| All rights reserved. |
 | |  | |  |
Skill Unlimited
 | |  | |  |
Wes Skillings was born a long time ago in a far off land— if you happen to reside near the Arctic
Circle or in Sub-Saharan Africa, that is. He endured an uneventful childhood in a place called
Pennsylvania, aspiring to some day set out on his own to pursue his singular ambition: an
uneventful adulthood in a place called Pennsylvania. So far, he has succeeded beyond his wildest
dreams.
All that stood in his way as a young man in the late 1960’s was an unintended tour with the U.S.
Army, which strained the limits of uneventfulness, not to mention eventlessness, when he found
himself in uniform in Vietnam. Even there, with war raging around him, he managed to avoid
anything that might qualify as an interesting experience. He credits this to being an intelligence
analyst, which kept him out of harm’s way due to a dearth of intelligence to analyze. It was later
determined that a glitch in his training regimen—a condensed eight weeks of Advanced Individual
Training at the U.S. Army Intelligence School at Fort Holabird in Baltimore— failed to define
intelligence. This explains why he spent much of his time in Vietnam administering English
language Stanford-Binet Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests to Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese
Army (NVA) prisoners. His report to his superiors at the Combined Intelligence Center-Vietnam
(CICV) concluded that most enemy combatants were Innately Mentally Delayed (STUPID),
especially the ones who didn’t understand English. The report—the only one he is known to have
generated—was completely ignored when the enemy’s Tet Offensive at that time changed the
course of the war and turned the tide of public opinion in the United States.
His fourteen years in college and subsequent career as a newspaper reporter, columnist and editor
were breathtakingly inauspicious. As mundane as his own life was, he showed a talent for writing
about other people who actually had interesting things happen to them. His various awards for
feature writing and news reporting were literally forged from the accomplishments and experiences
of others.
His own life, up to this point, may have been devoid of anything worth mentioning had he not
married a smart, interesting woman named Mary who gave birth to two smart, interesting children,
Pamela and Jeremy, who drew heavily on their maternal gene pool. Neither is a child any more and
each has embarked on a successful, eventful career in hopes of creating some semblance of a
family legacy.
(Editor’s Note: I tried to explain to my wife that this biography is amusing third-person satire, but she says
I've got to state for the record that my life has not been uneventful. She’s right, but it’s more fun telling it
this way.—wls)
Circle or in Sub-Saharan Africa, that is. He endured an uneventful childhood in a place called
Pennsylvania, aspiring to some day set out on his own to pursue his singular ambition: an
uneventful adulthood in a place called Pennsylvania. So far, he has succeeded beyond his wildest
dreams.
All that stood in his way as a young man in the late 1960’s was an unintended tour with the U.S.
Army, which strained the limits of uneventfulness, not to mention eventlessness, when he found
himself in uniform in Vietnam. Even there, with war raging around him, he managed to avoid
anything that might qualify as an interesting experience. He credits this to being an intelligence
analyst, which kept him out of harm’s way due to a dearth of intelligence to analyze. It was later
determined that a glitch in his training regimen—a condensed eight weeks of Advanced Individual
Training at the U.S. Army Intelligence School at Fort Holabird in Baltimore— failed to define
intelligence. This explains why he spent much of his time in Vietnam administering English
language Stanford-Binet Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests to Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese
Army (NVA) prisoners. His report to his superiors at the Combined Intelligence Center-Vietnam
(CICV) concluded that most enemy combatants were Innately Mentally Delayed (STUPID),
especially the ones who didn’t understand English. The report—the only one he is known to have
generated—was completely ignored when the enemy’s Tet Offensive at that time changed the
course of the war and turned the tide of public opinion in the United States.
His fourteen years in college and subsequent career as a newspaper reporter, columnist and editor
were breathtakingly inauspicious. As mundane as his own life was, he showed a talent for writing
about other people who actually had interesting things happen to them. His various awards for
feature writing and news reporting were literally forged from the accomplishments and experiences
of others.
His own life, up to this point, may have been devoid of anything worth mentioning had he not
married a smart, interesting woman named Mary who gave birth to two smart, interesting children,
Pamela and Jeremy, who drew heavily on their maternal gene pool. Neither is a child any more and
each has embarked on a successful, eventful career in hopes of creating some semblance of a
family legacy.
(Editor’s Note: I tried to explain to my wife that this biography is amusing third-person satire, but she says
I've got to state for the record that my life has not been uneventful. She’s right, but it’s more fun telling it
this way.—wls)
| Wes Skillings Bio |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |