Robert (Bob) Willert
Amery, WI
I'm looking forward to the Class Reunion and
getting together with everyone. Here, for what it is worth, is a brief history
of what has transpired in my life since leaving Sturgis.
In our Sophomore year, my mother suffered a stroke and my parents moved to Rapid
City so that mom could be closer to better medical care. I really wanted to stay
in Sturgis and finish school there and tried living on my own as a 15 year old,
but couldn't quite pull it off. I finally went to Rapid City and enrolled at
Rapid Central High. That was a real bust and I didn't last more than a year.
After quitting school before my junior year I kicked around doing a variety of
different things among which was a brief stint as a ranch hand on a sheep ranch
near Alzada, MT. Tommy Symonds helped me get that job. Somewhere in that period
I, like many other young guys in Sturgis, was convinced by the Principal, Bill
Brown, that joining the National Guard was the thing to do. So, I did.
Nothing much of interest happened through '57 and not having a high school
diploma, there weren't very many jobs. I joined the Army. I was promptly put on
orders to go overseas and was sent to Guam. I thoroughly enjoyed my experiences
and the adventure of being in the South Pacific. While on Guam, the unit I was
with was sent temporarily to Taiwan (Formosa) during the Formosan crisis in
1958. We spent 5 months there assisting the Nationalist Chinese in building Nike
missile sites in the Linkau Mountain range. My tour of duty was completed in
July of 1959, I returned to the US and enjoyed a 30-day leave in Rapid City and
Sturgis.
Following my vacation, I took a bus to Minneapolis and my next assignment at Ft.
Snelling, close to the international airport in Mpls/St.Paul. Once again I
became involved with Nike missiles. This time they were Nike Hercules missile
units positioned around the Twin Cities. That's how I came to live in Wisconsin.
One of the units was located at Roberts, WI and I was sent there. I had trained
to be a medical corpsman and each site had two medics assigned. Duty was pretty
easy at the sites, especially for us medics. We simply had to make sure anyone
reporting for sick call was really sick and those requiring aid we took to New
Richmond, WI to the local clinic. Being young and single, of course, we were
always trying to date the local girls in our free time, of which I had quite a
bit.
My partner, or assistant since I had rank over him, soon became a good friend
and as good friends do I was always letting him use the old car I had bought, so
he could take a girl out on a date. Before long he was using my car more than I
was and enjoying a far better social life. I finally told him that since he was
enjoying so much success, he could share some of it with me. Surely the girl he
was dating must know someone I could date. He set me up with a blind date that
turned out to be one of the most miserable dates I have ever been on! I told him
he had to do better than that if he wanted to keep using my car. He tried once
more. The girl he was dating said she knew a real nice girl from school but she
didn't think I had a chance with her. She was probably too good for the likes of
me.
Well, my buddy's girlfriend arranged for us to meet. We went on a date and, as
the old saying goes, the rest is history. My buddy had to find his own set of
wheels from then on or double date with us. The good looking redhead and I hit
it off pretty good and after a year we were engaged, then married on April 2,
1960. She must be a keeper since we are celebrating 48 years in April. Carol, my
wife, grew up near New Richmond on a family farm. At graduation she moved to
town and took a job as a telephone operator. She had a room in a boarding house
rented out by a very strict old matron who watched after "her" girls as if they
were her own. After our wedding we took an apartment in New Richmond and soon
enjoyed the poverty of lower ranked enlisted soldiers. Not long after we got
settled in, the army transferred me to another missile site near Bethel, MN and
we moved to Cambridge, MN, nearby.
In 1961 two major events occurred. The first was the birth of our first child -
Jeffrey Beaumont Willert, on March 6th. I guess that proved to all speculators,
both in her family and on base, that we Did Not Have To Get Married. The second
was being placed on orders to go to Germany in April of 61. I did not have
sufficient rank to have the army ship my family over so made the journey alone
with 1,500 other soldiers on a troop ship. (That was my second adventure on a
ship, the first being the trip to Guam a couple of years earlier). Upon reaching
Bremerhaven, we boarded a commercial train and traveled south to Bavaria and a
town by the name of Neckarsulm, which was to be my home for the next three
years. Once again, I was assigned to a missile unit. This time it was Red Stone
ballistic missiles aimed toward Czechoslovakia and the Warsaw Pact. Our unit was
one of two in Germany armed with Nuclear warheads and, at that time in history,
things were quite tense. I got to Germany a short few months before the Berlin
Wall went up. That September we went on alert and stayed out on the ready for
three weeks. Finally things calmed down and we returned to our post and resumed
a somewhat normal routine.
