Joseph A. Kersey

Email: jakersey@erols.com Phone: 703-533-8247

I was assigned to the Air Force when I was drafted. I took my basic training in St. Petersburg, Florida where my group was billeted in the Vinoy Park Hotel right on Tampa Bay. From St. Pete I was transferred to Brookings, South Dakota to attend and Air Force administration school, The school was conducted on the camput of South Dakota State College and I lived in an almost new dormitory. At that time I had spend only three nights in an army barracks,

I was drafted into ASTP while at Brookings. I say drafted because I did not know what I was getting into until I was transferred to the STAR unit at the University of Nebraska (Agricultural campus). Amazingly, we were billeted in a building which had been built to be the home economics building. The school had rather hurriedly installed showers in the basement. Thus, to take a shower, one had to go down to the basement. I think I was on the top floor of the building.

I do not remember taking any exams at Lincoln, but I do remember an interview with a board of two or three officers. They had placed a map of the United States on a table. The officers sat on one side and I sat on the other. The map was upside down to my view. The first question was, "Show us what state you are from." Fortunately I was from Georgia so it was easy to identify Georgia on the map, even upside down.

About 250 of us from Lincoln were transferred to Iowa City. My company occupied fraternity houses on North Dubuque Street. I was in the first platoon and we lived in the Alpha Tau Omega house directly opposite the bridge over the river. My room was a corner room so I had two roommates. In fact, I had four roommates during the nine months at SUI. The first quarter, Don Streeter and Sid Blumenthal were roommates. Amazingly, Don was granted a medical discharge on the basis of hay fever. I have never heard of anyone else getting a discharge for that reason. Sid washed out at the end of the first quarter. I think there were about 100 who washed out in that first quarter. The army simply cancelled the fifth platoon in each company and reassigned the guys in those platoons. My two new roommates were Jimmy Garry and Sam Sackman, both of whom were from the New York City area, I think.

The first quarter, we had professors who came to the fraternity houses at night. After the first quarter this practice was stopped. Considering that we had so many assigned study halls during the day time, little studying went on at night. During the second quarter, Bill Himmelstein taught a group of us to play bridge. We had three tables going on every night. During the third quarter, four of us (Collins, Webster and I think Pettyjohn) had a running bridge game. We carried cards with us and after lunch, we would play a few hands. We kept a running score and played for 1/100 of a cent a point. When we settled up at the end of the third quarter, I think the winners got about 40 cents each.

There were several wives who came to Iowa City and lived around the town. Evie Dubois, Margaret Bunker and Ed Reuteler's wife ( I don't remember her name) and my wife usually got together when the husbands were not around. As most members of the unit will remember, we were completely scheduled from 8 to 5 on week-days and 8 to 12 on Saturday, with drill after lunch on Saturday. We had one free period during the week which was intended to permit us to get haircuts. My wife had a job in one of the stores in Iowa City. She arranged to have the day off on the day when I had my free period. She had a room only a block or so from the campus. I must admit that I got my haircuts on Saturday. We spent my free period in bed.

Early in January, we were "given" the option of continuing in the engineering course or taking the medical route. I know of only one who chose the medical course - Jolley West. Thus Jolley became the only member of my platoon to remain in ASTP. I never saw or heard of any member of the Iowa ASTP unit except Jolley West. He became a psychiatrist and headed up some part of the UCLA Psychiatry department. He became famous by testifying in the Patty Hearst trial (for the defense).
As for me, I was lucky enough to be returned to the Air Force. Up to that time, I still had spent only 3 nights in an Army barracks. That was to change. I was sent to Truax Field, Madison Wisconsin to attend radio mechanics school. We lived in tarpaper barracks with latrines separate from the barracks. Being from Georgia, I was miserable. To shorten my time at Truax, I took an examination and was allowed to skip the Fundamentals Phase of the course, thereby shortening my stay at Truax by four weeks or so I thought. I completed the course with a grade of 92 or 94. I was called in and told that I would be retained at Truax as an instructor. No one told me that if you made a grade of 90 or up you stayed at Truax. However, at least I was allowed to live off the post and draw separate rations (about $21 a month).

For the rest of the war I was at Truax. I arrived at Truax as a private. Many of my students were corporals and sergeants. In February 1945, the Air Force put out a regulation which said that all men who had served honorably for a period of one year or more could be promoted to Private first class without regard to table of organization, I had lost my standing as the ranking private in the Air Force, all for a mere 4 dollars a month. And then in July of 1945, the Air Force again was kind to me. A new regulation was published saying that all men who had served honorably for a period of two years could be promoted to corporal without regard to table of organization. That was worth 12 bucks a month so I finally put on the chevrons. That at least made my first sergeant happy for he had been threatening to bust me if I did not put on the PFC chevrons.

I have often said that I did as much for the war effort as the boy scouts, except that I didn't collect scrap paper. When I was drafted, it was said that we would serve for the duration of the war plus six months. In my case that was accurate. The peace treaty with Japan was signed on September 3,1945 and I was discharged on February 3,1946.

After the war attended Georgia Tech and got a degree in electrical engineering. After Ga. Tech, I was employed by the Army Security Agency a predecessor Agency to the National Security Agency. I had the first of two heart attacks in 1982 and retired. NSA is one of the most secret of government agencies so we were not able to tell anyone what we were doing. The agency has now relaxed so I can say that my career was spend in computer development, cryptology and digital communications. While inventing was not in my job descriptions, I hold two patents on cryptographic devices.

My wife, Edith, and I have two children. My son is following in his father's footsteps. He has bachelor and master degrees from Georgia Tech and is employed by the National Security Agency. My daughter graduated from Purdue University and obtained a degree from Boston State College. She is a vice-president of CIT Group. CIT Group recently merged with her former employer, Newcourt Co. She is planning to exercise her golden parachute and will probably leave CIT in January.

After I retired, I became bored with sitting around doing nothing, so I went back to college myself. Going part time, I get a degree in Computer Science from George Mason University. After a second heart attack in 1992, I spend most of my time reading and working cross puzzles and acrostic puzzles.