Dear Editor,
My name is Harry Holler. My grandpa’s name is Harry Holler and my dad’s name is Harry Holler. That’s why I named my son Michael. Michael was my only son. He was killed in a car wreck.
I was born in Peoria, Illinois. Later we moved to Chicago Heights, Illinois. I worked for a company called Dawe’s Labs both in Peoria and Chicago Heights. Eventually it was bought out by Solvay. I worked a short stint in Iowa at a feed plant, where they were looking for a foreman. It didn’t last long because I’m an easy-going guy but they wanted somebody to play hardball. I got the production out, but they wanted somebody to knuckle down and I’m not that kind of guy. So I called my step-dad up and said “Do you have a job for me?” He said “You’re going to have to start at the bottom.” I said “At least it’s a job.”
I started to work for my step-dad, but there was a big layoff coming, so he said to me, “Why don’t you enlist in the army and get that over with, and by the time you come back you’ll have a job waiting for you.”
Back then, kids could enlist in the army without a high school education. It’s not that way anymore. I wanted to be an MP. I really admire law enforcement agencies.
But I got bamboozled right from the start. I was told to go in unassigned and I’d probably be made an MP. Well, they made me a medic. I didn’t mind that. I got to meet my first wife in Germany. I still speak some German.
But the army kind of screwed me over. Maybe if they read this they’ll give me my stripe back. It’s not the entire army, it’s a few nincompoops that wanted me to stay in the army because they had the highest reenlistment at that time. They had all these young kids reenlisting because they got them their GEDs. I didn’t want to stay in the army. I had a job back here in the states. I had this wonderful lady I married.
It was the commanding officer and a select few officers that had me busted. But I wanted to go home. I wanted to take my wife home. She was probably the best wife I had. I just didn’t know it. I was arrogant.
As far as the army, I think they owe me an apology and I think they ought to give me my rank back.
I have a hearing aid now. When I was a foreman, I made a product with nothing but heavy metal, like magnesium and iron and lead. I had a guy in the basement, we had to feed it through a pneumatic tube, I had to put my ear up to the pipe and listen to it, and if he didn’t do it just right it would plug up the tube. It would slow down production. You didn’t want that. That’s why I have a hearing aid now.
It was joining the Mormon church that kept me from drinking.
I was in the hospital for a long, long time. Now I’m living in a house that I’ll never live long enough to see it paid off. Everything’s going to my daughter in Rock Springs. She can share it with my first wife. After Michael died, I had nobody to take over my name.
I feel that Councilman George Jost cut me short in the last City Council meeting. I don’t blame Councilman Jost, he doesn’t know. I was a councilman once.
Harry Holler
Green River
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