Re: JFK Secret Service Agent Dennis R Halterman, deceased 1988
"Not my dad, [Harry D. Halterman] DRH was known to me as *Uncle Dennis* but I think actually the uncle of my dad and his brothers, still called that by everyone in our family including my grandmother and my mom. We got back to the states in March '58 after Fidel started targeting Americans [dad was a Texaco/CalTex refining engineer at the CalTex Santa Clara plant, followed by reworking cooling lines at the Port Arthur TX refinery after Hurricane Debbie in '59.] and he was a visitor at a couple of the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners at grandmother's house in Indiana, just across the river from the Lawrenceville. IL Texaco *Indian* refinery, where dad eventually spent 7 years or so. Among other things: mom and dad divorced in '65 and I think that Thanksgiving was the last year I saw *uncle Dennis* passing through downstate IL en route to Chicago, I believe. By then I'd pretty much planned on going into the Army after graduation, which I did in May '66. Among other things, I ran the question by him about going into the MPs, and if I did, what were likely prospects for a just-discharged ex-MP as to going into a federal law enforcement job, He told me not to avoid anything federal, that the quality and professionalism had so detiorated in the last decade as to make it a poor choice for a career, but if I just had to, to go for either the Border Patrol or Postal Inspectors. As it turned out, I did neither, and had a swell time as a tank crewdawg. # Discussing *the incident* at the dinnertable was taboo, but there's a story or two you might find amusing. # Any thoughts about the Steven King or O'Reilly JFK hit novels, or the new one out about Abraham Bolden?
---
In the Summer of 1960 I went to Camp Perry OH and attended the National [rifle] Matches and took the small arms firing school, where we were taught basic safety and operation of the rifle mostly in use at the matches at that time, the M1 Garand. This was nothing new for me; our Cub Scout pack was sponsored by the local Air National Guard unit and our meetings held at their armory, which included an indoor rifle range. When lousy weather made scheduled outdoor activities impractical, a session on the indoor range was common, and our unit's presence in local parades included an honor guard which was coached by the Guard's sergeants and which was equipped with the big M1 rifles; pretty hefty for 11 and 12-year old Scouts. In '60 I was 12. youngest in my SAFS class, which did include a couple of 13-year-olds, tho not as familiar with an M1s rifle as I was. I fired my score on the range, nothing Earth-shattering but not bad, and had a baseline to try to better next year. And so I did. I shot the matches again in August of '63, and yeah, I had improved, though I had discovered motorcycles and a new neighbor girl down the road by then. Uncle Dennis wasn't around for Thanksgiving in November that year, nor for Christmas. We kind of figured we knew why.
# The next year, he did show up, and asked me how my rifle team work had been going; it was about as close to the matters in Dallas of anything that had been said, and I told him. My dad's youngest brother was a university teacher and mouthy sort in a mostly Republican Baptist family, and uncle Jean made some comment about the limp Dennis had at the time, and asked, sarcastically, I think, if he had been hit by rifle fire in Dallas. He was told in no uncertain terms to shut his mouth and never say anything of the sort again, and that if he did, he could expect to look forward to a new career making duffel bags and combat boots as a convict laborer in a federal pen. It was the only time I can ever remember uncle Denny really mad about anything, though he didn't put up with stupid much, from me or anyone else. After my grandmother passed away in 1974, I'd lost all contact with him- the last time I saw him was at my dad's funeral in 1968."
No comments:
Post a Comment