Having returned to Wisconsin after my self-prescribed sabbatical in West Virgina in the fall of 1978, and no intention of driving school bus again, I set myself up to scratch for work in an increasingly crappy economy. I had turned down a chance to wallow in plastic dust at the PVC pipe company via the odious labor service ("Eighth Job of Bob"). Fall was turning into the icy Wisconsin winter we all always pretend will never come. It was only a year since I had left the Army. It was then that I began to regret not getting unemployment (which veterans were eligible for) after I left military service.
Somehow I came into contact with an employment service in Janesville. This was not a day-labor outfit. There, they placed you in a full-time job for a fee. A fee to me. This process is pretty much unheard of these days. Most employers now days will pay the fee to find an employee if they need a specialty. But it was the "Misery Index" era of Gerald Ford that then segued into Jimmy Carter. There was high unemployment, high interest rates, low wages, lay offs, high gas prices, and high utility prices.
This employment outfit found me a job at a Beloit furniture store. If I was hired, I was obligated to pay the service 300 Dollars - a hefty sum for a blue-collar kid in the late 1970s. The boss of the store hired me because he said he had never known a guy to pay for a job before. He figured I must really want to work. Maybe so, considering some of my old class mates just laid around on unemployment or mooched off their girlfriends' welfare. I paid their damn finder's fee by dropping off 30 Dollars a week at their office until the 300 was paid off. That left me only 70 Dollars a week take home pay for the first two and a half months of my new found career.
As an old friend of mine from Texas might say, "They learnt me about the finer nuances of the domestic furniture trade." Translation - I delivered heavy furniture to people's homes and apartments. I delivered furniture up narrow stairs, through windows, around corners, during ice storms, down creaking basement stairs, around narrow hallway corners, and through impossibly small doors.
This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is Specialist Michelle Witmer, 20, who died Friday, April 9, 2004. Her tour in Iraq was a few days from ending when she died. Her vehicle came under attack from enemy using a roadside bomb and small-arms fire in Baghdad. Witmer had been stationed in Baghdad since March 2003 with the 32nd Military Police Company of the Wisconsin National Guard. Michelle joined the National Guard in November 2002, going into the same military police unit her older sister Rachel, 24 was in and also in Iraq. Charity Witmer, Michelle's twin sister, was a medic with Company B of the Wisconsin Guard's 118th Medical Battalion, and was likewise stationed in Iraq. Michelle was the 16th Wisconsin soldier to be killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. According the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Michelle and Rachel helped train Iraqi police. Michelle's job was during the night shift at the local police station. The Witmer children were home-schooled but Michelle went on to attend the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee before being sent to Iraq. At the time of her death, Michelle Witmer was survived by her two brothers Timothy, 22, Mark, 18, her sisters Rachel, 24, and Charity, 20, and her parents John and Lori Witmer.
3,644 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.
26,953 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring 2003.
78 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.
112 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.
Soldier of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; and, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
