Hello everyone! My name is William Spradling and I am currently a sergeant in the U.S. Army National Guard. My job in the army is fire direction control, or FDC for short. FDC members calculate the launch conditions that must be met for an artillery shell to hit a target accurately for various artillery pieces such as the M109A6 (Paladin), M777, and M119.
M109A6 (Paladin) M777 and ammunition
I joined the Army in 2010 and spent four years of active duty service with two of my years in Schweinfurt, Germany; a year in Paktika Provence, Afghanistan; and a year in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The lessons I learned during my active duty service are invaluable and I can truly say that it was the greatest learning experience I have had so far in my life.
(Personal Photo from 2011) A picture of me (left) and some of my platoon
conducting a counter fire mission in Afghanistan
After I finished my four years of active duty, I decided that it was time to go back to school and finish a degree using the benefits of the Post 9/11 GI Bill that I had earned. I came to the decision to go to the University of Oklahoma to pursue a degree in Chemical Engineering. I was immediately drawn to the wide range of topics and problems that a chemical engineer would be exposed to and now as a senior in the program, I have concluded it was without a doubt the best choice of major I could have picked for my personality. My short term goal is to finish my degree and get a job somewhere in the chemical field, preferably in polymers. My long term goals include moving to Colorado and becoming a lead engineer at a chemical company. My biggest dream would be able to move back to Germany and work for BASF.
I am about to be married to my beautiful fiancé, Makale, in March of this year.
(Personal Photo from 2016) Makale and I in Vail, Colorado.
Makale and I have been living together for about two years and we just recently moved to Moore.
We also have a crazy dog together by the name of Jax, who is half blue healer and half American bulldog, and he thinks he is a small lap-dog even though he is 80 pounds.
(Personal Photo from 2015) Jax with his most prized possession.
I hope you have enjoyed this small introduction to my life!
Hi Will! Nice to "meet" you! Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. You guys are a beautiful couple. I hope wedding planning hasn't been too difficult for you two. Once upon a time, I was a computer engineering major, but that changed very quickly. It's neat that you are still passionate about chemical engineering even as a senior.
ReplyDeleteAlso, your dog is incredibly precious.
Wow! Thank you so much for your service. I am really glad that you chose to share about this part of your life. I can only imagine how much you learned during your active duty about yourself and the world. That is great that you are so confident in your choice of major; a lot of people don’t find that security. As I’m sure you are aware, Israel requires a year of service from all of their youth upon completion of high school. This actually allows time for them to mature and decide what they want to do with their life rather than going into university unknowing ~ maybe this is why you had an easy time finding a major that you love! By the way, your fiancé’s name, Makale, is so beautiful!
ReplyDeleteI am glad to finally get to your Introduction, Will — from your places post, I knew you had a life story to tell: wow! The combination of your own life experiences and what you are learning in chemical engineering at OU sounds like it will lead to a VERY exciting career ahead of you... you plural! Congratulations on your marriage plans, and March will be here so soon. What a great year this will be for you both! Wonderful!!!
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of petroleum engineering majors in the class this semester, but you are the only chemical engineering major I think. Anyway, the spirit of engineering is going to be working through Indian Epics this semester, which I think is just great. Have I already shared a link with you to the Wikipedia article about Visvakarma, the All-Maker, and Indian god of engineers? Here he is! Vishvakarman
Hello Will,
ReplyDeleteIt is incredibly brave to be a member of the armed forces so thank you so much for your service! Also, congratulations on your upcoming wedding and your bride to be is beautiful. I think if I could go back in time to my freshman year I would have considered an engineering major. It is nice to see that you are still very passionate about it now. Hope to read more stuff from you this semester.
Hello William. Firstly, congratulations on your engagement. I hope that you and your wife have a happy life together. It seems as though you have gathered a lot of valuable life experience through travelling the world. It is not the same but I have done some travelling in Latin America myself for school. I am not American but I can definitely respect and appreciate people who do make the decision to serve.
ReplyDeleteHey William,
ReplyDeleteIt is great to hear that you have served in an army and had a great experience. I wish you all the best for your degree in Chemical Engineering and hope your accomplish your goals after graduation. Congratulations for the big day that is ahead of you. I really liked the way you have presented yourself here in the blog. Good luck.
Will, it's nice to meet you and read a little bit about your life! Thank you for serving our country. I can only imagine the life lessons your learned while in active duty. Good luck with your chemical engineering courses! Also congratulations on your engagement!
ReplyDeleteFirst off thank you for your service. Without people like you we would not even have the freedom to go to school and post things like this. :-P
ReplyDeleteSecond congratulations on the marriage. I would be careful about living in Moore though. It is heavily destroyed by tornado all the time. It’s like it's cursed or something.
Lastly what a beautiful puppy. I’m both a cat and dog person. We are rare.
Hi William! Thank you for your service. I have a great respect for anyone in the forces. Chemical engineering sounds like an extremely difficult major but I guess there is someone for everything. Also, congratulations on your upcoming wedding. That must be very exciting. Your dog looks adorable. I always thing it is funny when dogs act smaller than they are.
