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Transcript of Oral History Interview with Sgt. Matthew Bulla.
October 6, 2012.
Boone, NC to Charlotte NC
Brian Abdo: My name is Brian Abdo. I’m here with Matt Bulla for a interview on August... I mean
October 6, 2012. This interview is taking place over phone. He is in Charlotte, North Carolina and I’m in
Boone, North Carolina. This is for Dr. Browning’s class on American Military History. Right now he is a
drill sergeant in the United States Army. Alright...Question 1...Sgt. Bulla, When were you…Where were
you born and raised?
Sgt. Bulla: I was born and raised in Wilmington, NC.
Brian Abdo: Alright...This is a question we have to ask. When were you born?
Sgt. Bulla: November 4, 1986.
Brian Abdo: Alright…
Sgt. Bulla: Oh, one question real quick. You’re on the army; I’m not in the army.
Brian Abdo: Ok… which branch are you in, Navy?
Sgt. Bulla: Marine Corps.
Brian Abdo: Marine Corps. Alright. When and why did you choose to join the military?
Sgt. Bulla: I joined in March, 2006 and I didn’t want to be one of the people that complained about our
military and wanted to say at least I did my piece.
Brian Abdo: Do you have a family history of military service that inspired you, or were you the first one
to join?
Sgt. Bulla: My dad is in the army. He is a United States Paratrooper. And then my granddad was in the
Korean War and it was always something I wanted to do and carry it on.
Brian Abdo: Did they inspire you or is it just your own decision to go in?
Sgt. Bulla: It was my own decision to go in.
Brian Abdo: Alright..Do you recall your first days in service?
Sgt. Bulla: Do I recall them?
Brian Abdo: Excuse me?
Sgt. Bulla: What was that?
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�Brian Abdo: Do you recall your like first days in service?
Sgt. Bulla: Oh, yes.
Brian Abdo: What did they feel like?
Sgt. Bulla: It was the worst experience in my life.
Brian Abdo: How about boot camp. How hard was boot camp for you?
Sgt. Bulla: It was basically a life changing event cause you go from being basically a civilian in doing your
own thing all the time to being told how to eat, how to sleep, how to take a shower, how to do
everything their way. A total just life changing experience.
Brian Abdo: Talk about your instructors. Like were there some that you liked a lot, or did you just hate
them all?
Sgt. Bulla: In the Marine Corps, I hated them all. I absolutely despised them. They were just hard, tough
and basically they were just constantly demanding on you no matter what it was. They were just all up in
your face, all the time, for three months straight.
Brian Abdo: Which wars did you serve in or tours have you done so far in your experiences?
Sgt. Bulla: What awards?
Brian Abdo: Yeah…I mean wars. Like…like which experiences have you done so far. Which like… which
tours?
Sgt. Bulla: Tours in 2007 to Iraq. On a Response Team. All we did was we blew up bombs. People
wouldn’t run over bombs. We blew them up. We’d rescue them. We rescued teams going down. We did
a lot of clearing houses and clearing villages and Fallujah, Khalis, Ramadi all different places in Iraq and I
returned from that deployment in April 2008. I deployed again in April 2009 back to Iraq. For the
retrograde of Iraq were we moved to Afghanistan so we moved to more war. That’s where it was that I
received the Navy Marine Corps Achievement Medal. As a corporeal, for moving over four million dollars
of equipment I got a Good Conduct Medal, three Unit Commendations, one Presidential Unit
Commendation, and then a National Defense Medal, a Global War on Terrorism Medal, Tala-Action
making, and that’s pretty much it.
Brian Abdo: That’s a lot of medals.
Sgt. Bulla: All my…All the medals that I...Navy Marine Corps Achievement Medal my highest award. One
of the highest Marine Corps awards you can receive. Good Conduct medal, Combat Action Ribbon,
National Defense Medal, Global War on Terrorism Medal, and two...two Presidential Unit Citations,
two…four Letters of Appreciation, four Certificates of Accommodation, and that’s pretty much all my
medals.
Brian Abdo: Which Base Camps did you stay at in Iraq?
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�Sgt. Bulla: Base Camp in Iraq. My first time was Camp Al-Tacadumn which is about four miles outside of
Fallujah and then we moved to Camp Ramadi which is about twenty miles outside Fallujah. And then my
second deployment was at…outside this huge base and I was tossed out to another base which was
Khalis and then out to..hold on..ommit that…
Brian Abdo: …
Sgt. Bulla: There was another one...yeah Khalis was the big one.
Brian Abdo: Alright..Did you interact with civilians there at all?
Sgt. Bulla: Did I interact with who?
Brian Abdo: The civilians over in Iraq.
Sgt. Bulla: Civilians…Yes my first employment I did.
Brian Abdo: How was that?
Sgt. Bulla: People over there, you got to understand it’s a totally different lifestyle. Like everything we
have here is not. They’re about two or three like thousand years behind us. They have no…like their
running water is like America’s first stage. It’s all pulled out of a river. Like basically little use where farm
beds come out. They have no outer toiles and like plumbing like that is completely different. And the
people over there, like they…they don’t understand. Like our basic things that we do every day driving
cars is not custom over there. They walk everywhere, they don’t have tractors, they…everything they
have is imported from us or from other countries. And it’s just the people over there; there is a huge
respect for the..the men in that culture. Over there, women are just there basically to produce babies
and men are just there to help one another pretty much. And it’s just the lifestyle over there is
completely...it’s like really hard to explain...it’s…it’s totally different. I guess you could say.
Brian Abdo: Yeah, I understand that. Did you see any changes in the attitude towards the American
Military after you got over there?
Sgt. Bulla: Did I see them?
Brian Abdo: Yes.
Sgt. Bulla: What you see on TV is not reality. Cause you here about all the bad stuff that happens but
they don’t tell a lot of the good that goes on over there. They…Like when we read the Iraq…When we
read all the cities that we basically blew up and tore apart. You don’t hear about that. Everybody’s all
about Oh the Marines did this or the Armies done this and so many people got killed but what they
don’t talk about how we rebuilt cities, how we rebuilt road, how we basically just won the hearts and
minds of the people over there. They want us there to keep them safe from the insurgents that were
over there.
Brian Abdo: Alright…Do you have a couple of memorable experiences over there?
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�Sgt. Bulla: Do I have a few memorable experiences?
Brian Abdo: Yeah, that you’d like to tell.
Sgt. Bulla: Nah. I lost two of my good buddies over there my first deployment due to just IED’s over
there. Craziest thing I can say about that is like everybody like complains about how they don’t want
American troops over there but America...The whole eye of America does not see what truly goes on
behind the scenes over there and to see what the Marines do, and the Army does and the Navy and how
we all rebuild everything. How you basically go from nothing all the way to a full city of people who
respect you and want you there. And it’s just...it’s amazing what..how...just a few people that join out of
the military go right out of high school to join the military what they’ve done for like the whole country
and it’s just remarkable to see.
Brian Abdo: After your tours in Iraq, what did you do for a while?
Sgt. Bulla: After two…After my 2009 deployment I got back from Iraq to Camp Legume and I went to
Marine Corps Base Hawaii. I was in Hawaii for three years and I’ve been out there as part of a [Combat
Resistor Battalion 3]. We...we did the whole entire Marine Corps matrix on how to inspect vehicles. I
was on a fire crew team that revamped that saved the military about twenty five thousand dollars a
year. And now I’m down at Marine Corps depot in Paris Island as a Drill Sargent.
Brian Abdo: Compared to your tours, how enjoyable was this job for you?
Sgt. Bulla: How...how...what was that?
Brian Abdo: How enjoyable was this job for you compared to your tours?
Sgt. Bulla: I would rather be overseas because when you here it’s basically just preventative stuff that
you do. Getting ready for war but when you go over there and put everything into action it’s a whole lot
better.
Brian Abdo: Alright…While over on your tours, did you feel a lot of stress dealing with your job?
Sgt. Bulla: On my first deployment, yeah because I was constantly outside the wire and in contact with
insurgents.
Brian Abdo: …
Sgt. Bulla: It’s completely stressfully just for the simple fact of you not knowing what’s actually going to
happen.
Brian Abdo: Were there things that you did to entertain yourselves to relieve your stress?
Sgt. Bulla: We played a lot of spades. We played a lot of card games. Spades is the number one. Basically
just doing a lot of weight lifting and staying physically fit over there. One of the big things is I kept my
mind off of it and all we did was pretty much work out and play spades and wait for letters.
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�Brian Abdo: How...how often did letters arrive? Like once a week or something like that?
Sgt. Bulla: Yeah, about once a week. Kind of get busy, you get about once every two weeks.
Brian Abdo: Alright…What do you think of your officers that were in your overall command?
Sgt. Bulla: First deployment, my commanding officer was a First Lieutenant and one of the most
amazing men I’ve ever met. Captain Hen...His name was Lieutenant Henderson and just an amazing
man. Never ever wouldn’t we leave without him. I mean he was there constantly anytime we had
anything pop off he was there and he wasn’t afraid to pick up a gun at all. He was there beside us every
time. My sec…my second deployment, I didn’t see a lot of my commanding officer because I was the
main one in charge on my second deployment. Retrograde in Iraq. So the second one I really couldn’t
tell you about. He was just there to just supervise.
Brian Abdo: Alright...Did your military experience you’re thinking about war or about military in
general?
Sgt. Bulla: It just inspired me to go back and keep making changes.
Brian Abdo: Alright…
Sgt. Bulla: I just want to constantly give back to the Marine Corps for what they have given me.
Brian Abdo: Alright...This is the last question I have. Is there anything you would like to add that we
haven’t covered in this interview?
Sgt. Bulla: Don’t believe everything you see in the news. The news is just…they just want to show
highlights and they don’t really tell the truth. And if a whole lot did a whole lot more research they’d
figure that out. And they just...What they see on CNN is not always the truth and that’s what a lot of
people believe about the Armed Forces what they see on TV and it’s not the case.
Brian Abdo: Alright…Thank you so much for this interview. I know it was a little bit out of your way to do
this.
Sgt. Bulla: No, it’s alright. You’re very welcome.
Brian Abdo: Alright, thank you.
5
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
File size
82.3 KB
12.3 MB
Format, digital
MP3
Military Branch
military branch (U.S. Army, etc)
U.S. Army
Officer Rank
Officer rank (major, private, etc)
Drill Seargant
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Abdo; Brian
Bulla; Matthew
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Abdo, Brian
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Bulla, Matthew
Interview Date
10/6/2012
Number of pages
5
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:13:32
Date digitized
2/5/2015
Checksum
alphanumeric code
39a4b270dd051f455918b6bb77f17c23
9e1d3f09cf046d0989c48d8f0d1f926d
Scanned by
Leah McManus
Equipment
Adobe Acrobat XI Pro
Resolution
300
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal; non-commercial; and educational use; provided that proper citation is used.
Source
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UA.5018. American Military History Course Records
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A/V rate (48,000kzh x 16 bit)
48000kzh x 16 bit
Format, original
Electronic File
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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5018_Bulla_Matthew_20121006_transcript_M
5018_Bulla_Matthew_20121006_audio_A
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Drill Sergeant Matthew Bulla [October 6, 2012]
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
Language
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English
English
Creator
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Abdo, Brian
Bulla, Matthew
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used.
Description
An account of the resource
Drill Sergeant Matthew Bulla, born in 1986, entered the Marine Corps and served on a response team in Iraq. He speaks a lot about the civilians he met in Iraq and how they seemed to be "two or three thousand years behind us." He explains that the war is not like how it was reported, and that the US military did a lot of good there winning the hearts of civilians and rebuilding cities.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Bulla, Matthew
Veterans
Iraq War, 2003-2011
Personal narratives, American
United States
Interviews
civilians
insurgents
Iraq
Marine Corps
Response Team
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Zachary Curtis
American Military History
Dr. Browning
10/17/201 1
MYSELF: I am here with Lieutenant Colonel David Cox, Professor of Military Science
for Appalachian State University. Good afternoon sir how are you?
COLONEL COX: I'm doing just fine thank you.
MYSELF: Would you state your name and rank for the record please sir.
COLONEL COX : David W. Cox. Lieutenant Colonel United States Army.
MYSELF: And what branch are you sir?
COLONEL COX: I'm Infantry.
MYSELF: Alright. How long have you been in the service for sir?
COLONEL COX : Right around 22 years.
MYSELF: And the date and place of this interview is October 3rd and is in the office of
Lieutenant Colonel. Sir what year did you get commissioned?
COLONEL COX : 1989.
MYSELF: And why did you choose to join the United States Army sir?
COLONEL COX : Well growing up I always wanted to be in the military: Originally I
wanted to go into the marines because a lot my cousins were in the marines. But I went
to co llege instead of enlisting right out of high school and found out they had an army
rote program up here so I guess that's why I ended up in the army instead of the
marines.
MYSELF : Hooah sir. Why did you pick the specific branch and service sir?
COLONEL COX : Well like I said when I came up to Appalachian all they had was an
army rote so that kind of narrowed my choices down to army. For the branch, just
watched a lot of movies and heard war stories as a kid I guess and just infantry was
what I always wanted to do and I was fortunate enough to get my first choice of branch.
MYSELF: Hooah sir. What do you recall from your first days in the service being like?
COLONEL COX : Well I guess my first real exposure to the service was leaders training
course at Fort Knox because I came into the rote program late. I took one class as a
sophomore and to become a junior I had to go to LTC and back then it was more like
basic training and all the drill sergeants and everything yelling and screaming at you
when you showed up. It was pretty intimidating but I knew millions of people before me
had done it and figured if they could do it so could I so yea that was pretty much it.
MYSELF : Did you go to LDAC like the rest of us sir?
COLONEL COX: Yes after LTC I came back and went to my junior year here at
Appalachian and then I went to what we use to call it advanced camp and it was down
at Fort Bragg, North Carolina but it was very similar to what you guys do now
MYSELF: And what was that like for you sir?
COLONEL COX : Well, it was kind of interesting being in all the different leadership
positions. Trying to be a good follower when you're not in a leadership position. Just it
really helped being in a strong program here because I had the confidence to get up in
front of my other peers and be in charge and do the th ings I needed to do. It was a
pretty challeng ing experience, not challenging physically perse but just being in a
leadership position and trying to make sure you did the right thing .
�MYSELF: Do you have any moments or images that stand out from advanced camp
sir?
COLONEL COX : I guess one of the most difficult th ings that happened to me at
advanced camp was the first week we were doing rifle marksmanship and I jumped
down into the fighting position and rolled my ankle on a sand bag and it ballooned up
and they were going to send me home and I told them no I wasn 't going to go home so I
just had to do the road march and everything else with my ankle black and blue about
the size of a cantaloupe but after a couple days it got back to normal. that's one of my
biggest challenges was the fear of having to go home.
MYSELF: Hooah sir. Did you find that that kind of prepared you for infantry life? The
pushing through pain, pushing through or just in general did you find that that helped
you sir?
COLONEL COX: It did help me. There is a point where you have to push through
discomfort and physical pain to some extent but its very important to know the
difference between an injury and just being in discomfort I guess I should say. They said
I couldn 't injure that ankle anymore by walking on It so it was already as sprained as it
was going to be so I just kept going and that was about it on that topic.
MYSELF: Yes sir. What was your BOLC like? Wh ich is Basic Officer Leadership
Course.
COLONEL COX : Yes and then it was just called Infantry Officer Basic Course or
depending on wh ich branch you chose. You showed up you were treated like an officer
which was a new experience. You were as far as the NCOs and everyone was saluting
you and calling you sir, but it was a little bit similar to camp i guess you could say. One
day you were in a leadership position the next day you were a follower but they really
expected you to learn there was a lot of classroom stuff and then practical application of
what you learned in the classroom and it came at you pretty fast and furtous and you
had to study at night if you wanted to do well. I mean some of us did some guys were
were just naturals i guess but most of us had to study at night and prepare ourself for
the next days events so it was just i guess. The biggest thing for me was being called sir
by all these NCOs who had been in the army five, six, seven years and they were
calling you sir and I was getting a pay check wh ich is a pretty big deal I guess that was
the biggest adjustment for me.
MYSELF: What was it like transitioning from being a student and being involved in the
army to being full time yo ur main focus was in the army sir?
COLONEL COX : Well for me it was pretty easy I guess. You know went to school up
here had a great time goofed off too much in some ways. But once it was time to go to
work start getting the pay check I was able to fl ip that switch in my head and realize that
I had signed up for something that was bigger than me and it was a tot of responsibility
and I wanted to learn and become as proficient and competent as I could because I was
going to be charge of 30 muldoons, or 30 plus in my first platoon that I was going to get
and i knew that I was the guy that they were all going to be looking to for the answers
and know what I was suppose to be doing and i didn't want to embarrass myself or ASU
ROTC or the Army. I wanted to be competent and confident and do the right th ing for
those troopers that I was going to be in charge of so I was able to flip that switch pretty
easi ly.
�MYSELF: Could you go into detail about what your first days actually getting to your first
unit were like sir? The adrenalin rush; nerve of being an officer in front of leading men
like that sir.
COLONEL COX : Well to be perfectly honest I had really had some good instructors in
my ROTC class and they went over some of their first experiences and especially first
time they would lead their troops in a field training exercise or PT. And they told me
stories about how CPT Nickson was and instructor while I was here. He's now retired
and work ing a contracting job for the marine corps, but how he studied at night and go
out into the training area on the weekends to try to learn the area so he was very
confident and competent and could find his way around and wouldn 't get lost and did all
those things on his own, on his own time. And I really took his advice and some other
people gave me similar advice and I really took it to heart so anytime I knew I was going
to be up in front of troops or be in charge of something particular that I could prepare
myself for I would use the weekend or the afternoon to really I guess study, rehearse
and get in front of the mirror at home by myself and try to prepare myself the best I
could so that when I got up in front of the troops I wouldn 't be stumbling on my words or
making mistakes. I mean everyone makes mistake occasionally but I always tried to
prepare myself as in advance as much as possible so I could be, not make a lot of
mistakes when I was out in front of the soldiers because they expect you to be
competent and they expect you to have the answers and if you don't you lose their
confidence so I'm not saying I never made mistakes, but I really prepared myself in my
own time as much as I could. And I found by preparing myself it made me more
confident so I was less nervous because I knew what i had to do because I had
rehearsed it so much on my own time. And that really gave me confidence to stand up
in front of them and give orders and directions and to be in charge and because I was
confident it gave my troops, it made them believe in me and trust me so its kind of a
reciprocal type relationship. So I hope I've answered that question.
MYSELF : Yes sir. Moving on to some of possible combat you 've seen, what conflict or
wars have you been involved in or seen action in sir?
COLONEL COX : Okay the only conflict I have been directly involved in was I was
deployed to Iraq first. First time in 2003 when the first invasion kicked off and then I
went back in 2009 as a, actually 2010, as a transition team leader. So those were my
two combat tours.
MYSELF: What were yo ur specific assignments or jobs upon you r arrive for those
deployments sir?
COLONEL COX : Well for my first tour in Iraq I was assigned to the 101st and I was
coming out of Korea and I got there just as the division was deploying so I really didn't
get to meet anybody in the unit. I stayed back for about two weeks cause I got there as
they were already flying out into theater and I had to go fort benning georgia to a
rep lacement depot for lack of a better word . They gave us about a two week train up on
the things they thought we needed to know . There was a list of tasks we be trained in
or proficient in before we deployed. So when I got to theater in Kuwait about two weeks
behind the rest of the division but the invasion had not kicked off yet so they were still
behind the berms in Kuwait. And I was told I was going to be assigned as a battle major
on the division headquarters, the TOC floor. So I was going to be one of the guys with
�the twelve hour shift running the TOC there for the 101st. So that was my first
assignment.
MYSELF : And for your second assignment sir?
COLONEL COX: I hadn't deployed in a while so I was due so I was told I would be a
transition team leader or I could volunteer for several assignments but I volunteered for
that one. So I was with an advise and assist brigade, actually the first advise and assist
brigade that deployed ever to Iraq with 1st brigade of the 82nd and that was in 2010.
Got back just. joined the unit when they were on block leave. They had just finished
their mission rehearsal exercise at JRTC and we had about a month and half to get
trained and get ready and deploy over there. As a transition team leader I was in charge
of the border transition team so we advised a division. region headquarters of the 2nd
region headquarters of the Iraqi border forces and actually 3 points of, actually 4 points
of entry. I had 5 transitions teams that worked for me at the brigade level and the points
of entry that were actually marine teams so it was actually pretty challenging I was on
the road a lot.
MYSELF : You said you got to choose between several possibilities for your 2010
deployment, what made you specifically pick that one sir?
COLONEL COX: I don't know if it was a possibility for a deployment but it was just a list
of jobs that were available for lieutenant colonels. And there was one advise and assist
brigade that was with the big red one out at fort Riley kansas and one with the 82nd and
the 82nd was just the unit I'd rather have served in so I volunteered to be a transition
team leader with the 82nd. There were a couple other opportunities with rapid equipping
force and some other things but I wanted to , I guess for lack of a better word get to a
unit that may see some action have more direct involvement, there in theater so thats
why volunteered to be a transition team leader and I just preferred the 82nd over the big
red one so I choose that particular assignment.
MYSELF: And just so we understand what exactly does a transition?
COLONEL CO X: A transition team? There's a lot of different make ups of them the
team I was on had 5 field grade officers myself and 4 majors and then we had a security
element from an infantry unit that was attached to us to provide security and mobility
and get us around the battlefield. And our job is to advise. train and sometimes go out
with and actually do operations with the unit we 're assigned to. There were transition
teams that dealt with the army, there were transition teams that dealt with the police and
there were transition teams that dealt with the border forces and that happened the one
I was selected for based on my background and experiences they decided that that job
would be more possible combat and more deploying out to the field . A lot more convoys
a lot more tactical movements and they wanted an infantry or a combat arms officer in
charge of that team so thats how I was selected to be in charge of the border team.
MYSELF : What do you remember upon your arriving on those deployments? What was
it like? Your. what you thought it was going to be like verses what reality turned out to be
like sir?
COLONEL COX : I guess I didn't have any, too many preconceived notions. I had seen
all the movies and talked to a lot of veterans. When I came in the army there were still a
few vietnam veterans around and they shared some of their experiences especially at
ranger school and some of the infantry units I was in and my first couple of tours with
those veterans. there weren't many of those veterans around but there were a couple
�and they shared their experiences. Obviously Iraq turned out to be very different from
vietnam in many ways but it was very interesting. I joined the unit the first deployment
with the 101 st and came in with the replacement batch they moved in to theater. We
didn't know exactly what to expect they moved us into these basically called them circus
tents but they were just big tents they housed people in with wooden floors and coots
down there and you just were assigned a coot and a tent and and we stayed there for
about a week and a half before we actually crossed the berm . I remember the night
before, or the evening before we crossed the berm they had a big meal for us which I
thought was pretty interesting actually. They had steak and lobster. Kind of like they
didn't know what to expect so they wanted to make sure we had a good meal that could
possibly be our last. So everyone had the steak and lobster meal and even though we
were in the 101 st we didn't fly in or air assault in. We loaded on the trucks and moved
behind the 3rd infantry division who was spearheading the efforts up to, moving up
through, eventually up to Bagdad but you know moving north from kuwait up through
Iraq . And we followed behind them , probably several hours behind them in trucks and
basically we were just trying to keep up at that point because they didn't meet a whole
lot of resistance and there was large masses of, large chu nks of unoccupied land just
desert out there that we would just drive through but you know but we were in a tactical
convoys and everybody is expecting to get hit so everybody is facing their weapons out
and doing all the convoy battle drills but there wasn 't a lot of resistance. So we went all
the way up to bagdad and occupied a big weapons factory which was pretty interesting.
That we had been there and could see where the apache helicopters had came in and
had whipped out all the tanks and BMPs and infantry vehicles that were in town. It was
amazing to me that they were able to take out these tanks between buildings just very
narrow alleys with the hellfire missiles and not even damage the buildings around them .
You 'd just see a little hole in the tank where the missile had burned through the armor
and had just burned up the inside of the tank. Without looking closely you would think it
was still serviceable until you got close enough to see the little holes and where the
hellfire missiles had went in. But then we went up after about two weeks in Bagdad we
went north towards Mosul and one of the infantry battalions actually had a pretty,
brigade actually, employed a battalion and a half into a pretty decent engagement in
Najaf. And I wasn 't directly involved in that being involved with battalion headquarters
but that, was pretty interesting to listen to over the rad io.
MYSELF: So when you, could you talk about compari ng those two deployments? What
w similar? What you found the differences between the two of them were?
COLONEL COX : The first deployment, basically after the initial invasion the Iraqi army
pretty much disintegrated and went away. There were pockets of resistance a lot of
them were militias and re ligious fanatics and different things. You know we would catch
some mortars and some rockets occasionally on our FOBs but most of the resistance ,
there wasn 't really an Iraqi force we just started standing them up. The new Iraqi police
force and the new army and all those types of things. When I went back several years
later they had made a lot of progress and had stood up the actual Iraqi police force and
the Iraqi army and there was an Iraqi coast guard and air force and those types of
things and we were working with them instead of us. That was the biggest difference to
me working hand in hand side by side with the Iraqi security forces to help them get
better and help them do their jobs and try to push them out front so that we weren 't
�necessarily taking a leading role we were taking a supporting role and I guess the Iraqi
security forces were basically non existent in my first deployment and during the second
deployment it was all about getting them prepared to take over when we left.
MYSELF: Did you find that hard to reel in that pack of wolves? You know, you're leading
a group of men who are alpha personalities and to have them .
COLONEL COX: Oh it was extremely challenging . Some of the transition teams saw
very, a lot of the infantry soldiers were just securing bases and weren't really going out
and doing many missions and that lead to a lot of issues. Not issues but just these men
were trained for combat, expected to go to combat and they were on edge and a lot of
them were confined to camps and you always had to be alert and visual and we still
took rockets and mortars and those types of things but they didn't have a direct combat
role in many cases. The unit I was with the border forces we on the road you know
about two to five days a week every week almost and we were doing a lot of convoys
and we had to stay vigilant and we actually were never hit with any IEDs or any direct
fire but a lot of other convoys in adjacent areas and before and after us on the roads
were hit so we couldn't let our guard down. And we actually stayed on the Iraqi
compound and they had a little safe house basically that they gave to the american
forces that the transition team before me had used and we had hesko barriers around it,
big sand filled wire cages for lack of a better word if you don't know what hesko, is with
constantine wire and we had to maintain a guard. We felt pretty secure inside the Iraqi
compound. We were pretty confident that most of these guys were on the up and up
and didn't wish us any harm but we could never truly let our guard completely down.
That was my biggest fear was my guys were going to get complacent so I had to keep
hammering home security and discipline and staying ready for anything at any time
cause even though we didn't have any incidents there we re, we had a couple times
where we thought we were going to have an incident and turned out not to I don't know
if it was because we were alert and they didn't see a weakness they could come after or
just because they didn't intend to do us any harm we don't know but we didn 't want to
give anybody the opportunity to do us any harm .
MYSELF: What were some methods you employed to keep your men from becoming
stagnant or co mplacent?
COLONEL COX : Myself and the sergeant first class who were in charge I made them
stand watches at night and augment some of the patrols just so, and I preached to them
hey don't let your guard down. We had SOPs that we were very rigorous myself and
sergeant first class not to let our standards go lax. We didn't care how calm things
seemed , we would enforce the standard you know hey before we get off the tracks you
gotta have somebody on security before we get off the MRAPs and before we occupy
the house and start moving our stuff in we were going to stay for a couple nights that we
occupy the strong points and the gates to make sure it was secure. Everybody carried
loaded weapons, locked and loaded the entire time so you know even on the Iraqi
compound just so you know just to maintain that combat vigilance and alertness and
just continue to hammering home making everybody when they went out one of my
officers wanted to go do a KLE with their particular counterpart made them take security
with them at least one soldier who was always to remain vigilant and to keep his
weapon with him , we all kept our weapons with us but while the officer or senior NCO
was doing their key leader engagement or having an interaction with their counterpart
�you know there was always one person designated to just be security to just keep
watching and looking and keep their eyes open and not give anybody the opportunity to
catch us with our guard down.
MYSELF: So did you see any direct combat or did your unit take any casualties on
either of your deployments?
COLONEL COX: The division when I was with the 101st on my first deployment took
eighty, I think eighty eight casualties. Eighty eight killed actually, casualties was quiet a
few more. I didn't ever have to pull the trigger. There were a lot of times where we took
rockets or mortars you know on our positions but not sustain, usually just a few rounds
here or there. RPGs fired at some of our sleeping quarters from vehicles going down
the road but me personally I never pulled the trigger. The closest I came to combat in
that particular situation working in a division headquarters was rockets and mortars and
RPGs fired indiscriminately into our perimeter and standing in the chow line one day we
waiting to eat at the defact or mess hall and we started taking mortar rounds and one
guy, everybody else laid on the ground and one guy just took off running and just, fate I
don't know what it was but he ran right into a mortar it landed right on top of him and
exploded and he was about 50 yards from us when he took off running . We don't know
what possessed him to take off running he should have just hit the ground but he was
pretty much killed instantly on the spot and so thats probably the closest I came to
combat in the first deployment. Second deployment once again mostly indirect fire .
Couple times some rockets impacted in some fields close to where I was walking and a
couple of times I was, during convoys, we were always vigilant for IEDs we spotted a
couple but none ever exploded on us. We marked them and sealed them off and waited
until the EOD got there and provided security for them until we moved on. And then I
guess probably the only time closest i came to combat was or even being felt
threatened was in the Iraqi compound we were staying in. They there during the heat of
the summer they basically worked early in the morning then would sleep or rest or do
whatever for four or five hours and start working again that evening and work until late
in the night. They had a really strange reverse cycle but I guess it was due to the
climatic conditions and the extreme 120, 130 degree temperatures and lack of air
conditioning that there was a cultural thing that they got up early, worked in the morning ,
basically slept rested did their own thing in the afternoon during the middle of the day
and then later that afternoon in the early evening they came back to work and worked
until midnight or one or two in the morning sometimes. But my interpreter and I, I was
bored I wasn't use to that routine during the day I wanted something to do so my
interpreter and I were walking around the compound and we were invited into one of the
houses by some off duty soldiers. They were enlisted soldiers and they invited me in for
tea and my interpreter said sir you don't have to go but it would really honor them if you
went in for tea, that would be a big deal to them they don't get to interact with officers
very often, its a little more, its a lot more segregated in their army than it is in ours. So
my interpreter and I went in and picked a good seat with our back against the wall just
didn't want to let our guard down but we felt pretty comfortable, but they said ah the
suns in your eyes so they closed the door and then a couple more came out of the back
rooms and came into this room and kind of surrounded us and sitting around us and I
just started getting a bad feeling . And I didn't know if these guys were just being friendly
or i could see myself on Aljezzera in some video getting my head chopped or
�something , so I started undoing the release on my holster for my pistol trying to figure
out which door was the best exit and trying to figure out which one I was going to have
to shot first if it came to a gun battle and adjust my position where I could easily reach
for my pistol my side arm and start shooting kind of like the old clint Eastwood movie,
which one are you going to shot first I was trying to figure out which one is the biggest
threat and how I was going to get myself and my interpreter out of there but fortunately
nothing happened . I don't know if it was because of we didn't let our guard down or
because they didn't intend to do anything to start with but yea thats the closest to direct
combat that I came
MYSELF: Did you find it frustrating to not be able directly engage the enemy and did
you find that affected the morale of your men never to have an actual enemy to
engage?
COLONEL COX: Well some of the soldiers especially had been on the previous
deployments where they had seen direct combat, they were more on guard but most of
them weren 't too anxious to see it again. It didn't bother them that we didn't have direct
combat perse. You know there were a couple that it did. I found that the new guys who
had never deployed again they were the ones who were most disappointed in not
getting to see any action. And they were very frustrated but that was a lack of
experience that they hadn't been there and done that and they felt like it was part of
their I guess their manly duties and they had trained for it and the train up they had
been with guys who had deployed before when it was really bad over there in 2005, 6
and 7 and there was so much going on and so much combat and they had been their
training had revolved around kicking in doors and directly engaging the enemy and
direct fire so I found the new guys were the ones who hadn't seen any combat were the
ones who were most disappointed by not having done it and we just tried to temper their
expectations and tell them look you 'll get another deployment. Go to afghanistan next
time around and maybe you 'll get an opportunity to see direct action its not a bad thing
you're not seeing direct action so try not to be too disappointed.
MYSELF: Yes sir. Shifting fields for a little bit, what are some of the places that the army
has taken you or you've traveled in your service time?
COLONEL COX: I've been pretty fortunate I've been a lot of different places my first
duty station was Hawaii which was over there so I really enjoyed that it was a lot of
good training had some commanders and good leaders that I worked for it was a good
unit with the 25th infantry division and 114 infantry. The battalion commander was
Lieutenant Colonel Kazlan who is now Major General Kalzan who just recently came out
of command of the 25th infantry division and the S-3 was Major Jim Hug ans who is now
Major General Hugans who is in charge of the division commander for the 82nd so that
chain of command over there was pretty stacked had some good quality officers and
NCOs and it was a good experience. Boy from a very mediocre middle class up bringing
in North Carolina going to Hawaii was pretty exciting. Then I went back to fort Benning
georgia for my advanced course now its called, I'm not even sure what its called now
but it used to be called the advanced course now its called the career course and then I
went to fort Lewis Washington which is up near Seattle which is in the north west and
got the opportunity to go to Alaska and different th ings and from there bel ieve it or not I
went back to an ROTC assignment at Appalachian State University and then I went to
fort Bragg and then spent some time there at fort Bragg and then after Bragg went to
�Korea which everybody to ld me don't go its a horrible place terrible time but I actually
enjoyed it I had a good time over there and I found it best to try to immerse yourself in
the culture and the people and the country or the location your at instead of always
going to eat in Korea and most of the soldiers when they were off duty would go to the
burger king or the KFC instead of going to the local korean restaurant .Its not
necessarily a bad thing but I found it better to try to immerse yourself in the culture of
basically the country that you're in. So that you have a better time. after korea i went to
fort Campbell which I really enjoyed it was still in the south but it was near Nashville a
very nice place then I got fortunate enough to be basically an opportunity to do an
exchange officer job in Australia so I spent a little over 2 years in Australia working the
1st infantry division in Australia actually the only active duty division and then from there
I went basically to fort Bragg for a coupl e of months and then deployed to Iraq for the
second time and after the second rotation I came back to Bragg for a couple months
and after that I came up here to appalachian so I've been to some pretty choice
assignments and some good locations I've really enjoyed it.
MYSELF: As an officer men look up to you. What kind of pressures and stress do you
find in your everyday interactions?
COLONEL COX : Basically they expect you to be a little different than them as in
upholding the standard . Strong ethically and morally and the leaders that make
mistakes that you know do stupid things especially that get them in trouble that their
soldiers see or let the standards down once you basically let the standards down or the
soldiers see you with a DUI or getting drunk and stupid or those types of things you lose
their trust and faith because they see you basically i hate to say this on a pedestal. If
they see you cheating or lying or stealing or doing something its very hard to come
down on them you know for doing the same thing so you're being observed 24f7 even
off duty. So the things you do you just have to conscious of your environment and who's
around but you can't let your guard down they expect you to be professional and mature
and in charge basically all the time. I mean yes you can make mistakes, everybody
does but you have to be conscious of being observed at all times and always try to be
on your best, on your A game.
MYSELF: What do you, what are some things to you do to help relieve stress or try and
get away from the normal routine?
COLONEL COX : Well everybody's got different things, I like physical activities running
biking those types of things, competitive events are good and like spending time with
peers and friends that are kind of low key that way you can talk without your
subordinates necessarily hearing your complain or grip so you just gotta be careful
who's around when you do that but thats kinda been my technique for re lieving stress
either physical activity or competition or just hanging around with peers people the
same rank as you or higher rank than you and that way you can talk honestly and freely
without wo rrying about looking bad or complaining in front of your troops.
MYSELF : What was that adjustment like to learn the social code of how to conduct
yourself in front of your subordinates and what you could or could not do?
COLONEL COX : Well i guess it kind of starts here in your ROTC experience, you know
I wouldn't want the MS4s to be gripping or complaining in front of the 1s. 2s, or 3s or to
be laughing and joking when they're suppose to be serious and competent I think it
began here in my ROTC career as you know you have to be conscious of who's around
�when you're, you want to say something that may not be considered appropriate as far
as maybe complaining about the way things were done or those types of things so I
think it began here it just continues through out your time as an officer.
MYSELF: How has the time in the service affected your relationships with friends and
family ?
COLONEL COX: Well I had a lot of great friends in college I'm still friends with some of
them and high school but I've lost contact with many of them because I travel so much
and over seas and all over the world so you lose touch with a lot of friends except fo r
the ones who you're really close to you know its a struggle you have to make an effort to
remain friends with the people because you do move every couple of years. I don't want
to get too personal but my first wife we were married for 1O years but after I was in fort
Bragg i was in some special ops where I was gone pretty much a year then I went to
korea unaccompanied for a year then I came back and about 2 weeks later was in iraq
for a year after 3 years of being gone my wife decided she'd had enough so I can say
the military probably cost me my first marriage but I still don't have any regrets i didn't
want to be divorced never planned on getting divorced but once it happens you can't
change it but I guess thats the biggest adjustment and family just a lot of long distance
phone calls and emails and letters and those types of things to keep the family
connections going .
MYSELF: Thank you for that sir. Moving on to the closing, what would be some of your
best advice to anybody looking to join the military or put their service in?
COLONEL COX : To me its been a great experience and it still continues today. You get
to travel , you get be in charge, you get a lot of leadership experience and you're only
limited by the effort you put into it in most cases, I mean Its hard work, Its a lot of
separation. you're away from family and friends many times. But theres a lot of
satisfaction in working with folks and seeing them get better and improve and knowing
you had a role in it. and accomplishing something that you didn't necessarily know you
that you could accomplish. But the biggest advice I would be if you want it you have to
go for it and if you commit to it you got to commit 100% and prepare yourself you know
every way you can yes theres time to relax and have fun and its been a lot of fun but
you got to always if you're going to be in front of troops or bee in charge of something
prepare yourself the best you can before the time comes so that you're confident and
competent when you're up there in front of troops or in charge so that'd be my best
advice to prepare yourself as fully as possible.
MYSELF: When you look back at your time serving and leading your men what do you
feel is one of, some of the most, some of the actions that have most positively affected
them?
COLONEL COX : For my soldiers?
MYSELF: Yes sir.
COLONEL COX: I guess to me it is being fair and the same, upholding standards and
not making exceptions yes a lot of soldiers don 't appreciate that initially but when they
see you're fair across the board with everybody and you're not making an exception
coming down on them they understand and getting to know them taking a personal
interest in when they have problems, there are some problems that a low ranking
soldier or NCO necessarily doesn't get the attention they deserve in many cases from
your personal office or in different things or the chain of command but you as an officer
�can intervene and make sure their problems get fixed and really make a difference and
try to encourage and motivate the younger soldiers and the young NCOs and learn from
the ones who are more experienced than you and see how they do things and I guess
my biggest feeling of accomplishment was actually getting to know all my soldiers as
best i could taking a personal interest in their welfare and actually helping them when
they had problems with pay maybe a for instance one guy had a pay problem he goes
into the PAC office and they kind we don't have time for you right now go away you
know they don't realize how important it is for a young soldier who's not getting his
proper pay so either my NCOs and I've had a lot of good ones or myself would hand
walk this soldier down to the PAC and not leave until that soldier got some service, you
know not saying your PAC is always bad or wrong but just giving an example but
personally intervening and taking a personal interest and taking the time to get to know
your soldiers and helping them to grow and develop.
MYSELF: Before entering the service and through your experience what would yo u say,
how would you say your view of the military has changed?
COLONEL COX : Hmm, I'm not sure that its changed a whole lot really cause my father
had been in the military and a lot of my family had been in the military so I kind of knew
what to expect, umm , I guess the biggest thing I didn't know was the amount of time
and effort the good officers and NCOs have to put in to be good, it takes a lot of time to
take personal interest in your soldiers and try to get to know them and help them and
prepare yourself for when you're in charge always make sure that you're upholding the
standards and values and ethics. its a lot of pressure and responsibility probably a little
more than I thought but its really not that different from what I expected.
MYSELF : Yes sir. You have some distinguished decorations on your uniform : Ranger
tab, combat infantry badge, your wings and your parachute. Which one wou ld you say
you take most pride in sir?
COLONEL COX : Well actually this is not the combat infantry badge , its the expert
infantry badge.
MYSELF: Excuse me sir.
COLONEL COX : No its no problem when I went through iraq the first time I was a
division headquarters level you had to be a brigade level to get a CAB and then the
second time when i deployed as a transition team leader they had determined Iraq was
no longer a combat zone it was a stability or civil operation so troops over there were
not qualified for the CAB but i guess all of these are very important to me. the airborne
school i went to when i was a cadet rig ht after advanced camp or LDAC and that was a
very challenging and fun experience I had a great time first real army school I've been
to. thrown in with a bunch of NCOs and enlisted soldiers and basically was treated as
an equal we all went through it together except they had to call me sir when i was a
lieutenant but i was a cadet then so they didn't have to call me sir air assault was pretty
tough in hawaii it was hard to get a slot once you got a slot you just didn't want to come
back to your platoon having been to that school as a platoon leader and not get your tab
so a little bit of pressure there not to fail but the EIB I guess the most important to me of
course the ranger tab but the EIB is me going through it with all my troops as a platoon
leader going through the train up out there in the field with them helping each other and
getting through all the stations first time go on all stations and earning my EIB and my
ranger tab.
�MYSELF: Yes sir. How do you feel the experience in the military has altered or helped
the way yo u approach life?
COLONEL COX : Well fortunately i had a pretty good up bringing mom and dad raised
me right and i had good friends and but basically i never quit always give it your best
effort and do the best you can and if you do fail or things go wro ng try to learn from it
and do better the next time do let it get you, don't stay down for too long life keeps
rolling and in the big scheme of th ings people aren't that concerned with in general over
whether you fail or succeed but just keep going never quit and if you do fail at
something learn from it doing it again and do it right the next time
MYSELF : Yes sir. when you get out of the service or looking back what do you hope
that the people and have lead say about you?
COLONEL COX : Basically that I cared about the soldiers and that I was good at what I
did and that I upheld the standards as far as values and ethics and that I was a good
soldier.
MYSELF : Hooah sir. Is there anything you would like to add that we didn't cover in the
interview?
COLONEL COX : No I think that just about covers it all . probably a little bit more than
you wanted but yea that's all I have.
MYSELF: Wonderful, thank you so much for taking the time to see me sir.
COLONEL COX : Yep no problem.
.
MYSELF: This has been interview with Lieutenant Colonel David Cox Professor of
Military Science Appalachian State University.
�
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/b7c77ee258366b151c345bda7634f5b5.wma
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Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project
Description
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Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers.
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Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC).
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Military Branch
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U.S. Army
Officer Rank
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Lieutenant Colonel
Creator
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Curtis; Zachary
Cox; David W.
Interviewer
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Curtis, Zachary
Interviewee
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Cox, David W.
Interview Date
10/17/2011
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12
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0:46:03
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UA.5018. American Military History Course Records
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5018_Cox_David_2011_1017_audio_A
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Interview with Lieutenant Colonel David Cox [October 17, 2011]
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Oral History
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English
English
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Curtis, Zachary
Cox, David W.
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<a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a>
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Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used.
Description
An account of the resource
Colonel Cox served in the US Army after going to college and went to advanced camp at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in order to become a commissioned officer. He served in the infantry branch and was deployed to Iraq twice, once in 2003 and another time in 2009.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Cox, David
Veterans
Iraq War, 2003-2011
United States
Interviews
Personal narratives, American
advanced camp
BOLC
Colonel Cox
infantry
Iraq
US Army
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/ec813edaf4955ae9eae673c8c1cc1519.pdf
b109f163a4aab9b3dcf83d7f1a7947b7
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Text
Transcript of Oral History Interview with Daniel P. Sponsel
25 September 2011
NS: Nathan G. Sponsel
DS: Daniel P. Sponsel
NS: Alright, my name is Nathan Gray Sponsel It is currently Sep 25 2011. I am here
interviewing SFC Daniel Prescott Sponsel of the 1st theater sustainment command currently.
Now in front of me I have your NCO evaluation Report. I would like to read off the daily duties
and scope. "Senior Chaplain Assistant and Operations NCO for the 1st sustainment Command
(Theater) Chaplain's Office; directs supervision of two 56Ms; responsible for spiritual welfare
and pastoral care of over 10,500 Soldiers, civilians, and their families; provides operation level
religious support for planning, resourcing, management, and training of 56 Chaplain and
Chaplain Assistants in Kuwait, Sinai Egypt, and down trace units in Afghanistan; monitors the
operational religious support of the forward command post and main command post; provides
logistics support for the daily office mission; advises the command on enlistment matters
impacting the unit morale. now I would like to be able to understand how exactly you got to this
point in your life, so in order to understand this and understand why you may have joined the
military and where you are right now I would like to understand where you are from, when you
were born, and how you grew up, so what are your comments on that
DS: well it’s great; those are lofty comments in that NCOER. These descriptions are probably
greater than what any of us like to do and those of us in the military we really sometimes feel a
little bit shy about hearing some of those things, but really it’s been an honor for at least the last
10 years to work hard with chaplains to nurture the living, care for the wounded, and honor the
dead. it is quite the actually the mission, and there has been some excellent folks that have given
all of their time and effort to fight this war on terror for the last 10 years so just that’s a preface
but truly I didn’t ever plan to join the military growing up as a young kid.
It was something that fortunately was something that was thrust upon me as a member of the
JROTC program. My father, I was the last of 8 kids and my father was an orthopedic surgeon,
we lived in the suburbs of the twin cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. a place a little village
called the village of Edina and back then it was kind of a small little place pretentious town, but
most of the folks that I grew up with were doctors and lawyers kids and we kind of had a
protective little bubble so we weren’t , I mean we’d play army and every Halloween we get out
there and put people on stretchers and have moulage, and blood, and ketchup and make sure we
had a good time, but it wasn’t something that I thought I would do, but when my father passed
away back in 1979 I was a 10th grade kid and I had been going to public school all my life in the
suburbs, and now I was faced with not having the kind of leadership I had had all my life.
He was a great guy he was an orthopedic surgeon and was out there to serve his fellow man and
take care of folks, so all of us in our family each one of us all 8 kids had a chance to see a man of
integrity that just, worked really hard to be modest and not pretentious so we really just were
very well grounded, after he left, I mean after he passed away I really didn’t have a lot of
direction so but the middle of my 10th grade year, my sister, she was the oldest in the family, she
1
�had been a missionary for about 10 years, in the south side of Chicago. She was, you know,
obviously I’m a Caucasian guy and she was with the inner city kids of Chicago back in the 60's,
and as you remember those were too multuous times with racial relations that were stiff and
Martin Luther King was still doing his work.
Billy Jackson and Billy gram were doing theirs. She worked at an apple orchard in Michigan
under a preacher named Rev. Gleason, and she was really pumped up to help others. When it
came time, after you know, she’s the oldest kid in our family. I’m the youngest. When my father
died even though I was a little suburban, bubble protected kid that lived a protective life and was
kind of oblivious to those challenges that she experiences being a missionary for this south side
of Chicago kind of folks.
She did notice that in me, after my father died, that I was not tracking, didn’t have a lot of
direction, and probably causing my mom a little gray hair here and there for not coming home at
night and doing this and that so I could have really easily spiraled into something that wouldn’t
have been positive so she said they come down to Nashville and live with me and Nashville TN
she was a very respected and accomplished general manager of a hotel, the Radisson hotel
corporation.
It was called the Radisson Nashville plaza and basically as far as we knew I was just going to go
down and live with here after my dad died. But when she looked around at the schools down
there and they said hey man we're studying Romeo and Juliette. I’m not being mean to the south,
but there wasn’t a whole lot in their public schools that matched where I was at, in the twin
cities. So she found a private school that was called Castle Heights Military Academy. And I and
my long hair had to zip down there and start going there to that particular institution because
they really did have a good curriculum. It had been since 1902a honor school of distinction
through most of its many years. I went down about 1979
NS: and when were you born?
DS: I was born in 1963 so I was, I guess I’m I don’t know how old I am. 47? Almost 48. And so
I’m just kind of a young old guy so but no it was cool to grow up in those, I was a Reagan era
baby. So to speak when I decided to get past adolescence I was marching to the drum of peace
through strength. That was the slogan we lived back then. And so it was a really honorable time
to be in the military. It still is. But anyway, I must tell you after high school at this military
academy, it was a great experience.
