For now, God's richest blessing on you and yours.
Will Bryant
I left Lackland after completing Personnel Officer School there and went as an
advisor to a Reserve Unit in Salt Lake City, then to Spain for 3 years.
There things started to get interesting. We were at a small Spanish AC&W site.
Within the first year we went from 4 support type officers on the CO's
staff to 2. We
were scheduled to deactivate in the 3rd year. So with rotations back to
US, I was the only support officer. We had Radar Ops, Maintenance, and
Communications, the CO and me. I got a lot of experience, learned a
lot, had good NCOs in every shop so things turned out well for me.
Next assignment was to Washington DC to the newly organized Research and Technology Division of Systems Command. This Division brought together for the first time all of the Air Force in-house Basic Research Laboratories, and Systems Design Groups. Most of the operations was through a Joint Service coordinating group in DOD. I was in way over my head for a new Captain with counterpart 05s and 06s and most of those Doctors of something scientific. But I had a great boss who mentored me far beyond what I deserved. I left with good report cards and enough ego to last a lifetime. That is until 3 of us were put in Training Command to design and teach Personnel Managers for field grades. Over my head again. I had not been in mainstream Personnel work since my first year in Spain. I wound up with the more abstract subjects associated with management and leadership stuff rather than the nuts and bolts of the system. Again this was new stuff and a good challenge. But, I really wanted out after a while, so I got an assignment in Vietnam with my old boss from Washington. Job: Personnel Plans and Programs during the "Vietnamization and leave period". Glub, Glub one more time. There was some work that had to be done. Again good exposure. Next was back to Training Command, but this time my job was the question: "How do we recruit a "quality" volunteer force of high-school grads without draft impetus?" Glub, Glub, Glub. Life vest - a lot of studies had already been done and I had an excellent staff. One Captain was an absolute brain. We basically had a blank check to get or do what we needed. Frequent briefings at star levels. My "friends" thought I would enjoy going for more education, promotion, and another tour in Washington. I did not have to do this, and gave 2 years notice of retirement. I worked the last day of 20 years and 28 days.
From Air Force to buying into a small Fiberglass manufacturing plant for boats and swimming pools. It took 2 years to lose all the money I had or could borrow and leave the business. I returned to the pre-draft tire business. One of the "fun" things was when I first opened the second tire store for an independent tire dealer. As store manager, I had a variety of challenges: inventory levels, advertising, display, pricing, which toilet to clean first, which flat would I fix next, etc. Much of the time to keep costs down, I was the only employee. One day a man with 3 kids pulled into the service department with a flat tire. They all bailed out, and I jacked up the car and set about my task. I began to talk to this guy to promote the store, sales, me, etc to solidify a customer. I told him I retired from the AF as a Major and came back to pre-draft business. He began to laugh, a lot. Between guffs and haws he was able to say "here I am a retired Tech Sergeant and have a Major fixing my flats."
Anyway we grew the company into 4 retail stores and a commercial truck tire center with a retread shop during the next 8 years. Being General Manager for the company got me some good exposure and I was recruited by Bridgestone Tire Co to rep South and West Texas and Southern New Mexico for 10 years.
Retiring from Bridgestone with a good 401k, early social security, and AF pensions, we built a place in the Hill Country 50 miles out of San Antonio. Life was good. My new bride, Elisa was also an adventuresome sort and fit right in. In early 1995 we had the opportunity to drive a F350, diesel, crew cab, 4x4 from San Antonio to San Salvador, El Salvador for a non-denominational missionary friend. Eight days through Mexico including Commandant Marco's Chiapis, Guatemala during civil war before we transferred title in El Salvador. Then we flew on to Managua Nicaragua with the missionary to visit his work there just after Contra/Sandinesta war. We flew back.
I had insisted our church give us a paper saying we were on the missions committee to insure smooth border crossing with the pickup. Upon return, we reported the job done and thanks for the temporary membership on missions committee. Woah, they said. The church voted you to be Chairman and that is your job to serve out the term. The next 9 1/2 years were another very exciting adventure in the chair. Our missions were world-wide before it was over. From Jul to Dec this year, now, we have been in transition to the new chairperson. We are taking some down time to recoup, regroup, and get ready for next. Meantime, it would be good to see several of you again.
For now, God's richest blessing on you and yours.
Will Bryant
