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Biography of Jack Arnold

Early Life
Dad was a self-taught computer programmer-engineer and a Vietnam veteran. After we were born, mom became a home-maker. When my twin brother and I were four, dad was transferred to Atlanta, Georgia, and business was booming in the area. At first, we lived in Norcross. Mom and dad bought a coin-operated laundry on Buford Highway to make extra money. As kids, my twin brother and I spent late nights with mom washing and folding customers' laundry, but my parents never managed to do better than break even, and they sold the laundry at a small loss. After we were in Georgia for a few years, dad got a better-paying job as a supervisor at a small technological company, because he was highly-skilled. This extra income enabled my parents to buy a house in Lilburn, Georgia where mom still lives today. But not long after we moved, the small company that dad worked for closed its doors, and he was laid off.

Dad was an experienced computer programmer, but with only a high school education, he couldn't compete in the college-only technology market of the late 80s. Supervisor-level pay was what was needed for mom and dad to cover the mortgage without dipping into their savings, but dad wasn't "qualified." Mom took temporary jobs to help out while dad tried to find a job good enough to pay the bills. He did some work for a small firm as an independent contractor in the meantime, but they stiffed him on his pay and my parents had to pay the expenses dad incurred on the project out-of-pocket.

On the recommendation of an old friend, dad got an entry-level job with the company he had left years before, making the same salary he had made as a young man. Since my brother and I were fourteen, our parents had to sign a waiver for us to start working. But, wanting to chip in by covering our own teenage expenses, we convinced them to sign it. We started working full-time in the summer and part-time after school cleaning up at an elementary school within walking distance from our house. We didn't make much money, but we liked doing our part to contribute to the family, and we were proud of the small paycheck we deposited every month into our joint savings accounts. Between mom's work, dad's new job and dad's pay as an Air Force Reservist, we did alright.

At the same time, we began to notice that something was wrong with dad. He had weakness in one of his feet that eventually spread to that leg. Then the weakness spread to the other leg. After repeated trips to numerous doctors and specialists, a doctor finally told us what was wrong. Dad had ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. The three of us took care of dad at home. In short order a cane became a joystick-operated battery-powered wheelchair. On the evening of February, 15 1991, dad's breathing weakened and he slipped into a coma. That night, I lined up our dining room chairs next to the hospital bed in his room and fell asleep next to him, his hand in mine. In the morning, he was gone.

I helped mom with funeral and financial arrangements, and at the service, I gave dad's eulogy. In the years that followed, I helped mom make financial decisions and filled out the family's tax returns. We buried dad in Marietta National Cemetery. The twenty-one gun salute jerked the tears right out of me. Great sadness was followed by a chance meeting that eventually led to great joy. The summer after dad's funeral, I met a girl named Cindy at a program for Georgia high school kids called Governor's Honors. We stayed in touch by mail during the remainder of high school, and after graduation we began dating. Fourteen years ago, we got married, and we're still married today.



School
I went to the University of Georgia on academic scholarships. Though the scholarships included books, tuition, and my dorm room, I needed additional money for expenses and to visit Cindy at Auburn. I worked at the University Language lab, as an usher at a movie theater and as a dishwasher at a wings restaurant. When the three-and-a-half hours that separated Auburn from Athens became too much for me, I transferred to Auburn. This spelled the end of the academic scholarships I had received on the basis of high school grades and standardized test scores. At first, I found a job as a phone salesman, cold-calling people out of the phone book to offer them a "free" carpet cleaning that was really a demonstration of an expensive carpet cleaning system. After I left that job, I found a position at the Wal-Mart store in Opelika, Alabama.

It wasn't long before I was promoted from cart-pusher to Customer Service Manager.

Between my paycheck, mom's help, and an academic scholarship that started in my third quarter at Auburn, I graduated in 1996 with relatively few government-subsidized student loans. After graduating, I went to graduate school at Ohio State. I accepted a teaching assistantship that paid my tuition along with a modest living stipend. My wife Cindy began working as a pharmacist at Kroger. Before long, we bought our first house in Columbus, Ohio. During the day, I taught undergraduate philosophy and attended class. In the evenings and on most weekends, I fished for Smallmouth Bass in the Olentangy River.



The Army
What happened on September, 11 2001, stopped us all in our tracks. At the time, I kept teaching and working on my thesis, but I remained troubled. Cindy and I had many late night conversations about what I could do to pay back the country that had given me so much. I felt like I had to do something. I began going to military recruiters in August of 2002. In October, 2002, I signed on the line and went into the Army's delayed entry program. Because the country needed qualified linguists, I signed up to learn Arabic and become a linguist. To ensure that I be guaranteed the opportunity to fill the need for linguists, I had to enlist rather than become an officer candidate. My mother's father and my own father had both served as enlisted personnel in wartime, so I felt comfortable following in their footsteps. In February, 2003, I said goodbye to the ivory tower and went to basic combat training in Ft Jackson, South Carolina.

I wasn't alone. Many of the enlisted men and women I served with were also college graduates. Many brave men and women left "better" or more lucrative career paths to serve their country after 9/11; some of them remain in the Armed Forces to this day. After attending language school and intelligence training, I was sent to the newly formed 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Light Infantry Division (Climb to Glory!). At the time, it was a sister Division to the 101st, both divisions being part of the 18th Airborne Corps. In Air Assault School, I learned how to leave a helicopter in flight the hard way, and in the summer of 2005, I went with my Brigade to Baghdad, Iraq.

I spent a year in Western Baghdad. While there, I worked as a Signals intelligence analyst and I was the driver for a four-man Signals Intelligence Team. Our team accompanied infantry units on night-time missions to find and capture or kill insurgents responsible for attacking Coalition forces and Iraqi civilians. After we returned from Baghdad, I continued to work in Signals Intelligence in support of our mission in Iraq until I left the Active Duty Army in May of 2009.



The Wave-Back Test
While I was still in the Army, my wife and I decided that we wanted to return to the Southeast, where we both grew up. We agreed that this would be our last move and that wherever we landed we would stay. At the same time, we agreed that the Atlanta area had become too traffic-congested. We came down to look at some houses in middle Tennessee. I had two standards for where we would live. I wanted a place near a small river or lake where I could fish, and I wanted a place to live that passed the wave-back test.

I've traveled to many of the states in the United States to hunt or fish at one time or another. (I hope to catch at least one fish in all fifty states before I die, but I'm only one third the way toward accomplishing this goal.) In some places, people wave when you drive by, and it's expected that you wave back. I've used this feature as a test or shibboleth to decide whether I'm in a place where I might like to stay awhile. If, when I wave as I pass someone driving in the other direction, that person waves back, I know I'm in a place I might like to stay. I call this the wave-back test. Well, when we drove into "downtown" Kingston Springs, before I could even get my hand up to wave, the man driving in the opposite direction waved, and I had to wave back. Kingston Springs continues to pass the test with flying colors.

The Harpeth River flows through Kingston Springs, and there're several places near our house to get down to it and fish. In short: we found the perfect place to settle down. Believing that I would soon return to Iraq with my unit, we bought our house and Cindy moved to Tennessee. Once I left the Army, I joined her, and we have been here ever since. I started attending Law School in Nashville on the post-9/11 GI Bill and the Yellow Ribbon program in August 2009, and I hope to graduate in May 2012.