I was really missing my family and was working evenings and weekends as a
bouncer at the Enlisted/NCO Club to earn money to bring Carol and our son Jeff
over. After having a number of sports coats ripped off my back by drunks, we
finally had enough for the plane fare and Carol and our 6-month old were on
their way. The only negative of the whole time was I was so nervous awaiting
their arrival at Frankfurt International Airport that I took up smoking again, a
habit I had broken for over a year. They arrived safely and we took up residence
in all that we could afford - a converted chicken coop that had been made into a
tiny apartment. We thought we could still smell the chickens. During our stay in
Germany we lived in four different apartments, each an improvement over the past
one. We did have the opportunity to rent from some very nice families and
enjoyed the experiences greatly. Carol once again became pregnant and our second
son, Douglas Jerome was born on January 13, 1964 at the Army Hospital in
Stuttgart, Germany. Our tour of duty came to an end in April and on Easter
Sunday we flew home. Our adventure wasn't quite over though; during the flight
home somewhere near New Foundland, our plane suddenly took a sharp drop of
500-600 ft. The pilot announced we all needed to secure ourselves
and expect a rough ride. He went on to say that we were feeling the aftershocks
of the massive earthquake in Alaska.
Following our arrival at an airbase in Maryland we had to take a bus to Brooklyn
to pick up the car we had shipped from Germany. Then we tried to figure out how
to get out of New York and head West. We stopped somewhere in Pennsylvania and
took a motel room to rest up. The following morning we drove straight through to
Carol's sister's home in southern Wisconsin. Then we went onto New Richmond
where, once again, I would be assigned to the missile unit near there.
We spent the balance of my enlistment in the New Richmond area and remained
there following my discharge. I had considered the army as a career and
apparently the army thought I would re-enlist also because in November of 1965
they gave me early warning I would be going to Vietnam in March of 1966. My
discharge date was February 17, 1966 and after about a second and a half
thinking about it, I decided to become a civilian.
We settled in New Richmond, or rather, on a couple acres acquired from Carol's
dad about five miles from town. Not knowing what I wanted to do when I grew up,
I took a few different jobs most of which were located in St. Paul, MN a half
hour commute from where we lived. I sold shoes at a J.C. Penney department
store, then managed a Health and Beauty Aids department in a K-Mart for a couple
of years, then became a buyer of Health and Beauty Aids for a regional wholesale
distributor. After about five years doing that an opportunity came up where I
could join the active duty portion of the National Guard and with any luck
complete my 20 years of military service to earn a retirement. We managed to get
almost 17 of those 20 years in when I was severely injured with cervical spinal
injuries. I was medically discharged and granted disability through the
Veteran's Administration.
Along with my disability I was eligible for vocational rehabilitation and was
able to go to college. In 1987 I matriculated as a freshman at University of WI,
River Falls. I graduated in May of 1991 with a Bachelor of Science degree in
Journalism with a minor in English. Aside from the huge satisfaction of earning
a degree, it didn't do me a damn bit of good since I couldn't buy a job in the
field of journalism. I was "over qualified". My newly learned smarts did help me
get in the door of a small electronics firm in Amery, WI where I was hired as
Production Manager/Human Resources Person and all-around Gofer. Being a small
company, we all did everything but clean the office. The owner of the company
and his partner were really great people to work for and I stayed on with them
until my retirement 5 years ago.
Carol and I found a piece of property near Amery that we really liked and bought
it with the intent of building our retirement home. We did that in 1997 and here
we live today. Our sons both are married to local girls. Jeff and his wife
Nanette, who is from New Richmond, have a daughter, Stacy, our oldest
grandchild, and Brandon, our only grandson. Doug and his wife DeEtte, who is
from Amery, have two daughters, Mariah, a 16 year old, and Emily, 12 years old.
I am active in the American Legion post in New Richmond, not quite as active in
the VFW post in Amery, and a Life-member of DAV (Disabled American Veterans).
Carol and I both served as board members of the St. Croix Valley Chapter of the
American Red Cross and I was Chairman of that organization for two years. We are
partners, along with both our sons, a brother-in-law and three friends, in a
hunting cabin/summer place in Northern Wisconsin, about an hour drive from our
home. We enjoy it greatly and try to get up as much as possible.
My time in retirement is spent improving on my collection of military firearms
and other interesting guns. I attend gun shows and in general am always on the
lookout for collectables. We are blessed that both our sons and their families
are nearby so we get to watch the grandkids grow up and go to their sporting
events and the like. And of course I get the privilege of being able to hunt
with my sons and grandson and this past year our granddaughter Emily came to
hunting camp, the first female in the history of our camp.
As to memories of SHS, I can honestly say that there are no favorite memories.
But I must say that after Joe sent me the class roster and I started reading the
names, it was like an old movie was playing before my eyes. So many of you that
I haven't seen for over 50 years appear before me in that movie and I truly look
forward to seeing you in person. I regret that my good friend, Delbert, won't be
there to renew that friendship, but I'm sure his spirit will be there.
In our chicken coop apartment in Germany - 1961
Bob and Carol Willert, 1962
Bob and Carol, 2005
L: Mariah, Doug, DeEtte, Carol, Emily, Bob, Stacy, Jeff, Brandon,
Nanette
