 Because money was tight, D.W. had a rough childhood but said that good family values were an important thing that his mother focused on.
When asked about how his step-father and he got along, D.W. gave a long, stern look that said everything, and asked, “Does that answer your question?”  His brother and he had a long-standing “Civil War”, as D.W. put it, which equated to a non-stop sibling rivalry.  D.W. told me a story about how he always did so well in school, and his brother, being a few years younger, attempted to copy one of his papers from a few years ago as the younger brother was assigned the same assignment by the brother’s teacher.  Unfortunately for the brother, D.W.’s assignment had been kept as an example that she handed out to the class on what a good essay looked like, and his brother got caught.
D.W. expressed that when he turned 18 he really wanted to get out of his hometown and do something with his life, so shortly after his birthday he joined the United States Air Force.  Within in a very short while, D.W. was fighting the Vietnam War to protect the freedoms of his country.  In Vietnam, he worked as a sniper.  He said that he really enjoyed the work, and that it was an exhilarating experience. However, he came down with a terrible case of pneumonia at one point, because he had to sleep outside underneath only a tarp to shield him from the harsh environmental conditions of the hostile land.  After getting pneumonia, he decided it would be better if he would live in town.  He rented a room for $15.00 a week with a mama-san, which contained a warm bed and “a girl to keep it warmer”, as D.W. stated.
He fought in Vietnam for 3 years, reenlisting 3 times, until one day he had in his sights General Giap and another high ranking Vietnamese official, and was told that if he took the shot he would spend the rest of his days in military prison.  He decided that if that was how the war was going to be fought, that brave men would continue to die though there could be a quicker ending to the war, that he would have no part in this travesty.  When his time came to reenlist, D.W. declined and came home to America.  
In what he described as one of his most favorite and memorable experiences, he stashed approximately sixty guns and a huge assortment of ammunition and other war accessories in several trunks of his possession with false bottoms to conceal his smuggled goods.  Once D.W. got back to the states he sold the guns and weaponry.  With the money he earned from the sales D.W. bought himself a brand new Indian Motorcycle and a brand new Harley Davidson Motorcycle. 