I’ve never written a biography before. I mean I have told a bit about myself, but never to this extent. I take that back. I was supposed to write an autobiography for seventh grade english. It seemed like a really pointless assignment, so I never actually finished it. So this is going to be kind new, and probably fairly vague in places.

I was born in the year 1973. Yes, I am that old. For those of you who cannot do the math, I am 32 years old. Anyway, I was born at Walson Army Hospital, on Fort Dix, in New Jersey. I used to joke that I was born in the army, even though my father was actually in the Air Force. I don’t have many memories of my earliest years. When I was two, my first brother was born. The same day I was. I know when I was four or so, my parents separated, my mom quickly moved in with someone new. My Dad a little while afterward. They divorced, and it was very bitter, something that took me years to get over.

I learned to read an write and do basic arithmetic in Kindergarten. The reading was the big thing, once I learned, I haven’t stopped, and it is rare for me to not be in the middle of a book or three. Between Kindergarten and first grade, my mom moved to Cape May, NJ, where she had grown up, and where her family lived. This was nice, because I had a lot of Aunts and Uncles and a lot of cousins, and this made for interesting times. Plus my grandparents had what I considered to be the coolest house. Lots of places to explore of course I was young, and so the yard seemed a lot bigger. Of course it also had apple trees, and chestnut trees, and pear trees, and crabapple trees. But best of all, it had a heated in ground swimming pool, with a springboard. My mom and her new husband, my step-dad, a man I will always respect, moved us into a house, about a mile down the road from there. It was right across from the local Elementary school, and had a nice big yard with a lot of woods. I liked running around in the woods, even in the dark.

I went to a Catholic School for first and second grade. It was nice, but it had problems. For one thing, with only one class per grade, it was not set up to deal with advanced students. The first grade teacher did not know how to handle child (this would be me) who could not only already read, but read well. That’s why for third grade I was moved to the public elementary school. However I was raised Roman Catholic, and still had to attend catechism classes once a week, until my mom realized that my brother and me eventually decided that having to go back to school after school sucked and started skipping them. The best thing about that school though was that in second grade I was able to begin taking piano lessons. I stopped after second grade, but to this day can still plunk out simple tunes on a keyboard, and if I can ever afford to get me a decent one, I might pick up with it again.

My mom got a job at her parents company, Anco. This was a little hardware store that fixed windows and the like. My step-dad went through several jobs (and a heart attack), before going back to college and becoming a Respiratory Therapist.

In the summer after third grade I tried music again, this time the clarinet. I think in retrospect my initial choices of instruments were bad. I chose the piano, because my mom played one, and because that is what the school offered. I chose the clarinet because one of my uncles played it. In fourth grade I went to choose what would remain my instrument for the next seven years and beyond, the baritone. Which for those of you who don’t know is kind of like a miniature tuba, that plays in the same range as a trombone, well slightly lower.

When I was seven, a step cousin introduced me to a game that would lead to one of my current passions. It was the oft maligned, and occasionally lampooned Dungeons and Dragons. I got the basic and Expert Boxed sets that Christmas, and never turned back. D&D is what led me to become the “king-sized mega-mega-geek” that I am today, and is responsible for roughly half of the friends I have had in my life.

It was also while I was in third grade that my younger brother and sister (twins) were born. As my grandmother said to me when the news came in, “Congratulations, you’re a big brother!”

Incidentally, it was at this time my developing social skills stopped developing and in many places began to regress. To this day, I am uncertain exactly what caused this. I do know that in third grade I decided that normal was boring and that I would be weird for the rest of my life. In retrospect I think this was the nascent rumblings of what would by high school evolve into a case of “militant individualism.”

In fifth grade I started walking to school. I did that for fifth and sixth grades. And continued to have problems with classes that just went too slow for me. The school did put me in an advanced class once, but their idea of an advanced class was to load the students down with enough extra work, to slow them down to the rate of everyone else. So you can guess how that went. Things got a little better when I started junior high, as I had some good teachers and began to make progress. However one thing I did not have was friends, at least good friends. I think my anti-herd mentality turned most of my “peers” off.

Then came High School. In High School I actually began to make friends. Well, a few. I think I had half a dozen by the time I graduated. High School is where I developed into a militant individualist. That is to say, whatever the current fad was, I would try to move in the opposite direction to demonstrate that I was not a part of the herd. High School is also where I got my first job. I started working at Menz’s Restaurant, a very, very good surf and turf place, with a pricey, but delightful menu. I started out as a dishwasher, and was soon promoted to “chief quality control engineer for kitchen utensils”. Which yes, was still washing dishes, sort of. Actually I would point out I didn’t actually wash dishes. The dishes were washed by a large machine, the entered one end, and came out the other. My job was too stand at the end ane make sure that the dishes that came out were completely clean (quality control, get it?). During the summers I worked full time, and part time during the school year. It was a nice job, and I met some cool people while I was there.