ReplyDeleteNice meeting you
-Sara
William,
ReplyDeleteI have never been a fan of chemistry (mostly because I have trouble understanding it), but I'm glad you seem to enjoy pursuing it as your major. Also, congratulations on the engagement and marriage. I hope that you succeed in your goals of working in Germany, I loved Germany when I visited. My ultimate career goal is to work offshore in the North Sea, a very similar aspiration to yours, but for Petroleum Engineers.
Andrew
Hi William,
ReplyDeleteI wish you the best of luck with chemical engineering. It sounds insanely hard. Congratulations on you engagement and future marriage. That seems extremely exciting. Ahh Germany sounds amazing. The cities there are so beautiful. I hope to visit one day and study how they are so environmentally sustainable. Good luck on your goals and it was nice meeting you!
Hi Will! I have really high respect for those who have served in the military. Thank you for your service. Congrats on the upcoming wedding, I hope it is a lot fun! Chemical engineering is an awesome degree; I am majoring in petroleum engineering. I love Colorado so much; I too would like to move there some day. I hope you get to move back to Germany to work for BASF.
ReplyDeleteHey Will!
ReplyDeleteNice to meet you! Thank you for your service to this country! I think your goal to become a lead engineer is a wonderful one and I think colorado is such a beautiful place to raise a family. I too, have a yearning to live oversees as I was born in England and I try to go back there whenever possible! Congratulations on both your upcoming graduation and wedding! Such an exciting year you ha ve planned, best of luck in your future endeavors!
Hello, Will!
ReplyDeleteI would like to start by saying thank you so much for your service!! I have the upmost respect for anyone who donates their time and energy to defending those of us back home! My family and I appreciate you more than I can say. My dad also spent some time in Germany when he was in the army (he was an MP), and he too found it to be a really worthwhile experience.
My parents were born and raised in Colorado, and I lived there for a few months my freshman year of college. It truly is gorgeous—you really can’t go wrong in choosing a home there. I’m sure you and your fiancé (who is beautiful—nicely done!) would love it!
It was so nice getting to know you, and I hope your wedding goes really well!
Nice to meet you!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I would like to say thank you for your service to your country. You seem to have a very exciting year so far! With it being your last year, and you are getting married (next month!), I don't know how you manage an engineering degree and a fun-filled life. Congratulations on everything, I wish you the best!
Hi William! First, congrats to you and the Mrs! Wedding date is coming soon! Second, thank you for 4 years of your gracious service. It's awesome that you were able to find inspiration in those years and then go for a degree with them! You yourself are an inspiration to us all. Great work ethic, beautiful family and driven determination! Can't wait to find more about you!
ReplyDeleteHi william, I truly enjoyed reading your introduction. Congratulations on your wedding, thats awesome! Sounds like your life is falling into place. Thats also great that you have made it this far in chemical engineering, that is not an easy major. Also, thank you for the time you have spent as a member of the US Army; our country is lucky to have guys like you. Keep it up man.
ReplyDeleteHey, William. Thanks for sharing a little info about yourself. I too am a veteran. I was Marine Infantry. I carried the radio for my platoon, so I spent a little time talking to artillery. Thanks for doing what you did. Artillery is a blessing. Gotta love something that can smoke somebody (or many bodies) from a few miles away. Depending on how close you are to graduating, I would highly suggest switching your GI Bill for Vocational Rehabilitation. Its like the GI Bill without all of the rules. For example, I get all the perks of the GI Bill, but VocRehab would also pay for my masters or any additional certifications that I need (there is no time limit on it). They also pay for my parking permit, buy me a laptop, all that jazz. If you're interested in the program, you can apply for it through Vonapp. Feel free to hit me up for more info.
ReplyDeleteBest of luck to you and all that your future holds.
William,
ReplyDeleteNice to meet you! Congrats on you and your fiance getting married soon (or already married). I thought about doing Chemical Engineering also but changed at the last second. Also, thank you for your four years of service.
Good luck on when you get out of school and in pursuing your career ambitions.
Hi Will,
ReplyDeleteYou have had quite the busy exciting life these past few years. I'm glad you were able to travel and gain some valuable knowledge will deployed. Of course I have to agree that coming to OU was the right choice lol. Being a petroleum engineering sounds like it ties in nicely with the knowledge you already have thanks to being in the military. Congratulations to you and your beautiful fiancé. Good luck with the rest of the semester! You're in the home stretch!
First of all, congratulations! I hope your wedding was amazing! I'm always shocked to find how many engineers are in this online course. Working in fire direction control seems like it would be pretty stressful. But I'm sure you love getting to work with guns and other artillery for a living. And it seems it has its travelling perks as well!
ReplyDeleteDude, I think we've definitely been in classes together. Pchem last semester with Yip, right?
ReplyDeleteI had no idea about your service. That sounds like such a life changing experience, I'm super impressed.
I would also like to move to colorado, though you seem to have you career path much more planned out than I currently do.