9th AVRS - Kenneth Godwin

I went to Auto Mech's School at Lowery AFB at Denver, graduated and they kept me at the school as an Instructor in the Elect' & Fuel section. There I was for the rest of my hitch.

In October of 48' they moved the school to Ft. Warren at Cheyenne, Wyoming. I was discharged from there Nov. 1949 and re-enlisted the next day. Mar. 1950 they transferred me to Ellington AFB , Houston, Texas. I was there when Korea busted out.

In September, 1950 they sent me to Stoneman for shipment overseas. All they told us was that it was to the Far East. We all felt it was to be Korea. We landed 21 days later at Yokohama, Japan. I was there a half a day and then left. We still did not know where we were going. Four days later the Liberty Boat we were on scraped some sunken ships going into Naha harbor. We got off and were loaded onto 6-by's and wound up, after dark, at the 9th AVRS.
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I spent 21 months there on Okinawa. Came back to the States in 1952 and was sent to Fairchild AFB in Spokane, Washington. It was good duty and I was there for a year. My oldest daughter was born there at Deaconess Hospital in Spokane, Jan. 23, 1953. At that time I had 7 years in and was the ranking Staff Sergeant on the base. The shop OIC (a captain) said if I would re-up he would make me a Technical Sergeant immediately and would guarantee Master Sergeant within 6 months. I, like you, had had enough of the military.

We moved back to Texas from whence I came and purchased an Auto Parts store, in 1960, in Tulia, Texas. When I sold it in 1996 it had 16 employees, 2 outside route salesmen and the best inventory in the Texas Panhandle. Not re-upping was the best decision I ever made.

In the early 80's we bought our first motor home and for 25 years that was our pastime and vacations. We sold our last motor home a year and half ago. We both reached a point at which we could not physically travel as we once did. But we have many wonderful and fond memories of those traveling years.

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