He was evacuated to the base camp, then went to Saigon, then Japan, and from there, to Fort Jackson.

“I finished out my service as a training officer with an advanced infantry unit in Fort Jackson,” he said.

He later served in the National Guard for seven years, serving in Hampton for a while as a liaison officer for an infantry support battalion.

“Then I went to Orangeburg as the company commander for almost a year, then I left there and went back to Hampton,” he said. “Then I got out of the National Guard because it was beginning to take so much time away from the career I had teaching at Edisto High School.”

A Columbia native, he first came to Orangeburg to work for the U.S. Plywood Corporation when he got out of the Army.

“Wasn’t particularly crazy about working at a plant. So I married a lady from Orangeburg,” he said.

He quit the plant and began teaching school at Edisto High, where he worked for 35 years. He taught U.S. history, economics and government.

Now retired, Abell said, “I never made a lot of money, but I enjoyed every day of it. I still do it, I still substitute.”