My family immigrated to the US from Germany at the end of World War II. Needless to say, it was not an easy transition. We were the enemy and we didn’t speak the language. My father, a rocket scientist, was considered a prized acquisition by the government—he was to prove his value during the evolution of NASA.

Our first home was a Quonset hut at Fort Bliss, in El Paso, Texas. I learned English quickly as a six-year-old in kindergarten on the base. In the beginning, recess was the scary part of school. Every time a plane flew overhead while we were on the playground, I automatically dropped to the ground in a duck-and-cover position—a reflexive response to warplanes in the sky over Germany. After El Paso we moved to Huntsville, Alabama, and then to San Diego, California—always following my father’s aerospace career.

Fast forward to my later years of education. I graduated from the University of Southern California with a double major in Philosophy and Religion. This was followed by post-graduate work at UCSD in La Jolla, California, and Regents College at the University of British Columbia.

Unlike many German families that came over after the war, we continued to keep our language and German traditions alive at home. This resulted in considerable soul-searching as I matured and began to understand the implications and consequences of that appalling war. Additional information can be found in The Guilden Pen: Traversing Life: Twelfth Edition .