I was a battalion bugler I played in the band I played trumpet in public school back in MN so
when I went down south I figured instead of standing in formation and fainting like all the INF
guys to the platoons to the left and right of me I would be in the band and at least I would be able
to go up and down and march up and down the field for pass and review and that way keep me
from fainting. but anyways that, I only share that because it’s important to know that I would
never have chosen the military if I had not had that past experience in JROTC as a boarding
student in Nashville TN. as a yank going down south they called me a damned Yankee because I
came down south and I stayed, but uh, the answer is I joined active duty time after spending
three year in recruiting as a AGR Active Guard Recruiter.
2
�NS: Alright and when did you do that?
DS: I did that back in 86-89 and it was in Faribault MN. I had three kids by that time and was
something to do active duty, I had moved from down in the south. I had lived in Atlanta GA with
my wife, and then when we were first having our first child we decided hey we need to go back
towards the family in MN and so we came up there, had our first child Nicholas, your big
brother, good guy. And I just decided to do recruiting
NS: and so you enlisted in the reserve or guard?
DS: um, I was in 1982 I joined the army national guard before I met your mother. and that was ,
and the reason for that was that I did about a year, you know it was in the first semester, and my
fathered had died, doesn’t mean that the money had dried up by that time, just means that look,
you know, I was getting everything you could get in school. I was getting A's B's C's D's W's and
incompletes, so I had everything and I said you know I’m not really paying attention here. I
wasn’t partying or throwing down and doing crazy stuff because my roommate, I actually went
to college at the University of Wisconsin just because my buddy was.
And his name was Mike Spence. I just decided hey; well let’s go to college because that’s what
you are supposed to do. It’s expected. And so I went there and had a good time and had some
good classes. But I really wasn’t focused and I felt like hey let me go ahead and do something on
my own. I really at that point in my life my father had died and that really is a hinge I have to tell
you being that my father had died when I was just kind of living the utopian life you know.
I had the cabin to go to the farm to live on, a hobby farm, and do cool stuff with, but it was time
for me to do my own thing so I decided I’d need to go ahead and instead of take free money from
the family I looking into this student loan repayment program they were talking about. In the
army national guard. I went into the Infantry unit right there in Menomonie Wisconsin where the
University of Wisconsin was me and a buddy "Chicken Man" we went and we joined together
and uh so that was a pretty cool thing.
And one reason I did this was because it wouldn’t give me a student loan because, ah, I have
parents their tax returns said they made too much money for me to get a student loan so I was
stuck as, I was yearning as a young kid to be independent, but yet the joke was on me I came
from the wrong cross4 section of society where they didn’t give you a student loan so I was stuck
so I said let me go do something on my own. and the one thing I got to tell you is that the army is
composed of people from all cross sections of life and for a kid that might have grown up in the
suburbs, I’m not making a big deal about that, only just that it’s a fact. for us to do something on
our own without mommy or daddy handing it to you, it’s a pretty cool thing so when I went to
basic and AIT at Ft. Benning, GA as an infantry man it was a pretty rewarding experience. I got
300s on pt tests back then. and did really well and it was just a really cool experience so I felt
really accomplished once I got back and wasn’t terribly interested in staying in school.
NS: alright, so then you went recruiting, and when you went enlisted what did you enlist as?
3
�DS: I was infantry initially and then I re-classed to chaplain assistant, no, no, no, take that back I
re-classed as a medic
NS: Alright and that was in order to get to your unit in Minneapolis?
DS: yeah actually it was in Zumbrota, MN. Yeah I, like I said, did 1 year at university of
Wisconsin stout, realized I was kind of floundering around not making progress in any kind of
specific direction or towards any major and I decided to go ahead and go back to MN where we
did have a family farm.
NS: Alright and with your JROTC experience you enlisted as an E3 or and E1, E2?
DS: yeah I was able to, because of my ROTC experience in JROTC; I was able to enlist as an
E3.
NS: Alright then. Can you kind of walk me through your career as far as what duty stations you
were assigned to going from the time as you were a recruiter to when you went active duty and
from there on?
DS: OK well sure well I started in Menominee in the 1/128 infantry and from there I went to
MEPS were I would work as a recruiter in the 4th recruiting BN Minneapolis MN and I was a
recruiter assigned with duty in Faribault, MN. And did 3 years there as an army recruiter. Once I
got done with that I decided to head on over to, actually Korea as my first duty station.
I enlisted now of course as a recruiter I was an E5. Back in 86 and when it was time that I joined
the army in 1991 active duty the y said you are an E5 today but you will be an E-3 tomorrow
administratively because we are certainly not needing to take anybody. Right now and you want
to join the active army you gotta go to Korea. I said ok cool. So I went to Korea as an e-1 no
excuse me, as an E3
NS: Now were you initially supposed to go to Korea or were there any stipulations? Were you
supposed to go to any special school or anything?
DS: I had basically what I did as a was a AGR recruiter, the reserve recruiter in the back of the
room about a 5 man recruiting station and I knew that the, requirements to go Special Forces,
which is what I wanted to do, and I did, I sent up a and did packet for special forces, and I had
the requirement was that you had to have 3 years active duty before you could put your special
forces packet in, and I had that so I put it in, and they accepted it as far as Ft Benning, Georgia, I
mean excuse me, Ft Bragg, North Carolina.
NS: Alright so the people that were doing selection, who were running selection already
accepted you packet?
DS: Absolutely, but the recruiting station, excuse me, the folks at Minneapolis MEPS said hey
no we did that quality control, they QC'ed my packet and said you do have the 3 years of
experience, but its reserve time. And that’s fine, but it was active duty 3 years. Like I got my
4
�LES every month just like an active duty guy. Because I was on as a recruiter, but that didn’t add
up in the recruiting BN as 3 years time.
NS: So even though you were reserve, not just 1 weekend a month, 2 weekends a summer, even
though you were actually active reserve, working every single day they still didn’t amount that to
3 actual years
DS: No, absolutely not, and so hat was fine, but I did tell them, I said look, folks that I was a
recruiter just yesterday. By the way dude, you and I we worked together in the streets, and when
we went to the county fairs and we put people in boots, but I think you know that hey you made
a moral obligation to me to join the army. I said ok, I’ll take whatever you have. I’m fine and I
mean I’ve got these wonderful kids living large and would like to go ahead and provide for my
family so ill take your e-3 in Korea
NS: Alright, and at point in time you were a field medic correct?
DS: that is correct
NS: Alright so you were already a field medic, so what did you do as a medic in Korea?
DS: In Korea I was with the 172 armor and they are what’s called 1st tank down in a place called
camp Casey Korea and our mission there at the time was to protect the, any north Korean
invasion south of soul. Maybe we were north of soul, but then, we were pretty much considered a
speed bump so we would have alerts that were real alerts we would load our tanks up with real
rounds and we wouldn’t know if it was real or not, as it is still today.
That is a cease fire since the end of the Korean War still currently as we speak and so we would
have alerts two or three or four times a month depending on what the activities were. There was
training exercises that they either cancel or continue to operate with depending on what the
situation is in that peninsula, the Korean peninsula, but no, it was an accent time.
I was a medic, and as a medic I was the scout plt medic and I got to go out with the scouts and
the mortar plt. And so I d hang out there and they’d have those little quanza huts. Those little
shacks. That would have to oval tops and hang out with the mortar medics, I mean with the
mortar plt and was just one of the crew, and so we'd go out and do everything the mortars would
do plus patch them up. I'd give them shots and I'd give them IV's. If we were humping a bunch
of cliques and they were wore out I'd take care of them if they broke their bones, I’d set their
bones and take care of business.
NS: Alright then, so how long were you in Korea for?
DS: Only one year. It’s a one year tour.
NS: Alright then, once you came back from Korea where you were then and where did you go
to?
5
�DS: Towards the end of the Korea tour I had an assignment to go to Joint Readiness Training
Center at fort Polk LA. That’s JRTC and basically the OPFOR.
NS: Alright then, and was it at fort Polk at the time or were you guys moving down from a
different post or...?
DS: Well, actually that’s a good question. I was going from Little Rock Air Force Base. Is where
we had most of our people housed and stationed and I was a geographical bachelor, because I
was at Polk as they were making the move but also we had a place called Ft. Chaffee Arkansas
where JRTC originated. And so there was about a 4 to 6 month period of time9 that we moved
from Ft Chaffee Arkansas and made the operations re-station and settle at Ft. Polk LA. For the
first time. So I was there for during that time
NS: alright and how long were you at fort Polk with JRTC?
DS: Probably 3 or 4 years and I was a medic there and I had a good time being a medic there.
Because you get a little extra pride being part of the OPFOR. OPFOR is a cool thing. Opposing
Forces. And the folks that would rotate through the training were from all parts of the army, and
mostly infantry. Light infantry and so the privilege of being at the JRTC is that we were really
meant to exercise if you will, the blue forces, or the conventional army prior to them deploying
to the theater of operations, and we would have their commander come down six months prior to
them showing up and basically set us up for success, because the commander, the full bird
colonel, would tell us hey, all their weaknesses and what he wants us to train their guys up on.
And we were basically set up to go ahead and exploit their weaknesses so that by the time they
got done with the JRTC operation they were ready to deploy and basically kind of gave us a false
sense of pride because we would spank them because we got the cheat sheet from their
commander but really it was a good time. And we were proud to make sure it was realistic
training.
NS: Alright, well very nice. So while you were there as a field medic what was it likes? 3 weeks
in the field, one week out or... how did it go as far as trying to train people us at JRTC?
DS: well it was tough duty. We’d have block leave only twice a year. You’d have it in December
for the holidays, and then you’d have it in June and you, you know, 30 days of vacation a year
you’d only have 2 weeks in the summer and 2 weeks in the winter.
NS: so you couldn’t just take leave when need be?
DS: No, absolutely not. And that was a tough deal. You were out, seriously three weeks every
month. You’d have 1 week to, up to 1 week to get your sites ready and do your aiming and make
sure you are ready to shoot down range with the miles equipment. So you can shoot strait, one
shot one kill kind of thing. And make sure that’s s effective, and get ready to go to the field, but
then you’d spend at least two and a half weeks in the field
NS: so how was that with a family of three at the time? Well three children I guess and a wife.
6
�DS: I was an absentee father no doubt about that. That was a tough thing for having young kids,
and really truly we were in the field a long time. I got to tell you when you look back at those
days you got to tip your hat to your mother and all you kids that really truly just saw me for
basically one week every month max. For three straight years.
NS: Did that end up influencing your decision to re-class to chaplain assistant at all?
DS: Yeah it sure did. One day I was at the dragoon chapel at 2nd AC chaplain at fort Polk for a
briefing and I saw that we were, you know, that the chaplain was going to brief first. And I was
still a medic, and I was still hooah, hooah, macho, pound my chest, really I thought my stuff
didn’t smell. I remember as a medic doing door gunner missions in the him and Hein-d
helicopter from Russia, and we really just felt that we were all that and so for me I was eating
nails every breakfast and you know it was a great time, but when I saw this kid, this chaplain
assistant be late for his chaplain ten minutes late for this briefing, and he wheels in this audio
visual stuff on this cart, and I heard the squeaking wheels and I said, "man! What? That guy gets
paid the same as I do as an E5." I said, “Man ill do that. Shoot." and so I did this re-enlistment
thing, I said I’ll be a chaplain assistant. That was really the time that got me going, but really I
felt like that as a medic, that if I could screen people for the doctor, for the physician’s assistants,
I can screen someone for the chaplain. I thought it was time for a break.
NS: Roger that. So where did you then get stationed after you got done with Fort Polk and JRTC
and you re-classed?
DS: Well my first’s station was overseas in Germany. I went to the 130th Engineer Brigade in
Hanau, Germany and was an excellent assignment. Those folks were, they really as a brigade,
you had your horizontal and your vertical units. You had the 94th engineers was for horizontal.
They’d make roads and clear areas and those are the guys that are going to go ahead and take,
you had your combat engineers as well that would actually clear Bangalore, they make charges
and make sure to clear triple strand concertina for your infantry guys. But no, out of
headquarters, in Hanau Germany, we had people in Wiesbaden; we had people in Graff envier,
vielseck and all over Germany. So it was this next group of people to be part of. We deployed to
Bosnia to Hungary first and then to Bosnia. Croatia is where we had our base camp. It was called
task force Pershing.
We had taskforce Harman first though before we actually went down below the Sava River, and
that was basically a potato patch that we had to convert into a base camp and it was just north of
the Sava River. Which is, remember about those times, and is that the Dayton peace agreement
was signed by Richard Holbrook, was the main broker for that.
He was a guy that just a few years prior to the conflict and peacekeeping operation was in charge
of the Olympics and he had just did such a good job doing that, that they thought they could
make him this negotiator for the Dayton peace agreements which was what really basically set
up the peacekeeping mission between Croatia and Bosnia and Serbia. There had been mass
graves developed and the Serbians had killed the Croatians and it was a tough time. And so it
was time to go ion.
7
�NS: So what did you do while you were over in Bosnia exactly?
DS: It was myself and Chaplain Jim Roberts who really truly really we had a battle space of at
least 900 miles. I mean up and down the Sava River. Just about 50 miles north of the Sava and
into Bosnia as well below the Sava in a place called slabitski broad and the we had to go and
visit soldiers that were deployed in these base camps all over the river if you will, north and
south of the river. There was a, as you might remember, December 1995 our soldiers were
flooded out on the Sava. We had failed to listen to their caution.
The US had wanted to, basically, I’m not saying it was an artificial timeline, but when they said
December 1995 was when we’re going to go ahead and build this float bridge, as an engineer we
were the ones that put the float bridge in. the Sava river to have the people cross from Croatia
into Bosnia, and they couldn’t start without our bridge being built so the 130th engineer BGD
under the 1st armor division, we were operationally controlled, we were OPCON to them.
They were over us. And that was Gen crouch at the time. But without that bridge we couldn’t
start the show, but because we had Richard Holbrook it started 4this particular day and time that
this is when we were going to go into Bosnia. I’m saying it was artificial in the sense that it was
a day that they chose, but really truly we were shared the folks that were local to Croatia, Bosnia,
and the folks that were near the Sava River said don’t be hanging out with your base camps right
next to the river here this is our flood season and you will flood out, but because we had this
timeline that we had to get this bridge in right then and there, we didn’t listen to the local
community and we put our base camp right there to the shores of the Sava River and sure enough
we got flooded out so some folks may remember pictures where these GP large tents and
people's duffle bags floating down the river and all that kind of stuff. That really did happen.
And it’s because we were ready to go ahead and execute the mission without actually, really
truly listening to the intelligence
NS: Alright and when you were in Bosnia did you every have to go through and visit any of
these villages that were ethnically cleansed?
DS: Yes we did and obviously any time we would go from north to south we would. I remember
going through the demilitarized zone a number of times and it was just a very sobering
experience because, I was still fairly young and idealistic and I couldn’t believe here in modern
society that people were still killing each other in such a graphic and hateful way.
When you ethnically cleanse a place it meant the Serbians would go up into these Croatians
villages and they would rape and kill, and basically many times they would rape somebody’s
wife in front of the husband and their male children, or the male and female children and then
after that they would kill the father and maybe the sons that are old fighting age sons. If they
were above 19 or 20. And then of course they really, they cleansed the blood with Serbian blood
and they mixed it so that these folks are now going to have their Croatian babies any more
whatever, they’re going to have Serbian babies. You know what I’m saying?
8
�And so it was just something right out of WWII to see the devastation of these villages and there
was as symbol on each one of these homes that had been ethnically cleansed that looked like a tic
tac toe board. You just draw a cross the top would be a CC and then underneath it would be a
backwards CC and basically that was a symbol that said hey, we have already been to this house.
We have taken care of business. We have ethnically cleansed that and we've moved on, and so it
was about time, and I got to tell you, and I got to tip my hat to even president Clinton at the time
who, you know, America hadn’t gotten into this thing.
We were hoping that Europe would take care of their own back yard. And they just didn’t. I
mean this stuff could have crossed even into Germany had it been unchecked. But basically the
US truly scaeved off more devastation than had already I don’t know how many millions of
people had been affected by this, but at least hundreds of thousands of people. And those that
were killed we really should be proud for putting a stop to it and being there for them, so they
can go ahead and get back.
NS: All right then, so you went to Bosnia when you were stationed with the engineers in
Germany. How long were you in Germany for and when did you end up leaving?
