Machado was just as happy as Smith to have me join the group. I hit it off with the other team members right away. Even though I was an E-4 (I was an AJ before noon), I had more experience as an instructor than anyone else on the team except Machado. I also had more experience driving military vehicles all around the world. It was a good fit. The atmosphere in the group was that of a real team; rank mattered and was properly observed and respected, but knowledge and expertise were valued as well and I immediately tackled duties and responsibilities that were well above those expected of an AJ. I was recommended for promotion quickly and appeared before a promotion board within a couple of months of being back in the motor pool.

One of the realities of rejoining the Army was that computers were in the process of ruling the world...at least my world. When I came back into the Army I fully expected to regain my E-6 stripes within six months. It would have been possible back in the day. But alas, 'twas not to be so. I did very well at the promotion board. The Senior Drill Sergeant told me that he thought I had done better than anyone he had ever boarded. But his opinion was limited to a certain number of points he could award to me and along with the points awarded by the other members of the board; my total only represented a quarter of my promotion "point" profile. My name was added to a promotion list, my points determining where I was on the list. Once on the list, I had to wait ninety days before the list became valid; then we watched the Department of the Army official announcement of the monthly cutoff. If you had a point-total higher than the cutoff, you got promoted. If not, you waited and hoped for a lower cutoff. Some folks spent a long time on the list. I was on the list for about a year. Then one magic afternoon, the cutoff was lower than my point-total and Voila! I became a real sergeant again.

It was a great time for me and for my family. Coming to Fort Ord had truly proved to be the best course of action for us. We had decent quarters and a steady job. Our number-three son was born in an Army hospital and cost us a total of about twenty dollars; that was so easy we went ahead and had a daughter while we were at it. We bought the first set of furniture we ever owned. Things were pretty good. Even when Fort Ord started having a series of upheavals over its true identity, we were still pretty happy. The Army, in its wisdom, decided to close all the training at Fort Ord...a post that enjoyed more than 350 training days a year, a beautiful post full of history and culture...in favor of Fort Leonard Wood, a post that lost training days to heat in the summer and cold in the winter...stuck in the middle of Missouri...right next to Mark Twain National Forest...just north of the home of the KKK training camps.

But with the closing of the school, a new set of adventures presented itself, in the form of the newly re-activated 7th Infantry Division. I was moved over to the 7th AG company for a few months to help in their maintenance shop while they prepared for a very serious annual inspection. After that I was assigned to the Supply and Transport Battalion, in the truck company. I had been promoted just before the school closed so I was a real sergeant when I came to the 7th Division. They put me in a platoon and made me a squad leader. Then some things began to happen.

When I re-enlisted, one of the things I was guaranteed, besides the school and the assignment to Fort Ord, was a two-year stabilization. In the summer of '76 that stabilization was over...meaning I was available to be reassigned anywhere, including Korea. Say what you will about a soldier's duty and all...I did not want to go to Korea. We had a pretty good set-up where we were. We did not want to spend a year apart. Especially since, in them days, my family would have had to move out of quarters and find a place to live somewhere. It may sound selfish, since so many other things had gone so right for us as we returned to the Army, but we just didn't want Korea...PERIOD. Every month the Department of the Army Manpower folks sent out messages to major commands telling them that some of their soldiers will be re-assigned to other places. The message contains all the pertinent data about who, what, where and when and is called a "levy". So sometime in the fall of '76, my name came down on a levy for Korea. When you receive official notice of the levy, you have to go to personnel and sign some papers acknowledging the assignment. My First Sergeant pointed out to me that I had to go to Korea as a cook; that was the Occupational Specialty that was listed on the levy. Talk about a bummer! When I got to personnel, I was prepared to whine and cry my way out of this...knowing full well that there was no way out short of getting out of the Army...again. When I signed in at the personnel office, my first statement was that I was on the levy as an E-4 cook and I was an E-5 trucker. A wrinkled brow and muted conversation later, the clerk wrote a few notes over my section of the levy and told me: "You can't go to Korea on this levy...it's a mismatch." Oh the joy that filled my soul...not only was I not going to Korea, I didn't even have to go into whiner-mode to accomplish it. My First Sergeant smiled and called me a lucky bastard and told me that they would correct it and get me next cycle. That took some, not all, but some of the joy out of the day.

The next levy came down a few months later...for an E-5 cook. Since I still had cook as a secondary MOS, I feared I might have to go this time. But at the personnel office I found out that if you are promoted in an MOS, you have to work that MOS for at least a year...couldn't go to Korea...again. Oh the joy that filled my soul...until I realized that the next one would probably have no escape clause. MamaCharlie and I had a long and heartfelt discussion about this situation. We had dodged two bullets, but my first year as a buck sergeant was soon to be over and our two year stabilization was long gone; we were fair game for the big assignment wheel in the sky. We decided to try to out-fox DA. The next day I went to the Orderly Room and asked to put in a request to be reassigned...to Germany. I got the paperwork assembled at the company level then hand-carried it to battalion. When it was all dressed up in battalion endorsements and signatures, I hand-carried it again to Division Support Command (DISCOM) and had them call me when it was ready. I hand-carried the request, my original 5 sheets plus the dozen or so added by the chain of command, and delivered it to the personnel office. I stayed to make sure it was logged in properly and the clerk, we were fairly close buddies now, assured me he would see that it was carefully processed.

Sometime in the summer of 1977, we were notified that I was on a levy, again. This time as an E-5 trucker...going to Vaihingen, Germany. We didn't know where it was but we knew where it wasn't...KOREA. That summer, shortly after returning from a huge field exercise in the Mojave Desert, I was notified that my orders for Germany were ready for pick-up. When I showed up at personnel to sign for my orders, my clerk buddy told me that the timing on my trip to Germany was fortuitous...another Korea levy was in and I was on it. But I was already on orders for Germany so they deleted me from the Korea levy.

Anyway...this is how I got to HQ USEUCOM

Looking back at this with First Sergeant eyes, it seems a little whiny. But I don't care. I had a long, exciting, eventful, rewarding, career in the Army without any stops in Korea. And that is ok with me.