me39.jpg (37456 bytes)    Billy Joseph Welch    menow.jpg (21541 bytes)
Me then                                                                                              Me Now
I was born in Augusta, Georgia in the late 1930's and I never had much of a family life
I guess it was because my parents were always working, my mother worked in a cotton mill
from the age of 9 years old about 1920 until she was about 47 years old in about 1958 and
most of that time she worked on the night shift from 11 PM until 7 AM.
My daddy was an automobile mechanic and worked for a local taxi cab company he would
go to work early and he'd get back home late because he had a drinking problem also and when he came home drinking there was normally a fight between the two of them and he
would end up in jail. I don't think there was a teacup full of love in that whole house. Sad but true.
I always stayed with this relative or that one and they seemed to love me and they took
care of me so in my opinion I was better off. My sister disagrees but such is life.
I'm the first to admit that the first twenty or twenty-five years of my life was totally
screwed up I've been married 5 times,  I put almost twenty-one years in the military and
retired in 1981. It was in the late 1970's that I began to realize that there was more to life than I was getting and really decided to settle down. That is when I met and married my present wife
and I like to say the woman who tamed this old horse. 
 
 
I joined the army in 1955 and learned some things that I should have already known 
such as respect, discipline, and hard work. It took me awhile but I finally learned. I completed my GED in 1961 while I was stationed in Germany and went thru all the schools they would let 
me go to and really began to like it. You might say that I had found my calling. Then I happened 
to find myself in a unit that I was very unhappy with so in 1964 me and the military parted ways.
However in 1970 it was still in my blood so I managed to re-enlist, I had to retake all 8 weeks of basic training and I was 32 years old competing with kids 17 to 24, Their was one 27 year old.
I did real well, I managed to establish a new Post Firing Record for both trainees and permanent 
party cadre. and was promoted to E-3 after 4 weeks and E-4 at the completion of the training cycle
but the best thing was that I was selected to go to drill sergeant school where I was promoted to
 E-5 upon graduation after 8 weeks and was re-assigned to the same company that I had just graduated from 8 weeks earlier.
 
I said earlier that I had been married five times so I will give only the names
of the women and where they are from because they are probably still living also.
   1. Doris Thompson    Augusta, Georgia
2. Barbara Tanner    Griffin, Georgia
 3. Patricia Cheek   New Ellenton, SC
4. Michelle Cato   Augusta, Georgia
        5. Rosalie Cleveland    Arvada, Colorado