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MY BACKGROUND
The Holzhauer's were illegal imigrants from Canada at the turn of the century and Irish not German Holzhauer was NOT the name they came into the country with. Great-grandma remarried a German, and nobody talked about what the 'illegal-alien' name was so I don't know my father's families true ancestral name. Mom's great-great-grandpa Kern was a 'draft-dodger' who it is said fled to America from Germany during the Franco-German War in 1876. Sensible man that great-great grandpa! The Kern family moved from Brooklyn to Connecticut, then to a farm in Michigan.
The Kern/Holzhauers managed to stay out of America's wars until WWII. My father was drafted and ended up serving as a Quad-50 gunner with the 535th AAA (D Battery) and fought in the ETO. [He must have been a pretty good shot, as he was "number one gunner" on his half-track.] He fought in Normandy, the Hurtgen Forest, Battle of the Bulge, and at the Remagen Bridge... he had ghosts.
My mother worked 'war production' [a real life 'Rosey the Riviter'], and hatched me in fourty-three. Dad was away fighting Nazi's. Mom bought a home and built up a nice 'nest egg'. My mother in the words of Richard Nixon "was a saint!" After the war my sister was born, and our parents built a solid middle class life-style on factory wages. Industrious. Frugal. Patriotic.
In 'the fifties' my father used his WWII aircraft identification skills, looking for invading Russian bombers as a member of the volunteer Ground Observer Corps developed by the US Airforce to spot those sneaky Commie low flying planes coming to bomb the "Liberal" University of Michigan into dust. Many times, I went along with him to his look-out-post atop a high building; watching for Red bombers, marveling at the I.D. posters of bomber-silouettes, and worrying about The Atom Bomb. It was the era of 'Duck & Cover'. I learned to fear and hate 'the Commies'.
VIETNAM: MY SAD STORY
I managed to avoid the draft in the sixties by (somehow) staying in college - working on a four-year degree from 1961 to 1968. I was making a career of it. General Hershey, head of the draft board, decided I'd been in college more than the law allows and I was 'drafted' in the Spring of '68. Being the old vet that father was, he told me "NEVER VOLUNTEER!" I heeded his words at Fort Knox 'Basic' training [D/10/5... Drill Sergeant; SSgt. Willie Harris.... who can forget their D.I.!?]
The various "Branch" Recruiting Officers would come around to our Basic Training company:
"Hoat-sower. It says here you went to college, you wanna go to Officers Candidate School? It's a good deal!"
"Sir. No thank you, Sir."
"Hoe-shower. It says here you went to college. You wanna go to Flight School and become a Warrant Officer? You could FLY!! It's a good deal!"
"Sir, no sir!"
"Ho-shaver. It says here you would be GREAT in E.O.D. You'd get to BLOW THINGS UP!! It's a good deal!"
"Nooooo Sir, I definitly DON'T want E.O.D. school."
The recruiters would always end by saying "Well.... then.... son, you KNOW you'll be in the inn-fan-treeeeeee."
Sure enough, summer of '68 and my orders were cut for Infantry AIT at Fort Polk [E/3/5. "Echo-Three-Five War Eagles SIR!!"], and we all knew where WE were going after AIT. Our CO [I wish I could remember his name] was a combat vet of the 25th Division mech, and he didn't pull any punches - we trained HARD! He was a great officer, but talked me into volunteering for NCO school. "What the hell," I thought, "we're Infantry, and we are ALL going to Nam." A few more months training and maybe the war will be over. Besides, training is GOOD that Mech Captain had made a believer out of me.
MY SAD STORY; E/3/5 was the first Infantry AIT cycle in three years to NOT go to Vietnam - they were sent to Germany. The only people, from that cycle, to go to Vietnam were the guys who volunteered for NCO school. Dad was right!
AFTER VIET NAM
I went back home to Ann Arbor and my former job in clothing sales. The anti-war movement was in full swing at the Univ. of Michigan and I kept a low profile..... I even grew long hair and tried to be a Hippie but my heart wasn't in it.
I met and married a school-teacher from Florida shortly after getting out of Vietnam and moved to Florida. We had three children and I went up the corparate ladder in department store chain, eventually becoming a 'Buyer' of china, silver and gifts. But, there was something wrong something that I just couldn't put my finger on.
During the two years I was a Buyer, I traveled to New York two or three times a year. On one of those trips I forgot I was married and, we divorced. Now I could add "Cad" to my resume.
Over the next few years I hurt a lot of people.... I am deeply sorry for that.
I went through a lot of different jobs during what I call "My Drinking Period". I found God HE was Penticostal Holiness.... you know, "The Holy Rollers" and went through "My Religious Period." I survived both. I moved back to Michigan and settled in Frankfort a sleepy resort town on the shores of Lake Michigan. I got my life back in order. I became a pillar of the community.... keeping my drinking and religion under control. Somewhere along the line I had become a Glass Etcher doing custom artwork on the rich and the famous' windows and doors. I started my own business and did it professionally in Michigan until 1997.
I met another girl from Florida and moved there. We were living the 'good life' she was an Interior Decorator, and I lazed around our condo. Then the Y2K scare came and we decided to flee to the North Carolina mountains where there was abundant water to drink, real soil not sand to grow food, and LOTS of trees to chop for firewood. We are happy! Eileen gardens and I kill trees.
We got a Webtv "computer" to keep us occupied in the winter, and I started my 2/12th web-site.
Bruce Holzhauer [a.k.a. Sarge]
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