In January of 1995 Edition V of the 82nd Airborne's Airborne Standing Operating Procedures was published. For all intents, I wrote that book. It started as manilla folders at the old school at Green Ramp. As I was promoted in the organization to deputy committee chief, Dan Bennett also gave me the project as my baby. I gathered up all those folders and began typing and scanning. In the folders was the old ASOP broken up into the chapters and sections. All of us hats had sections that we edited and updated. I was the central collection point.
I used PC Word as the word processor and a dot matrix printer to print out and edit. For a time, it was on 5 1/4 inch disks but soon changed to 3 1/2 floppies. It was also the first Army manual that I know of in color. We wanted some of the colors of the Stiner aids and such to be in color. So, the first run was in color.
I will never forget the elation of delivery day from the publisher, Edition V of the ASOP.
I spent many an hour reading typing scanning and editing. When it was published, I got all the hats to sign the first copy. I have that copy still. Hafner, Hankins, Bufkin, Shirley, Bennett, Roberts, Bates, and Garcia are just some of the names on the inside of the front cover.
I wrote the book!