Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
In a world where storytelling has been our link to the past since the days of cave drawings, there exists a timeless tradition. It's the art of passing down knowledge, and for Military Veterans, it's a crucial piece of their legacy. Join us on the Veterans Archives Podcast, where we dive deep into the heartwarming and awe-inspiring stories of those who served, no matter when or where.
Here, Veterans get the chance to be the authors of their own narratives. Through guided interviews in a relaxed and safe environment, they paint their experiences with their own words and unique voices. The result? A memory card in a presentation box, a precious gift they can share however they please.
But that's not all. These stories find a secure home in our archive, a treasure chest of experiences for future generations to explore. The best part? It's all a gift to the Veteran – our way of saying thank you for their service.
Tune in to the Veterans Archives Podcast, where history, heroism, and heartwarming tales come to life.
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Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
The Remarkable Life of Ken Verfaillie: From Detroit's Streets to Vietnam Frontlines and Beyond
What was it like growing up in a post-war Detroit neighborhood filled with girls and having an athletic father who was always on the move? Join us as we unravel Ken Verfele's vivid childhood memories and the journey that shaped his early life. From facing academic struggles to briefly playing football at Finney High School, to meeting the love of his life, Olivia, Ken's story offers an intimate look at a life filled with unique challenges and heartwarming triumphs. Discover how Ken found professional success, despite his academic difficulties, and the pride he takes in the life he's built.
Ken Verfaillie opens up about the transformative and tough times during his military service, drafted as a tank driver but ending up on the front lines in Vietnam. He shares how his perceptions were challenged and friendships were formed in the most unlikely places. Transitioning back to civilian life was no small feat, but with his wife's unwavering support, Ken pursued higher education and achieved remarkable success. He reflects on his personal growth and the strong, diverse family he nurtured, emphasizing the love and support that helped him through every struggle.
Ken’s resilience shines through as he recounts his varied career path, from RP Corporation and McLeod Steel to his long-term role at AM General Corporation building Hummers. Through tales of societal tensions and the chaos of military life, Ken’s profound faith in Jesus Christ emerges as a guiding force. From a pivotal moment influenced by Bob Hope and Billy Graham in Vietnam to the strength derived from his faith through life's challenges, Ken’s journey is a tribute to the enduring power of love, faith, and perseverance. Don't miss this compelling episode filled with personal anecdotes and valuable life lessons.
Good morning. Today is Tuesday, september 24th, 2024, and we're talking with Ken Verfele, who served in the United States Army. So good morning, ken. How are you today? Good morning, how are you? Great, great. So I'm going to start out super simple and just ask when and where were you born?
Speaker 2:I was born in Detroit in 1946, July 3rd.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, and what are your earliest memories of childhood? What are some of the things you remember when you think about being a kid in Detroit?
Speaker 2:Not much, I guess I'm getting old. Oh much I guess I'm getting old. Oh, you know, I I think we had a back porch and I used to sit under that back porch and we had a little sandbox under the back porch and I would play in that sandbox for hours. I remember that and I remember I was the only boy in the neighborhood. All the rest of the kids in the neighborhood were girls. And then I remember a few years go by and a couple of boys moved in and I didn't know how to play with them.
Speaker 2:I thought, we were supposed to play dolls and you know, right, right, right, I didn't know what a baseball bat was and all that. And uh, my dad was always an athlete and he was always gone. He was, he coached speed skating and he was also a coach for bicycle racing coach for bicycle racing. So he was always gone. He was either training or skating or bicycling. So he was never really around, so we never played ball or anything like that.
Speaker 1:Okay, what about your mom? Was she a homemaker?
Speaker 2:Yeah, she was a homemaker. She stayed home, always kept me out of trouble.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's good, that's good. So when you think back to some of those memories, is there like a favorite memory you have or a memory that sticks out in your head about your mom?
Speaker 2:No, I do have one story that when I would come back from Vietnam, I came home like around midnight and I wasn't drunk but I had a few beers, you know, and she read me the riot act. Oh, because my curfew was 10 o'clock.
Speaker 1:Even after Vietnam.
Speaker 2:You're supposed to be home at 10 o'clock. Well, it struck me as funny, mm-hmm, you know, I just came home from a war, right as funny. You know, I just came home from a war, right you know where. I'd done any number of things that were unmentionable, and I started to laugh. And my dad got up and he said what's going on out here, you know, right. And I said she wants me home at 10 o'clock. And he started to laugh too. Oh no, he told her that I wasn't a little boy anymore. Right, get out of that.
Speaker 1:I think to some extent we're all still our little boys to our moms.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Always yeah. So growing up did you have brothers and sisters?
Speaker 2:then I had one sister, uh-huh, nancy, she's five years older than me, okay, and poor Nancy had to babysit me and I was terrible. I used to kick her and scratch at her and stuff like that, but she still liked me.
Speaker 1:I don't know why we get past that at some point, don't, don't we?
Speaker 2:well, tell me a little bit about school school, like for you, school was not easy for me. I used to think I was stupid, I don't know. You know there's all kinds of dyslexia and all that stuff and I don't know if I had any of that stuff or not. But school work was difficult for me and I did not do well in school and I was lazy and I didn't want to do homework and so I never really did well in school.
Speaker 1:I graduated from high school but just barely Did you play any sports in high school at all?
Speaker 2:No, Okay, no, I was on the football team for a little while, but I got beat up too much. I was a center.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah, you get a lot of traffic being in that spot.
Speaker 2:And it was. I got tired of being banged around so I quit. Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Do you have any other interests in school at all, or do you just want to get through it? Girls, I like girls. Well, there you go, there you go. So I got to ask did growing up around all those girls help you out when you got to high school?
Speaker 2:I don't think so, oh, okay. Yeah, I was always shy and I still am to some extent. So, no, it didn't really help me. What helped me a lot was her.
Speaker 1:Okay. I met her and everything's just so the audience doesn't see. So who's her? Who's the her that we're talking?
Speaker 2:about? Oh, it's my wife Olivia.
Speaker 1:Okay. All right, and how long have you been married? 53 years, okay, wow, we're going to talk about that, all right. And how long have you been married? 53 years, okay, wow, we're going to talk about that. We'll get there, but I do want to talk a little. I kind of want to go back a little bit. So you barely made it through high school. What school?
Speaker 2:did you go to? I went to Finney High School in Detroit, okay, and I did not go back to school. Um, I had gotten a job and I was making a lot of money. It was a good job and, uh, I was making more money than my wife's, a registered physical therapist, and I was making more money than her and I was proud of the fact that I was making more money than her and I was proud of the fact that I was making more money than this college graduate, right. And so I was happy with my life there.
Speaker 2:But then that company decided to move. And what do I do? You know, right, I didn't. I had a skill, but the skill was only good for that company. You know, there was a capsulation machine operator, you know. You know making pills, okay. And so I figured what am I going to do? Well, she convinced me that I needed to start going to school, and I did. I started going to Macomb Community College and I got a couple of associate's degrees from there, and after I got those associate's degrees, I didn't do anything for a long time. I was happy. I had another good job, right, and you know, I was happy. You know, I had another good job Right and I don't know where I was going with this.
Speaker 1:So it sounds like high school was difficult for you, but afterwards, when you went on to secondary school, that was a little bit easier.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I four-pointed college.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she convinced me that I wasn't stupid and she also edited all my papers. So she took a C paper and turned them into A papers and I was able to four-point college with her help. Okay, like I said before, she's a lot smarter than I am, especially academically but I think everybody has somebody that helps them out, right?
Speaker 1:none of us? None of us got where we're at all by ourselves. I think very few people uh, ever did that. I think you always had to have somebody, um, kind of helping you out. So so you went to college after and got married after you got back from vietnam. Yeah, okay, all right. So let's let's talk a little bit about when you joined the military and what prompted that what made me join the military was I was drafted. Oh Well, so you didn't have a choice. Was this shortly after graduation from high school.
Speaker 2:Then yeah, less than a year, I think, okay, less than a year after high school I was drafted and, uh, you know, being raised on john wayne movies, uh-huh, I didn't want to go, you know. But you know, everybody was moving to canada at that time, you know. But you know, to me that just didn't seem right. After being raised on John Wayne movies, it seemed like you were supposed to go. That was part of a rite of passage, so to speak. So I went and I did alright, where did you go? To basic training or boot camp? Fort Knox.
Speaker 1:Kentucky. Okay, and so tell me a little bit about what it was like that first moment when you stepped off the bus and into basic training.
Speaker 2:Well, like I said before, I'm a shy guy and everything scared me to death. You know, I was just nervous and I remember I don't remember his first name, but his last name was Wilson. He was a black guy and he was my bunkmate and he had the upper bunk and I was worried that he was going to come down and cut my throat at night.
Speaker 1:Really, just because he was a black guy.
Speaker 2:Right, and as years went by or as time went by, not quite years I realized he was studying to be a pastor and he was really a nice guy and we got to be really good friends. But I didn't know, I didn't know, I was stupid.
Speaker 1:So did you grow up around a lot of black people? The high school I went to had one. Right right, so this is your first experience, really. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and since then, you know, we have a black grandson now. Yeah, and that little guy taught me to love, you know.
