Transition from Soldier to Aerospace Engineer 1946 to 1954 is Author Gerald Factor's third memoir in his series of four that charts his life trajectory from a Great Depression childhood to a successful engineering manager. Candid and compelling, this evocative collection recalls a time in the country when many individuals were charged with rising above the adversity of WWII and the Korean War as well as considerable economic challenges, in order to ultimately forge meaningful professional and family lives. In Transition Factor serves up his unvarnished take on former days, offering narration on his evolving life after having been discharged from his duties as a rifleman in the Army during WWII in France and Germany. The account covers his separation from the Army in January of 1946; his homecoming to a changing country; marriage and fatherhood, work and college; as well as his thoughts about leaving the East Coast in 1954. Transition also takes on his struggles with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the author's complex relationship and encounters with his estranged father. With affecting honesty and vivid descriptions, Factor's account of his ascension from enlisted man to accomplished engineer offers an inspiring chronicle of a changed man in profoundly changing times.
About the Author: Award winning author Gerald Factor grew up in a tough suburb of Boston during the Great Depression. As a child he decided he wanted to be an engineer and later during WWII he joined the army to participate in the Army Specialized Training Program that was going to send him to engineering college.When that program was cancelled in January 1944 after basic training, he became a rifleman in the infantry and was in combat in Europe. His first book "Private Wars"chronicles his three conflicts: with his virulently anti-Semitic squad leader, the Germans, and within himself. When he returned from the war in January 1946 he married his sweetheart who had been waiting since 1943. During the period 1946 - 1954 he earned the BSEE degree from Northeastern University and the MSEE degree from MIT, he fathered three sons. As a Staff Engineer at MIT, while working towards his degree he also worked on his first aerospace project, which was also his masters thesis. In1954 he moved his family to San Diego where he worked for Convair on the F102 Aircraft and the ATLAS ICBM in manufacturing and scientific research. When the ATLAS missile became successful he left Convair and during the next 30 years he worked for six other aerospace companies, each change of his own choice. He retired in 1989 in Oceanside, CA. In 1955 after arriving in San Diego he discovered that he could point his camera at subjects other than his children, and became a dedicated fine art photographer. Photography was a serious avocation during his entire engineering career. After his retirement, Gerald became very motivated to tell the story of his wartime experiences, especially about the anti-semitism in his company. Hence that was the first book he wrote. Despite his inability to keep his mouth shut in response to verbal abuse from his squad leader and the KKK members in his outfit, he managed to hold his own by building a reputation of being willing and able to fight. Ironically, he did not have a single physical fight during his entire time in the army. A screenplay has been written based on this award winning book. "Between Roxbury and a Hard Place - Growing Up During the Great Depression, 1932 to 1943" is the story of his childhood from the time he was 7 years old till he went into the army. At the age of seven, after a number of humiliations by a neighborhood bully, Gerry managed to beat him badly. From that episode, he learned the importance of a reputation in keeping the respect of peers.