Lyle Fallang

Born in Big Timber, Montana June 22nd, 1937. Ancestors were mostly 2nd Generation Norwegians all lured by the Northern Pacific Railroad with a promise of cheap or free land. It was said that these early Norwegian set tlers could raise a band of sheep on a flat rock, these were the settlers who spelled the end of cattle barons…

I spent my early years on ranches in the river valleys and stalking the wild game that abounded. As a child of the Great Depression we simply learned to do without material things. Warm shoes and coats had simply not been invented yet. Snow shovels were plentiful.

I attended some little oneroom country grade schools and graduated from high school in 1955. With no land to inherit and nobody hiring, I decided to join the U. S. Air Force. I was trained to maintain electronic radio equipment and later television sys tems and did my thing for the next 27 years. I had a variety of stateside and foreign assignments, some accompanied by family and some without. I was married the day after I turned 21 in Ohio and saw that good woman to her grave 53 years later. We have adjoining plots and a common stone in a local cemetery.

We had two sons to carry on the family military tradition. The older saw service in the Navy during the first Gulf War and the younger is a retired Army Major. We also have a grandson and a granddaughter living in Colorado . Thusen deth the tale…….