Speaker 1:So yeah, Well, that's good. So you get to basic training and you have this fear of your bunkmate and kind of everything that's going on. How did you do in basic training? Because a lot of that's really physical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did all right. I'm not a real. I was strong, but I never had a lot of endurance. Uh-huh, I was strong, but I never had a lot of endurance. But I did all right. I was able to pass the PT tests and all that stuff, but I had to work at it. I remember the one thing that I had trouble with. There was one particular event. It was an easy way to score points, you know. So, you know, because you need so many points to pass, yeah, and it was throwing a hand grenade and I have the worst ball arm that you've ever seen. I can't throw across this room. I can't throw across this room, uh-huh. And trying to throw a hand grenade was just. It was supposed to be an easy 100 points and I couldn't score any points. Oh my gosh. So even on the hand grenade ridge, when you throw the live hand grenade, uh-huh, you know, I threw that hand grenade and hit the ground because I knew that that thing wasn't going very far.
Speaker 1:It wasn't going far enough to not be dangerous for you, right? So you went to basic. And then, what was your MOS or what job did you do in the Army?
Speaker 2:Well, I never did anything that I was trained to do. Uh, uh, I was trained as a tank driver okay, now did you go to?
Speaker 1:you go to your AIT or your? Ait advanced individual yeah, so where was that? You know driving tanks?
Speaker 2:okay, and I was pretty good at that, I was really good as a gunner, mm-hmm, and I liked it, but they took the last guys on the alphabet. Everybody went to Germany because that's where the tanks were.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Except for the last six guys on the alphabet, which I was one of when we went to Vietnam, and I went to Vietnam as an infantryman to the first air— whoops, I put my hand over the mic. Oh, you're fine. Over the first to the big red one.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:And when I got there at the Repo Depot, they changed it to a combat engineer outfit and that's how I became a combat engineer. Instant job training.
Speaker 1:So from tank driver to combat engineer with no real training, with no training, okay.
Speaker 2:And a construction and demolition specialist too, by the way. I had to learn how to blow things up all by myself. So was that kind of fun? Yeah, once you learned it. Well, what you were doing wasn't fun, right, but blowing things up was.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We'd sweep for mines in a road and you'd find a mine and rather than digging the mine up, you'd just take a quarter-pound block of TNT, put it on top of it and blow it up and then fill the hole. Yeah, you know, and it was easier, I guess. I mean, that's the way we did it.
Speaker 1:How long was your tour? A?
Speaker 2:year, one year.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you were there for a year, a year and a day.
Speaker 2:Everybody was there a year and a day.
Speaker 1:Now we were talking before we started recording and you got there so you operated out of a particular area, but then you would get sent to different places to do different work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were basically set up in Quignon. We had our battalion command center there, I guess you'd call it, and then we would go off on spider trips Cameron Bay, phuket, bansan, tuiwa, all these different places just to build stuff. Right, and I poured a lot of cement, poured lots of cement. What kinds of things were you building? Well, the main thing we built was a tank repair center for, you know, us tanks. You know we were building a Nordman Center or whatever you want to call it, and it was just a big cement pad with steel girders and a roof, do you?
Speaker 1:find it a little ironic that you were trained as a tank driver and then you went over there as an engineer and now you're building a facility for tanks.
Speaker 2:Everything in that's true. You know, uh you, you never did anything that you were trained to do, never, yeah so did you, uh?
Speaker 1:did you make some good friends while you were there? What was that experience like for you?
Speaker 2:I've always been kind of a loner, so I had a couple of friends but I never really elbowed up to people. Okay, you know, I've always been sort of an insular.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:You know, just, just, uh, just the way I am, even even now, I don't go out with the guys or anything like that. I, you know, once in a while I'll go to a men's meeting at a church or something, but Right, I don't hang out with a couple of guys going to play golf or anything like that. I, I just assume be home?
Speaker 1:I guess, yeah, so how? So how was that for you? Uh, being deployed to vietnam? Um, were you mostly thinking about just getting through it and coming home, or what was that? What was that like for you?
Speaker 2:yeah, it is what it is right. It was. Uh, I didn't like the weather, yeah, you know. You know, being a michigan boy, you know, 90 degrees was, you know, sweltering, so it wasn't, it wasn't bad, you know, I mean I wasn't scared, I mean it was, it just wasn't bad. You know, it was just something you had to do yeah, and so you're there for a year.
Speaker 1:You're out doing some construction things, so your tour is up. What happens next?
Speaker 2:When I got there I was a private E1. And when I came out I was an E4. Okay, and I got to Fort Knox, kentucky, and I hadn't been an E4 long enough to be an E5. Right, so they made me an acting E5, and I spent the last six months in the service as a drill sergeant. Really, all five foot six of me.
