Foxholes and Cognac

The D-Day landing on Omaha was chaotic. He hit the beach and immediately started digging a foxhole. Just as he was finishing, another GI jumped into it.  So, he started another hole and yet another GI jumped into that! He then moved forward and took cover behind an anti-tank barrier. A German artillery shell landed close by, he glanced back and the two holes he had dug were gone, along with the soldiers who had occupied them.

A few days later, they were approaching a French village they believed had been given up by the Germans. They suspected there was cognac stored in villager's basements and they wanted to get theirs before the officers did. So, they commandeered a couple of jeeps and went into town.  As they were preparing to leave, one of the teams came out of a basement and saw a line of Germans standing at attention. They wanted to surrender but the NCO's did not want to escort them back to American lines because they didn't want their cache of cognac discovered. So, they loaded up the German's weapons, told them to walk 20 miles "that way" and headed back to camp with the German weapons and some mighty fine French cognac.

And that's the way it was for then Army Private Zaragoza Munguia.

Experiences of Alonzo Munguia's father - Zaragoza Munguia. He would remain in the Army and retire as Sergeant First Class.

What Goes Around

The ROTC grad and future MSC began his Air Force career in 1964 trained as a transportation officer.  His first assignment; Hahn Air Force Base Germany.  For his first duty he was incorrectly assigned as an Aerospace Ground Equipment Officer.  The shavetail lieutenant figured his job was to step up no matter the assignment so he did just that.

One night, a shakedown inspection was scheduled in the enlisted dormitory and the shavetail was surprisingly selected to be part of the team.  It had rained a few days before and in his haste to get to the enlisted dorm the Lieutenant had left his rank on his raincoat. He arrived for the inspection without any rank on his blue jacket.  The accompanying first sergeant reassured him that he would cover for him, they were assigned a floor to inspect and they proceeded.  

Sometime prior to that night, the lieutenant's mother had given him a magazine subscription as part of his college graduation present.  The lieutenant hadn't given it much thought but on the night of the inspection it abruptly came to mind.  In one of the rooms, he looked down on a stack of magazines and saw that they were addressed to him. It turned out the airman, a staff sergeant, was a postal clerk and was regularly stealing magazines addressed to others.  The team wrote up their findings in their report to the commander.  The sergeant was busted two ranks with one suspended and ended up an airman first class.

Colonel Collins E. "Hugh Smith
USAF, MSC (Ret)
Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, 1965

Six years later, the lieutenant had successfully completed a line transfer to the Medical Service Corps and was a Captain.  He was assigned to Cam Ranh Bay Vietnam and as part of his in processing went to the Post Office to sign in.  There, he encountered the very same airman who he had busted years earlier.  The airman had made staff sergeant again and remained a postal administrative specialist.  There was a moment of mutual recognition and the Captain wryly stated; "Well, I guess I can kiss all my mail goodbye."  In response, the clerk said;  "No sir.  You are going to get the best postal service possible.  The clerk, in fact delivered on his promise as he upgraded all the Captain's outgoing mail to first class throughout their overlapping tours.

One night while returning to his room from the hospital, the MSC stopped by the post office to check his mail box in one of a series of small alcoves there.  As he opened his box, he heard something behind him.  He turned to see two Army soldiers staring at him.  One of them said; "Ain't never fragged an Air Force guy...got one now."  The other pulled a knife and said; "My turn." The other said; "Are you going to do it or not?" The one with the knife said; "I'm doing it now." The Captain was cornered in the alcove without an obvious escape route.  Just then, a nearby interior half-door opened, someone reached out to pull the officer inside the post office, slammed the door in their faces and the soldiers ran.  It was the very same sergeant...the one giving him first class postal service had topped it off by saving his life.

What goes around does indeed often come around...but not always in a way we might expect. Sometimes it becomes a notable, profound memory in a retired Air Force Medical Service Corps Colonel's career.    

The Infantryman, the MSC and the .45

He was an Air Force Medical Service Corps Officer, a Captain stationed at Cam Ranh Bay Vietnam in 1971. As chief of administration, one of his duties included customs inspections for departing hospital ship patients.

The Captain stood at the severely wounded infantryman's bedside. He was assisting with processing the patient for imminent evacuation on a ship the next day. With some time remaining, he asked the soldier how he was injured. The soldier was lucid and could see everything that had happened to him.