DS: I think I was in Germany for about three years for sure. Probably a little over three years
because of the conflict, and from Germany we left and we went to a place called Ft Bragg, NC
where I was assigned to the 1/504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. 1st brigade. I believe that was
back in, it was 1998 sure enough. August of 1998. And obviously I hadn’t gone to airborne
school yet so once I got there I packed. Well, actually I had been airborne as a, the guy at Ft
Polk, so yeah I was airborne, but I had never...
NS: So you were still a “five jump chump?”
DS: No, I actually jumped with the AN2 colt. That was like a Russian biplane so as an OPFOR
guy I had jumped a number of times out of this wooded aircraft. That was able to fly under the
radars, so no I guess I just went up at Ft Bragg at 1st BGD and was ready to jump with those
guys, so…
NS: All right, so who were you with again at Ft. Bragg?
DS: I was with the 504th PIR, parachute Infantry Regiment that, I was a “red devil,” what you
got to understand is that each one of those brigades at the time was 1st 2nd and 3rd Brigade 1st
bat, would be re, 2nd bat would be white, 3rd bat would be blue, and it was red white and blue,
that’s the kind of the gig, so I was the 1st of the 504th, so I was a red devil and devils in the
baggie pants is what we were. Devils in baggie pants.
NS: where does that name come from?
DS: Well, a German general that got spanked during Germany, I mean WWII rather. And he was
so amazed at the guts and the audacity of these American soldiers that really truly as you know,
when we did that airborne operation even during the Normandy invasion that we were all over
the place and the wind had blown us to all corners of the earth, so little bands of 82nd soldiers
9
�would meet up with each other and say hey Jim, hey Bo, ok lets go ahead and do this thing
because they just really weren’t landing where they were supposed to and they fought in such a
ferocious way that this German didn’t know if he was surrounded by legions of just small
pockets of guys, but he said well these 82nd guys they're devils in baggie pants.
NS: Alright so you were with the 82nd, the devils in baggie pants was it? Were you with any
other units while you were at fort Bragg?
DS: Sure I was a medic with the, actually I was a chaplain assistant with the 1/504th, and then
we went down the road to the 1/17th Cav., which was an air Cav., the only air Cav. in the army
at the time, and then spent some excellent time with those guys because we have Simmons army
air field and we would do ministry with the soldiers at the air field and up and down Ardennes
Street at Fort Bragg. Those guys are excellent. They were always; their operations were only 2nd
to the folks at Fort Campbell, the 160th SOR. I thought the 82nd's aviation Brigade was just one
excellent group of people to serve with and holy people to my left and right.
But then from there I went from the 1/17 Cav. to the 16th MP brigade which is also an airborne
unit and that was right there on Ft. Bragg and spent a couple of years there taking care of MPs
and it’s a whole different group of people and they're proud group as well. They are usually the
first in and the last out when they have to deploy and do operations. And then after the 16th pm
Brigade I did some 18th Airborne Corps work and was assigned the 18th airborne corps.
Specifically I was the NCOIC of the Waters center for family live and religious education. And
so I was the NCOIC of the place where they do the family counseling and so forth on folks.
NS: So that was your stay at Fort Bragg. From 1998 until 2000…
DS: 2006
NS: At that point in your time what was your next duty station?
DS: My next duty station was the Multinational Force Observers (MFO) as part of taskforce
Sinai in Sinai Egypt.
NS: Alright, and was that a deployment of was it a duty station?
DS: That was a duty station so it was one that they had been in for about 20 years they had been
doing that peace between Egypt and Israel. Jimmy carter actually put together some people it
wasn’t NATO it wasn’t the UN. He’d pick up the phone during one of his peace initiative,
Middle East peace initiatives, and he just asked a number of countries; I think it was up to 23 or
24 countries. You know, people like Colombia, Canada, kiwis, we have our place...Norway, they
were a part of it, they were our great liaison, liaison officers were noggin, but you had about 24
different contingents right there and they still are there that they monitor the border between
Egypt and Israel and just to get a picture there is something called the gulf of Aqaba.
The Sinai peninsula is a v-shape kind of a thing, comes out into a little point, and north end by
the Gaza strip is a place called Al Gorah Egypt and that’s North camp. Near the Mediterranean
10
�Sea. at the very tip of the Sinai peninsula is a place called Sharm el Sheikh Egypt and that’s
where they do all the peace talks and people come together and do international things but
mainly it’s really a resort town right there at the tip of Sinai so I got a chance to learn some scuba
diving and have a good time there as well.
But our job was to go ahead and be with those people that were manning the observation post
overlooking the Gulf of Aqaba and also on the mainland of the Sinai Peninsula. And out mission,
chaplain, father Matt Pawlikowski and myself we would go up and down, and we would drive.
It’s a six-hour trip from north camp to south camp. We would do it twice a week and make sure
to stop along the way at all these observation posts and there they would have a five man station
at all these PS's where one of the soldiers was a cook.
They would always have 2 dogs and the other guys would shift off and do the observing with
binoculars of the Gulf of Aqaba and basically really truly making sure that Israel didn’t have
their F-16s too close, and then turn around and make sure that Egypt didn’t have their T-72s too
close, because that’s what would always escalate the force between the two countries that would
cause them to have conflict.
NS: And so being in Egypt as a chaplain assistant did you have any major religious events that
you guys were able to take part in? Because I know that Mount Sinai was there and I’m sure, do
you have any experiences with indigenous peoples?
DS: We sure did. We had an excellent time in downtown Cairo. They have Coptic Christian
churches throughout downtown Cairo you would never know it until you go down there, but they
are very tolerant and very mindful that even though it’s an Islamic state if you will, that the
Christian community has been there for years and years, and again there is that mount Sinai and
it’s the legend and folklore has it that that's where Moses received the ten commandments.
So we took about 19 retreats with soldiers from the whole contingent up to Mount Sinai and we
would eat with the Bedouins and we would lay down over night and wake up early, about 4 in
the morning, and climb all the way to the tip of Mount Sinai and wait for the sun to rise. And that
was almost like a Christian Mecca if you will. Unless can get in trouble saying something like
that. Ha-ha. But no, people from all over the world, Russia, everywhere, they’d come up there. I
even had some vodka with somebody on the top of Mount Sinai once. You can’t say no to a guy
that’s Russian offering. You say roger hooah and thank you.
NS: Now how did you get up there? Were you escorted by people or have somebody leading the
way, or how does that work?
DS: Well basically we could take camels if you chose, we gave people an option. You could take
a camel from St. Catherine’s monastery, which is an old monastery that’s been there for
thousands of years. They still have monks there that were doing what they did a thousand years
ago. And they had the young kids that would, these Bedouins, they were pretty resourceful. And
they had these different Bedouin families that specialized in different things.
11
�Some people were the camel’s guys. Some people were the kids that sold the rocks to you so you
could go ahead and get some money for their tribe and sell their rock. You’d split in half and
there would be a nice, different color rocks and so forth, but no this was a well organized tourist
trap if you will and it was just a very fun time to go ahead and have a bit of history.
NS: Now I have met Father Matt and I know he likes to wear his little catholic what's the word
for it?
DS: Oh, the golebia. Yeah! Sure enough.
NS: So being in Egypt with predominantly Islamic folks what was it like walking down the
streets in Cairo with a man dressed in that with a bunch of Islamic folks chilling around. Were
they respectful or...
DS: It was amazingly, it really did open my eyes because I’m a chaplain assistant, were there to
protect the chaplain, so I thought initially that of course id have to protect the chaplain for being
in an Islamic country wearing Christian garb just as if he’s down in the middle of the Vatican
and, but surprisingly to me, those people even in an Islamic country especially, they recognized
father matt as a holy man because he had enough audacity and he was brave enough to put it on
his sleeve and say this is what I am. I’m a catholic priest. And you know what; it really said
something to me. it said hey, be what you are, be proud of who you are, and actually be bold
enough to preach your theology, whichever it is, he wasn’t out there trying to apostatize.
He was just being himself and he wore sandals and he wore this man-dress called a galabia with
a white collar and there was no doubt that those folks, instead of chastising him they just l the
only time were really in danger is when we would go downtown to the Cairo university and the
students, the young students, still who are full of vim vigor and vitality and all bubbly. They
might have a little hackling here and there but for the most part the old, the elders would respect
him and of course he would respect them. That was a cool time.
NS: Very nice, so; after you stayed with the Multinational Force and Observers in Egypt, you
came back home and then what?
DS: Well, then we were headed on back to a place called; I think it was Fort Wainwright,
Alaska. Holy Buckets, I did a COT, Consecutive Active- it's called a COT, Consecutive Oversea
Tour. So I'm sitting at in Egypt, right before you know they told me where to go next, and I
talked to your Mom and I said, “Ma, do you want to go to dang, Alaska or do you want to go to
Hawaii-they're giving me a choice?" And she said, “Well, let’s go ahead and go to Alaska". I
must have...
NS: Why didn't you say Hawaii?
DS: She; she wishes she did...
NS: [Audible Laughter]
12
�DS: At this point, she wishes she would have said, Hawaii. But, she says hey, go ahead and go to
Alaska and sure enough we went from; directly - I mean first you and the Family were back at
Fort Bragg waiting for me to have to get done with that Egypt tour and then you joined us up
there for winter in Alaska.
NS: you came back and drove U-Haul trucks multiple trips from North Carolina to Alaska
DS: Psycho man, it was psycho
NS: So, how were you stationed with up in Alaska?
DS: I was with the 4/14th CAV and those guys were part of 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat
Team. That was at the beginning of when they started fielding Stryker Brigade Combat Teams.
We were one of first or second folks to go on in there as Stryker Brigade. Then we went to a
place called Rawah, which is on the Syrian border in Iraq. That was really my first real
deployment for war. The other ones were peace keeping and people were dying a little bit when
we were there and we were doing more peace keeping than we were taking the fight to the
enemy back in the Bosnia days. But this was the first time we really did take the fight to the
enemy.
NS: Alright, now before we actually get into your deployment to Camp Rawah, Iraq-there is one
story that I recall that I'd like you to recap on of your stay at JRTC when you guys were getting
ready to be deployed over there and you had to go down and support the border patrol down in
Texas and I recall a Medivac coming to pick up some of your guys and you thinking it something
different...
DS: Oh, you're a jerk... Yea, here's the gig okay see, because I was a Reagan era soldier, and I
forgot to be a situational aware about the world events, and we were preparing to go to war and
had to get ready to go to JRTC, sure enough, I mean- and you can imagine how proud I was
because I used to be an OPFOR JRTC soldier and, well guess what? Here we had this Hind D
helicopter flying overhead getting ready to land in our position.
NS: And that's a Russian Helicopter
DS: It is a Russian Helicopter... And I instinctively raise my M-16, actually it was an M-4; I
raise it and I pronounced and announce to everybody, "Red air, red air, red air! Get down!"
NS: And what does Red Air mean?
DS: Well that means any enemy aircraft in the area; and it was coming in and so we got to go
ahead and take it. I was shooting at that thing. It was a bad deal. It was a mild scare, was a mild
scare, you know...
NS: And so you are shooting blanks at it...
DS: Yes.
13
�NS: And so, what was this helicopter actually coming to land for?
DS: MEDIVAC - He is now a coalition partner; and I didn't know. I mean here it is two
thousand three or four here and I'm getting ready to go and I'm thinking the Russians are still our
enemy. I guess the Soviet Union had already packet it up so yeah...
NS: So you end up shooting down your own helicopter coming to pick up wounded soldiers.
DS: I was highly admonished but uh, the old guys were proud I got to tell you. The old crusty
sergeant majors thought I was cool.
NS: Alright, so you were training up to go to Iraq and so when you guys were stationed in Iraq, it
was camp Rawah you say, where is that in relation to, you know, Syria, the rivers…
DS: Yes, yes, yes…we were right on the banks of the Euphrates River and we were pretty much
in south western Iraq near the Syrian border and out job was to keep...
NS: And that’s the An Bar Province?
DS: Yes, Al Anbar Province. Sure enough, and by the way you got to know that was a tough
area that had been given and taken back and given and taken back a number of times but we
were fortunate enough to be taken away from Mosul which was where most of the 172nd Stryker
Brigade guys were up in Mosul and that was a tough area as well.
That took a while to win over and to tame if you will, but the Al Anbar Province was truly out in
the dirt. We were housed in what was called a combat outpost and there are different distinctions
in the army. You have basically it starts down at a combat outpost and it goes to a base... not a
base.
You have a, I’m pausing as I’m thinking here. Combat outpost then you have, what do they call
those things? Balad, well FOBs yeah well yeah we were in a FOB, but a combat outpost is in a
kind of remote area where you really truly have your triple strand concertina wire around you
and a bunch of sand and that’s pretty much, you're in the middle of nowhere, and you are doing
the best you can to provide security for yourself.
But it’s a word. I got to tell you I’m drawing a blank on what's after combat outpost. Then you
have, like Balad was a full base. Would be before Balad there's another term that we use, but it’s
basically a remote area that is not heavily fortified and so that’s what that was.
NS: Alright, and so who were you guys technically under while you were over there if the rest of
your guys were over in Mosul? Who were you underneath?
DS: I was under the Marine Corps, their 2nd...
NS: 2nd battalion (meant to say division)
14
�DS: Yeah it was the 2nd...well they're stationed out of fort, actually Camp Lejeune it was at
Jacksonville, North Carolina. And they were there...
NS: Across the border from you guys? Or across the river?
DS: No they were right there with us. They owned us. We were wearing kind of furry stuff
sometimes because it was the best we could get at the time. We, instead of wearing the black
furry kind of stuff we would wear that kind of tan. But those guys in the 2nd Marine
Expeditionary force 2nd MEF they’d call them, were really our higher headquarters because we
had been separated out and we were in their battle space. And so it was exciting because those
guys really took care of us in an extreme way. When they, they do Military Decision Making
Process discussions a little different than the army. And it’s not as drawn out, now MDMP is a
very important to do process...
NS: so what is that?
DS: Military Decision Making Process is where you have IPR and discussions
NS: so that's like Troop Leading Procedures, but for higher?
DS: yup, for higher and making sure that we know what the Operations Order is going to be and
how to proceed with whatever battle and whatever operation that we're going embark on and it’s
just a very excellent way in which everyone knows what they are going to do before they get out
there and do it, but again the marines, those guys would just grab a ladder and go knock out,
knock doors down and take names later and so I guess that’s just the way they fight.
But what was beautiful about it is they supported one another in the greatest way and we made
sure that if we needed something we would share with those guys and we'd get whatever
equipment and whatever personnel or whatever the logistics we needed in just a heartbeat from
the marine corps. They just did a great job out there and you got to know that the Al Anbar
Province was pretty much; not that it's really won, but was won over well before most of the
other area in Iraq. And those guys, we took the fight to the enemy and they took care of business.
NS: Alright, now I know that you as a chaplain assistant, especially when you are deployed, you
have multiple, you have two major sets of tasks of what you are supposed to do . Can you run me
through what you do when you are actually at the base, or at the FOB, and what you do when
you are actually out on the other side of the fence?
DS: Ok, so you are saying outside of the wire and inside the wire. our job is to collocate, as a
chaplain assistant and the chaplain we are mainly the folks that, we collocate with the medics so
the battalion aid station is where we would hang out and those were the people we deployed with
when we were outside the wire.
We had operation cold steel, which was a five or seven day operation that we were extensive
with the medics and we would set up an antenna on the Stryker vehicle and we would be at the
15
�command post and we would take incoming casualties and the fight would be right there, you
know, in the same area, as where we were. There was lots of death. We had some, we had 24
memorials by the time we left that place, and so we lost a lot of our friends who fought valiantly
a lot of those guys got lost by improvised explosive devices and EFP's. Those are the ones that
would kind of go across and melt into, the copper would kind of melt and go through the vehicle
and almost just pierce through the whole vehicle.
NS: and did your screens around the Strykers help at all against those?
DS: Yes. It was great. They had protective kind of a metal bar system around the Stryker vehicle
that was really added after the fact. When we trained at JRTC and in New Mexico to get ready to
go we didn’t have those on and by the time we got into theater they did some retrograde work
and they made sure to install all those kind of fancy looking things that look like a big fence
around our whole...
NS: So like a big cage around the Stryker?
DS: And so then basically RPGs and stuff could explode before they would try to penetrate any
of the hard shell of the vehicle
NS: All right, and how effective was that?
