vince i served in united states army i enlisted i served from sixty six to seventy four well i went to the navy for a spinner fortunately their quarters were filled so then i the gentleman at the recruiting  military people that are going to wherever the destination is and where you boarded the train i remember one day i had already actually the field st they called in then and his name was sergeant green and he seemed to be the largest person in the world to me at the time and he was you know a well rounded military instructors i ended up in the heavy armor meant in the combat engineer group for maintenance on tank retrievers tanks bridge launchers and so forth so it started off as a wake up call right away if you use a laser getting out of bed you didn't you know  sharply at the time that when all he said you heard the bang of the sergeant yelling out up an atom it was a small adjustment you know just it was more getting us used to a regimented type of type of life so you know what time we had to shave you know what time we had to take a shower you know what time ever ever was and as a staged stage plan i served in basic training was in new jersey fort dix and then from there we went to classes and schools stuff after basic training i ended up in maryland the proving grounds for heavy equipment maintenance divisions spent a lot of time there and then virginia and shipped around also  canton kansas you know in the missouri and then we're over they said you weren't you when i ended i was very fortunate i end up i ended up teaching a lot of guys that ended up overseas and every every post that i went to indicated the fact that you could be part of that post it was going to get shipped out but just before shipping time i was replaced to send someplace go someplace else to do training for some some of the companies that were going out learned a lot you know and  noticed that i was a little bit older than some of the guys that were in so many guys coming in and we're all eighteen years old or something i was two thousand and twenty one and not that that's old you know at the time but i noticed that they were just somewhat really apprehensive you know kind of scared what was going on but as long as they were in school and not in a readiness type of situation they seem to be a lot walks me to be in a lot more comfortable  ended up meeting a couple of guys that lived in massachusetts and we ended up continuing a relationship even today you know he's unfortunately he's moved to kentucky so but i try to get to see him at least once or twice a or so and he's actually godfather to my youngest daughter a lot of time he was my mainly letters because you didn't have time to stand in a phone that was a phone booth and the lines were always fifty or sixty guys stand and the phone lines so it was primarily male i was when i was stationed in aberdeen i spent a lot of time in washington d c i used to go to smithsonian and historical sites that there were there and most of duty stations that i went to i always took a chance to see the cities of the state that i was in i returned home by plane it was a i'll tell you this story it was kind of an interesting flight because when i got to the year port at that time i don't know if you guys knew in the sixty's or so if there was a lot of anti military you know people groups didn't like it you know yelled at and some people you know just didn't care for me and uniform well on the plane it wasn't too bad it was getting into the plane the you know port or the ticket station you know itself like that people say why are you doing this and so forth but you know i just kind of let it roll off after i got used to waking up at a normal hour it wasn't too bad you know i went for job interviews and stuff like that i kind of waited  life job or two then well after that i stayed in the in the heavy quote not heavy equipment but ended up in the automotive industry through with ridgeley with g m and then after that with also i got out and worked with them for almost forty years not knowing whether i was going to be going into a combat situation at any time it was kind of edgy for at least you know a few years not knowing what it was go friendships you know after a period of time but after that you still keep an awful lot of your training aspects in your life aspects you know you just you do your job you get up you know you you kind of form a form formulated your lifestyle when you came out of the service for what you got taught i did a lot of guys have different different ways but it was a good lesson you know because you met an awful lot of people while you were in the service we could avoid wars but then at this particular time in our time now it's something that you know it's not a it's not a political war but it could turn into a political war that we have you know some people say it is some people say it's not but the impact to me is that you know we're always going to have them in in this situation that the u s is in as it were going to be like a governing policeman which we shouldn't be but it's part of the life is the basis of power that we are the bases of power that are going to be you know military life is not bad it's a good life lesson you know and unfortunately that you know in some countries people who are young young adults like yourselves have to serve in the military for their country i think it's a good idea that we do that in order to know what's involved in keeping our country the way it is there's a lot of things that we do while we're in the service that you can say and there's a lot of things that you have that are funny you know that you can you know do i can give you just one story real quick it was in when i was in booking at this particular drill sergeant who to me looked like he was ten feet tall but he was six six you know and he was really rather stele gentleman and kind of big and it was snowing that day and we had to go on a twenty mile march and we're standing there were snow coming down and he just says everybody's go fine we're going to go over this walk and he called it a walk he didn't it was a march but he said this walk and he says j c is going to let the sun come out well in about two seconds all of a sudden some light broke out but it coated up again and i just kind of w oh my god this guy's got power you know it was just everyone just kind of looked at each other but it was a funny story