"I was on a recon when the soldier in front me hit a tripwire that killed him. I quickly looked around and saw a figure running away through the bush. I chased him down and killed him. I found a .45 on him and headed back to my unit carrying the .45 with me. As I was returning, I hit another trip wire that blew off my legs and arms.

Colonel Collins E. "Hugh" Smith Jr., USAF, MSC (Ret)
Cam Ranh Bay, Viet Nam, 1971

The Captain explained he was the customs inspector and asked the soldier if he had any weapons or narcotics with him. The soldier said; "Yes Captain. There's a .45 right in the middle of my back." The MSC said; "Will it be okay if I turn you a little and take a look at it?" The soldier agreed. The MSC said; "Please tell me it's unloaded." The soldier assured him it was not so he then gently lifted the soldier's shoulder revealing the .45 underneath.

The MSC removed the clip and inspected it and the chamber. Finding both empty, he then said; "You know you can legally go home with this as a war souvenir. I can run over to my friend the provost marshall, get it attested for you and be back within 5 minutes."

The soldier said; "No, you keep it.  I am not going to make it." The MSC noted the soldier's contact information. After a week or so, the MSC called the soldier's home. He offered to get the .45 shipped to the soldier but the parents told him to just keep it. Their son after all, did not make it.

After thirty-one years, the MSC retired as a Colonel having served as a Director of Base Medical Services at three facilities for his last 10+ years.  Today, more than 25 years post-retirement, the Colonel still softly tells the story with a deep, abiding sense of love and respect for the infantryman with the .45. 

 

Sweating Bullets

There is probably not a military health care administrator alive who hasn't had a "Staff Assistance Visit" or worse yet, Inspector General visit.  They may be known by different names these days but what they basically are is administrative 'strip search' inspections by higher headquarters staff.  They (meaning a team of functional and management experts) come to take a close look at your programs and make suggestions on how to improve them...or so they say.  While that is mostly the truth, it also true that they will send you packing if you are not doing a good overall job.  

"Not a problem," a Medical Service Corps officer might say to him or her self; "I am doing fine."  But then, you can never be completely sure as you probably carry a half dozen or more hats including some you may not even be schooled in.  Then again, if you are the head administrator, you have four or more MSCs working for you and that drives the number of "hats" into the dozens so you don't know exactly how you are doing either.  Plus, that person inspecting you may have a totally different take on whether you are doing fine or not right?!

So there we were, in the mid-70's at Mountain Home.  A handful of MSC's and a couple hundred health care workers preparing for a Tactical Air Command Staff Assistance Visit headed by none other than the late (RIP) Colonel Emmett Thornell (the Alligator" as he was sometimes called).  Charlie Brown, then a Major, was our Administrator and we were mostly shavetail lieutenants trying to figure out how to do our jobs correctly.  Charlie was a "below the primary zone" administrative whiz who had a lot of written and verbal program advice for us and we were hauling a__ to get ready for the visit as a previous one with a different crew had not gone well.  As his nickname suggested, Colonel Thornell had a tough reputation. As a brown bar I'll confess that I (and maybe some of the others) was pretty intimidated.  

Lt. Charlie Brown
Viet Nam

The visit hit, we did well and I think everyone up to and including the wing commander breathed a sigh of relief.  Charlie set up our next objective for the following weekend...four of us, the "Riders of the Purple Sage" agreed to participate.  There were others invited but I suspect they didn't relish the idea of camping with us reprobates.  Charlie the hospital administrator, Jack Ohl the box kicker, Jerry Salsberry, technical box kicker and I, the resident bean counter headed out for Idaho's Strike Dam for the weekend.  Accompanying us were a recent model Winnebago RV (Charlie's), a Crestliner ski boat (mine), a bunch of easy-to-prepare food including some venison tenderloins and an abundance of beer. 

The trip was just for a day and night but "Oh, what an night" as the song goes.  We had a blast skiing that day and didn't hurt anyone including ourselves. That night we played music, sang at the top of our lungs, arm wrestled and laughed at anything that had the slightest resemblance to a joke.  Far into the night, as the four of us attempted to sleep, one or more would break out in laughter over a comment by another.  Quite a few times, we would begin laughing with absolutely no prompt.  I had never laughed so hard or so often in my life until then and have not laughed like that since...not even for my own subsequent IG and Staff Assistance visits when it was my turn to serve as hospital administrator.

