Robert L. McCollor

When I completed the basic phase of ASTP at SUI, I was assigned to the ASTP unit at the North Dakota Agricultural College where I received an Associate of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. I was then sent to the Corps Corps of Engineers Officer Candidate School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

Midway through my course at the Engineer OCS, the Army decided it had a sufficient quantity of engineer officers and closed two classes, one of which I was in. We were given a choice. We could transfer to the Infantry Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and receive a commission in the infantry or return to our assigned branch of service as enlisted men. Most of us did not want Infantry OCS; infantry second lieutenants, serving as rifle platoon leaders, led the list of those killed in action and we had no desire to become dead heroes. As I had taken nonspecialized basic training I had no assigned branch of service. I was assigned to Camp Maxey, Texas, to take infantry basic training.

When I completed infantry basic, I was assigned to Fort Ord, California, for advanced training. We trained on all U.S. and captured Japanese and German infantry weapons. A couple of weeks before we completed training a group of officers and senior noncommissioned officers joined us and we were formed into a Special Service Force Batallion. Although I was only a Private First Class I was made an acting rifle squad leader.

When we completed training, we were taken to San Francisco, placed aboard a ship and sailed west. We anchored in the Harbor at Ulithe in the Marianna Islands. The Navy wanted the island as a refueling depot. By the time we arrived the Navy had secured the island and needed no help from the Army.

We then sailed for Luzon in the Philippines. Manila had been taken by three divisions that had moved elsewhere to secure other parts of the island but there were still a few Japanese hiding in Manila. General MacArthur wanted to move his headquarters to Manila but objected to Japanese troops in his back yard. Our task was to find and remove the remaining Japanese.

I was in Manila less than a week when I acquired a mixed dose of malaria and shigella. When I was released from the hospital I was classed as "hors d'combat" as the French would say and would not return to a combat unit. At least I had earned a battle star.

By then some sections of Pacific General Headquaters had arrived in Manila and I was assigned to the office of the Chief Signal Officer as a Signal Intelligence Specialist. I was promoted to Technician 4th Grade. I spent the remainder of the war at a desk and drawing board mapping the telephone system on the island of Honshu in case we had to invade Japan. The Japanese heard of the good work I was doing and surrendered.

I went to Japan with the Army of occupation. While there I photographed the bomb damage in Hiroshima and the industrial section of Tokyo, drank some Japanese beer and dated a few Japanese young ladies. I even found one who spoke excellent English as she was an English teacher in a girl's school.

I returned to the states and was discharged at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin on March 8, 1946. 1 went to SUI and attended the summer session there. I then went to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and studied chemisty, mathematics and physics.

I applied for a student teaching assistantship at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, was accepted and taught the the physics laboratory sessions. While at Morningside College I met and married a very charming young lady student named Elizabeth Jeanne Ebert. She did not like the name Elizabeth and changed her name to Betty after marriage. I have always called her Betsy.

Betsy and I graduated in June of 1949, she with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Studies and I with Bachelor of Arts degrees in Mathematics and Physics. I was an honor student as an undergraduate and was elected to Sigma Pi Sigma, the National Physics Honor Society. The summer after I graduated, one of the physics professors went to the University of Missouri for graduate study during the summer session and I taught his classes in his absence.

I had applied for a graduate teaching assitantship at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion and been accepted. Betsy and I went to Vermillion to persue graduate studies. While there I taught the student nurses' physics course, an electrical measurements course in the Engineering Department and a radiation messurements course in the Medical School. I ran out of GI Bill time in June of 1951 and having no finances of my own, discontinued graduate study.

We returned to Sioux City and I worked for Betsy's father as an electrician and sheet metal worker while seeking professional employment as either a physicist or engineer. Betsy gave birth to our first child, a daughter we named Virginia Marie, in Sioux City.

I obtained a position as a senior radar design engineer with the RCA Airborne Systems Division in Camden, New Jersey, and we moved to New Jersey. I worked on the design of airborne radar fire control systems and computer controlled automatic test equipments, first as an engineer, then engineering design manager and finally as a systems engineering manager. I obtained one patent on an automatic target acquisition system for airborne radar and the concept has since been used in all U.S. fighter and interceptor aircraft.

Our second daughter, named Lisa Edna Jeanne, was born in Camden, New Jersey.
In 1961 RCA moved the Airborne Systems Division headquarters and Automatic Test Department to a new plant in Burlington, Massachusetts. We moved with the department purchasing a home in southern New Hampshire. I then obtained professional engineering registration as Electrical and Mechanical Engineer in Massachusetts and as Aeronautical, Electrical and Mechanical Engineer in New Hampshire.

While in Burlington, I first worked as the design review coordinator for the design of the avionics in the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), part of the APOLLO/LEM vehicle system that landed men on the Moon. I then became project manager for the design, installation and test of an automatic monitoring and control system for the Walt Disney World Theme Park near Kissimmee, Florida.

While on the east coast I continued graduate study in the evenings studying mathematics, physics, electronic engineering and nuclear engineering. RCA permitted me to fly to Washington, D.C., one day per week to attend the Industrial College of the Armed Forces where I obtained a Certificate in National Security Management.

I left RCA and joined a consulting firm, Support Systems Associates Incorporated. I was assigned as an avionics maintenance advisor for the Navy S3A carrier-based antisubmarine aircraft. The Navy was leasing office space from the Lockheed Aircraft Company, manufacturer of the aircraft, and we moved to California.

While in California I completed my graduate studies earning a Master of Science degree in Management Engineering in 1977 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Physics in 1978. As it was late in life I no longer needed the advanced degrees to add prestige to my resume but I wanted to prove that I could do it.

I began presenting papers on automatic testing at conventions of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. I was a member of both organizations. As a result of my presentations, I was listed in Who's Who in The West in 1985.

I retired in 1989. Betsy, Virginia and I worked for the census in 1990.

As Betsy and I did not appreciate the asphalt jungles of Southern California, we moved to Hawthorne, Nevada.

Our family was growing. Virginia and her husband, Richard Jamison, gave us grandchildren JonPaul, Tammi Lynn and Robert Matthew Carrol. Lisa and her second husband, Jerome DeGreave, produced Micheal, Shawn and Rachel. Rachel died of SIDS before she was two months old. Jonpaul married a girl named Suzie and they gave us our first great grandson, Alexander Scott. Richard divorced Virginia and moved to Arizona. Virginia married Dennis Duff after moving to Nevada and he had been previously been married and divorced and brought his children, Lisa, James and Jessica with him. Matthew married his step sister Lisa and they had our first great granddaughter, Mihaley.

Our home burned in November of 1992 and I burned my eyes and was blind for a period. I was flown in an air ambulance to the burn center at the University Hospital in Las Vegas where I regained the sight in my left eye. I contacted an ophthalmologist and he replaced the lens in my right eye restoring the sight in it.

Betsy had major surgery followed by a series of strokes and heart attacks. Her throat is paralyzed, she cannot speak and has difficulty swallowing liquids. I spend much of my time caring for her, shopping, and impersonating a nurse, cook and housekeeper. When not caring for her, I spend time at my computer writing mathematics programs and Baron von Munchausen type hunting stories. We recently attended a fisherman's banquet. They had a liars' contest and I entered telling my story about the world's greatest hunting dog. He could tree coons, run rabbits, point and retrieve ruffed grouse and woodcock, retrieve ducks from both the water and trees, and dig worms for fish bait. I won first place.