A Georgia Native and Financial Whiz
by Melissa LaScaleia
Larry Bragg was born in Savannah, Georgia and attended college at Armstrong University, in Georgia.
After college, he joined the U.S. Air Force and completed basic training at Lakeland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
Upon graduation, the new recruits were asked to make a list of the three Air Force bases they would most like to be stationed at for the duration of their term of service; it could be anywhere in the world. Larry selected the Myrtle Beach AFB among his top choices.
He was to serve in the military as a Morse Code Intercept Operator, and completed extensive security clearances and background checks as well as additional training to do so.
At the end, he prepared to ship out to Southeast Asia for his term of duty, as a staff sergeant. But his destiny was not to carry him in that direction.
At the time, the Air Force was undergoing a massive undertaking to transfer all of its financial information of payroll and disbursements for everyone in the Air Force to one unified location— the Air Force Accounting and Finance Center.
This was a large-scale and time consuming project, and the Air Force needed to recruit servicemen to assist in getting it completed.
Larry was selected to complete the computer training needed to assist in the transfer, and was sent to Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas for two months in preparation. After completing the training, he was assigned to Myrtle Beach Air Force Base to work on the financial conversion.
Many years later, Larry was grateful that he was assigned one of his top choices for placement in the military.
After an honorable discharge from the military, he made Myrtle Beach his home and reflected:
“If the Myrtle Beach Air Force Base system had been converted years earlier, or if there had not been the “Dream Sheets,” asking where I’d like to go, I would have spent my career in windowless rooms somewhere in Southeast Asia intercepting and decoding messages.”
