At The Highground

On the occasion of laying a memorial stone at The Highground Veterans Memorial Park on the moraine west of Neillsville, WI.  Here are some highlights from the ceremony:

What follows is what I placed in the Registry at the Highground as background on the stone:

They say that in comedy, timing is everything.  In life generally, that statement is also pretty true. When and to whom you were born influences a lot; my family’s military service was no exception.

My father, Melvin Edward Mech, was born in August 1920 in Clintonville, WI to Theodore (Ted) and Amanda Mech.  By the time December of 1941 rolled around, bringing with it the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Dad was a freshly minted 21-year-old, eminently draftable, with a new wife (Alma Beyer) and a new baby, their firstborn.  Dad, like so many others, enlisted in the US Navy, who was okay taking him even with not the best eyesight.  His physical exam determined that he would wind up serving stateside rather than in combat, which was fortunate for Mom and that new baby!  His time at the Central States Teachers College in Stevens Point gave him some skills in Math and Teaching, which guided him to a particular billet as an instructor in the relatively new technology called Radar.  He was stationed both in Pensacola, Florida and later in Corpus Christi, Texas.  I still have his slide rule with his name and rank (ART 1^st Class) on the box.  In the late 1960s, before pocket calculators, I learned math on his slide rule. I recall Dad telling me that using magnetrons to generate microwave radiation had some safety hazards that came along with it.  He had to teach sailors that if you got in the way of that microwave radiation, you would get cooked like meat.  When we got our first microwave oven in the mid-1980s, I often remembered that story.

My brother, Dennis Arlen Mech, was born in August 1941.  He was that brand new baby and the firstborn child noted earlier.  By the time the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs incidents rolled around, he was also eminently draftable.  At the time, however, he was enrolled in college at Stevens Point State University, with a deferment.  However, through a variety of circumstances, Denny was disenrolled from college and, like Dad, enlisted in the US Navy to help guide his role in the newly emerging conflict in Southeast Asia which came to be referred to as the Vietnam War.  14 years my senior, he and my sister Helen (12 years older than me) were strong influences in my growing up years, and I particularly wanted to emulate Denny.  He was an Aviation Electronics Technician and served on board aircraft carriers during Vietnam.  I always looked forward to his letters to me which came in that unique blue air mail envelope with the red & white trim.  While he could never reveal his location, he would sometimes enclose a patch for my jacket.  My favorite was one for his unit labeled “Phantom Phixer”, for those who worked on the F-4 Phantom jet.

As for me, I was born William Theodore Mech in October of 1955.  By the time I turned 18, the Vietnam War was winding down, and my draft number was high enough that I would not be taken.  That was favorable timing for me since I met my future wife, Diane Christenson, when I was 18 and in Wausau, WI attending North Central Technical Institute (then NCTI, now NTC).  I graduated from there with an Associate’s Degree in Insurance in 1974.  Diane and I married a little over a year later and it didn’t look like I was destined to follow in my father and brother’s footsteps when it came to military service.  After several years of “normal married life”, I decided to go back to school and get my Bachelor of Science degree in Business Economics from Mt. Scenario College in Ladysmith, WI, graduating from there in 1984 and making a career change to actuarial science.  We adopted our first child, Julie, in 1983, followed by our second, Jimmy, 4 years later.  During the mid-1980s the US Navy had a program in place offering “direct commissions” to college grads in certain degree programs.  I qualified, and just got under the wire for the age requirements, so I applied and was commissioned as an Ensign in the Supply Corps of the US Navy’s Ready Reserve, assigned to the USS Mount Whitney (LCC 20), operating out of Norfolk and serving as the Flagship and Command Ship for the Sixth Fleet.  I trained out of the Naval Reserve base in Milwaukee, WI, where I was also working as an actuarial trainee for Milliman & Robertson in their New Berlin office.  Eventually, I took another actuarial job with Wausau Insurance, so we moved back to Wausau, WI again.  This made the training regimen difficult, and so I requested and received my Honorable Discharge from the US Navy.  As I said earlier, timing is everything, and whether by twists of fate or the hand of God, my military service turned out to be in peacetime.

My father and brother both passed from this life in 2006, within a few months of each other, and I am honored to share the same memorial stone with these two men who instilled in me a desire to serve my country in the US Navy, however different from theirs that service turned out to be.

Bill Mech, September 2021, Clive, Iowa.