Krisann Dr., New Hartford, NY 13413-4930
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