Speaker 2:So tell me a little bit more about the how was that for you? That was a learning experience. When I first my first set of guys my first platoon, I guess you want to call it I was a short timer and nice guy, uh-huh. Well, I got walked all over. So you learn and you learn quickly. You can't be a nice guy in a drill sergeant at the same time, so you. So I learned how to be a excuse.
Speaker 2:The expression I learned how to be a excuse the expression, I learned how to be a prick, yeah, you know which is not my nature, but I did it. You know, I did it and I was glad to be done with that, though, I didn't like that much.
Speaker 1:Did you find in the? In the military there were times where you had to do things that were just were against your, not against your morals or ethics, just kind of against the way that you against your grain, like, for instance, having to having to not be a nice guy as a drill sergeant. Was that difficult for you?
Speaker 2:well, difficult for you. Well, you know, because the trouble that I was in with my first set of guys I was never gonna have again. You know that causes stress, right, yeah, and the second group of guys, I realized you had to keep them in line and I was just as mean as I could get you know. But I liked the military life, I liked the organization, I liked the routine, I liked all that. Just, I just didn't when it came time to reenlist. I remember a story that I had. I was sitting in Vietnam by a tree, mm-hmm, and I'm thinking what the heck kind of tree is this? There's pieces of bark coming off of it. What kind of tree loses its bark like that? And somebody said, dummy, they're shooting at you. Oh no, and I said no.
Speaker 2:Reenlisting is not a good career move for me.
Speaker 1:You would call that the reenlistment tree. Right there, huh.
Speaker 2:So I figured this isn't for me, Right? I didn't like being shot at.
Speaker 1:No, I would think most people don't.
Speaker 2:I was stupid to know I was being shot at Right. It's kind of shedding bark. You're kind of tree sheds bark.
Speaker 1:Well, you know it's funny, you say that I don't usually share my stories, but when I was deployed to Iraq, we were coming back. We had gone to this meeting that was like three hours from the base that I was on, and we were convoying back to to my base and, um, this huge explosion happened the the iraqis had packed this culvert full of explosives and, uh, blew up this road and as it's blowing up, it's just this huge bubble of concrete and asphalt. It was just the weirdest thing to see. And in my brain I was thinking I don't remember there being a drawbridge on this road, and so I think it's very similar to what kind of tree sheds its bark this way. Right, I don't remember a drawbridge. It's just how your brain, I think, just can't wrap itself around what's really happening. So, no, I can relate. I don't think either one of us were stupid. I just think that our brain had not caught up with what was going on yet. That's the way I like to think about it.
Speaker 2:There was a culvert. You said culvert, didn't you? Uh-huh, there was a culvert. Every day we would go out there. We'd build a new one during the day, and that night the vietnamese would blow it up. Okay, we'd go out there the next morning, put a new one in, just that quick, you know we. You know we'd make it up the night before. So all we had to do is take it out there and roll it off the truck into the hole. And we did this one on every night for, oh say, a week. Every night the Vietnamese blew it up. So on one particular night we blew it up and the Vietnamese were still in it, oh, setting their charges. You kind of figured things out and that stopped that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no more having to build culverts. Yeah, was there anything else like that that went on while you were there?
Speaker 2:Those things go on all the time. You kind of encapsulate them and close them. You said something that triggered it, triggered the memory. But you know, I can remember a friend of mine. He was working on a five-ton truck tire and I don't know if you know what a split rim is, I do and he took a pick axe and he popped the split rim off, but he did not let the air out of the tire and then that split rim would come up and hit him in the chest and kill him. Oh my gosh, you know. So there's the chest and killed him. Oh my gosh, you know. So there's things like that that happen. Right, you know, we had Vietnamese soldiers, south Vietnamese soldiers soldiers that were planting munitions in our command center.
Speaker 2:You know so yeah, it's almost like you know these. You know you trigger in memories, right and uh, that was interesting. They got caught, though, but you know, thankfully, yeah and yeah, and there was a couple small firefights, but not not, uh, epic right, you know right.
Speaker 1:Do you find like when you're in the middle of that small firefight it seems a little bit epic when?
Speaker 2:it's going on. Well, it's chaotic, right, it's chaotic, okay. Anyways, we're pinned down and the sniper was shooting particularly at me and the rounds were coming in pretty quick and pretty close and we were supposed to call for help, and which we did, but we radioed back for help but I felt the guy was going to kill me, yeah, you know. So I took an m79 grenade launcher that I had and I fired a grenade back into the hut that they were shooting from and that was the end of the story, except the company commander from another company came to save us, so to speak, and he was livid that the fact that I had fired without orders and he was talking about court marshmartialing me, and I don't know if this would happen by accident, but one of the guys let a bolt slam shut on an m14 and then slowly, one by one, you could hear bolts slamming forward on the m14s. You know that's, that's a very distinctive sound. Yes and uh, he got the message, got in his jeep and I never saw him again.
