Back in the earlier days of the Pennsylvania State Police, Bill Molczan was fresh from three years of duty with the Marines in World War II.

“In my time, the state police was an enlisted outfit, like the Army,” recalled the Pittsburgh native. “You enlisted for a period of two years. At the end of the two years you were discharged, or you could enlist again.”

It took him a couple of years to get in, he said. “In the late ’40s, there were only 1,200 state policemen in the whole state,” he noted. Now there are more than 4,600.

“No one got in unless someone left,” he said.

He trained for six months in Hershey in a facility that is no longer used. “When I came here to Butler (in 1950), the barracks that you see now were just completed,” he recalled. “The upstairs were sleeping quarters, and you ate your meals there.”

A typical day in 1950 began with a 7 a.m. roll call in front of the building, Molczan said. Then the men would run out to Route 356 and back for exercise.

Molczan recalled running in full uniform, including leather leggings and breaches.

“After that, everyone ate breakfast together, unless you had to go out to an accident or a call,” he said. From there, the troopers went to their assignments.

“Most of the fellows got along real good, and you had to depend on each other,” he said.

Molczan remembers having only 80 men for Butler and its substations in Beaver, Lawrence and Mercer counties and Kittanning.

“It was a six-day work week with only one day off and two nights off a week,” he recalled. “The rest of the time you were there or on call.”

He remembers twice-a-month paychecks. “The first year I made $1,700,” he said. “It was good for a single man or if you were married, but once the children started coming, there never seemed to be enough money.

“In the early days after the war, the state police lost a lot of good men because they served one or two enlistments and then they moved on to other jobs with better monetary return.”

Eventually Molczan met Mary Margaret Hilovsky and requested and was granted permission to marry. “If you wanted to get married, you had to get permission,” Molczan said. “You had to write a letter and we did that.”

His wife of 53 years has saved the letter. “There’s a line that says, ‘It is clearly understood that married life will in no way interfere with my duties as a member of the Pennsylvania State Police force,’ ” she pointed out. “I just have to think they wouldn’t do that today.”

Molczan and his wife had four children and she raised them full-time. “We ate a lot of bean soup and just stayed home,” he said of the financial challenges they faced.

Things did get better, he said. “We got a commissioner in there who finally got the work week down to five days, and the budget kept going up. Now they’re on par with anything else.”

Molczan recalled being on many strike details and responding to the 1951 prison riot in Pittsburgh. “That was big. Everyone responded to that,” he said.

“Anywhere where they didn’t have police, we responded. Even today, if there are serious crimes, they call the barracks.”

Molczan retired in 1985 after 36 years of service with the state police. He is 80 years old.

“All the equipment has improved over the years, the vehicles, the radios, computers. It’s really upgraded police work, sped it up,” he said.

“Unfortunately, there’s always been crime. No one’s ever solved that.”