This beautiful fall day blessed us with a warm welcome from Kathy Austvold at the front desk and a handshake greeting from our world traveler and saludador(Spanish for greeter), Kieth Olson. Pepe’ our very own exchange student was present today.
Just when I thought Josh Heggum missed all of our faces we find out he has the invocation for the week. Give a man a job and he will show up! Josh did not disappoint however when it came to the prayer, it was fantastic. Wally Cole led us in songs and exercise. Bonnie Denzel announced that we would be handing out dictionaries after the meeting and would like a few more helping hands.
Jamie had an announcement regarding the peach sale. 792 boxes of peaches were sold in which Noon Rotary netted $7024.00 to go towards our projects. Thank you for all who sold peaches; a special thank you to the following members who went above and beyond for this peach sale, Mike Westergard 27 boxes, Pete Wasberg 27 boxes, John MacFarline 38 boxes, Katie Johnson 54 boxes, David Lundeen 63 boxes, Lori Larson 75 boxes, Keith Olson 77 boxes and Buzz Lundeen 137 boxes ! Wow, great job folks. The club would also like to thank Dean Bjorgum as he supplied the fuel for the trailer and it was not cheap. Jamie and Keith did an excellent job once again, Jamie mentioned this year was the smoothest year yet!
Brags/fines: Keith Olson just got back from Spain with his bride and it was a wonderful trip, except for the airport in Paris. Bob Russell threw in a dollar, which some would argue was too little, for mentioning Keith looked a lot like his father and that it was a compliment. He also noted that 18% of the club sold more than 64% of the peaches. Josh Heggum added $1 for the Katie and Mark Johnson finding his golf club, whom he jokingly claimed “stole” it, noting however that it was his old driver. Josh also shared a thank you letter from his partner, Sam Rufer, who won our Rubber Duck Derby and graciously donated back to the club $50, as well as an additional $50 to Sam's Detroit Lakes Rotary club. Pepe held the mic so Bob could solicit invite’s from club members for dinner. He also added that Pepe’ would not mind being invited to a Vikings or Timberwolves game. Finally, our President Steve Leitte read a thank you from Nate Ronning for his Dollars for Scholars scholarship.
Program: Tim Hunt was our speaker today and his subject was the different branches of the military. Before the speech we were informed the day, Sept. 27, was also Tim's birthday, turning a young 80 years old; we naturally sang to him before he proceeded with the program.
We found out that the Army has young folks becoming officers in three main ways: 1178 people from the Military Academy, 5000+ people from ROTC and 1200 from Officer Candidate school. In the Army you are taught how to follow, how to read a map and the five steps to addressing a problem, set forth in a five paragraph document describing how you 1) assess a situation; 2) identify your mission - specific and applied task; 3) make a commander's estimate – how you will accomplish the mission; 4) proceed to tasking - who does what; and 5) setting up communications and logistics.
There are 17 different branches of service; a few of them are combat arms, infantry, artillery, air defense, special operations, chemical corp, cyber security, Corps of Engineers. One unknown fact is that the Army has more ships than the Navy, this is because the Army is in charge of the ports.
In order to advance in the Army one needs to take an advanced course to become a captain or major. Then some go on to Command and General Staff, which is like a masters degree. From there you would go to War College where you would be part of the “big picture” and rubbing elbows with politicians and various state department officials.
Tim was in the Army and ended up being in the 503rd Parachute infantry. Coming out of Vietnam in ’68 he started teaching new recruits. He wanted to keep climbing the ladder and become a corporal; he soon found out that if you want to get to be corporal from major, out of all candidates only 45% would be promoted if in the infantry but if you developed a special skill the percentage jumped to 85%. Tim decided to get his specialty as a Foreign Area Officer, since he already had experience overseas. With the new promotion Tim was to be sent to embassy’s around the world of his choosing and he chose South Asia. Tim spent time in many embassy's in and around India.
Tim’s speech was very interesting in a world that is foreign to many of us that have not been in the military hierarchy.