Don was in the Navy from May of 1952 until October of 1954. He was an Aviation Electronic Technician. He had to take a test to get in to the school and he scored really high. It was the hardest school to get into. His Navy career started in Great Lakes, Illinois in boot camp. Boot camp was tough. He described hell week as one week were he learned many things but mostly about discipline. He then went to an AV prep school in Norman Oklahoma and then on to Aviation Electronics School in Memphis Tenn. After AE School he had a choice of billets and he could have been assigned to Olathe KS but everyone said the place was nowhere and boring so he chose Commander Forces Far East. He was assigned to a base at Iwakuni Japan where he spent almost two years. He said that the Navy was a valuable experience and if he had the opportunity he would do it all over again. One of the things he ended up doing was spending a month aboard a seaplane tender and sailed to Hong Kong where he purchased a wedding set. To this day he gets choked up in Veterans Day parades and honors and remains loyal to the Navy
After the Navy, Don wanted to finish his degree at Western Michigan University. He had also met a wonderful young lady named Eunice who he would later marry in 1955. He ended up going to Western Michigan from 1954 until he got his BA degree in 1956 and an MA in 1960. Unlike the Navy, Don does not feel as loyal to Western Michigan. Don lived in the dorm for the first semester and after marriage he and Eunice lived together for one year in a cheap duplex and their focus was to get a degree and finish the program. The two of them pretty much scraped by while they were there. Don had a ladder on the dorm lot near where they parked their car so that when a job came up around town he could throw his ladder on his car and go do the work. He mostly roofed, painted, pointed chimneys, cut branches and simonized cars for $5. Don became a teacher because an Aunt who his parents really respected was a teacher and she always had a job during the depression years. After graduation from Western Michigan, both Don and Eunice and little Dave moved to Wyoming and rented a home on Burlingame Ave for about nine months and then bought their first home at 3487 Bluebird as Don started his teaching career.
