Lt Dennis L. Dauphin (LtCol, USAR, Ret)
I returned to the states in October, 1967. On November 1st, I landed a "desk job" with the Standard Oil Company (now Chevron) in New Orleans, LA in the Finance Department. Felt very strange to have been in a combat environment just two weeks prior and there I was sitting at a desk. I can still feel those very strange emotions; no one had a clue about what we were doing in Vietnam.
Thanks to the GI Bill, I was able to get an MBA degree from Loyola University in 1972, the same year that I joined a US Army Reserve unit in New Orleans. My first job with Chevron was in Accounting but spent the bulk of my career in Purchasing. I accepted a transfer to the Pascagoula Refinery in 1989 and wound up retiring in the little-known but scenic town of Ocean Springs, MS.
I served 28 years in the USAR and retired in 1993. I completed 32 years of service with Chevron Corporation and retired in 1999.
My oldest son is an E-7 Crew Chief with the KC-135 refueling aircraft
stationed at McConnell AFB in Wichita, KS. He has been to the
"desert" five times already. He is now retired and living in St.
Augustine, FL. My middle son is an aspiring actor
and scriptwriter. He has acted professionally with the New Stage Repertory
Theater in Jackson, MS for many productions there. He is now working
as an Advertising Director in Chicago. My daughter
joined the JET (Japanese Exchange Teaching) program in Kyoto and then moved on
to Tokyo where she is under contract teaching English to elementary
schoolchildren. She auditioned and was accepted into the Japanese Improv
group known as the "Pirates of Tokyo", a bilingual comedy team.
She returned to the States, got her Masters Degree from the University of Texas,
Austin and teaches elementary school in San Antonio.
I am very active with the Chevron Retirees Assn as the Past National President, joined a golf club called "The Bullpen", and maintain the "Mighty Ninth" website.
Until recently, the wife and I spent close to 18 years producing children's
musicals for a community theater. There isn't much about theater that I
have not experienced first-hand.
If there are any "downsides" to retirement, I haven't run across them as yet. There's no "encore", though.
My wife of 49 years, Jackie, and I presently reside in Ocean Springs, MS. We survived Katrina in 2005, but are still overwhelmed by the tremendous destruction and suffering the storm caused to so many people.
Updated 7/21