William Jose Current-Garcia

William Jose Current-Garcia, age 79, passed peacefully away after a long and well lived life. Bill enjoyed learning different languages, traveling, dancing, Auburn sports, day trading, and his comfortable retirement.

Bill is predeceased by Alva and Eugene Current-Garcia and survived by his loving wife Vien Hoang Vanderhoof; his two stepsons John and Edward and their spouses, Setha and Bao; his 5 loving grandchildren, Kathryn, John, Edward III, Sydney, and Tyler; and survived by his two sisters Adele and Alison and her spouse Ray. The funeral will take place Saturday, November 12 at 11:00AM at the DeVol Funeral Home 10 East Deer Park Dr., Gaithersburg, MD. Bill’s final resting place will be in Washington DC, at a spot that was meaningful to the family. Please join us in remembering the life of Bill on Saturday November 12th.

William Jose Current Garcia was born on March 24, 1943, in Boston, Massachusetts to Alva and Eugene Current-Garcia. He grew up on a quiet street in a small college town in Alabama, Auburn, where both his parents were professors at Auburn University. Bill was very active in sports, with lots of outdoor play with neighborhood friends--adventures in the woods nearby, pick-up football games, kickball, basketball, bicycle riding, hide and seek. Bill enjoyed it all.

Bill’s early school years were interrupted by several moves. He started school in Auburn, AL, but moved to Princeton, NJ (1954) for one year. He then returned to Auburn, AL to resume school there until 1956, when the family moved to Salonica, Greece, for two years. Eugene was on sabbatical from Auburn University, where he was a professor in the English Department and had been awarded a fellowship to teach in Greece.

While overseas, Bill was fairly isolated, probably more than was good for him. In Salonica he attended the 8th grade at a small American farm school, where he was one of only two students in his grade. The following year, he was enrolled in a correspondence course and studied alone at home. Making friends with kids in the neighborhood included learning a few words of Greek.

In 1958, the family returned to Auburn, where Bill reconnected with friends and finished high school in1961. He went on to college at Auburn University, living at home, and graduated with a BS in economics in 1965. In college he joined the Delta Upsilon (DU) fraternity and was an active member.

Bill loved sports of all kinds, but especially Auburn football and basketball. If he had been taller, he probably would have tried out for the basketball team. Undaunted, he became the team's manager and relished the job.

Bill even turned down an interview with representatives from the Rhodes Scholarship, because he was the manager of Auburn’s basketball team, and he didn’t want to miss the game. After graduation (and a summer fighting forest fires in Montana), he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Strasbourg, France, and after thoroughly enjoying his year there, he went to Beirut, Lebanon, to study at American University, and he earned another degree. When the civil war broke out there, he literally headed for the hills in Lebanon - he wanted to stay, but was finally persuaded by his Lebanese friends to leave the country. He went to the University of Cairo in Egypt to get yet another degree in Arab studies. He finally came back to the US, enrolled at Harvard to get an MBA, but he left after a semester because the professors he signed up for did not actually teach their classes, but instead used teaching assistants.

Bill made his way back home to Auburn, enrolled in the business school there, and earned his MBA. He was hired by Cameron Oil in Houston TX and worked there for a year, until he ran into corporate politics. He left Cameron and joined the army as a Private. While in the Army, Bill’s command of several languages was noticed by his commanding officers. Bill joined the Army’s Language School in California, where Bill became more proficient in both German and Russian. He was sent to Germany and served in the Judge Adjutant’s command until he left the Army with the rank of Captain. He came back to the US, and began work at NSA.

Bill met the love of his life Vien Vanderhoof while at the NSA and shortly afterward got married. They thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company for the next 38 years.

Bill worked at the NSA until his retirement in 2004. Bill had become proficient in Yoruba, an African language, as well as Thai.Bill never stopped loving Auburn sports and was a die-hard fan. He kept meticulous statistics on all of the players and watched many of them in professional sports.

Bill’s retirement was thoroughly enjoyed with Vien. The couple loved to travel and visited China, South Africa, South America, Latin America to name a few places.

Bill became the father figure to Vien’s two boys, teaching them how to ski proficiently, and to master their academic instruction. Bill was very supportive when they both got married and enjoyed watching his 5 grandchildren grow. He was deeply loved, will be deeply missed, and will forever be in our hearts.