DS: It was great, very effective. It was tough to go through some small streets because it would
make you a little more bulky and you didn’t train up with that bulky vehicle until you got there.
and so these small roads and stuff, so you were basically driving through places and have to go
over curbs, if you will, or in through the villages where you otherwise would have been able to
drive, but I can see why they had Bradleys and why they have smaller vehicles and then even
the Stryker. But it's effective. It was an effective delivery system.
NS: How were the Strykers able to hold up to IED's? Were they able to for the most part?
DS: I really believe they were an improvement of course to the up armored HUMMVEEs, were
a lot more vulnerable than the Stryker vehicles. But I have to regretfully tell you that the Stryker
was developed with a flat hull, or bottom of the hull, rather than a V-shaped hull. And often
times when you have five rounds stacked two or three deep in an IED and you have to drive over
that they explosion is such that if you have a pancake kind of bottom or bottom of your vehicle,
that it will take a really brunt of the explosion. And some of those Stryker vehicles did look like
their sister APC's from Vietnam era and they were just blown wide open like a tin can.
And so after we’d have to go through and extract our folks and even clean up afterwards, it was
just a pretty traumatic even to go ahead and see that even as strong as we thought we had the
Stryker vehicle, it was, it was, it was relatively vulnerable, and hopefully the army goes and does
the V shaped hull instead of a flat bottom hull.
16
�NS: Alright then, so while you were inside and with the medics trying to take care of things, you,
having been a former medic, did you do any 4 of the medic tasks, or were you generally there for
moral support and trying to help people out emotionally?
DS: Yeah, my job truly really was to be there with the chaplain at the head of the patient and to
really get religious, I mean we wanted to make sure that if you were a Baptist kid or if you were
a catholic kid, I would, you know, make sure to get a catholic priest for you to say last rights if
indeed you were expectant, and we had routine, priority patients, but our place as a chaplain and
chaplain assistant, most part we were at the aid station or even out in the field when things were
really happening, next to the patient, and depending on their injuries we would act accordingly,
but truly I did a lot of stuff. I would draw zylacane in the middle of the aid station and make sure
to shoot that up and id make sure to hold the head up while they were bandaging folks. I didn’t
do major invasive therapy but I certainly was there with people when they were getting fixed up.
NS: Alright, so your chaplain never got mad at you for hanging out with medics too much?
DS: He did. Oh yeah he did. He told me once that, listen you're a chaplain assistant. You’re not a
medic any more. And he said that he wants me to do more chaplain work, and I said sir, define
what chaplain work is. I said that the priorities here is to get these guys well and make sure that
we take care of those who have been injured so try and explain to me what you mean. And he
was a little discouraged a couple times because I was more of a medic than I was a chaplain
assistant for him. So, but we worked that out later. I’m sure we figured that out a little bit later.
NS: Alright, and your chaplain's name at the time was what?
DS: Chaplain James Foster, and sure enough
NS: And so when he was, your primary goal with him, as well, is to protect him because
chaplains can't carry weapons. Correct?
DS: That is correct.
NS: So how often did he go out with you, and you have to pretty much just chill out with him?
DS: Yeah, no, no. Well we were together like, we were tied together pretty much at the hip.
Literally, especially when we were at the outpost for 12 of the 16 months. And then four of the
following months in Baghdad we went from Rawah to Baghdad. Every time we were outside the
wire I was with him. And even inside the wire I stayed in the chapel with him. The last, or the
back one third of the chapel which I made, we put together, G and I, you know, it was a HP large
kind of deal that the back one third was where we world have our bunks, if you will.
Our cots and administrative area and the front three quarters would be the sanctuary. But one
thing that was challenging was truly that, and we’re proud, he and I are both proud, but really I
was at his heal and he was at my heal as far as our bunks touched each other, and we were there
24/7. And I would actually on occasion, when things got to where down time inside the wire I’d
17
�run away to medics and kind of chill out myself. Just to get some time away. Because even a
good marriage is ruined if you can’t take a break.
NS: Alright, so were you ever able to, or did you ever go on any missions as far as raiding
through and making sure that there weren’t any weapons that there shouldn't be, or kicking in
doors or any sweeps like that?
DS: Yup. Quite a bit. And we would go out with the assassin troop. You had Alpha troop that
did most of the cordon and search is basically what it was. You were cordoning off a certain area
if the town and we were actually in the Sadr city they called it. Al Sadr was the religious cleric
that was the person that even currently is still there.
NS: Not is this when you were in Baghdad or were you still in Camp Rawah?
DS: We did both. Actually in Rawah we had more time out knocking down doors and taking
care of business. We went out once with this Special Forces team from combat North, or COP
North, Combat Outpost North, which is near the Syrian border to electrical plants, because it was
very routine for those insurgents to want to disrupt things to go ahead and pay people at the
electrical plant to drop power so that they could do their business and disrupt things and take
their fight to the enemy. But we would actually go to the power plants a number of times with
Special Forces Teams and walk up and down the streets and do our searches for the bad guys if
you will.
NS: So how was that working with the SF?
DS: They were great people. Those guys, they are laid back and they take care of business. And
they have long hair and wear a different kind of clothes, and they got a different kind of
communication equipment, and they build their own bathrooms and they have their own
plumbing. They know how to take care of themselves in any situation. It was gun when we
worked with those guys.
NS: Very nice. So I would just like to recap and look back here. So you started off with Infantry.
Then you re-classed medic, and in both of those things you are doing more field training and
things of that sort. But then you went chaplain and you are doing a lot more administrative
things, nut even as a chaplain assistant... when you were deployed, you were able to do some
more kickass hooah things rather than just sit at a FOB and do nothing.
DS: Absolutely. No, it was really great fun. I knocked down a bunch of doors. I mean I’ve done
20 or 30 doors myself on a given day, and it wasn’t just to be a jerk for no reason, but we had to
make sure that they had 1 AK-47 and no more than 2 clips; I mean magazines to toss in there. If
they had 3 or 4 weapons we’d take the other two, and we weren’t going to keep them so they
weren’t able to defend themselves, but we made sure that they, there was a rule at the time that
they could only have so much so that we could start making control.
NS: Did you guys ever have to dispose of any weapons caches or find any?
18
�DS: Yeah we found many weapons caches and one of the biggest finds was by our assassin
troop, or alpha troop. And we did a lot of control destination. We’d pile them up into a big area
and just have the EOD guys come and blow them up in place. And many others we'd stick in big
long connexes and they'd be full of RPG rounds. You’d have your explosives, the stuff they
make IED's with, and AK-47s that were gold plated from the Saddam days.
NS: That just hurts to hear that you had to destroy that
DS: ha-ha. Yeah that was not a good deal. I’m sure people took some trophies home; o wouldn’t
say I knew for sure but I…
[Audible laughter]
DS: But no, we did destroy most of that stuff because we were very remote and it would be too
risky to go and ship most of it away only to have somebody stop a convoy and steal it back so we
just, basically destroyed a bunch of that stuff in place.
NS: So you say that initially for the first 12 months, that you were in Camp Rawah and then you
ended up in Baghdad. Now how did that take place? Was it just from one to the other or mass
confusion, or what was the story behind going back for another four months?
DS: Well I think it is very important to mark that there were many soldiers during that time, that
it was called the surge, and because the surge had started, first of all, the first part of our time in
Rawah was to get people where they could vote, and we had to go ahead and close very heavily,
the insurgence forces that were coming across the Syrian border to disrupt this thing called
freedom and free elections, so the first half of our mission was to make sure that these people
could vote, the local Iraqis.
Ok, and make sure that it was safe for them to vote. And so it was a great accomplishment when
they did make their first initial vote for who they wanted to represent Iraq, for those presidents
and those other tribal members, who's going to go ahead and for the first time in their lives,
represent them as a free nation, and so when we did the cordon searches all across the Al Anbar
province and we won the hearts and minds of the local tribes and communities and emons.
It was just a great thing for us to accomplish that, so the second half of this was going to be the
year later, the second vote that was going to go ahead and establish who the provincial
government was going to be. and so we were caught up in what was called the surge, and the
secretary of defense, Dick Chaney, the honorable Dick Chaney, he picked our unit and about,
you know, ten other units saying hey look, I know you've been here for 12, ( quick talking and
clarification of the Secretary of Defense) No, it was Rumsfeld.
Thank you very much, yeah, yeah; Donald Rumsfeld was the secretary of defense. I apologize.
And Donald Rumsfeld had decided that, hey guess what. You guys have been there for a year,
but guess what. You’re going to be there for four more months, so stick around. And at the time
172nd Stryker Brigade, out of Alaska had sent about 200 soldiers home. They had already made
it back to Fairbanks, Alaska and spent time with their wives and kids.
19
�NS: And the people that got home first were the people who had newborn kids who were
married right before they deployed...
DS: Yeah, and certain units that were in Mosul that had already packed up a couple of things and
they were on a cycle and they were scheduled to return. And so those guys were just a couple,
400 folks. 200 to 400 folks that made it back to Fairbanks. Some were still getting ready at Balad
Air Base to go ahead and take off from Iraq to go home, and they were stopped initially. And
then those of so that were out there at the Combat Outpost, of course we didn’t even get cleared.
We had actually turned in our Sapi plates and...
NS: Alright, so you guys were already turning in your gear and then they told you guys that, Oh
no, you guys are staying for another 4 months, and you are going to Baghdad.
DS: Yes. Exactly. So the commander of our unit came to the chapel and made his announcement
to everybody and said hey, listen, I know this is a part of what we signed up for, and the
president of the United States has decided that we haven’t finished here and that a matter of fact
that we are going head to extend and head on out to a different area of operation until we take
care of some business up there.
NS: I can imagine some people were probably bummed about that?
DS: Oh yeah. Very Bummed, and it was a tough time, and that’s the human element of things. I
was actually proud sitting there, even though it was bad news, it was pretty cool to see how
people sucked it up and drove on, and accepted it, but even over the course of time when we all
got back together, those who had already gotten back to Alaska, were flying and turn around and
come back, to find that we lost still more soldiers after they came back. That was just a heart
wrenching thing.
You know. We all know as soldiers that that is part of the dead, that you go and fight and some
people are going to come home and some are not, but boy, when you are done with your tour of
12 and you have to come back for the four more and you lose four or five more people. that was
just a tough, it was, not that the first people you lost were any different, I mean it was always a
loss, but boy it was even more of a difficult psychological, emotional loss to lose those other
soldiers once we did have to come back for the four more.
NS: Alright, and then I know that you shared with them a couple different things, previously,
about certain people that would get made fun of for, you know, certain things and they ended up
being the ones that got more Purple hearts. Can you tell me a little more about that?
DS: That’s a young soldier that, even during training, we were in JRTC and even down in the
Mexican border when were down there in Playas, New Mexico, in the Stryker vehicles ready to
go and learn how to use the new equipment there was a young guy...I forget his name. I’ll
remember it here in a second, but he was always, people were always giving him a hard time
because he was the sergeant major's driver. And it was no-one's fault to be a sergeant major’s
driver. It’s a very honorable position. But often times these other tankers and these other scouts
20
�would give this guy a hard time because he’s driving the sergeant major around all the time and
they are basically, people are professionally jealous of the guy because he’s close to the top dog,
but yet they still think he's kind of kissing up a little bit as well, and his name is Rasche. Sgt
Rasche. And Rasche had to be the sergeant major’s driver, and a matter of fact it came to light
that Rasche was a virgin.
He had never had relations, and this and that, so these other macho Cav. guys were always
poking fun at him saying he was a wimp and he's a virgin and what’s wrong with him, and all
that kind of stuff in society just ripping in each other and he had a rough time. and I just, as a
chaplain assistant I was all being cool to him because I knew people were just busting his but,
you know, and I’d say hey man this is un-cool. You’re a good guy. I hope all is well and how are
you doing today? Trying to encourage him because people were just being un-cool to him
initially.
Well it turned out that sergeant Rasche once deployed, and three quarters the way through the
mission, truly he was part of I think Bravo troop, and he was a driver of a Stryker and he would
dismount and he would go and take the fight to the enemy when we’d have to do operations, and
inconsequently he'd blown up a couple of times, but he had also taken direct fire and there was a
recipient.
He was a three Purple Heart recipient by the time he was done with that thing. And I always
thought that as an example as a lesson to tell other soldiers to say, he look it, you never know the
metal of a man until you put him to test, and he was an excellent soldier. It turned out that he was
a great warrior. So I’m proud that he had three purple hearts and he had lots of success after
people ribbed him for being a virgin. Ha-ha-ha
NS: Very nice. Now I know that throughout Iraq and Afghanistan, and other places that we are
deployed to there are a bunch of mixed feelings towards the US, and even though the media in
the US doesn’t like to highlight anything good we do build schools for women and children, and
make a positive impact over there. Did you guys have any major impact positive or negative on
the local people?
DS: Well we sure did. We built a number of schools, provided electricity to a number of the
schools in the area, and of course you remember the infrastructure was the big bargaining chip.
Either you are going to go with Al-Qaida or the insurgent folks because they’re going "take care
of you". Or you go with the US who's going to take care of you, and it was always truly our
intent to show that we were there for them.
And a matter of fact given the opportunity we would build their schools and give them water and
drill wells and provide electricity, and provide infrastructure, and provide school for girls, and
make sure they understand the can go ahead and be part of society. And yeah, I think we won
that piece quite handily at least initially.
NS: Alright then,
DS: Like you say, you just didn’t hear about it back home.
21
�NS: Yeah, and that's one thing that I really dislike about the media today that doesn’t like to
show anything good we do because it doesn’t sell.
DS: Yeah. It's not sexy, but it's real. And I guess you know what I really got to share with you. I
think that if you were to talk to a Vietnam veteran even now after all these years, that if you were
to go back to Vietnam even today they got sky rises. They’re doing good capital improvement to
things, they're making money. They’re doing great things. And it took 40 years to do it. The
Vietnam vets are, unless e goes back to Vietnam, doesn’t know the effect that he might have had.
But those young kids that were alive when that Vietnam vet was doing his piece there, and when
they shared their chocolate or candy bar with the local kid or whatever, just showed restraint
when they otherwise could have blown somebody away, but they were being human and they
were being compassionate, and they were doing the best they can, I just hope and trust and pray
that 30 or 40 years from now maybe some of those young kids that we saw might come around
and say you know what. I don’t necessarily want to grow up to be a little baby insurgent and
blow stuff up. I sure remember that American guy that was cool to me and cool to my family.
And there were a lot of American soldiers that were great ambassadors for our nation while they
were deployed as soldiers. Men and women alike.
NS: Now I know that while you were deployed there would be different checkpoints whether it
is manned by you guys or whether it is manned by the Iraqi army. What kind of relationship did
checkpoints have with people that were there? And was it more positive or was it negative or
how did the checkpoints...
DS: Ok. well I believe that we have IA's and IP's you’ve got Iraqi army that we trained up and
we were always partners with, now there was a time at which they were so new and they were so
fledgling that you had to really be taking the lead on each mission that we'd go out on but we did
train them and we actually, Rawah was one of those training areas, as kind of a basic training for
the Iraqi army folks. The Iraqi Police, it was still the same. It was a mission of MITT teams that
would go out there and train the Iraqi police.
The marines really did a good job training those guys. And we would also, even initially, have a
smaller representation of Iraqi Army guys, but then in the inner city of Baghdad, the Iraqi Police
that we would do missions with. The Cordon search missions in the city of Baghdad would be in
conjunction with the Iraqi Police as well and Iraqi Army. So all three entities would have a
command post and we'd make sure that we have our OPORDER like you do in the regular
American army and make sure the intent of the mission.
Sometimes it would backfire because as you know, sometimes you don’t know who your friends
are even though you train them up. It was curious, on occasion that you'd run into some IED's
that you would wonder how in the world they knew we were coming. And you would have to
just speculate that someone from the inside tipped somebody off that we were coming to their
town. Sadr City, one of our missions was to go down town and go to the hospitals and the
morgues to find out how much the, they would kill each other, it was amazing. You know. These
different religious sects would be killing each other.
22
�It wasn’t force on force American troops killing folks. It was them killing each other. and one of
our missions was to go Downtown Baghdad and check out the hospitals and get the numbers and
the morgues and the hospital, who had just passed away or who was dying and so we'd come
back to report, and we took on some small arms fire and engaged the enemy but we were just
three Stryker vehicles.
So we instead of just staying to fight what could have been overwhelming odds if we did, have to
pull back and that was one of the fires we took. and then another time we took some fire was
outside the boarder road of Sadr City itself which is in Baghdad, and what's interesting about
Sadr City is that we used to be able to go in and out of that place and there was a time that we
had to kind of barricade them in and have controlled access to the place because we were trying
to effect the insurgency. But there was a time there that we also took fire. We responded to an
IED, or ESP explosion of a MP vehicle, and while we were doing that we took some fire from
inside Sadr City.
