Before I turned in my two-week notice at the furniture store, I had been putting in a few job applications. As timing would have it, a truck assembly company in Janesville gave me a call. They put the cargo boxes on rent-a-trucks. It was a lucrative business at the time because so many people were moving out of Southeastern Wisconsin they could not keep up with orders. It was 1980, and we were in the depths of economic recession. I would soon be turning 24 years old. The Army and the farm were getting farther and farther away in time.
This truck company had a annex plant that I worked out of. I never did work at the main assembly plant. The main complex is still on the North side of Janesville. The annex ha been converted to a tech school annex now. There were about 50 of us working there. It was a big order of trucks for a national company and with the exception of management, we all started pretty much around the same date. Everybody seemed to be around 20 to 25 years old. There were no women. We put together the boxes that fit on the truck chassis. The sound of rivet guns permeated the place. I ended up working in the bay where the cargo boxes were fastened and welded to the truck frames. We also had to undercoat the trucks. There was no pit to stand in so my legs were always cramped from squatting. At the end of every day my face and hands were black with undercoating. Eventually, it made me have some allergic reaction swelling of the hands and neck. Other parts of me were sun burned from welding up close under the trucks.
It was a consummate factory. The economy was so bad no one ever called in sick. No one wanted to risk losing the precious job. One day a pulley rigging that was used to lift the boxes fell on a guy's head. After being patched up at the emergency room, he came back to work that afternoon. He looked like he had stepped on a mine in 'Nam. He could barely walk or talk. His head was swollen like a water melon. Yet, he took his place on the assembly line.
A big and good natured guy befriended me. I can't remember his name. Every day at break he showed me a new piece of police equipment he was always ordering out of a weapon's catalog. He had every style of brass knuckles and hand cuffs you could ever want. One day he brought a billy club (night stick) in his pants' leg. He proudly slid it out at lunch and showed me and said, "Non of these dopes better ever mess with me." It was so Bob-esk to have a complete certified nut befriend me. But, of course, it was the beginning of the 1980s, and the nuts from the 1960s and 1970s had to spill over somewhere.
This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is Army Staff Sergent Charles Kiser, 37. Staff Sergent Kiser died when a car bomb went off near his convoy in Mosul, Iraq, on Thursday, June 24, 2004. Kiser was with the 330th Military Police Detachment, an Army Reserve unit out of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Charles was originally from the Cincinnati, Ohio area but was living in Cleveland, Wisconsin. He had been in Iraq since January of 2004. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Charles had also spent duty time in the Navy. They also noted Kiser was remembered in Ohio as champion high school sprinter. Sergent Kiser is survived by his wife, a son, a daughter, five sisters, and his mom. Staff Sergent Kiser was the 19th Wisconsin soldier to die in Iraq.
3,702 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.
27,279 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.
