Heide had been offered a job in Texas by the company she worked with in Chicago. My situation working with two benefitless, semi-part-time jobs sucked. I had already left Wisconsin once to escape the bleak economy of the 1970s by joining the Army. Now we would both leave the bleak Wisconsin economy of the 1980s by moving to Texas. In retrospect, Texas had an up again and down again economy that variated much faster than Wisconsin's. It was due to technology and oil industries.
The dairy operation of the farm had been shut down since I got out of high school, so leaving that again was not as traumatic as when I went in the Army. Sandy the dog once again would not be able to join me in my journey. She was getting old and all we had to live in on our journey to Texas was a 14-foot trailer I would pull behind my 1974 Ford pick up truck. Once again Dad had come to the rescue. He bought the little trailer on the condition I would pull it back as soon as we got an apartment. The logic of the temporary trailer was because we would have to spend some time in Houston for training and then head up to Dallas for Heide's new job. You could see the ground through the rusted trailer floor. Dad's heart was in the right place anyway. It would work perfect for four months.
I had asked Jack from the bus company to be my best man. Heide and I were married in a little community church in the Wisconsin lake-neighborhood where she grew up. Everyone seemed to enjoy the departure from big-city churches. The guys at the bus company used their best company car as our limo. The wedding went off without too many hitches. In those days you actually had real bands play at your receptions. We rented a small country club in Lake Geneva.
I had quit the bowling alley disco job a few weeks before the wedding. We lived in Ol' Want-some-carrots place for a couple weeks after we got married in early November. I drove one last school bus route the day before we left for Texas. Some of the kids gave me cards and candy treats. Out at the farm, I remember bidding Ol' Uncle Art and sandy the dog good-bye as we hooked up the trailer. In the retrospect, it was the last time I would see either one of them alive. It was December 1st, 1981. We loaded what we could in my pick up truck and the camper. My next two jobs would be spread over 11 years in Dallas, Texas.
This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is Sergeant Benjamin C. Edinger, 24, of Green Bay who died on November 23, 2004, at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, from injuries he receive during enemy action in Anbar province, Iraq, on November 14. Sgt. Edinger suffered shrapnel wounds from a homemade bomb. Benjamin was the 29th Wisconsin soldier killed in the war in Iraq since the spring of 2003. This was his second tour of duty in Iraq after taking part in the first wave of the war in March of 2003. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Benjamin was a 1999 graduate of Green Bay West High School. He had attended the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh for a time. Sergeant Edinger was a member of the 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force.
3,841 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
451 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
28,327 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1,708 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
81 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
6 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
123 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
Soldier of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; and, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
