Jerry Rohlinger's Military Service

I enlisted in the U. S. Air Force in May, 1966 before graduating from Washington High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My reason for enlisting early was simple; they were drafting 50,000 a month and 49,000 were going to Vietnam! So, I took the easy way out, I choose the Air Force in the hope of getting some job training and avoiding the unappealing task of being cannon fodder in Vietnam. I entered active service in October, 1966.

Having scored high enough in the various tests to basically pick whatever field I wanted, I picked the "Administration" field with the intention of getting into computer programming. As usual, the information the recruiter had was outdated! The computer programming field was now under "General". So I took the next best field: Base Supply. I was trained to use the UNIVAC 1050-2 computer system in Base Supply functions. It was the state of the art system in the mid-1960's.

October, 1966 saw me off to Amarillo Air Force Base in Texas for Basic Training. Amarillo AFB was a Basic Training base as well as a Tech School training base. Just to keep things interesting, it was also home to a B-52 Squadron. This Squadron would leave for Southeast Asia before I left in February 1967. Six weeks of Basic and on to Tech School! I moved all the way to the other side of the base! Two months later I was getting my isolated oversees alert! What the heck is that?! Vietnam? Six of us got the same notice. One went to Pakistan, one did go to Vietnam and I got to go to an isolated site in Greece for 12 months. I don't recall where the others went. After my 12 months at Araxos, Greece I was sent to RAF Mildenhall, England for 30 months. For those that are counting, of the 48 months of active duty, 42 months were in Europe during what may be considered some of our most turbulent times.

P. S. My assignments oversee involved munitions supply. This area required manual inventory systems. I didn't see another computer system until I was stationed in England and I never really worked on the system there, typical of the military.

After my military service I "migrated" to Stevens Point and entered UW-Stevens Point in February, 1972 majoring in History. (No, there was no such thing as a computer science major back then.) I am currently on the Portage County Historical Society's Board of Directors and the creator of this website. Blame me for all the errors!