OMG! What an underachiever this guy was/is, with an occult (hidden) sense of self-centered importance. This guy deserves an in-depth analysis, and his story says it all:
After graduating from high school in January 1937, I enrolled at Iowa State University, near where we lived in the midwestern United States. Going to classes and working to pay for my tuition left me little time for anything else.
Remember those words: classwork, homework, and working to pay for tuition left Bill with "little time for anything else".
Early in 1942, shortly after the United States entered World War II, I was in my fifth year of college and was just months away from receiving my bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering.
Odd, as a bachelor's degree typically is earned in 4 yrs, not 5? Bill likely was already in academic trouble and on academic probation, as he likely had failed some courses (and had to repeat) since it sounds like he was on the remedial "Five-year plan".
I was living in a home with two roommates. One suggested that I talk with the person who “visits the boys downstairs.” There I met John O. (Johnny) Brehmer, one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I was amazed at how he could find the Bible’s answer to seemingly any question. Impressed, I began to study the Bible with Johnny regularly and eventually to accompany him in his preaching work whenever I could.
"Whenever I could" SHOULD mean in his SPARE TIME, i.e. AFTER he had done his scholastic work and caught up with the rest of the class; he was skating on thin ice already with his college work.
Johnny’s father, Otto, had become a Witness while he was the president of a bank in Walnut, Iowa. Otto gave up that position to enter the full-time ministry. In time, his fine example, as well as that of his family, encouraged me to make a vital decision.
TIME FOR DECISION
One day, the dean of the university told me that my grades were slipping and that I could not graduate on my past merits.
My BS meter is pegged. One day, as if out of the blue, the dean says, "Oh, Bill, BTW, you're not going to graduate this June!" That's BS.
Hmmm, do you wonder if that might've had anything to do with the prior decision to enter the ministry work FULL-TIME while attending college in engineering and already falling behind his class, too? Ya' think?
He likely aready WAS on the Dean's List, and was told that he needed to remediate and focus efforts on coursework. It's the responsibility of the STUDENT to monitor their academic performance and manage their own progression thru their program (esp if a senior), where many courses are sequential, i.e. if you don't pass Calc 3, you cannot take Calc 4. Many courses in engineering are EXACTLY like that, and students need to plan accordingly. It SHOULD be trivial for an engineer, since that's kind of the idea: a person has to have a methodical approach to solving problems.
The "past merits" bit is laughable, unless Bill actually meant to say, his "past failures".
If it's a close-call for a student in their senior year, they are aware of it (the stories of people who HAD to pass a course "to walk" with their class at graduation ceremonies are well-known), and there's always the option to return in the next year, but ONLY IF they have kept up with the standards of academic performance along the way. No college is going to bounce a student out on their ear without a degree UNLESS they've been given PLENTY of opportunity to rectify their problems, but just haven't kept up with standards. This guy sounds like he placed on academic probation, saw he wasn't keeping up, and was washing out so figured he'd just commit academic suicide by joining JWs.
I remember praying fervently to Jehovah God, asking him to give me direction.
I'll bet he was praying for direction! Remember, there was much talk of US entering the war.
Soon afterward, I was called to a meeting with my engineering professor. He told me that he had received a request for an engineer and had taken the liberty to answer the telegram and say that I would accept the position. I thanked the professor but explained why I was determined to make service to Jehovah my career.
His engineering professor went above and beyond the call of duty, since it's never easy to tell someone that they've wasted 5 yrs of their lives and won't earn their degree, EVEN IF it's their own fault. I saw many students who washed out of college programs, and it's an ugly process to witness of a ex-classmate having to come to terms with accepting the implications of failure, and going to the fall-back plan. His professor offered a fall-back plan, likely for a job which didn't require an engineering degree.
On June 17, 1942, I was baptized and was almost immediately appointed to serve as a pioneer, as full-time ministers of Jehovah’s Witnesses are called.
Bill was likely aware of the likely entry of the US into the WW II, and knew that the job with the engineering firm his professor offered months earlier wasn't going to keep him out of the draft (just as it would, even if he HAD earned the degree), so he went all-in with the conscientious objector angle by building up his status as a FT JW pioneer.
