It was late one Friday afternoon close to quiting time. I was covered with undercoating and welding dirt; my wallet was empty. An administrator from the rent-a-truck assembly factory corporate office hunted me down in my work bay from hell. He said he pulled my record because he needed a driver and it looked like I had driven a truck in the Army. I told him it was a 10-ton combat flatbed tractor and not really what one could call an 18-wheeler.
He said, "I don't care. I need someone to start running to Pennsylvania." One of his supply haulers has apparently quit.
I said, "Man, I would like to think about it; let me get with you Monday."
He looked rather perplexed and said, "You don't understand, I need you to leave now." Jim, the psycho partner from hell, smiled and suggested I run for my life to the cleaner and more lucrative truck driving job. Jim was my consultant and advocate now since I had saved his life - see "Tenth Job of Bob - Part II."
I declined the offer. I wonder where I would be now if I had taken that job almost 30 years ago?
A few weeks later the word came down abruptly that our whole annex factory was to be laid off after the cargo order we were working on was finished. The day the last truck rolled out, I bid my want-to-be-policeman friend goodbye and headed home. When I got there my mom sized me up. She looked at me with that Irish wit and asked if something was up?
I told her, "We, all got laid off; canned; dumped; got our pink slips; we were laid off.
She gave me that Irish glance that could see right through any creature. She looked at my dirty cloths and then the burns and dirt ground into my hands. She looked up at the grit on my face and then said, "I imagine it is just as well."
Almost a year and a half later just before I was to get married and move to Dallas for better work offerings, I got a call late into the week from someone at the rent-a-truck assembly factory. "Hey, you want to come back to work?" the voice said.
"Who the hell is this," I asked.
"You were laid off from assembling trucks and I want to know if you would like to come back to work?" the voice said with perky enthusiasm. "We have a great order pending and need good guys like you."
"It has been over a year you fool, you think I have just been waiting by the phone for you to call?" I said and know I sounded crass.
The voice did not even pause and said with the same gung-ho tone, "so I can count on you to start on Monday then? I'll write you in as an affirmative.........hello, hello, he..."
Click!
This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is Private First Class Andrew Halverson, 19, of Muscoda, Wisconsin. Pfc. Halverson was killed on Saturday, October 9, 2004 by hostile enemy action in Anbar province. Andrew graduated from Riverdale High School in 2003 and had played on their football team. Muscoda is in southwestern Wisconsin, and has a population of around 1,500. Halverson had been assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Pendleton, California. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Andrew was known as a "character" and liked to joke around. He was voted the class clown in his senior year of high school and he is said to have gotten along with everybody. The Journal Sentinel went on to say Pfc. Halverson also helped his father with his flooring business. Private First Class Andrew Halverson was the 22nd Wisconsin soldier to be killed in Iraq since the spring of 2003.
3,752 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.
27,767 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.
