Can I Get a Witness? (1980)

It was early 1980. I was a newlywed ... and had just lost my job. Mind you, it was a job as a Security Supervisor -- good enough, but not great -- so I wasn't greatly qualified for a job to take care of my wife and kids. Oh, did I forget to mention? Just before they let me go, she told me she was pregnant. So, I thought and prayed and decided that maybe the military would take me and pay me while they taught me a career-type job.

I took the ASVAB aiming to join the Air Force. As part of the ASVAB, there was a section of just preferences. "Do you like this kind of thing?" You understand. Every time a question like, "Do you like to fix radios?" or "Do you like to tinker with electronics?" came up, I gave a vehement "No!" because I'd never done it and had no interest. The Air Force offered me a job in accounting, which, I thought, would be a fine career, so I accepted and they told me they could get me in by ... October. Oh, hang on! That was 5 months away. My wife was pregnant now. "What can I take to get in sooner?" I asked. "Well," they said, "you can show up packed and ready to go and wait to see if someone who is scheduled to leave that day and in a job you are qualified to take can't make it." So I did just that. The next day I waited with a couple of changes of clothes and a few toiletries at the main station. A guy who was scheduled to leave that day broke his leg and wouldn't make it. He had signed up for ... did you guess it? ... electronics. Open Electronics, meaning any electronics the Air Force did. Well, I wanted a career and electronics seemed to be a good career, so I shipped off to Basic Training that day, complete with medical benefits for my wife (and baby-to-come) and the start of a new career.

Funny thing. I discovered not only that I could do electronics, but that I was good at it. It made sense to me. Funny thing. I went in Open Electronics, but they assigned me to one of the very few career fields still available that was entirely "hands-on." I learned to work on everything from vacuum tubes to solid state. I learned to take the equipment off aircraft, take it to the shop, fix it down to the component level, and put it back on the aircraft. In short, I got a job that I really enjoyed and that taught me all facets of electronics work from black box to inner workings. The military was not my first choice. (I was, in fact, one of the oldest guys there in Basic Training.) I didn't get this with my careful planning. My career from which I eventually retired came from this "surprise" that I didn't want and wouldn't have chosen ... because my God is much, much smarter and more capable than I am. I know; I'm an eyewitness.