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Show Thursday, April 20, 2006 NORTH COUNTY NEWSPAPERS Page 3 Exceptional hearing leads to new job in sonar local! .- veterans "' returned to another Navy recruiter, turned down because of his eves. "Shucks'. How many fingers am I neUnA D;FF 1 nr.- Mil r whole carload of us ill from Salt Lake City 1 1 were serlL to tne Navy w training station in San I fmm Diego. A bus driver Li iJpicked us up, pulled up in front of the training station and parked. He said to us, "Open all the windows ... Now stick your head out. On three, inhale!" Everybody inhaled He continued, "That's the last free breath you're going to get for the next three months." Then he took us through the gate. We were given a series of tests tests like I had never seen before. I was just a kid who'd worked on the farm. We were given a sheet of paper with four sections on it, and a group of tools pictured to the side. "What trade would use these tools?" was the question. I knew them right off. "This is a snap," I said to myself. The tests didn't make a lot of sense, because they were so simple to me. Then the 100 or so men in our company were given assignments, assign-ments, until it got down to two of us. "We must have really goofed up," we thought. But they turned ftfytfi Central u. jjdi unswereu, rive, now many now ... : i our eyes ure Burch's story in his own words. Your Health, Your Choice. Internal Medicine Endocrinology Gynecology Provo 374.2362 Orem 221.8811 Payson 465.4813 Osteoporosis Center 812.4624 www.centralutahclinic.com Editor's note; This is the first in a two-part series about Bill Burch, of Orem, who graduated from Provo High School in May 1941, and on Dec. 8 was in front of a Navy recruiter in Provo. The Navv wouldn't take him, because he wore glasses. He later a XT : to us and said, "You can have any school you want." "Have you ever heard of this new 'sound stuff?" I was asked. "No." "You have nearly absolutely perfect hearing, and not many guys can get into that school" "Nan, I want to be a radioman." radio-man." "You're going over and take the sound test!" I was told, emphatically. em-phatically. So I got a six-week course in how to operate sound gear. This was right before it came to be called sonar. I was sent to school on how to maintain and repair the equipment. equip-ment. We were taught by a bunch of coDege professors. One broke down with me: "Burch, I don't understand you. You sit here like a stupid yahoo through all this theory, but when we give you the equipment, you fix it. You don't understand the theory, but you're getting a three-year course in a matter of a few weeks." The maintenance just all made complete sense to me, though the only theory I knew was that you could plug into an outlet and get power. The big thing was the radar mm Utah Clinic ,PC i explaining that he had been holding up?" the recruiter ine. i uu re in irie ivuvy. 7 ..' - 1 1 Kr.. TU ." ' This is which spotted aircraft and did surf ace search. Radar was the eyes and ears of the ship, and I received training in radar. After we'd been overseas, we came back for repairs. I got a 10-day 10-day leave, caught a Greyhound bus, came home, got a temple recommend from the bishop, and married Betty. The ship was going to be in port for a while, so Betty came with me down to California. We lived in one of the Quonset huts built for married couples. All the freezers and refrigerators on the ship had to be shut down, so the food was given to all us married couples. I was first assigned to an ammunition am-munition ship, the USS Pyro. Wide open, it could probably do nine knots. A nice, new destroyer de-stroyer could come up along side us, and we'd load it with five-inchers, 20 mms, torpedoes, depth charges and whatever else it needed Then it would take off. The next morning, it might come back with holes blown through it. I would sit and think, "Being in action is what I joined the Navy for. What am I doing on this boring bor-ing ship?" i i I Naomi Sumsion, Springville, UT, walks 12 miles a week and takes a calcium supplement. As a retired nurse, Naomi knows the benefits of good health and preventative screenings. Following her doctor's suggestion, Naomi goes to Central Utah Clinic for a DEXA scan to determine bone density. "Zoe Central Utah Clinic certified Densitometer technician is wonderful. She wasn't in a hurry and helped me feel relaxed." Osteoporosis doesn't have to be part of aging. It's preventable and treatable. Naomi's doing her part in the fight against osteoporosis. How about you? gfjt' FT! Li Ik Bill Burch I Next week: Bill did see plenty of action. Stay tuned. These excerpts from local veterans are courtesy of the Orem Heritage Committee. Complete stories of the veterans will eventually be put on the Orem City Web ,ftwiftw v git's '&tm B . tl Aft :r site, www.orem.org. Readers aware of any veterans who have written about their military service are asked to arrange to have these archives in the Veterans History Project, Library of Congress. Phone Don Norton (225-8050) on how to do this. i ; r n m & fy&tw Thank you 'Aladdin Jr.' volunteers Editor: As you know, Forbes Elementary El-ementary just completed their performances of Disney's "Aladdin Jr." We had an tremendous amount of help from volunteers to make it possible. No one involved with the play was paid in any way other than the satisfaction of seeing young people succeed. I would like to publicly thank all of the parents for all of their time and support. I would also like to thank the following people for the work they put into our production: pro-duction: Producer Dr. Larry Dean; director David Maughan; dance and choreography, Tiffany Pace; art and set design, Katie Beecher and Linda Gough; prop acquisition acquisi-tion and management. Pam Engles; stage manager. Tiffany Tif-fany Pace; sound manager, Angela Graves; music coach, Merrilee Barratt; advertising, Annette Krueger; tickets, Maxine Steele; costume design, de-sign, parents and students; secretarial staff, DeeAnn Francom and Pennie Hansen custodial care, Paul Knold, Mark Lund, Austin Morrell, Cherie Beveridge, LaDawn Kimball. Thank you all so much for everything you did. t Evelyn Fowles. executive producer - , : t i. v COPY |