Don't Blow Yourself Up by Homer Hickam

Author:Homer Hickam [Hickam, Homer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642938258
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Published: 2021-08-22T13:32:27+00:00

Aquaspace

After a year in Puerto Rico, it was decision time. Should I stay in the army or try civilian life again? Weighing against staying was the fact that the army was still in Vietnam and I suspected it wouldn’t be too long before I would be sent back there. This was at a time when the federal government was tearing itself apart with daily battles between Congress and President Nixon about the war, and most Vietnam vets were being called baby killers and generally scorned.

By then our forces were awash with drugs and from what I could tell, our soldiers didn’t trust their officers and our officers didn’t trust their men. Anybody with half a brain at that point had to know Vietnam was not going to turn out well. After bouncing it around in my head and flipping a coin or two, I decided it was time to leave active duty but, since I had so much experience in the military and the country was in an economic recession, I hedged a little, applied to be a Department of the Army Civilian (DAC), and was accepted.

As it turned out, not because of any decision of my own but where I apparently was needed, I went back to Huntsville and took a job with the Army Missile Command on Redstone Arsenal. Since I had a knowledge of the computer language FORTRAN, I was tasked to program an IBM 1620 computer and produce a spreadsheet that tracked how maintenance and repair was accomplished on Redstone-managed facilities and missile programs. Many hours were spent writing code and punching the commands on cards with a keypunch and running the programs again and again until I worked out the bugs. This was in the early 1970s, so I was on the cutting edge of a computer revolution, although I didn’t see it that way. The 1620 was just a tool I happened to know how to use.

At home, I read a lot and got to thinking about writing again. This led me to join a local writers club that met once a week in a meeting room in the back of a bank. It was exactly what I needed, and I loved the camaraderie of the group and the help they gave me as I struggled to write my stories. Gato was my biggest and only fan since I usually read my stuff to him before going off to the bank. When I came home after work, he was always there at the door waiting for me. We were pals.

Even though my work was satisfying and I enjoyed the writers club, I still felt as if I needed something else in my life, some great challenge. When I saw a handwritten note on a bulletin board at work, I was instantly interested. “Learn to Scuba Dive,” it said. “Become an underwater explorer. Call Aquaspace.” At the bottom of the note was a local number and, remembering my promise to myself after my diving experience in Puerto Rico, I called right away.

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