Al Guillen has dedicated his life to helping others. He has been helping others through countless different occupations and extra activities throughout his lifetime.
On a snowy February of 1967, Guillen was drafted into the U.S. Army. This was unexpected because he was attending college at Indiana University Northwest so he thought he would be exempt from the draft because he was a student. A few weeks later he was on a bus to go to Fort Campbell, Kentucky for basic training.
After the physical medical examinations, it was time for what Guillen called the infamous haircut. He explained he had long hair similar to that of The Beatles, and when he left the barber’s chair, he was bald.
Guillen spent eight weeks in Kentucky for basic training and then spent another eight weeks on the East Coast training to be a military police officer. After training, he was assigned to his permanent unit in Fort Polk, Louisiana where he was assigned to be a confinement officer. Throughout that time, he also spent some time working with the civilian population.
After that assignment, he was assigned to the French Quarter in New Orleans and spent the rest of his time there. Guillen explained the threat of Vietnam was always present, but due to his initial assignment as military police, he was lucky because he was able to serve on U.S. soil.
Guillen served in the U.S. Army for two years to the day. He chose not to reenlist but continued to help people throughout the remainder of his life. When he got out of the military, he fell in love and got married, and had a baby girl before attending St. Joseph’s College to finish his degree in business administration in 1973.
After his time serving the country, he worked in banking, training, human resources management, and insurance marketing. He was able to form connections and help many people because he is bilingual and can relate to the lifestyles of fellow Hispanic people.
“The remainder of my life and career, I was marketing insurance to take care to satisfy all the people's need for protection,” Guillen said. “It may have been home insurance, auto insurance, business, and so many other things.”
Apart from work, Guillen spent his time officiating sports games. He was able to officiate basketball and softball games in his free time and recently retired from that after 40 years.
“One of the reasons I did that was because I enjoyed it, but I discovered later on that it was a good outlet to release all the stress I would acquire during the day talking to and helping other people,” Guillen said. “It was like when you take an aspirin to release pressure in your head.”
Guillen spent his life serving the country as well as helping people in every aspect of life he could. If it was through insurance or sports, he was spreading positivity and helping people wherever he went.
“It makes me feel good because I enjoy people,” he said. “I want to help them in any way that I can. In all my activities and my life, I was able to do that.”