NS: Alright, now when you say "took fire" did you take fire while you were dismounted and out
of your Stryker vehicles...
DS: Yes
NS: Or while inside?
DS: Both times. We were dismounted and we were on foot. And we were far away from our
Stryker vehicles and we still had the drivers back at the, the driver and one other guy back at the
Strykers so we had to Dity Mau, so we would shoot and run, and shoot and run. So not proud to
say that, nothing like we just overtook a bunch of stuff. Not in my personal experience. We did
have to go ahead and get back to the vehicles and get secure, so...
NS: Okay then, and how was that? Just having bullets fly over your head. How surreal of a
feeling was it? Because you train all your life and you train and train, at JRTC. You know what’s
going to be coming, and oh I might be shot at and stuff but what was running through your head
as you actually had bullets whizzing by you?
DS: It was real, and you make sure you count for your people. Make sure everyone's safe and
you're moving together and there is good coordination, and you are talking with folks. And you
get on the radio once you get back in there and make sure that your higher knows what’s going
down, and keeping people informed at the Tactical Operations Center and training does kick in.
There are people that are calm. There are people that are not so calm, but guess what, it’s a pretty
cool experience to see that the training does kick in and people do keep their head. And it was,
your adrenaline goes up and it's real but knew I had a job to do and I had to protect my chaplain.
He doesn’t have a weapon so I’m running sideways and backwards and checking eh rooftops as
we egress.
23
�NS: Right and I know that you shared with me, before, that you had been in the midst of some of
this stuff. You had a young lower enlisted guy hopping on the radios and, calm as could be,
shooting out nine-lines and things of that sort. How was that?
DS: I think it's great. It’s just amazing to watch. These are some. We’ve got the best-trained
soldiers in the world. There’s no doubt about it. And men and women alike are, when we have a
disabled vehicle, or an IED explosion, young, hundred and twenty-pound female soldiers were
yanking two hundred and fifty pound guys out of vehicles. And that's when you realize there are
no guys and girls.
A guy is not better than a girl and all this chauvinistic stuff goes right out the window because
that’s a soldier and she is a brother and sister in arms. And she's way cool. But no, I was always
impressed when these young soldiers being able to get on the radio in the midst of a firefight,
and be calm and talking to the TOC, and making sure that they gave coordination, or they'd call
in fire or have the air force come in and give us some direct support or when we'd call artillery,
they’d give us indirect support as well. And these guys were, man they were just doing great
work.
NS: And I’d like to clarify, TOC is a what?
DS: Tactical Operation Center
NS: Alright. So is there anything else that you feel like we missed that we haven't gone over
quite yet about your deployment to Camp Rawah and in Baghdad that you would like to cover
right now?
DS: No. I think that we’ve hit pretty much all this stuff. I just think it's an honor to be hanging
around after all these years. And I got to tell you, we do need to get back and get back to
training. We've been fighting for 10 years and it doesn’t mean there are not some quality folks
that have been fighting for 10 years, but it'd be fun to get back to an environment in which we
did like we did in the past and train up and get our soldiers used to training side by side with
those folks that they will eventually deploy with. Instead of all of the sudden get a new guy. Off
you go and go to the fight. And so I think that it's time we go ahead and train our soldiers and get
in that mode for a while, and be ready for the next challenge.
NS: Alright then, so after you got back from Iraq at the time you left, your family did an
Advanced Removal of Dependents down to Fort Bragg, seeing as though that's where you were
going to come back to, so you came back to Bragg and who were you with at Bragg?
DS: I came back to Fort Bragg I was with USASOC...
NS: Which is?
DS: Well, United States Army Special Operation Command, headquartered there at Fort Bragg,
and I was with the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade. And that was actually a new; normally the Civil
Affairs were USACASOT, United States Army Civil Affairs Special Operations Command.
24
�Thats a reserve group of people and civil affairs have traditionally been reserve guys, but this
was the first active duty brigade of civil affairs here at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. So it was an
honor to be a plank holder. You know a first guy that’s part of that unit. So that was fun.
NS: What exactly does the civil affairs do?
DS: The civil affairs, their job is to go and win the hearts and minds of our enemy. And we do it
in a way of basically, building schools, building electricity, building wells, and doing all those
kinds of things, that after we go in with force, is picking up the pieces afterwards and making
great relations with the local community. Wherever we are, whether it is Chad or Male in Africa
or whether it be Bosnia, Croatia, Hungary, or whether it be Iraq or Afghanistan. The Civil
Affairs job is to bridge that gap and to establish relationships with local communities.
NS: Alright then. So after you got done with civil affairs where did you go to on Bragg?
DS: Well, I think that I got done there. I went to SWCS; it’s called the United States Army John
F Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. And that's where all the Special Forces soldiers
are trained. You know, before they're Special Forces. It’s a combination of Bank Halls where the
folks who go in there and learn their language unless they went to Monterey, California before
showing up, but generally there's Bank Hall and Weigh Hall. Well, weigh was 82nd, but there
was Bank Hall... anyway, that's the big schoolhouse. That’s where these folks would learn their
language and other skills. The classroom skills.
NS: Alright, and what did you do over there at SWSC? Did you train people up or teach people,
you know, cultural awareness? Or what did you focus on? I was the world religions NCO and I
would work under the World Religions Chaplain who would be the instructor for people at camp
McCall as part of Robin Sage in the culminating ending of that training at camp McCall. He
would make sure that they understood the world religions piece for all the Special Forces
trainees and that’s what we did there.
NS: And so while you were at SWSC you were with which chapel?
DS: At John F. Kennedy Chapel. JFK chapel.
NS: That is the chapel that is attached to SWSC?
DS: That is correct.
NS: So how long were you with JFK for?
DS: Probably two years.
NS: That was followed by what?
DS: Then I went to what was formally known as COSCOM.
25
�NS: Which what does COSCOM stand for?
DS: COSCOM used to stand for Corps Support Command, and that used to be 18th Airborne
Corps COSCOM, Corps Support, and they would take care of the 82nd Airborne Division, the
101st Airborne Division, 10th Mountain, and all the folks, back in the day, during the Saudi
Arabian, during Desert Storm. They were in charge of providing Logistics. Logistical support for
all the combat operations. And not the new term for that side of Fort Bragg, which is East Bragg
is the 1st TSC, 1st Theater Sustainment Command. That's where I am currently assigned.
NS: Alright, just to clarify, 1st TSC is no longer a jumping unit, correct?
DS: That is correct, and the shame is us. The shame is on us. We’re not worthy. Yes, no they
took all that stuff away. They used to be COSCOM and used to be able to jump, and you know.
It was progressive. A lot of guys used to jump with COSCOM. I'd go over there and jump with
those guys when I used to be in the 82nd. And now it's down to just, they got some parachute
riggers over at the 82nd sustainment Brigade that is part of that East Bragg. But no, there are no
more jump slots over at COSCOM.
NS: I just had to officially give you some shit for going to a leg unit.
DS: I am a leg. I am a leg. I’m happy.
[Laughter]
NS: Following my last question I want to know what changes have you seen in the army from
when you initially went it to now a day, whether it be for the better or the worse
DS: Well I think it's a lot better for people that respect each other. I think people really generally
now, are making sure they extend respect to one another from higher to lower. I mean the
commands are respecting people, making sure that they are treated with dignity. I do feel like it's
a better army than what I joined back in 82nd.
But I do know that I also believe that, in my personal opinion, we have our hands tied a little
behind out back when it comes to being robust when we probably need to be robust. And I’m, of
course, not in a position to make a determination like that as a SFC but I must tell you, rules of
engagement often times are not as robust as they need to be from a soldier perspective, and I just
wish that if we are going to train soldiers to be soldiers and execute those things that we have
been called to execute that we work really hard, sure enough not to do collateral damage, and not
to lose sight of our mission, but we can’t go out there and have our hands tied behind our backs.
I must tell you that the last few years I’ve been around a lot of people who have been
discouraged with the fact that before they can engage the enemy, they have to raise a flag, they
have to shoot a warning shot, and maybe shoot something into someone's engine block, and then
finally shoot at the person that's approaching you and causing, wanting to cause you harm. And
those two things happen.
26
�Number one we are the most disciplined nation, disciplined army in the world, and we should be
proud that we are able to do that stuff. On the other hand, boy, I'll tell you what, you just got to
just step back. I’m talking as if I'm out of Uniform. And say to yourself, of ask yourself the
questions, are we fighting, are we preparing soldiers to be warriors and execute those things that
we must execute, or are we basically liaison, and doing to best we can to...
NS: Police the world
DS: Yeah, so I’m, this is me talking. I’m not being official. I’m just telling you, I just think it’s
important to allow combative folks to be combative, and those who are not combative to go
ahead and do those other missions.
NS: I understand not having collateral damage, but I mean even with the rules of engagement as
they are, even if there have been more lives... hell even during WWII we were carpet bombing
the hell out of places
DS: I guess in perspective I’ve got to tell you, I’m not trying to say, make a glass factory out of
your enemy that may be in the middle east and decide to do extreme stuff just for the fact that
you have the power, but boy I tell you, we knew that during Normandy that those guys were
going to get off those landing crafts onto the beach of Normandy and not come back home or
win, and there was really no choice.
And they had to take a robust fight to the enemy. And they had green light go. And they had
everything given to them that they could have ever been given to them at the time. Whatever
capabilities we had as a nation at the time were given to those soldiers to storm the beach of
Normandy and hopefully come back victorious for the sake of a lot of people in the world.
And there were not a lot of people saying you can’t do this, you can’t shoot here, and you can’t
shoot that. They went to the beach and they engaged the enemy, the Germans, and I’m not being
nostalgic, but we need to give that to today’s soldiers not to... if you are going to send people in
harm's way, you need to give them robust Rules of engagement so that they can execute the
mission. So that they can go ahead and not put themselves at risk. They need to go out there with
green light. I mean not stupidity, but a green light to execute that mission without having a lot of
pull back.
NS: Alright, and after being deployed and coming back and having all sorts of different people's
opinions throwing out everybody's two cents, how do you feel coming back to the states and
having all this wishy-washy people saying one thing or another?
DS: I think that the media is probably doing our nation a disservice by not getting fully behind
the war effort even in the initial stages. I’m not saying that you have to be blind to mistakes and
just give a free pass to policies that may not be working. But don’t sabotage them before they
start. So I think that we could have probably, and this is a personal opinion. I’m not a
statesman...
27
�NS: THIS IS NOT A STATEMENT OF THE ARMY
DS: This is a disclaimer. It’s just me. I think that, and again hindsight is 20/20. And you know
and I know that had we gone into either Iraq and even kept those folks in place that were part of
the government, the guys that ran the electricity and the plumbing and the infrastructure, instead
of taking out and trying to start from scratch and rebuild the place, had we kept those people,,
pay them their paycheck, and kept them onboard, we might have had an easier time. And that's
just hindsight. That’s something we learned after the fact.
But I still appreciate the fact that we as a nation can adjust fire in the middle of the battle and still
come out victorious and the surge was very effective, so that surge did win that particular portion
of the battle for Baghdad and Mosul and all those areas affected by the insurgency that was very
rampant until we kind of put a clamp on it and allowed people to go ahead and vote and feel like
they had something.
Now those guys are never going to be a nation that raises a flag like Canada and America and
France and act like they're nationalistic because they're tribal. Ok, that’s just a reality. That’s just
something we have to learn, but we’ve given them the chance to have something they didn’t
have before. I’m thinking I'm pretty proud of that.
NS: I realize that I did forget to throw in there with 1st TSC do you deploy at all and what do
you do when you deploy?
DS: Yeah we deploy for fix, usually we have rotations of 6 months at a time depending on the
size of our section, and our job is truly logistical. We are doing what's called responsible
drawdown now. Operation Iraqi Freedom is now been labeled Operation New Dawn. That the
new name for Operation Iraqi Freedom because we are taking all the soldiers and equipment out
of the Iraqi theater and either doing retrograde operations to make that equipment ready as it was
brand new and ship it off to Afghanistan or bring it back home to the states,. And that's just a
very logistical... it's heavy lifting right now.
NS: Do you deploy with 1st TSC?
DS: Yes, I’ve been there twice.
NS: And where do you deploy to?
DS: A place called Camp Ariston Kuwait. And that’s basically our little white house if you will.
That’s where we're in charge of people who are still stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unit
ministry teams and units that are both currently in those two theaters of operations. And we are
the headquarters out of ARCENT, United States Army Central Command. And we work for
those folks. And our job is to, as sustainment command is to provide logistical support. Beans
and bullets, water, equipment, everything that those soldiers on the front line need.
NS: Alright, so you are in charge of making sure that chaplain assistants there and chaplains
there are able to have the equipment they need.
28
�DS: Absolutely. The equipment, but also to take care of soldiers and families.
NS: Well, at this point in time is there anything that we missed, anything you would like to touch
on, whether it is throughout training up people, to being deployed, to falling off Mount Sinai?
[Laughter]
NS: Is there anything that we've missed that you would like to cover?
DS: No. I just think that you got to, before you ever even close the book on anything military
that you got to thank the families and it’s important to thank all of these families for the last ten
years, that have really been sacrificing themselves. These wives and kids and lots of folks have
been working hard to make sure this is one effort. Whether it is the guys in boots or whether it be
the family left behind, so families never get enough credit. That all I’d have to add to that.
NS: Thank you very much, and I guess this concludes our interview.
29
�
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/49de647e1c5e4599c2a1fe52d8465b94.mp3
a7872a2a086735e9a6a130e4957dafad
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Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Sponsel, Nathan G.
Duration
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1:24:53
Transcription
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29 pages
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Title
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Interview with Daniel Sponsel, 25 August 2011
Subject
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Korean War, 1950-1953
Veterans
Sponsel, Daniel P.
Personal narratives, American
United States
Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Daniel P. Sponsel, Army, Sergent First Class, born in 1963. In this interview Daniel Sponsel discusses how the JROTC program influenced his decision to join the military. He goes on to discuss his time as a recruiter as well as his time in active duty. While in active duty he served as a field medic in Korea. Sponsel then discusses his decision to re-class as a chaplain and some of his experiences afterwards. During his time as a chaplain he was deployed to Hungary, Bosnia, Germany, and Croatia. He then goes on to talk about his time in Iraq and finishes up by talking about some of his experiences with the military once he got back to the United States.
Date
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11/25/11
Rights
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Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, Appalachian Collection, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC).
Language
A language of the resource
English
chaplin
Daniel P. Sponsel
Iraq
JROTC
Korea; medic
Marines
Nathan G. Sponsel
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/32d1818c78aeebb379cafdc4f4dc2e3c.pdf
213cf3ba6b1cf27723096be077b9be6a
PDF Text
Text
Oral history Transcript
Appalachian State University
Interviewee: Lt. Colonel Steven Wilkins
Interviewer: Ben Brazaski
October 15 2011
BB: Ben Brazaski
SW: Steve Wilkins
BB: This is Ben Brazaski and I am interviewing Steve Wilkins at his residence on 10/15/2011.
I'm doing an oral history project for my U.S.Military History class for Dr. Judkin Browning.
And could you state your full name?
SW: Steven Patrick Wilkins.
BB: And your birthdate?
SW: 3/27/1960
BB: Is ...ok... Were you serving in any particular war or conflict?
SW: Well…did... I had a full military career... I went into the Army commissioned as an officer in
the Army immediately upon graduation from college... and through the course of my career
participated in three actual conflicts, the invasion of Grenada, Desert Storm and then Operation
Enduring Freedom, the invasion and first year of the conflict in Iraq.
BB: So just to clarify, what branch of the service were you in?
SW: I was in the Army.
BB: And when you left what rank were you?
SW: I retired as a Lt. Colonel… I was actually a Lt. Colonel promotable and that's a ... that's another
part of the story we can talk about later. It's a good thing but because of the war in Iraq I stayed
longer than I anticipated which was not a bad thing but I ended up getting promoted or getting
�selected for promotion but because I stayed in and was extended for that duty.
BB: Was there anywhere else you were stationed outside the United States?
