Way back in 1952, I joined the U.S. Air Force and was trained at Yale University as a Mandarin Chinese linguist. I took to it like a duck to water, graduated as Valedictorian and had the great fortune to be assigned to a technical unit located on Taiwan. The job was intercepting air communications of the Communist Chinese forces, with whom we were in a police action in Korea. On my return to the US, having taught myself to read the language, I was assigned to NSA as a Chinese cursive script translator. I completed my USAF service in September 1956 and headed back to college. For the next four years I remained in the Active Reserve, ending up as a Tech Sergeant.

After a long break in service, I decided not to waste my eight year investment in the military so I sought a commission in the Intelligence field, and did not care into which Branch I went. It turned out to be the Army. I received a direct commission as a Captain, MI. In the next years I completed my MI Advanced Officer course at Fort Devens, got a position in an Army Reserve Command as an Intelligence Officer, got promoted to Major and became the Assistant G2. An overseas tour interrupted that but I continued in the Active Reserve and finished my Command and General Staff Course and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces course. When I returned to the US I was given a position teaching the Command and General Staff Course at the Baltimore Army Reserve School. In this position I was promoted to Lt. Colonel. Again there was an interruption for an overseas assignment with my civilian agency, but I continued my Active Reserve career with a few very interesting assignments. This all came to an end in 1987 when I was given the golden handshake and a Meritorious Service Medal. It really began to mean something in 1992 when I reached 60 and started getting the retired benefits!

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Email: rwaldman@faculty.ed.umuc.edu