1955-1958 GLOVER, THOMAS L. RA 12480163

It's been sixty years since I donned that uniform and satisfied the obligation that those of my generation had to serve in the military.I ended up as a soldier in the U.S. Army. While I was in training at the U.S. Army Signal School in Fort Devens, Mass., the FBI and Lord knows how many other agencies were in my neighborhood asking if this soldier they were investigating for a secret military clearance was a good security candidate. I spent 6 months in Bad Aibling (Bavaria) Germany, then the rest of my tour in Aviano, Northern Italy attached to the United States Air Force's 629th AC&W Squadron. We were a detachment of army guys working out on the outskirts of the aircraft runway, doing our super secret mission in a little communications shack surrounded by a barb wire fence and our German Shepherd dog, "Hundt." (German for dog). Those air force guys didn't like us. They had to stand in formations, do KP, and dress like soldiers. We on the other hand lived like Hawkeye and Pierce on the TV show "MASH." It was the cold war era and Russia and the U.S. were standing nose to nose against each other and there was the chance that "the balloon would go up at any time." That balloon being the threat of another war. Our sensitive intelligence mission was such that we were the first to be evacuated in the event that the balloon did indeed go up, but thankfully it didn't.