William David “Billy” Golden – Some Short Stories About Me
1956 – Born at Leigh Memorial Hospital, Norfolk, Virginia to John Henry Golden and to Clara Anne Norfleet, February 11th. Lived in the Tidewater area (Norfolk, Portsmouth and Chesapeake) until the family briefly moved to Birmingham, Alabama in 1961.
1961 – My parents decided to move on in search of better employment. I was left to live in Birmingham, Alabama with my grandparents, Henry Roosevelt Golden and Readie Mae Belcher, who were dairy farmers. Completed first grade.
Backstory: Except for several short visits I never really got to know my grandparents until 1974-1975 when I was stationed with the Army close enough to visit with them. I did not grow up with cousins or any family other than siblings. It would be in my Army years that I began researching the family history as a way of learning more about who they were. My father had not a clue … he had run away from home in his mid-teens without any desire to be near family, and he knew nothing about his extended family outside of his own parents and siblings.
1962 – Reunited with my parents and siblings. Briefly lived in Macon, Georgia where I began second grade in school. Our family moved within a month of school starting to Jacksonville, Florida. Attended Hendricks Avenue ES.
Teacher: Mrs. Gunn
1965-1966 – Greenfield ES (5th Grade) and Windy Hills ES (6th Grade). Beach Boys were on the radio. Fell in love with their music. Still listen to them constantly today.
1967-69 – Southside Junior High (Go Knights! … they call it a Middle School now). Was not the world’s best student. Got a letter in Chorus. Started Campus Crusade for Christ chapter on campus. Began study of French language. Tried out for football … was luckily cut before I embarrassed myself. I never liked football anyway. Played baseball on both a Little League team and for my church, Glendale Community Church. … Although I was young, began volunteering to work in various political campaigns. The whole world was political at the time.
1970-1974 – Englewood High School, Jacksonville, Florida. Favorite subjects: English and French. Wrote weekly newspaper column for Arlington Trends newspaper. Worked throughout high school years. Skipped the prom. Shift-managed a Dairy Queen during 11th and 12th grades. A highlight was my organizing role in ‘Young Democrats for Nixon‘ in the ’72 election.
1974 – Joined the Florida Army National Guard as MOS 26L, Tactical Microwave Communications Repairman in January, while still in school. Following graduation, went to Basic Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina (7/74 Unit B-3-1), and took Basic Electronics training at the same base. Transferred to U.S. Army Signals School, Fort Gordon, Georgia in November 1974 to begin advanced MOS schooling.
Backstory: I was going to join the military one way or the other. My father was a Marine. Went to go see the Marine recruiter but he was out. When I told my girlfriend she freaked out. She told me that I should reconsider the military. She had a family friend that knew everything about the military. She said I should talk to him. I did. He was an Army National Guard recruiter.
1975 – Completed military schooling in May 1975 and returned home to Jacksonville, Florida. Got a job as a copier repairman and started college at Florida Junior College. Disliked both. Wanted to see the world. Petitioned to be released from National Guard service so that I could join the Regular Army. Permission was granted and I left home in November 1975 to begin a crosscountry trek to Monterey, California for more military schooling at the Defense Foreign Language Institute (DLI).
1976 – Spent the entire year (48 weeks) in study of the Czech and Slovak languages at Monterey, California.
1977 – Transferred to Goodfellow AFB, San Angelo, Texas (1/77) for integration of foreign language skills with military intelligence processing technology. Upon completion of training, transferred next to Fort Devens, Massachusetts for training as an Electronic Warfare Specialist. Reported for my first duty assignment at Ludwigsburg, Germany in June with the 307th Army Security Agency (ASA) Battalion, Forward Control and Analysis Center (FCAC).
Backstory: The Army misassigned me. They were supposed to send an MOS 98C Czech Analyst to the FCAC. I was a 98G Czech Linguist (we were smarter than the analysts 24/7, but it seems that they wanted a school trained analyst). OJT retrained as an analyst — learned skills which would affect the rest of my life and in my approach to business even today (2013). While in Germany became an ardent student of the German language and went to night school with the University of Maryland; due to my unique military assignments it would take me 11 years to graduate with a bachelor degree (1988), and in the end I graduated with a double bachelors degree in Government and European Studies.
1979 – Completed my service with the Army (11/79) and returned to go back to college at Florida Junior College, Jacksonville, Florida. // Now known as Florida Community College … no one seems to like the word ‘junior’.