It was in High School that I also discovered what would go on to be another love in my life, writing. My Ninth grade study hall teacher and my friend Brian shared the blame in this. Brian was a trombone player and sat next to me in band, he also sat next to me in study hall. Consequently we became friends. Our study hall teacher who was also my Spanish I teacher, had a policy. You could not talk, but you could pass notes. Our notes soon evolved into elaborate stick figure cartoons. At first my stories were thinly disguised parodies of movies, tv shows and comic books, but soon I began writing original stories.

In tenth grade, when my eyes were tested for my learner’s permit, it was discovered that I was very nearsighted. A fact that I had never really realized. And also that I had hid without even trying. I started wearing glasses that year, and except for a brief stint wearing contacts, I still wear them.

In twelfth grade my skill on the baritone was such that anything that would be an interesting challenge for me, was beyond the capabilities of most of the rest of the band. I was one of about a half dozen members in this boat. I don’t know how the others handled it, but I handled it by switching to the bassoon. By the time I graduated high school, I could play in addition to the baritone, the trumpet, tuba, trombone, and bassoon. Although none of them with anywhere near the facility with which I could play the baritone. In my senior year I was playing the baritone for marching band and the brass ensemble, the bassoon for the concert band and woodwind choir, and trombone in the pit orchestra.

So anyway, twelfth grade drew to a close and my Guidance Counselor was worried, because I had yet to apply to a single college. I was a big time procrastinator. He suggested perhaps some time in the military. Well, it worked for my dad, so I figured why not. So I took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). Pretty soon I had recruiters calling me. Apparently my scores were “give this guy any job he wants, just get him to sign up.” I almost ended up joining the marines, but the army made me a better offer. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t really care what branch I went into so long as I got out of Cape May. But the army offered me airborne. Jump out of airplanes? Hell yes! So off to basic training at Fort Jackson SC. Basic training was . . . basic training. I had it relatively easy as it was halfway through basic before the drill sergeants learned my name. The longer they take to learn your name the better you were. My only real problem was physical training. For all my size, I was not in good shape. The army changed that somewhat.

Well, I finished basic, and went off to Fort Gordon (Home of the Signal Corp) GA. There I studied to be a 31C (pronounced - thirty one charlie) or a single channel radio operator. Basically it was teletype. So I spent the first two weeks typing. Actually I missed getting out of typing after the first week by only one word per minute. Typing may not sound so bad, but consider I was typing for eight hours a day. I also hooked up with some other people in my training company, we dubbed ourselves the Echoteers. “All for one and one for all, unless one of us is getting smoked in which case he is on his own.” The last bit was my contribution and was called the Drill Sergeant clause. I tacked it on, for those unfortunate times when we would be waiting for one of our number who for whatever reason had drawn the attention of a drill sergeant and was getting “smoked” (slang for being forced to do an excessive amount of punitive exercises). You see our company was nicknamed “The House of Pain” and the drill sergeants there liked the title and were determined to keep it. So if we were waiting while one of us was performing a large number of push-ups, this was bound to attract the drill sergeant’s attention, and when he asked what we wanted we would just reply, “We’re waiting for our friend, we’re the Echoteers, all for one and one for all, unless one of us is getting smoked in which case he is on his own.” At this point the drill sergeant being a drill sergeant would tell us to get down and do push-ups with our friend, at which point we would point out the drill sergeant clause, “Hang on, we said all for one and one for all, unless one of us is getting smoked, in which case he is on his own.” Then the drill sergeant would make us do push-ups anyway. But at least we tried.

Well, I had some difficulty getting out of there, because I had to retake my pt (PT stands for Physical Training) test. Running has never been my strong suite. Well, the problem was, I kind of fell through the cracks. And no one realized that I still hadn’t retaken it until I was due to graduate. This resulted in me being held over for a week before being shipped to Ft. Benning (Home of the Infantry) GA for Airborne school. Ah yes, airborne school, running running and more running. But on the bright side your weekends and evenings were your own. This was nice, because Star Trek VI had just hit the post theaters, and I had no expenses. I think I saw it six times. Now airborne school is divided into three weeks. The first week is ground week. If you pass ground week you then move on to tower week. If you pass tower week, you then move on to jump week. Now there isn’t a whole lot of stuff they teach you. But it is taught over and over and over. The reason being if something happens you need to be able to do what you are supposed to without having to think about it. Jump week consists of five jumps. When it’s done you graduate. Because weather had delayed two of our jumps, we ended up graduating on the drop zone, and out processing the same day as the last of our jumps. Ask me about bloodwings some time.

Well, after Jump School, I was shipped to Fort Bragg (Home of the Airborne) NC. I arrived in the replacement battalion for the surprise of my life. You see, when you first go to a unit you are assigned to a replacement battalion, there they get you processed into the post and decide which unit you’re going to go to. Now there was a bit of a shock for those of us who had just completed training. We were in the barracks, kind of wondering what to do when word came down, formation at 1400 (that’s 2pm). Well, we weren’t surprised, at training posts replacement battalions are often used as a source for detail (any miscellaneous job not assigned to a specific occupation) workers. So at 1400, we showed up in uniform ready to go to work. The NCOIC (That’s Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge ie a sergeant) strolled up in civilian clothes looked around and said, “Looks like everyone is here. Next formation 0800 Monday morning. Have a nice weekend.” Then she walked off. Now the experienced soldiers took off, those of us who had just finished training were looking around in shock. “That’s it?” “No details?” “We can go do what we want?” Needless to say once this sank in we got the hell out of dodge.

