Paul Van Rooy, Chaplain: July 1, 2020 - Present
I enlisted in the Wisconsin Army National Guard, 32nd Infantry Division, in March 1957. I started my career as a machine gunner in a rifle company. After 2 years, the Division was reorganized into the 32nd Infantry Brigade, and I was assigned to a Combat Support Company in the 127th Infantry Battalion. I served as a surveyor in the Headquarters Section of the company. I was in that unit from March 1957 until March 1963, during which time the Brigade was activated for the Berlin Crisis by President Kennedy. We spent 10 months on active duty at Fort Lewis, Washington, from October 1961 to August 1962. Having met my military obligation. I was discharged in March 1963.
After completing my BS degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1966, I spent 33 years working for the State of Wisconsin Department of Commerce, retiring in April 1999. During that time, I reenlisted in the Wisconsin Army National Guard In 1973 in the 132nd Support Battalion and served until 1990, retiring as the First Sergeant with 23 years of service.
I was a member of American Legion Post 360 in Waunakee Wisconsin for five years before retiring to Sun City West, Arizona in March 2016. I transferred to Post 94 shortly after and have been a member ever since that time. I am a member of the Post 94 Honor Guard, and I was recently appointed Post Chaplin. I also volunteer at the pancake breakfasts and am a member of the team that puts the flags up on R.H. Johnson Blvd.
Ron Ripley, Judge Advocate: July 1, 2022 - Present
I graduated from high school in Tacoma, Washington, in June of 1962, enrolled in the University of Washington in September of ’62, and entered the ROTC program. Graduated with a degree in Business and Finance in December of 1966 and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant. As we approached commissioning, we were asked to provide our branch preference. My first choice was Armor; I loved the M 60 Tank. If not Armor, the second choice was Military Intelligence (MI). In its wisdom, the Army apparently decided I was not enough of a warrior to be in Armor and not smart enough to be in MI, so they made me a Finance and Accounting Officer.
Upon commissioning, my active duty obligation was for two years, and I was on orders for duty in Germany. I married my fiancé but learned that with only two years of active duty, the military would not pay for her transportation or provide housing. However, if I extended it to three years in Europe, we would qualify for command sponsorship; what a sweet deal. I was assigned to the 18th Finance and Accounting Office in Frankfurt and arrived on June 5, 1967, which was the first day of the Arab-Israeli war. All American combat units were on alert and preparing to go to the Middle East. 18th Finance was not on the deployment list (whew), and nobody had to go anyway because the war ended with an Israeli victory in 6 days.
My duties in Germany were strictly administrative, with no field duty at all. Pretty much a five-day workweek. I learned a lot about the Military Accounting and Pay system. I was a Disbursing Officer for a while, which put me in charge of all the cash. At times I had well over a million dollars in my vault. At that time, soldiers could be paid in cash if they chose, and many did. We had to put up a cash payroll of over $750,000 for the units we serviced every month. Probably the most memorable event while in the 18th was when the building housing our offices had a major fire. For a while, it looked grim, but our troops showed up at the fire and salvaged almost all of our equipment and pay records. The problem was we had no place to work. V Corps Command moved us into a local gym, and we set up a half-baked shop there. That was a lot of work; our system required lots of manual input to get info for data processing. It worked to the credit of our clerks and NCOs. We did not miss a payday, but we are still not sure how we did it. Lots of stories to be told (some funny, some not) about the vagaries of the Military Pay System. Overall, the two years in Germany were like a long honeymoon. We traveled and saw lots of Europe.
However, I never made it to 3 years in Germany. As I started the paperwork for release from active duty at the end of 3 years in Europe, the Army said, “Sure,” but your last year on active duty will be on the other side of the world, in South Vietnam. I arrived in the Country on April 10, 1969, on orders for the 199th Light Infantry Brigade (Sep). Was assigned as the assistant Finance and Accounting Officer at the Brigade Main Base, Camp Frenzell-Jones, near Long Binh and Bien Hoa. Frenzell and Jones were the first two 199th Troopers KIA after the Brigade arrived in the Country.
Being in Brigade Rear wasn’t so bad. We did take some fire, but the VCs were not very good shots and did not show much interest in getting close enough to our perimeter to get shot at. Even so, being in an active Infantry Brigade exposes you to the bad things that happened to our guys up forward. I got a ten-day drop and came home for release from active duty on the last day of March ’70. I didn’t learn until I reached CONUS that the day I left, our Brigade Commander, BG Wm. R. Bond, was killed by sniper fire while inspecting the site of a firefight the day before. He was a good man; what a waste.
Upon becoming a civilian went to work in insurance claims for five years, then went back to school, earned a law degree, and worked as a lawyer until retirement in 2013, when we moved down here.