Speaker 2:No, court-martial then apparently no that was the end of that story too yeah so it was an uneventful story, but it was momentous in my life, right?
Speaker 1:But the sound of bullets going by, that's a very distinctive sound.
Speaker 2:It's the ricochets that get you. Yeah, you hear it hitting the dirt and throwing rocks on you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Do you find that sometimes, if you're watching something on tv or whatever you might, do you ever hear like a sound that reminds you?
Speaker 2:well, I don't know how to describe this, but sometimes I'll, I'll watch something or I'll hear something and it's like the same sound and it's a little strange I have a cute story when I was a drill sergeant, we had marched the guys out to the hand grenade range and, uh, after we marched them out there, we were done for the day until it was time to march him back because the range officers, you know, took to charge of your guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we were going to go drink coffee and stuff for the rest of the day, you know, and whatever guys do, you know, yeah, and so we're walking back to get a coffee, you know, because we're just a bunch of us guys together, you know, all sergeants, and we're walking back to the mess tent or whatever, and they threw the first hand grenade and I was in the ditch and another guy with me, another Vietnam veteran, was in the ditch on the other side. Uh-huh, and everybody else was laughing at us. You and I didn't say this, but the other guy, come on, he says the reason we're still alive and you're not is because we were in the ditch that's right, that's right so that's, uh, that's yeah, he's started about sounds, yeah, and that just popped into my head.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, yeah, I, I always. The only thing I can really remember is everybody would be running for a bunker and I'd have to run for the radio because I was a radio operator.
Speaker 1:So I have to run and get the radio, then run back to the bunker bunker well, when you have the radio, you're sort of a target that's uh, that's something I think they look for yeah that long antenna.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, they don't want you communicating. I was telling my wife we went to vietnam Museum, the moving wall here, yeah, and there was a prick 10 there. You know one of those old prick 10s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about With the big like blade kind of Blade antenna that's folded in half.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and she said, why is it folded in half? I said because that's a target.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's a target, they know where you're at. So, because that's a target, that's right, that's a target, they know where you're at. So you saw some things when you were there. You survived the re-enlistment tree. Yeah, you get back home. You have a stint as a drill sergeant. I mean, for the amount of time you were in you did a lot of different things, so it came time for your enlistment to be up. How long were you in then? Total oh, two years. Two years, okay, two years, that's a lot for two years if you think about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was there for two years, okay, and you know it's a six-year commitment, right.
Speaker 1:Too active reserve, too inactive reserve, you know too active reserve, too inactive reserve, so you left the active duty military. Did you come back to Detroit then after you got out, or where did you go from there?
Speaker 2:After duty I came home, I came back to Detroit, okay, and I went to work for the RP corporation. What'd you do there? Uh, it was. That was a drug company, okay. So you were making the pills there. I was making pills, okay, it was a good job. I worked there for 14 years, uh-huh, and then, and then that company decided to move south and I did not have the opportunity to move with them. I probably would have, but I didn't, right. So I went to work for McLeod Steel as a maintenance supervisor. During my course of working at the Shearer Corporation, I got into the maintenance department. So then I went to McLeod Steel as a maintenance supervisor, and then McLeod Steel wasn't doing very good financially and it wasn't a place that you knew you were going to retire from, right. So I moved to AM General Corporation and I built Hummers for the next 30 years.
Speaker 1:Okay, but I want to back up a little bit. Somewhere in there you met this lovely young lady that's sitting kind of off camera.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I forgot about that yeah.
Speaker 1:So how did you two meet?
Speaker 2:She was a blind date. Uh-huh, yeah, a friend of mine was dating her sister, oh okay, and we went to the drive-in movie together. Uh-huh, we've been going to the drive-in movie ever since. Was it love at first sight? I don't know, probably, yeah, yeah, probably never thought about it that way uh-huh I liked her right away. You know, right still do. Yeah, well, that's good, that's sometimes that's important, that's very, very important.
Speaker 1:So you so you uh go on this blind date. I always joke that my wife and I went on a blind date. I hope, hope she never regains her eyesight. But yeah, so you go on this blind date, you meet, and so from that point forward you guys were just together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would call up Because I was still in the service when we met, right.
Speaker 1:So were you serving in reserves at this time or you were still, like, on active duty? I was still on active duty, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:But you know, when I was a drill sergeant, I had weekends off. I don't know why, I just remember having weekends off and every weekend I'd drive by Detroit. You know, it's only a four-hour drive, right? I had my own 65 Mustang, by the way.
Speaker 1:Oh, very nice, Very nice Mustang.
Speaker 2:And I should tell you my baby killer story.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's an interesting story. It has to do with her. That's an interesting story. It has to do with her. We had a prearranged spot to meet on campus. You know I was going to meet her at this spot and then drive her to wherever we were.