Later in 1942, I received a draft notice for military service and found myself before the draft board, explaining why I could not conscientiously share in the war. I produced affidavits from college professors who wrote regarding my good character and exceptional skills as a structural engineer.
Except, Bill WASN'T a structural engineer, remember? He washed out of the college program where he would've earned the degree to BECOME a structural engineer (you have to earn a degree to be licensed to practice structural engineering, since so many lives depend on it: there's little tolerance for slip-ups in miscalculating the structural requirements of a suspension bridge or skyscraper, goofing up calculation for a stress load or materials deflection).
Despite such positive testimonies, however, I was eventually fined $10,000 (U.S.) and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment at the U.S. penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas.
Add that $10,000 fine to the lost-opportunity costs of spending 5 yrs in college only to NOT earn a degree.
MY LIFE IN PRISON
More than 230 young Witnesses had been sentenced to the Leavenworth trustee farm, a facility of the Leavenworth federal prison. This was a farm where we received work assignments under the oversight of several guards. Some of them knew about our Christian neutrality and were favorable toward our views. A few guards cooperated with our efforts to continue our routine of holding Bible meetings. They also helped us to get Bible literature into the prison.
Bill wasn't in a German concentration camp: prisoners in the U.S. are allowed to hold religious beliefs, and the JWs didn't go to prison for their BELIEFS, but for refusing to defend their country during war-time. Oh, and the guards didn't need to "smuggle" their JW literature in for them, as is implied by saying "the guards helped": the literature likely came in through the mail room, LOL! What a JW persecution complex on display!
The prison warden even subscribed to the Consolation (now Awake!) magazine!
Bill not noting the irony of his prior alleged persecution.
MY RELEASE, AND MISSIONARY SERVICE
After serving three years of my five-year sentence, I was released on February 16, 1946, a few months after World War II ended. Immediately, I took up the full-time ministry again as a pioneer. My assignment was to return to the city of Leavenworth, Kansas. I dreaded the idea because prejudice against Jehovah’s Witnesses ran high there.
Hmmmm, I wonder why? Wonder if it has anything to do with those 230 JWs who were IN PRISON for failing to defend their country in the time of war? Generally that kind of stance doesn't endear citizens of a Midwest conservative town in Kansas to your beliefs.
Getting a job to support myself was difficult, and finding a place to live even more so.
Esp. when you don't have a college degree, are an ex-con, and are still forced to rent with roomies like you're in college!
I remember a guard I met who shouted, “Get off my property!” When I saw the baseball bat in his hand, I gulped and quickly left.
Yeah, as anyone SHOULD DO when you're trespassing, and the owner of the property notifies that you are TRESPASSING on THEIR property. JW persecution complex on display.
At another house, a woman said, “Wait just a minute,” and she shut the door. I waited until suddenly an upstairs window opened and a cascade of dirty dishwater drenched me.
Not exactly nice of the women, but that's the chance you take when you enter another person's PRIVATE PROPERTY to knock on their door. More fodder for a JW persecution complex, failing to consider the World just MIGHT be trying to tell you something?
In 1943 a new school for missionaries was established in upstate New York. I was invited to attend, and I graduated from its tenth class on February 8, 1948. The school came to be called the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead. Upon graduation I received an assignment to the Gold Coast, now known as Ghana.
So it's off to Gilead, to live a lifetime of escaping reality to chase a fantasy.
The End!!
Oh, there was this heart-warming bit, mentioned after the death of his wife, Eva:
Two years after visiting Ghana, I married Eva’s close friend Betty Miller on August 6, 1990. Together we have continued to make Jehovah’s service our career. We long for the day when we will see our grandparents, parents, and Eva on earth again in the resurrection in Paradise.
And imagine the joy of Eva, after dying from cancer only to be resurrected into the New System™ to find her failure-faced hubbie married to her BFF in the Old System, and now Eva is forced to remain single and celibate for an eternity in a Paradise Earth, LOL! Don't be surprised if the panda has some nasty abrasions and is bleeding after Eva's been "petting" it, LOL!
Oh, well: you snooze, you lose!
JW narcissism and looking out for #1 is every bit as present as in any Worldly person, maybe even moreso: it's even more duplicitious with JWs, since it's buried under the "we LUV our fellow men SOOOO MUCH!" love-bombing facade.
Adam
