Amarillo AFB 12/25/63

 

Dropout to Ph.D.

Newburgh, IN

When in his 1961 inaugural address JFK proclaimed: "Ask not what your country can do for you; but ask what you can do for your country," I responded by leaving high school at the end of my junior year in 1963, in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and enlisting in the United States Air Force. I arrived for basic at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio just seven days after my 17th birthday. As I left boyhood behind and entered the adult world of military service, our drill instructors began instilling in me and my unit the core values of hard work, self-discipline, teamwork and the importance of being part of and making a commitment to something larger than yourself...values that continue to guide my life today and eventually with the support of the Vietnam-era GI Bill permitted me to earn a Ph.D. in education administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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