Speaker 1:Was she in college at this time?
Speaker 2:She was in college, okay, she was a physical therapy student, okay, okay, and she wanted me to meet her wearing my uniform. So I put on my Class A uniform and I was there trying to impress the girls, you know, oh yeah. And so I'm there and this hippie builds a little stage. It's a little small stage, not much bigger than that table, maybe twice the size of that little table there, okay, and he gets up on it and says there's one of those baby killers now.
Speaker 2:And, like I told you, I was a shy guy, yeah, but I got a bad temper. So I jumped up on his stage and I took his microphone away from him and I told him that I just spent a year in a foreign country fighting for his right to stand here, defending his right to stand here and talk. I says I'm going to hand you back this microphone and I'm going to defend you all the time you're speaking, but if you talk about me or any of my friends, it's a right you're going to have to earn. And I handed him back his microphone and I took off my suit jacket and my class A jacket and neck tie. I didn't want to be in a fight with a tech guy.
Speaker 1:No, no, you do not.
Speaker 2:So I took my tie and my suit coat off and the crowd started to laugh and they pretty much just laughed him off the stage. So that was the end of that story.
Speaker 1:That's my baby killer story and it happened. I think sometimes people just don't believe that that really went on, but it did, and I talk to people all the time where they experienced something similar to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as far as people spitting on me or disrespecting me, I didn't see that.
Speaker 1:That was the only time you were a target of opportunity, really, because you just happened to be there.
Speaker 2:Just happened to be there. I was standing there waiting for her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you dated right up through to the time you got out. Then yeah, so when did you get married? How did that all happen?
Speaker 2:We got married in 1972. I met her in probably 67, maybe 68. I don't remember. I mean we went together for four or five years. Right, I mean we went together for four or five years. I wanted to get married sooner, but she wanted to finish college. So after she finished college, she got herself a job and borrowed money from me to buy a car, uh-huh, and she paid me back. Then, after she paid me back, we decided to get married. You want to make sure you got your money back before you got married.
Speaker 1:Is that how that worked, Ken?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I didn't want to marry her and then have the debt even dissolved. Right, you have to take care of business. No, that's not true.
Speaker 1:That was her that wanted to pay me back, Right care of business.
Speaker 2:No, that's not. That was her that wanted to write it back. Yeah, because I didn't care.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at that time I told you I was making a lot of money and I didn't care. Yeah, you know so. So, um, she graduates college, uh, starts working, and then you're still working, um doing the encapsulating correct and and um. So at what point um do you decide to that you're going to go to college, because we talked about that a little bit earlier.
Speaker 2:Well, the company I worked for decided that they told us about a year and a half, maybe two years, that they were going to move. Right, so we had time. We knew that the company was going to move. So we had time, we knew that the company was going to move. So what do I do? Because I don't have a trade.
Speaker 2:I had a trade, but it was only good for that company, yeah, so she convinced me to start going to college, started going to college and I picked shop type classes because I knew that, you know, and I wasn't afraid of that right where I was absolutely fearful of academics, mm-hmm, and I used to. I told her I'm not smart enough to go to college. She said you're as smart as anybody else, you're just not schooled Right. So I started out with these easy courses and I got a couple of associates degrees, one in climate control technology and the other one in energy management and I got those two associate's degrees and I was happy and I stayed like that for a number of years.
Speaker 2:And then my kids started graduating high school and they were going into college and I had gotten a financial aid disc from Grand Valley University and I played the disc and I realized if we had one more person in college, we'd be qualified for financial aid. Well, she's smarter than me. We'd be qualified for financial aid. Well, she's smarter than me. She already had a degree, so it didn't work for her. So I was back in school and that's how I got my bachelor's degree. Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:All right. All right, well, I mean financially.
Speaker 2:it made sense right, yeah, it made sense. It was like working a part-time job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when you left, so when your company moved and you moved on to the next job, were you able to use those degrees as part of that? Yes, so tell me a little bit about the next job that you went to, and somewhere they started having kids, because I know that you have five daughters. Is that the right count? Yeah, daughters. Yeah, so were you. When did the children start figuring into the to this equation?
Speaker 2:uh, you you After sex, I guess.
Speaker 1:Well, ken, that's usually how it works. I was thinking more like timeline, but yeah, you have a point you have a point.
Speaker 2:I said that to be cute. No, no, I know, I know we had children while we were at still at RP Shearer. Okay, you know, remember I told you earlier I was clowning around and I said that she liked dogs so much she decided to have a litter. Right, right, we had twins off the bat. Oh my gosh, the first two were twins. A year later, on the same day, we had another daughter, uh-huh. And then we did all right for about five years, and then we had two more oh my gosh okay so.
