Posted by Karl Oelke on November 14, 2007:

Tank and I were on the wrestling team together, at least for my Plebe and part of Yearling years, before I had to quit because of a bad shoulder. With his experience from . . . Colorado State, I think . . . he was one of the leaders of the team. We could always count on him when things got tough, for either an encouraging word or a kick in the ass, whichever was appropriate. A good man. We also served together in a HAWK battalion, organized at Ft. Bliss, TX, in 1961. Four of us '58ers were assigned to the four firing batteries as XOs. Charlie Glover was one of the others. Charlie called the battalion the "worst god-damned unit I ever served with." We agreed. It was one of the last HAWK battalions to be activated, and we got the dregs of the previous battalions, those officers and NCOs who had been "dumped" from the others for poor performance--all the way from the battalion commander thru the staff to all four line battery commanders--overage and underqualified in grade. sigh. Anyway, we consoled ourselves by getting together frequently, bewailing our sad fate (not entirely), and looking forward to better days. One night, my wife Sue and I were playing bridge with Tank and Glenda. The game was progressing slowly, with no one getting any good cards. So when Tank got up to relieve himself as I was about to deal a hand, the three of us stacked his hand with almost all the aces and face cards in the deck. When he returned and looked at his hand, his face lit up (it wasn't poker, after all). We all had a good laugh, telling him what we had done. "The hell you say," he said, "we're playing this hand!" And we did. Be thou at peace.

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