You've "been there and done that" haven't you!? Great memories eh?!  

M-M-Motivation...

Motivation...Why hast thou departed?

Worry - 

Wife &
Daughter &
Son &
Congress &
Pandemic 

The sum of it all - 

Sleep deprived
Since 2016 election
And some before.

Will it return? -

Motivation that is.

Or is it bound

To gather dust

On the shelf

Of faded memory?

Time works against -

The September 

Or later

Of my years

Looms.

C'mon Tom...snap the fuck out of it and getchu' summa that...motivation that is. 

Passages - "A Promised Land"

In all my life.  

In ALL my life, through reading thousands of books, fiction and nonfiction, I had never freely marked passages in books.  Sure there were plenty of marks and yellow highlights when I had to force memorization and comprehension under the threat of later testing.  Yet, I had never done it because I was so impressed with what I was reading.  I had done it at times in all schools including graduate school but never because I really wanted to.  

Until this:

As it seems most politicians do, along with those most closely connected with them, the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama wrote a book.  It's title "A Promised Land." It is clearly written, humble and somewhat long at slightly over 700 pages. It is a fine, educational read, even for those who have no particular interest in how our government operates...kind of like me for most of my adult life.

Using yellow stickies, I marked nine passages I wanted to commemorate for later reading and reflection. Rather than include the complete passages here, I am going to list their beginning page, topics and add my 'two cents' as I go:

1. 243 - The Filibuster - Our ability to vote and to have it count (Democracy) is hanging by a thread today.  The Freedom to Vote Act will not pass unless we circumvent the filibuster.  It's that simple. The fact that almost half our Senators will vote against it is a damn shame.
2. 275 - The Social Contract - Many politicians and most of the wealthy who take pride in avoiding taxes fail to consider that all government services, right down to the very highways they travel on are a collective financial responsibility.  We are all in this...except them.
3. 374 - Universal Healthcare - At some point we all pay anyway - in indigent care, in Medicaid, in Medicare and so on.  If we had this, our poor and uninsured would not delay needed care and would have a lot fewer chronic or intensive care (read more costly) conditions.  There are tons of sensible arguments in favor and none of those opposed make sense. It's a humanitarian, AND a financial thing comprende'? 
4. 424 - The Affordable Care Act - All opposed said; "At 20,000 pages it's wrong."  As it turned out, it was and is right. Sure there were things that had to be fixed but in the end, it is right.
5. 446 - "Whatever you do..." - "Whatever you do won't be enough.  Try Anyway." This is Barack's quote and he kept after it in spite of Mitch's chronic obstructionism.  Remarkable.
6. 496 - Cost-benefit Analysis - Yes, in politics this fundamental process is too often overlooked - the example I appreciated most was the reduction in costly trucker regulations.
7. 534 - Management - Management by walking around.  He loved it and I love it. It should be emphasized in Management 101 at every college.  
8. 638 - Samantha Power - I'm a huge fan of her intellect and beliefs, as is our former President.
9. 698 - Geronimo - Osama bin Laden.  Sure we got him under Obama's watch.  But early on we lost our way in some respects.  We started our longest war. We started an Orwellian Department of Homeland Security. We drove moderates to hard-line immigration resistance.  We stimulated general hatred of Muslims.  This list is not complete and we are definitely not a better nation for it.

Now there.  American non-fiction at its finest.  If you have read it, you know what I mean.  If you haven't read it but will, you will be on a great adventure.  If you never do read it, that will be your loss and I am sorry.

The P.I.M.P.

Once upon a time, I was walking through the parking lot at our local grocery store when a black man who was watching me said; "Hey man, did you hurt your leg or is that your pimp walk?"  I laughed and said; "Both!"  Yes, it is a gimp right leg I've been hauling around for a lot of years but it doesn't hurt. Probably just a nerve or something.  When asked about it outright I typically reply; "It's my sympathy limp." and that is good for a laugh.

This is about a movement that is not gimp leg related though...PIMP is an acronym for the Pushup Institute of ex-Military Personnel, hereafter known as the "Tute."  As such, the Tute has promulgated certain guidelines for pushup completion that naturally changes as a person progresses toward septuagenarian status and beyond;

1. Age 0-15 - none expected - just crawl baby crawl

2. Age 15-45 - elbows at 60 degrees, face in the mud, straighten up then repeat

3. Age 45-70 - elbows at 45 degrees, huffing and puffing permitted

4. Age 70+ - elbows at 15 degrees, smelling salts to begin, or if you are a politician, adderall.  Prayer recommended. Also recommended; Rescue personnel standing by to help you to your feet.

