After finally getting SKIPE to work and actually conducting a face to face (with sound this
time) meeting with Tim Gow, I told him the story of how I met my gaming buddy of over 30
years Bill M (Bolo Gunner). Tim urged me to share my story so here goes. It was as I recall
about November of 1978 I was a newly assigned cannon crewman (E-1) at 2
nd Battalion
2nd Field Artillery at Fort Sill Oklahoma. One day during work I was walking through the
common parking lot that my battalion shared with the only Infantry and Tank composite
battalion on FT Sill (home of the US Artillery). That unit was there to help
train the artillery
school in combined arms operations. Well as I walked through the lot I spotted something I
had seen in a book a year before. It was a 25mm Sassanid Persian army ( I would later learn
it was by Hinchcliff) the very same one that was depicted in the book. Well I made note of the
cars location and got back to it right after last formation. So here I was standing by this car when
the very tall Staff Sergent comes walking up, now remember I'm fresh out of basic training and I
only talk to these guys when told to normally! He asks me in his west Texas drawl, what the hell
was I doing there? I proceeded to tell him about the book and that I was interested in history and
miniatures. That is where I learned about WRG 5th addition and started a 30 plus year friendship
(on and off due to our military careers) with Bill that lasts to this day.
Went on to meet allot of other guys there Mark, Garry, Jim, and Roger to name but a few
but, only Bill and I stayed more or less in touch over the years, and would run into each other
here and there when our assignments overlapped. Bill of course retired long before I did
and we lost touch for almost a decade but with the Internet we stumbled across each other once
again, even managed a rare game now and then when he came down here to central Texas
from north west Texas (give you all an idea takes four hours of hard driving at 70 miles an hour).
Three years ago Bill had his second retirement and moved to God's waiting room, or as we
call it here Florida...) We still keep in touch of course but, I miss that too tall DAT...)