1980 – Joined the Reagan campaign after Reagan’s November 1979 announcement that he was running for president. Would spend 1980 as a College Coordinator for the North Florida region. One of my treasures is a very nicely engraved invitation to President Reagan’s inauguration.
1981 – Army life beckoned and rejoined the Army (1/81). While going to college and working in the Reagan campaign I met a very special person. We married in February 1981 at Tom Green County, Texas (Goodfellow AFB). Military life is not always conducive to a close and continuing family life and we divorced in late 1983. Life happens. March 1981, assigned to the 407th ASA Company, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Bliss, Texas.
1982 – Reassigned to the 326th ASA Company, 307th ASA Battalion, VII Corps at Augsburg, Germany in June.
1983 – Reassigned to a remote ‘listening post’ formally known as Detachment S, 326th ASA Company, Bischofsgruen, Germany in the Fichtelgebirge mountains. This was an extreme hardship tour as the local town was homebase to a year round Olympic skijumping training center known as the Ochsenkopf. Life was tough but somehow I survived. I also learned how to ski both crosscountry and downhill thanks to fellow soldier and a friend even today: Rick Morgan. // Our unit was redesignated to the 511th Military Intelligence Battalion (CEWI) in 1984.
1985 – Applied for acceptance as a Military Intelligence Warrant Officer, MOS 982A (1/85). Was accepted and reported for schooling at Fort Sill, Oklahoma (2/85). Would also attend schooling at Fort Huachuca, Arizona (5/85) and at Fort Devens, Massachusetts (8/85). Received commissioning as a Chief Warrant Officer 2 (CWO2) in September 1985, and reported for duty to Fort George G. Meade, Maryland in October. Unit: 741st Military Intelligence Battalion. Added a new foreign language to my repertoire as a graduate of the National Cryptologic School in Russian.
1988 – Reassigned to U.S. Army Field Station, Misawa, Japan (10/88). Unit: 750th Military Intelligence Battalion. Graduated from University of Maryland (11/88) with a double bachelor degree in European Studies and Government.
1989 – Met and married Yoko Yauchi of Fukushima-ken. We met when I couldn’t find a place to sit down and the only available chair was next to her (6/89). Chatting commenced. Dating followed. We married in December 1989, have two wonderful sons and will celebrate yet another wedding anniversary as of December 2013.
1992 – Core member of the team that helped restructure the independent operations of the separate military service intelligence operations at Misawa, Japan into a joint operations unit: Misawa Cryptologic Operations Center (MCOC), renamed in 2003 to the Misawa Security Operations Center.
1994 – Selected as an investigative team member for the Army Chief of Staff’s Modern Louisiana Maneuvers project. My mission was to review select Army intelligence operations in Korea. After mission completion I returned to my duties at Misawa, Japan.
1995 – Reported for Advanced Warrant Officer Schooling at Fort Huachuca, Arizona in January. Reassigned in March to the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) Headquarters at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Was responsible for managing the technology systems and upgrades to U.S. Army Field Station Korea within the Force Modernization Directorate.
1996 – Retired from the Army on April 1st, 1996. Began life as a defense contractor in Rosslyn, Virginia with Pacific Sierra Research Corporation as a contracted Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) liaison to the NSA.
1997 – Started a web recruiting website as a hobby in April: Virtual Domain Systems Analyst (VDSA) Information and Intelligence Skills Database (IISD). This was a first of a kind searchable database of professionals with security clearances. Kept my day job as a defense contractor. Graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree. My dissertation was on Freedom of Religion in Public Schools.
1998 – Moved to IET, Inc. (Information Extraction Technology), also in Rosslyn, Virginia, as a Senior SIGINT Analyst responsible for creating Bayesian Logic models for Signals Intelligence and Multi-Intelligence inputs for problem solving in an information fusion environment.
1999 – My hobbyist recruiting website continues. Growing in popularity. Paying customers! I reregistered the name as IntelligenceCareers.com (6/99). My success as a defense contractor is growing too. August 5th comes the announcement that my proposal for the use of Bayesian logic to develop a predictive human resources acquisition tool for the Navy wins a year of R&D money.
Backstory: Unfortunately, the Clinton Administration was in a federal budget fight with Congress and all program money was put on hold. Am told that the money should be turned back on within 90 days. I put all of my energy into moving IntelligenceCareers.com from a hobby to being a full-time company — was successful — still at it in 2018 so it was a pretty good choice.