Okay, okay I made that all up but hey, it is elder entitlement to just make things up right?!

Anyway I did it and here it is...the 2021 winner of the official P.I.M.P Institute Badge of Merit.  Click on that puppy...

76@76

 

Dear United States Air Force Medical Service Corps,

This morning, I read this fine article written by Bill Murphy from the New Yorker magazine about Sam Watterson, creator of the "Calvin and Hobbs" comic strip.  It was Watterson's letter written to "Dear Reader" in 1995. In it, he announced his resignation to take on other projects...to pursue other dreams.

Reading it stirred my tendency for gushing sentimentality concerning my tenure with the Medical Service Corps.  You see, I left the Corps also..."to pursue other dreams." This, in turn, prompted me to write a similar letter in what may well be an awkward but nevertheless sincere imitation...

Dear Medical Service Corps Officer,

This is to announce my departure from the Air Force and the Medical Service Corps after serving equally as airman and officer for 24 years.

When and if you read this, I will have been retired from the Corps for more than 30 years. So yes, I am really late here. Yet, in that time, I have remained in touch with many, though regrettably not all, fellow officers who I served with and admired. I know I should have written this then and I apologize.  Even though you do not expect it, I want you know how much you meant to me and what a large part of my heart still belongs to you.

Julieann Marie Campbell
Spring, 1987, Air Force Spouse
of the Very First Order.

I am keeping this letter painfully short although it could easily be book length. In fact, elements of my Air Force life comprise  large part of the memoirs in my book "The Hayseed," a tribute to an amazing and most fortunate life. 

I just want you to know I miss the camaraderie and common causes you have. For you and most of your fellow officers, I hope and believe it is something you will cherish until the end of your days.

I left simply because, after joining our Air Force at the tender age of 17, I was curious about what a life would be like if I was free from the cycle of geographical and work assignments. Yet, I loved what I was doing in supporting patient care for the military and their families. The fact is, I still miss it to this day.

Things have gone very well since. No complaints here but I want to say I loved serving with you and would have been honored and happy to serve with you well beyond my 24 years.

I wish you the very best Ma'am, and Sir as you serve, or have served with such fine people. I sincerely hope you eventually find your heart filled with the love and memories you will experience with the Corps.  And when you choose to end your time, maybe you will remember...maybe you will write a letter to those you served with. 

Until then, as our first soldier, George Washington wrote in abbreviated fashion; I remain "...Your Most Obedt and Affectionate Hble Servt."

"CHAMPS'R'US"

It was 1988 and that's what it said on the sweatshirts he designed as motivation and Christmas presents for the staff of Foundation Health Plan; "CHAMPS'R'US." Foundation Health was the winning (only) bidder for a new, massive government health care contract.  The designer was a recently retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel line officer who was working in our newly established corporate marketing department. He was part of a massive roll out of a Department of Defense demonstration project called the "CHAMPUS Reform Initiative" or "CRI" (Today called TRICARE) It was a test of a triple-option health care health plan that was designed to supplement the military health care system with providers who would deliver health care to nearly a million eligible members throughout the western US.

A commemorative contract award
plaque and the world's largest name tag.

In 1987, I had recently retired from the Air Force and was rotating among Foundation Health Plan departments to learn the HMO ropes when we won the contract. I was at Foundation courtesy of a recommendation by fellow Medical Service Corps officer and friend, Bob Bunker, Bob had recommended me to a colleague of his, Dr. James J. Schubert. As a result, I was flown to Sacramento, met with the doctor and his staff and was hired.

Some time earlier, Bob had met with Dr. Schubert and company as part of his Air Force Medical Service Innovation Department activities.  Bob had piqued Foundations interest in expanding their health maintenance organization activities to cover the medical needs of Air Force families with health care needs that were beyond the capacity of active duty providers. Dr. Schubert had 11 years military medical experience as an orthopedic resident at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and practicing surgeon. The two quickly found common ground in their military family health care interests and the potential for a health plan that would complement medical facilities serving those families.  This formed a thread that would pull together a succession of events that would culminate in the first CRI/TRICARE contract.  