Speaker 1:So that was kind of happening while I was, other stuff was going on.
Speaker 2:Other stuff was, yeah, okay it was just part of life, yeah, and I think all the kids were born. Well, I was still at the sheer corporation, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I moved to McLeod Steel as a maintenance supervisor and refrigeration operator. I had a first-class engineer's license for stationary engineering, for stationary engineering. So I went to work as a stationary engineer at McLeod Steel in their main office building in Detroit on 4th Street in Livernois. But McLeod was on shaky ground and they did finally slip away to nothing. But that was a good job too. But I decided to move, you know. So I went to work for AAM General Corporation and we built Hummers for 30 years.
Speaker 2:So that was kind of your forever job once you kind of got through those other two yeah and you really raised your family, then working for am general yes, okay, yep, and that's, and it would come to think of it, I got my bachelor's degree while I was at am general, uh-huh and uh, you know, because there was a time lapse where I stopped going to school. Yeah, I had my two associates degrees and figured I'm educated enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep so you, um, did you talk? You said that you had like a professional engineer's license, that kind of thing. Did any of the work that you did in the military help you along the way with any of that, or was this?
Speaker 2:all.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think so it's all stuff you learned once you know you know you don't learn anything being a drill sergeant.
Speaker 2:You just learn to yell, right, you know, uh and uh. You don't learn anything driving tanks other than driving tanks. So, no, I didn't really People skills, you know you learn people skills. So people skills were probably the only thing I had learned in the Army, and they probably weren't good people skills, you know, right, right, but they were adaptation skills.
Speaker 1:So what did you do at Amgeneral then for 30 years Maintenance supervisor.
Speaker 2:Okay, I was a maintenance supervisor 30 years and I really like my job because I never did the same thing twice. Mm-hmm, because I never did the same thing twice. You know, maintenance supervisor is sort of a misnomer. I was more of a facilities manager, where I more took, you know. I never knew, you know, there would be snow removal you had to worry about. You know everything, you know just, and I was good at it, I liked it and I remember. I remember that I got a $5,000 pay increase and an office when I graduated college to do the same job.
Speaker 1:Well, that had to feel pretty good. That had to make that all worth it.
Speaker 2:I was doing the job I was doing anyway, right?
Speaker 1:So Well, tell me a little bit about the, about the, the, the kids. What are they doing now?
Speaker 2:Well, the twins one became a nurse and the other became a teacher. Now one of the the nurse, is now trying to become a teacher. They're successful, they're both married and they both have successful husbands. And then Carrie she married an ex-pastor and she's a teacher as well, and she's the one that lives in Leslie Uh-huh. And then we have Mary, who's married to the retired army. First sergeant he was a first sergeant, okay, and he retired and they bought the house in Texas. First sergeant he was a first sergeant, okay, and he retired and they bought the house in Texas. And then we have Ann, who is now a major in the US Army, and her husband, anthony, is in the US Army as a first sergeant. So we're sort of a patriotic family.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, family of service I mean nurse, teacher, military, these are all definitely service work, for sure, and you must be.
Speaker 2:Marries a nurse yes, well, marries a nurse as well. Marries a nurse yes, well, marries a nurse as well. Marries a nurse. Carries a teacher. Carrie teaches at a Christian school. I don't know, I'm sure I'm leaving stuff out.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's fine. So you must be proud of your family then. Oh, absolutely, it sounds like everyone was successful.
Speaker 2:They're all serviceable children.
Speaker 1:I'm guessing there were probably times where you might have questioned how that was all going to work out.
Speaker 2:No, not really. I had some pretty level-headed kids, uh-huh. I had some pretty level-headed kids, uh-huh. They got their academic skills from mother.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And they all were, you know, four-pointers.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And they four-pointed everything and it stayed that way all the way through college. They you know they married well and um, Well, they're four-point in life now it sounds like to put it in that kind of that way.
Speaker 1:So you, you, uh, you know we've kind of covered everything you growing up and joining the service and getting married, and it's no small feat today to talk to someone who has been married for 52 years, is that?
Speaker 2:right 53, I think 53?
Speaker 1:But who's counting? Yeah, yeah, I mean but yeah so, yeah. So my point is like very successful in all that you have done and so, kind of, as we wrap up our conversation today, um, first, is there anything that we haven't talked about that you want to talk about?
Speaker 2:if you're awful to offered a purple heart, take it. I declined, declined. Okay, I jumped off of the back of a truck. They were shooting at the truck and I jumped off the back of a truck and I scraped my arm. It didn't require stitches but it required first aid, you know, and I was offered a Purple Heart for that and I didn't figure I was hurt bad enough for a purple heart and I declined it. And now I wish for va benefits.