SW: Yes. Early in my career as a young captain after being assigned to Ft. Bragg I was stationed in
Korea for one year. And it was actually a very interesting time period because it's when South Korea
was building up to host the Olympics and there was a huge effort going on in the country and I was
there during the Asian games the year before the Olympics which was kind of a dry run so it was a
very interesting time to be there because they were transitioning from really a third world developing
country into a very, very modern country so it was quite a good time to be there. I served overseas a
lot that is the only time that I had that. We would call a permanent change of station... where
actually moved everything to Korea and was there but I did serve in I lot of other countries in the
early 1980's. I… I went to Central America... Honduras ... many times... when we were involved
in... I wouldn’t call it a conflict, but it was definitely a standoff. Nicaraguan government at the
time was sponsoring a trouble along the border with Honduras and the US had decided that their
activity was aggressive and that we were going to take a stand on that so for several years we did
a lot of exercises down there developing infrastructure where we could reinforce Honduras if
needed. Elsewhere in Central America so I went there many times... participated in the invasion
of Grenada in 1983 so that was overseas and during that same first tour in the army. So... went to
turkey on an exercise which was very interesting ... enjoyed that very, very much... let me think...
where else did I go during that time period? Overseas... well... then I went to Korea. Later on I
ended up going to lots of countries in the Middle East because eventually I went through army
special forces training. Became a Special Forces officer i11 fifth Special Forces group so we
went to the Middle East to do our training. We were oriented... to southwest Asia. Middle East
went to Jordan a couple of times, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, went to Somalia; made a lot of trips to
those locations. Then, later on as we were building up to do the war in Iraq. Went to Germany
and Kuwait several times for planning conferences there... because the headquarters we were
going to fall under in Iraq was headquartered in Germany and then of course we actually went to
some planning conferences in Kuwait itself. Went to Europe a few other times on trips related to
the military so really got to see quite a bit of the world.
BB: When you were in combat situations what exactly was your particular job?
SW: Well when we went to Grenada in 1983, I was assigned to a… I was commissioned a
transportation officer. When I graduated from college I went to the citadel... graduated 1982,
with a political science degree. Badly wanted to be an infantry officer and was initially assigned
that, two years duty infantry, and then control branch of transportation corps which I thought
that was ok because transportation did interest me even though it wasn't my first choice. But then
the army changed its policy that year and I came straight in as a transportation corp. ft. I
personally was very disappointed. But once I got to my first assignment at ft. Bragg, North
Carolina found that I enjoyed that career field very much. We were very… I was in a very active
unit, we were called a terminal transfer unit and essentially we had a lot of people. We were big
company 250 people; we had a lot of cranes, and forklifts, and trucks and bulldozers and
�everything else you can think of. And our job was to run terminals be it either barge terminals or
ocean terminals airfield operations, truck terminals maybe for surface movement to where we
would receive cargo off of ships or airplanes... whatever or maybe load them. We were called a
transshipment point, and it turned out that it was very interesting work. But the particular
company I was in, because it was at Ft. Bragg in 18th Airborne Corp and then develop orient or
train whatever you would say to do these for airfield type operation this… this sort of workhand
that’s because at that time just a few years prior under President Carters administration, the rapid
joint task force in order to project American military power into the middle east if necessary.
And the army 18th airborne corp. at fort Bragg was a key component of that so they designed
18th airborne corps around the 82nd airborne division, 1015t airborne division, 24th infantry
division, and others to be able to go into an austere environment rapidly. And our company was a
key part of that because we on the early deployment list to go in and actually manage all the
cargo and people that would be coming into airfields to support the operation and that’s what we
did in Grenada. My platoon...my company commander, myself, and my platoon ... we had just
come out of an exercise, a huge exercise, down in Florida training to do this very same thing for
many weeks in the tropical environment so that it all fit well. We deployed to Grenada to run the
airfield at pt. selines and that's what we did and it was very chaotic. A lot of people at that time
kind of described Grenada as a convoluted messed up disorganized operation that demonstrated
how the services couldn't communicate well with each other some of that was true but some of it
was a little bit overstated because the operation was conducted with almost no notice the 18th
airborne corp. units had literally no notice when we were told we were going to be deploying. At
that time we had practiced deployments, no notice deployments all the time because of the
situation in central America, and we would often fly units down there and they would practice
and they would parachute in, or go in by ship, or a combination of the two and hang around and
train for a few weeks and come home. That was a regular thing, getting an alert at fort Bragg
those days to deploy. This was 1983; late summer early fall 83 was not an unusual thing at all so
an alert in the middle of the night was not unusual at all. Well practiced but then people were told
we were going to Grenada. Most people didn't know there was such a place called Grenada and
assumed it was a fictional....oh well here's another training exercise and this time rather than call
the enemy atlantians or something, which is typically used for calling it Grenada, so it’s an
invented place. People didn't realize it was for real till they actually started passing out the live
ammunition and giving the shots and all those things at fort Braggs green pope air force ...green
ramp like we always simulated in previous exercises so my organization went down and parked
at the end point selines airfield and just set up a very shabby tent… little tent operation because
that's all we had. We were out in the dirt, it was dusty, it was hot, and we were offloading
primarily c141 aircraft and after the initial we came in actually very, very, early on with the lead
elements with the 82nd airborne division because that’s what the war plans and you did. And we
set up an operation and it was very chaotic at first because c141 transport aircraft were arriving
every fifteen minutes. Part of the airfield was under construction and all cluttered up and so you
only one aircraft of that size could land at a time so one would land and it would taxi down to the
airfield turn around open up we would offload it, it would take off and another one would come
in and land just minutes after it took off. This was around the clock day and night. Our crew was
working shifts twenty four hours a day and not long in the operation because of the short
duration. We actually had to start loading planes out because a lot of the stuff that was brought in
early on particular combat equipment like artillery and heavier munitions and things weren’t
needed. The real fighting last only about a week there was some other events after that but it
�became apparent that a lot of the forces that were there needed to leave and that we needed to
start bringing in military police civil affairs people and people like that, you know for stability
operations. So then what we had to do, is units would be told that they could leave, they would
come near the airfield and park and get all their stuff ready and coordinate with us to we develop
load plans and stage them all and do all the things you need to do to prepare cargo. And people
you know to load on an airplane quickly leave and then when an airplane would load come and
offload supplies you know we would quickly as we could have another load with people and all
standing by that we could put back on it. And that went on for several weeks at a very hectic pace
after about six weeks the whole operation ended and turned into a civil affairs operation. And in
December… and we were actually along with the deputy commander Gerald Ferris we were
actually the last unit to leave Grenada. Two airplanes came in at the very end and he and his
group were on one and our last element with one fork lift was on another and that's how I closed
out, so that's… that was my role in that particular conflict.
BB: Just going back to kind of jog your memory about an early service. Where were you living
when you decided you wanted to join the military?
SW: Well it's hard to say exactly when and where. I was actually born in Durham, North
Carolina and grew up there and went all twelve years k-12 to school in northern Durham County
and it was a fairly rural area. A lot of us kids were kind of interested in military stuff we played
in the woods a lot. We hunted and had guns then and I had lots of relatives that had been in
WWII and Korean war veterans uncles and such and I had heard them talk and things. Although
they didn't talk about it a lot, I just kind of became interested in it and liked the outdoors. And
when I was in high school I decided I wanted to go in the military in some shape or another as a
result of through college ROTC I wanted to do... I just wanted to try it. I didn't know whether I
wanted to come out and go into the National Guard. I knew I wanted to be commissioned an
officer and be in the National Guard, army reserves, the active army, or something of that sort. I
really wasn't even settled on the army, I was just kind of going in that general broad direction. So
I'll never forget I got to so I decided to go to the Citadel. Actually had narrowed my colleges
down to two choices, Appalachian state and the Citadel. And I liked Appalachian because they
had forestry programs and things like that that interested me, and they had ROTC. And then I ran
across a Citadel recruiter at one of our college days in high school and they had some impressive
literature. We used to joke later on that it was propaganda but it was interesting and I liked
Charleston, South Carolina. I had been there so I said “gosh well I'm taking a military career let's
go to the citadel and see what I really think maybe and then decide,” and I'll never forget that I
was so unsure of it. I didn't know this but when I went to the citadel, everybody there, 100
percent of the corp. of cadets had to be enrolled in some ROTC, that's just part of the way the
college worked. You don't have to go on active duty in any part of the military afterwards, but
you do have to enroll in ROTC. So freshman year first thing we're standing in line being told
what to do and we were told you know this line had to sign up for the ROTC you wanted I told
one of the upperclassmen. I said “well sir I don't know which one I want to sign up for,” Hahira,
and he said “just pick one and you can change later.” I guess I had kind of a perplexed look on
my face and he said “just pick the army it's the biggest one.” And so that's how I decided, and got
into army ROTC and enjoyed it. At that time the detachment officers, the NCO's that were there
were very impressive they were all Vietnam veterans because we really hadn't been out of that
�conflict very long so just about every career officer and NCO were, and they were really a sharp
bunch. They were very impressive, they worked with us well. I like the sound of the things that
they did during their career. There were pretty good mentors overall so I kind of got interested in
that. And then, sophomore year, some friends and I found out about a program. The South
Carolina national guard had to wear mummy... college students that were in ROTC could enlist
in the National Guard and you know ... you know... you were automatically qualified to do that
and you... they made you private first class immediately. Your something when you came in and
then you could be a sergeant within a year or something, and we though, a lot of us thought it
was a good idea because we didn't have a lot of money and... You know... you get paid for drill
hush every weekend and again. I thought that would be a good introduction to the army, since I
was leaning that way, so I did that. I enlisted in February, this is February 1980 my sophomore
year, and then since it's the National Guard they can schedule when you go to basic training. So I
enlisted in the National Guard field artillery unit in Georgetown, South Carolina. Just as a side
note, this is a very interesting unit, second oldest unit in the United States Military called the
Swamp Fox Battalion, named after Frances Marion, cause that's the area, Georgetown, South
Carolina where Frances Marion operated in the revolutionary war, and our unit crest had the fox
on it which was the Swamp Fox Battalion one of the oldest units in the military. So that was a
very interesting and I went to basic training that summer at Fort Jackson, South Carolina and it
was very hot at Fort Jackson in the summer. It was very interesting training and looking back on
it, at the time, I just did it to do it but looking back on it I am glad that I experienced… since I
had a career as an officer I was glad I got to experience what our entry level soldiers you know,
get as their first training and indoctrination into the army. I found a very useful thing to have
experienced later on in my service. The funny thing though is I had a I got home... I'd only been
home a few days from basic training and waiting for the school year to start again and I got a
call from a marine recruiter out of Charlotte. At that time the marines were doing a transition
from older aircraft to newer aircraft aviation parts. She called me up and said, “hey I'd like to
offer you a guaranteed marine aviation contract. When you go back to school your junior year,
you change to Marine Corp ROTC and if you're physically qualified and you meet the
requirements for you to graduate you automatically get in a flight training program. If you meet
all the and...it's interesting, cause I'd always wanted to fly, but I just had come back from army
ROTC. That experience with basic training said, “no thanks, I'm already in the army national
guard, I just got back from basic training.” And then when I hung up I thought well this guy must
think I am really a nut If I just finished army basic training and I turned down a flight contract to
they probably didn't want me anyway. But anyway, that's just how I just kind of fell into the
army program gradually not that committed you know. But I decided somewhere along the way,
I don't remember when I decided I would seek a regular army commission and then I would go
on active duty immediately after college, but I can't put a finger on exactly when and where.
BB: Was there any time during you military career where you actually saw active combat?
SW: Well, it depends on how you define active combat. If you're talking about kind of what you
see in the movies, you know, throw a hand grenade and close quarter combat; I didn't experience
any of that. And in fact up until the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, most people in the
army did not experience that since Vietnam. Because the conflicts we were in Grenada went by
very, very, quickly and I was not in an infantry type unit, and most of the infantry that landed in
�Grenada didn't engage in fire fights either. They did a lot of searching a lot of patrolling,
certainly saw some of that, was certainly around it, heard it. We all felt like we were in
potentially in some danger you know at first but didn't experience it them... but later on I
participated in desert shield/ desert storm. There's a gap in what we're talking about and then I
went into army special forces training was in fifth group and we did a lot of training in the
middle east, and then in 19… I guess it was 1990... late 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Since
that was our area of the world, in fact we had only been back from a training exercise in Jordan
like sixty days when that happened. So we were one of the first units to deploy, and we were
there a long time, and through the course of that conflict we did see... I don't know that anyone
ever shot at me, I never shot at anybody. It's certainly possible at some time that closer to
potential danger than we thought, you just don't know. You don't know those things, you really
don't know what happened ten or fifteen minutes before you were there that changed the whole
scenario, or what could have happened if somebody hadn’t have done anything else. But again
that conflict was the United States Army in particular is... once the land war started used such
overwhelming force, it was like a tidal wave, and although I saw the results of it, we were right
there. Our job was to work with the Arab units, in the northeast Saudi part of the peninsula, a
very multinational unit under Saudi leadership. So we were right there as they were doing their
thrust of the east coast, and going into Kuwait city to liberate it. But frankly at that time I was
more afraid of getting hit by celebratory gunfire. It was going on in Kuwait city by
Kuwaiti's...then then then then enemy at that time. Then later on when I was in Iraq with the
1015 airborne division, again we had moments in the early part of that war where some of our
infantry units did experience close combat for periods of time. Now later on it would be much
closer... you know, you know as things change it’s a different story. But during that time period
we were moving through cities and all in Iraq it was a very uneasy feeling you know especially
later on as the counter insurgent started to pick up and there were incidents around us. I
awakened one night where right outside our place somebody had come by our place and thrown a
few hand grenades at our guards outside and things of that nature. But I don't know that I was
ever directly fired at during any of these conflicts.
BB: When you were overseas was there any way to contact your family? And did that progress
as your military career evolved?
SW: Well yes, there always was, but it changed dramatically during my military career. When I
did the invasion of Grenada for example, we had no postal. At that point that was, this was 1983,
there's no personal computers, there's no internet, none of that stuff. We had no postal service for
a little while because it was such a hastily put together operation, but we did have after a while
and we could write letters. There was a little army postal detachment and you could send letters
out and you could get letters back as well. It would be a little slower than the mail service in the
U.S.. Then again, when I went to Korea it was the same way. Communication was primarily
letter writing and of course with the U.S. forces had been in Korea a long time there was a very
developed postal system there. Letter writing was very reliable, of course it was slow, no
computers, could talk on the phone. In fact at that time I was engaged to my wife, Meg, and we
had very good phone service in Korea. So I could actually call her on the phone and go through
an operator and the time difference was ... Korea is pretty much on the exact opposite time,
twelve hours apart from the United States, the timing had to be just right to make a call. But, and
�then sometimes the international lines would be clogged up and you couldn't make a call so we
had good communications. It was just different than today, slower; you had to anticipate if
somebody wasn't there. People didn't even have answering machines then really, so if you called
somebody, and it just rang, and they weren't home you missed it. They wouldn't even know you
had called, so there were different challenges. I remember calling back to my unit from down in
Honduras, off the back of my air force jeep, I wasn't aware of it, but one of the forward air
controllers that was with us, somebody had told me that you could make a call that I needed to
call back to my unit cause we were out in the middle of nowhere, up in the mountains of the
Guatemala border operating a dirt airstrip up there in a place named kookieaqua, and that was my
first experience with this sort of thing. Is with the air force foreign air controller was able to
patch, was able to make a call, a radio call to... to a mars station. They called them at Scott Air
Force base, in Illinois, and was able to get a phone patch back to Fort Bragg so I was able sitting
in the middle of nowhere talking off a little Air Force, you know combat foreign air controller
jeep to be able to call back, but again, that was hit or miss.
�
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/96dccec1e0720aa5a0b9c243b9248ec4.mp3
d46420e8fe53abdaccadc07b32d16332
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Brazaski, Ben
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:11:53
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound.
6 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Steven Wilkins, 15 October 2011
Subject
The topic of the resource
Veterans
Wilkins, Steven
United States
Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Steven Wilkins, Lt. Colonel, US Army, was born on March 27th, 1960. In this Interview Steven Wilkins describes some of the places he has been stationed outside the U.S. during his military career. He talks about being in Korea, Central America, and the Middle East. He mentions his specific job while in the Army. He also discusses his decision and influences to enter the Army and specifically mentions experiences as a child and going through ROTC.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/15/11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, Appalachian Collection, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC).
Language
A language of the resource
English
Ben Brazaski
Fort Bragg
Grenada
Iraq
North Carolina
ROTC
Steven Wilkins
US Army