Back in those good old days, as previously stated, I was no whizz in school. One night our Junior High School caught fire and burned all three stories right down into the basement. Some days later, after they had us going to school in church basements and any vacant building in town, I found myself standing beside this formidable woman. It seemed only logical that I would make some intelligent comment, so I said to her “Mrs. Johnston, what is it you lost in the fire that you valued most?” She looked down at me, thoughtfully, and said, “Why Charles, I think it was that theme you wrote that had almost every other word in it misspelled.” After that had registered in my brain, I thought to myself, “Well, so much for asking intelligent questions.”

Back from the trip to Lackland, I tried to get back into my routine, but within a week or so our office phone rang and it was Colonel Agnell calling from the Pentagon. He said “Captain Stone, have you ever considered working and living in Washington D.C?” I told him that I had never given it a moments thought and that I was very pleased with my current employment. His answer was for me to prepare to pack and move, because he had slated me to take over administrative management of the USAF Marksmanship, Physical Fitness and Code of Conduct Training Programs. My bosses were both amazed and dismayed at the news. I told them I was not a volunteer for this reassignment.

In the meantime, Colonel John Murray, my previous 98th Bomb Wing Director of Training at Lincoln, had become Director of Personnel at SAC. John and I had always worked well together, and he had been tracking my progress at 2nd AF Headquarters. His plan was to permit me to finish my tour at Barksdale and then bring me in to manage these same programs for SAC, based at the Offutt Headquarters. SAC Personnel and USAF Personnel began a push-pull process that extended for a year, giving me additional time to enjoy our home and my current job environment for a longer period of time. By the spring of 1962, word came down that USAF had made the decision that I would move to the USAF Personnel Training & Education Office at the Pentagon. I chose not to fight it and made plans for the move.

Nell’s sister had been living with us for a number of months, and they both had very green thumbs. Our house, and yard, by local standards, looked really great. We knew there were people pretending to buy houses, through person to person, deals with frantic military families departing for overseas.