Michael A. O'Keeffe
While in ROTC in my final year at Dartmouth College, I learned my assignment was to Ft. Sill, OK. The ROTC had an officer who was ARTY, and who told me my good score on the math tests got me into Artillery. He allowed that "things were happening at Ft. Bliss" and I should look into that base as an alternate. I quickly figured out that Ft. Bliss was home to modern electronic equipment and Ft. Sill was the old conventional stuff. Somehow, a reality sunk into my otherwise distracted mind, that someday I may have to find a job in my native Boston, and it dawned on me that a back ground in electronics would carry weight. Add to that the appeal of El Paso and the perceived sensual delights in Mexico.
I wrote a letter explaining how I would prefer an assignment to Ft. Bliss, and how I felt my education would better suit me to electronics. For once, the Army did things right, and I was reassigned.
I drove from Boston to El Paso via Mexico, with a girlfriend. A later story. Leaving her at the bus station in Hildalgo del Parral, scene of the assassination of Franciso Villa, I drove alone through Chihuahua. At one point I had to drive off the road to avoid a band of Indians standing in it, wearing the traditional clothes of the Yaqui Tribe. I stayed over night in the city of Chihuahua, drank some beers at a local tavern, and inquired about the statue of "El Centauro del Norte." I asked if Villa was not un bandito, and was politely told by a group of braceros that he was a hero. These were the days of a massive guest-worker program in the US, which permitted Mexican workers to enter the US on short work permits, an excellent program since ended.
On arrival in El Paso, I picked up three young soldiers who were hitchhiking into Juarez. Despite the fact that I was an officer, they let me join their evening in the corrido bars. One offered to demonstrate how easy it would be to start a fight - all one had to do was throw a beer bottle against the wall. I said, no thanks.
It was June and not too hot yet. I loved the Tibetan architecture of Texas Western University, where I went prowling for dates. My first class, several months, was on the Nike Hercules. I just missed the Nike Ajax, which was being phased out, but heard horror stories about its liquid fuels and unreliability. Then a young lieutenant made a pitch like a salesman to us to join up the new HAWK class, being formed. I found out it was manufactured by Raytheon in Massachusetts. I was hooked.
