Thank you Rich, gerald_clark, and Misalf
Lesson Learned... always check everything. Looking at the exittc in /usr/bin reveals it was not the one I was supposed to be altering as Misalf politely point out.
I was already looking for another method to accomplish what I needed to do. I gave up before going back and checking the basics before then asking the "right" question about exittc.
The Reboot/Backup function now works as I had hoped and everything gets preserved properly.
Since I cannot get back to alter the very first post, if a moderator could kindly mark this solved I would be very appreciative.
Thank you all,
BKM