Foundation was established as one of the first federally recognized companies under the HMO Act of 1973.  It was something new and interesting to me and I was happy to be learning under the tutelage of one of its founders, Dr. James J. Schubert and his expert staff.  

Then, I was fortunate to be named COO for the Northwest portion of the CRI contract, serving almost 400,000 beneficiaries and their supporting MTFs... mainly because of my military health care background and certainly not because of my managed care knowledge. The southern part of California was to be operated by a subcontractor to Foundation. 

We were given just six months to hire and train the staff needed to perform the contract requirements and a lot of new folks were pretty burnt out.  The colonel thought up the "Champs R US" expression in a spin off of the famous "ToysRUs" company name and had it printed on sweatshirts for all the staff. It was a small bright spot in an otherwise difficult time.  All in all though, we were extremely lucky and hired some terrific people.  

I do recall one dark moment in our hiring process.  We had been at it for a few weeks and we needed nurses for our advice lines, utilization management and satellite offices near MTFs.  We had an open interview one Saturday morning and when I walked through our lobby I saw a bunch of them waiting to be interviewed.  My first reaction was a sense of disappointment that our healthcare system would attract nurses away from patient bedsides. It was my old hospital hat kicking in I guess but I couldn't help but wonder why we, as in all of us, couldn't do a better job of retaining them in direct health care.

Plaque reverse side -
Copy of the actual contract award

As you might suspect, just getting to the implementation of CRI involved hundreds if not thousands of chance occurrences. There had to be an operations catalyst like Bob Bunker to link key parties of interest. There had to be an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs (William Mayer, M.D.), supported by Colonel Fred Vago and Lt Col Dave Fant, both Air Force MSCs and a host of others who had the vision and support staff needed to design a workable request for proposals.  There had to be an HMO Chairman of the Board, another MD (James J. Schubert) who also had the vision and support staff to see the possibilities first outlined by Bunker. Doctor Schubert had also done his Orthopedic residency at Walter Reed and felt closely tied to the Military Health System. 

Finally, there had to be what was called a "risk management corridor" to spread the rewards if it worked and limit the losses if it didn't.  There was so much money and so many lives involved that failure meant many jobs and an entire company would likely be lost.  More importantly, a program to improve military family access to quality health care at a reasonable price would be lost. Before the risk corridor (which I believe was thought of by the Foundation actuary) there were several HMOs nationwide who had interest and all but one had dropped out over concern for ambiguities in the program including enrollment projections, sharing resources with the military and most important to them... the potential for significant financial losses.

The contract technical proposals themselves were 12 volumes of individual 3 inch binders, all with matching binders of attachments covering such major topics as contract management, provider relations, utilization management, implementation, claims, resource sharing, finance and on and on.  Somewhere between 6-9 sets were to be submitted as I vaguely recall and of course, there had to be at least an equal number of sets retained for internal use. Just performance of the actuarial work on available data needed for substantive estimates on factors including enrollment and utilization alone could easily run a couple of million dollars. There were, again, hundreds if not thousands of moving parts to the project and it is very likely none of the parties knew them all.

For example; just imagine putting together a full service provider network using newly trained hires to convince docs and hospitals to sign up to deliver health care at a price significantly lower than they were used to...for a million people give or take.  Then build a claims system that would adequately handle the results.  Well, the first worked pretty fair but the second; claims, was a disaster. The fact is, an entire lengthy book could be written on the failure of the "Eagle" claims system alone.  But those are stories for another time and someone much more knowledgeable than I. Blend in some utilization management (a review and denial system) that the docs hated and throw in some rigid quality assurance for good measure.  While you are at it, convince and reassure MTF commanders and military families they were being well taken care of..."those moving parts" right?! 

The up front hiring was set at a frantic pace and there were government monitors everywhere.  DOD had a full-time rep (then Major Don Palen, another AF MSC) on site to watch for things that were broken. There were frequent visits and meetings held at various headquarters and health care facilities throughout the Western US and Hawaii.  In the end, CRI opened its doors for business, suffered setbacks but eventually worked out. It was blessed by an external, independent review from Rand Corporation and over time was expanded to became known as TRICARE. TRICARE has continued for more than thirty years, serving over nine and a half million beneficiaries world-wide.

Note:  There are probably a bunch of mistakes in this account and they are all mine.  Memory doesn't always serve you know?!   

The Crack - Do you know?

It was the crack of dawn.