Speaker 1:I had taken it right, right, well, and you earned it. You know, I mean, uh, there's a, there's a spectrum of people who earned the purple heart and so, yeah, and when I came, we were talking a little bit about the VA and about service organizations as well. So can you talk a little bit about your experience with the VA and how that's evolved?
Speaker 2:Well, I can just Do. You want me to tell you the same story? Yeah, back, I had to go for an Agent Orange physical, a mandatory Agent Orange physical and I went to the VA and while I was having my physical, the doctor noticed that my arm was in a sling and I had just had rotator cuff surgery on the outside of the VA. And he told me that I was too old and I was only 50 at the time, that they wouldn't have fixed that, they would have just given me pain medication. And I figured, well, okay, I'll never go to the VA again, but now things have changed and they're actually worth going to. It's a good organization now, yeah, and the VSOs in Livingston County VSO, they're excellent, excellent people. They do a wonderful job job.
Speaker 1:Well, and for anyone listening who doesn't know what a vso is, that's your veteran service officer and when you want to interact with the va or file a claim, you don't have to do it on your own right. You can go to a vso and they can help you with that. Yep and I and I've heard over and over again in Livingston County they have the best, they do it and they do it.
Speaker 2:I'm working on. I'm 90% disabled and I'm working on the other 10% Right. I've got a claim in right now for the last, trying to become 100%. Now I don't care about the money, the money's not important. The thing is, if I die at 100%, she gets it Right. 90% it's done Right. That's the only reason I want the other 10 percent.
Speaker 1:Well, in india, not to lose track or sight of the. The fact is that you've these are things that you have earned, and I think a lot of times veterans are reluctant to uh go to the va or to claim disability because they don't feel like they have earned it or they deserve it or Somebody else could benefit. But just because you have a disability doesn't mean someone else doesn't get one, and I think that's sort of changing in veterans minds. But as I talk to more and more veterans, you know I think people wait a long time sometimes to get what they need.
Speaker 2:I think people wait a long time sometimes to get what they need. Well, I didn't do anything until, like this, Agent Orange stuff started, Right. And then when the Agent Orange stuff started, you know, I figured well, I might as well jump on the bandwagon, you know, Right, right exactly so what have you been doing since retirement?
Speaker 1:Nothing. How do you like that?
Speaker 2:I do and I don't. You know, sometimes I get bored, yeah, you know. But you know I got 17 acres here, so there's always something to do. And nine grandchildren and nine grandchildren, yeah, yeah, that's a lot. Nine grandchildren and nine grandchildren, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a lot of grandchildren. They'll keep you busy.
Speaker 2:So we're busy and we're always going to kids' birthdays or somewhere. We're always off somewhere.
Speaker 1:It's a little different busy now than busy for work, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not chaotic busy, it's just busy yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's nice. Do you find that the grandchildren wear you out though?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, 20 minutes with the grandkid. I'm ready to go home and go to bed.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah, you need a nap. I'm telling you afterwards I used to laugh when people would tell me that. And then I had a grandchild and I was like, oh, I completely get this.
Speaker 2:now they have energy, just chase, chase, chase, chase. Yeah, our youngest grandchild is what? Four now, mm-hmm, and she's a handful. She's just a chatterbox, she. One question after another, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's that's kind of like a grandmother. Well, that's how you, that's how you, that's how you learn things right. So, yeah, so I mean, um, you know, if we, if we, um, if we think about you, know your life and we think about you, know your life and we think about this recording we're doing today and the idea is that people will hear this story into the future, and so if someone's listening to this, let's say it's 50 years from now, what sort of what would you like them to take away from our conversation and really from your life and how you've lived it?
Speaker 2:I'm at a loss here.
Speaker 1:What kind of advice would you have for someone listening to this? Because of how you've been successful, how your kids have been successful? Now you have grandchildren and you've been married for a long time.
Speaker 2:Well, what I'd say is faith in Jesus Christ. Believe, because that's the only way. That's one of the things I didn't say is in Vietnam Bob Hope had a program and after Bob Hope, billy Graham came on. You know he had he was. His venue was right after the Bob Hope show and that's kind of where I decided that Jesus Christ was the answer. So faith in Jesus Christ is what gets you through. So if there's a 50-50 chance there's a God, right and you're a betting man. And if you bet that there isn't, then you're wrong. Or if you bet that there is, then you're a betting man. And if you bet that there isn't and you're wrong. Or if you bet that there is and you're right. So this is not much of a bet, is it? That's true, you know so yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Billy Graham said that and you know, and they kind of just stuck with me all my life.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for taking the time today to sit and talk with me and thank you for sharing your story.
Speaker 2:Thanks for coming, thanks for listening Absolutely.
