Page 64 - The History of Veterans at Highland Springs

ERNEST HOLCOMB
HIGHLAND SPRINGS RESIDENT, ARMY
My military service was two years during the Korean war and six years in the reserves after I was released from active duty. I was never activated during my time in the reserves.
I went into the Army eight months after I graduated from college with a degree in Electrical Engineering. After 16 weeks of basic training, I was assigned to the Corps of Engineers at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, where the Corps of Engineers had established their Engineer School and taught everything from bridge building, to building runways, to electrical equipment.
After a short training program, I was assigned as an instructor to the Electronics Section, which taught courses in the operation, maintenance and repair of electric motors, generators, mine detectors, and infra-red equipment such as the Sniper Scope. We also had four 60-inch portable searchlights that had been used in WWII but had become obsolete for battlefield use because of jet airplanes.
I became the senior instructor on the operation, maintenance and repair of mine detectors and infra-red equipment. The course was six weeks long and we had two groups going through simultaneously, three weeks apart. We were allowed to interview and select students from those that had applied for various courses.
We sent instruction teams to Korea to be sure the equipment and our previous students were performing as expected. I was assigned to one of the teams but was pulled off when the Army accepted a newly-designed mine detector. I was sent to the manufacturer's plant to learn about the new device, then returned to Belvoir to set up a course on the operation, maintenance, and repair of the new detector. My rank at discharge was Sergeant.
One interesting side light to my service concerned the four searchlights I mentioned previously. Any time there was a military or government celebration in Washington D.C. we were ordered to attend, set up the lights and let them revolve to attract attention. The events included a movie premier involving the military, the Cherry Blossom Festival, and Eisenhower's inauguration.
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