Well, when we were assigned to our units, first we were sent to Brigade. 35^th Signal Brigade to be exact. Their exact words were, “Take of your berets your not going to an airborne unit.” From their we went to battalion, 526^th I believe. It was later redesignated the 26^th. From their I was sent to A (or Alpha) company. There I got the other shock. They no longer had need for my MOS, so I was going to be retrained. At this point I was beginning to wonder what the point of my last four months of training was, as in the space of eight hours I was told I wouldn’t be using any of it. But then that’s the army for you.

The retraining wasn’t too bad. It was conducted by civilian employees, and so was pretty laid back and relaxed. The first field exercise was interesting. My best memory was of a platoon formation. The Platoon Sergeant had just finished explaining that all vehicles coming on and off site must have without exception a ground guide. It was right at this point the company commander’s vehicle rolled on to site sans ground guide. Something the platoon took great glee in pointing out. The understandably flustered platoon sergeant could only offer, “Do what your rank can handle.” but the emphasis had been lost. He must have said something however, as I did notice every time after that the company commander would ground guide her truck onto site without fail.

The next exercise I went on was with a MLRS unit. We were with their headquarters staff. MLRS’s are cool. I was on guard duty one night when they were launching some. There was a bright flash of light followed five seconds later by a rumbling roar. That night I also got to see a rare wild cat. This was also noted by me because it was my second real field exercise (as opposed to the stuff I did in training) and the first one doing my job as it were, and the unit we were with jumped (which is to say moved locations) three times in a twenty four hour period at one point. This caused some amusement to me as almost a year later, another team in my company was congratulated for the same thing on a different exercise. I’m terribly sorry if I wasn’t impressed.

The coolest exercise I went on while stationed at Ft. Hood, was JLOtS III. Joint Logistics Over the Shore. It was my first “real world mission” which is to say it had a real purpose other then to practice our skills. It was a vacation on the beach. Literally. We were set up on a beach, and the atmosphere was relaxed, far more then in garrison or during a training exercise. I remember the day we were taking things down to go home, a thunderstorm rolled in. It was almost as if they said, okay, move out and break it down, there immediately followed a crack of thunder and a torrential downpour.

It was right after JLOtS III that I got my orders for Germany. I had been wanting to go to Germany for a short while at this point. You see when I arrived in the company I was told that the battalion was going to be designated an airborne unit “soon.” Well, here it was a year and a half later and still it hadn’t happened. And frankly as far as I was concerned Ft. Bragg wasn’t a very good assignment if you weren’t in an airborne unit, so I wanted to go elsewhere. Well, I think it was right afterwards, but it might have been a little later. We had just gotten back from somewhere and were in the back of the company near the arms room, when my team chief walked up to me and told me I was going to Germany. I thought he had known I wanted to and was joking with me, but shortly afterwards, I received notification of my orders.

I learned a lesson about out-processing there. A unit is loathe to release a soldier from duty to out-process. What you have to do is simply show up to the out-processing center and grab a copy of you papers. This is a list of the places you must successfully out-process and about fifty copies of your orders. Once you have your papers the unit cannot stop you. You show up for work-call wave the papers and are basically released for the day. What it involves is visiting every place listed on your papers and dropping off one or more copies of your orders at which time they will initial that you have been there. Once you have finished you return to the center and they cut your travel orders.

I know I took a little leave before going to Germany. I don’t remember how much. But I did go home for a week or so. I also decided not to ship my stuff over there, taking only what I could carry with me. The result being most of my stuff ended up being stored at my Mom’s house. Then I boarded a plane in Philadelphia and was off to Germany.

Okay, this is taking a lot longer then I anticipated. So from here on, is just a glossing over. I will fill in details periodically as I have time.

I still say the unit there A co. 141^st Signal Battalion was my best and favorite unit.

Just before we were deployed to Bosnia in what we sometimes referred to as Operation Wag the Dog, I re-enlisted.

I spent four months in Bosnia, before being returned to Germany to out-process. My total time in Germany was a little over two years.

After Germany I was sent to Ft. Hood. TX While I liked Texas, I disliked Ft. Hood because I never was one for politics. I finished the last three years of my enlistment and got out, moving to a small place in Copperas Cove. I eventually took a job as a deliveryman for Sears. This lasted for a month, before I got into truck driver school.

I spent two weeks in Salt Lake City UT then became a long distance truck driver. I was a truck driver for seven months before losing that job. I moved to Danville VA, to be with my girlfriend.

I was unemployed for several years before finally getting a job as an assistant manager of a convenience store.

It took me a little over eighteen months in that job to discover two things. One, I hate Danville, and two, I have no business whatsoever working in retail.

Around January of 2004 me an Melissa had some problems. Our relationship became a roller coaster with us repeatedly breaking up then reconciling.

On February 3^rd of 2005, Melissa had a her third and fatal heart attack. She died practically in my arms.

I decide I am leaving Danville as soon as I can save up enough money to afford the move.