No, not like the crack of the plumber when he or she is working in the cabinet under your kitchen sink.  But then again, if your plumber was in fact, a she and her name was Dawn then indeed that also would be "the crack of Dawn."

However, it was more like the crack a baseball makes when it connects directly with a high, inside fast pitch, sending the ball on it's way to a line-drive home run, clearing the bases for a grand slam.

But also like a visual crack, the kind you find when you hold your wine glass up to see if you have dried it properly after washing it and accidentally clinked it on the side of the sink in the process, thereby causing the glass's death knell with a crack from stem to lip.

It was in fact both those things, both visual and aural, which you might more accurately describe as "the crack(s) of dawn."

So you are thinking; 'What was it then?'

To that I respond; I don't know.  I wasn't there. 

Why I Blog

Since I began posting stories on a blog site in 2008, many people have asked why I do it. Okay, okay, one... one person asked why. I figure "Well now, another story to write!  Let's do this! 

I have posted over 400 stories since I was first made aware blogs existed. (Note: that number is not at all intended to impress. Thousands of others have written a hell of a lot more.)  Being invented between 1994 and 1997 depending on who you ask, blogs have become a huge part of life along with other forms of expression including vlogs, podcasts and a lot of word- or length-limited social media venues like Tic Tok, Snapchat and Instagram. And let's not forget that monumental tribute to extreme views and toxicity, Twitter (now "X" for no particular reason). With blogs, all you have to do is go to a site like Blogger (the one I use), Tumbler, Word Press, Squarespace and many others then crank up your story...it's intuitive, fairly simple and most sites are free. Most (all?) even include templates you can use to spice up your page.

Header for series of stories about a "charmed" life
Click here for link and full page view

But hey...this story is about "why?"  Why I do it. It began innocently enough on a "dark and stormy night." Wait, I was actually on an airplane, flying to work or flying home. I was in the middle of a second career as a health care contract management consultant and I was spending a lot of time on the road. I had learned how to produce winning technical contract proposals so I found good work supporting some of the largest (Aetna, Prudential, Unisys etc.) and some of the smallest health care firms all over the US. In the end I had also worked on mostly Medicaid and Medicare contracts for most of the nation's 40+ health care Quality Improvement Organizations at their home locations in more than half the 50 States. So I flew a lot. This meant a lot of time in airplane seats. It was actually just short of a million United air miles according to their tally. If you count other airline travels the total was probably more.

With all that air time I would often pull out my laptop and hack away at short stories about my most fortunate (at least in my mind) life. I enjoyed the writing even though I had no target or end in mind. I would return home, pop them up for my sainted wife Julieann to read, she would kindly compliment me and that was enough. That made me want to write more.

Header for blog about "the ride."
Click here for link and full page view

Then I found out about blogs so I posted some of them. I figured that would keep my stories around and easily accessible for quite some time. With that, I found out there were others who seemed to enjoy my stories so I kept at it because... because I'm a sucker for a kind word it's that simple.

I had (have) two main topics and thus, two blogs; one about riding Harley Davidsons and the other about life its own self. It was great reliving some of the remarkable, at least to me, experiences I have had in my life (Julieann says I have a "charmed" one). It's not about becoming rich which is good because that never happened. It's about the richness of love and of experience and that did happen. I have had more than my share of both. Along the way, I have also edited and organized my two blogs into two books. I have published the first in hardcover and both as Amazon ebooks. There are also audio and ebook versions (shameless plug). I haven't monetized the blogs but I have sold a fair share of the books which further stokes my somewhat fragile ego.

Many people have said I have a "gift," a gift for writing.  Okay, okay one.  One person (immediate family excluded) has said I have a "gift."  That, plus periodic complimentary blog responses and book reviews keep me feeling good about it all.  I can also pop any of the stories up, do a little reading and editing and relive the fortunate experiences I've had.  It's a fun way for an old retired Air Force Medical Service Corps officer, later consultant to pass time, especially on airplanes and during lazy weekends. I am simply writing my own history as I see it, still with the wondrous eyes of a little kid who spent his early years as a North Dakota hayseed. Yes there is more...there is always more.

12/11/2025 update:  I have now published a third and final (I believe) book, a compendium of experiences, a memoir that pulls most everything together.  It's called "The Hayseed" and is selling on Amazon in paperback, ebook and audio book form. https://a.co/d/1AW0OCL