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Oral History Interview with David Owen
Me??
DO: David Owen
Me: Alright, so what's your name?
DO: David Owen
Me: What rank were you?
DO: Lance corporal, Marine Corps
Me: And how old are you?
DO: 22 years old
Me: So when did you first enlist?
DO: I was 20 years old
Me: So you got out of high school?
DO: When to work for a while, just noticed things that with my job and everything weren't that
happy and everything, kind of got in with the wrong crowd. I just knew if I kept going the way I
was I wouldn't have a very bright future so, one of the guys I worked with had been in the
Marines for seven years at that time and just the way he carried himself and the way he acted
around all of us influenced me to join.
Me: Alright, so that was a big influence on.
DO: Yeah he was my main boos at work so, it kind of, you know being around him all the time
made it easier for him to influence and always be there and stuff and just the way he carried
himself, and solved all the problems and stuff we had.
Me: Did you have anybody in your family that was in the service?
DO: No, nobody in my immediate family or like great grandparents or grandparents or anything.
Everybody we have is like one or two cousins, nothing real, real, close.
Me: So how long were you in?
DO: I'm still in, I've been in for three years now.
Me: What unit and battalion were you?
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�DO: I deployed with CLR-15, out of camp Pendleton, CA. My unit is out of Greenville, SC. But
we attached with CLR-15, originally it was Ammo Company then deployed and went to Security
Company CLR-17 of camp Pendleton and did some security with them.
Me: How many times did you deploy?
DO: Just one time so far.
Me: Where were you at?
DO: We were in the Helmand province of Afghanistan for most of my deployment it was mostly
the southern region of Afghanistan.
Me: So what was that like, what was Afghanistan like?
DO: It was pretty hot.
Me: Really
DO: The hottest day of the year for us was July 14th, it got to 146 degrees. And it's a real dry
heat, if it was around here it would be worse feeling that hot with the moister in the air, but with
that heat your sweat is evaporating as soon as it appears, so it’s easy to get dehydrated. If you're
out doing anything you got 80 pounds of gear on you, you're wearing the camo, which is long
sleeve, long pants, Kevlar helmet, the big MTV or the military tactical vest which has the sappy
plates in it, you carrying a rifle, it’s real heavy.
Me: So are you carrying that kind of weight every time you go out?
DO: anytime you leave the base you got 80 something pounds strapped to you with armor.
Me: God, so where you in a pretty well built fire base or was it something you constructed when
you got there?
DO: The main base we went into was camp leatherneck, which has been there since the initial
push back in 01 after September 11th, which has been the biggest base, longest base that's been
in Afghanistan. It was pretty well, like built, I mean it's over three square miles, it’s pretty caught
up on times, like it’s not like, you got like two or three different chow halls, you got a PX to go
shop and buy little things you need.'
But for us doing security we were jumping base to base, taking convoys from one base to another
and doing security for them so some of the bases we went to wouldn’t be but 500 yards of base
and just always taking fire and getting mortared, always have a full alert on those little bases but
the bigger bases you weren't always full alert it was more secure.
Me: So you were running security on convoys?
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�DO: Yeah I was the Mark-19 gunner on a MRAP and a, what was the other one called, we had
MRAPs and, I can't remember what they're called now. But it was the two new vehicles that
replaced the Humvees, I was a gunner for most of it on a Mark-19, which is a belt fed grenade
launcher, so it was uh, I had the big gun. We'd take the supply convoys from the bigger base,
everything comes into leather neck and gets dispersed out from there, and you got to take you
know, for the enemy, like if they see nothing but the MRAPs and stuff coming through their not
going to really mess with them because that's just recon and all the bigger like, all the infantry
battalions just pushing through doing patrols trying to find people.
What they would do is attack the supply convoys, they knew if they could cut off our supply's it
would hurt us more than anything, so that and it's a longer chain of vehicles so there's more
chances of hitting something, weather it was one of the bigger, like the 18 wheeler looking trucks
we have, where it was something like that or the security trucks, they knew they had better
chances of hitting something in a supply convoy than anything else.
Me: Did you all have a lot of routinely heavy fighting, or was it in spurts?
DO: It was in spurts, the first couple of months I was there it was pretty calm, I deployed from
March till October and it didn't really pick up till late April. In late April and May is when it
really started to pick up and everything then by the time it was early July and August it was
staring to calm down a little bit, but then after, after August for some reason it picked back up
again pretty good. I don't know why it happened in spurts but it was different areas we were
going to and everything else so it might have just been the area we were at.
Me: So what was the first fire fight you got in, like I sure that was a pretty hectic crazy
experience?
DO: First one we had, we had took like we had been out of the wire and had taken just a couple
small ambushes and our command told us just to push through so we didn't return fire, the
gunners just get down inside the truck where their protected by the armor of the truck too, but we
just pushed through.
But then, the first one we were stopped because we had a truck problem and it was right before
an area they were already going to attack us probably, and we were down for a truck having a
flat tire, and the security, we left out from where the convoy was and pushed out a little ways to
where we could see more of an open range around us. So one of the trucks, I think was west
facing took an RPG round, it didn't hurt anybody but that's whenever we knew things were
serious now. So we had to just light up the mountain side because we couldn't see anything that
was going on or where anybody was really at we couldn't see any actual personal or people so
we just go the word to aim at the mountain side and light it up.
Me: So a lot of their stuff is small ambushes that you encounter?
DO: Yeah, we had a couple that was caused by the IED's, the explosive devices that take out a
vehicle. And right when we're down because they blew the axel or tire of a vehicle or something,
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�we'd be down for that reason and then, when the place an IED they'll watch it, watch that are and
wait for you to get hit with it and while your down and they sense your vulnerable that's
whenever they would attack. Because they know you can't leave that area.
Me: So being over in Afghanistan, what was the main thing you missed, what were some of the
main things that, I don't know, you're not use to being without?
DO: Well like while your over there it really bugs you not to get to talk to everybody that much
and everything, I missed the simple things like being able to go out and do whatever on the
weekends, like go out and just work your normal work day as a civilian and then go out in the
evening and drink beer or go to a nice restraint or go to a movie theater, you know hang out with
your other friends but like when your over there everybody's going through the same thing and
you know you're stuck there for the time your deployed so you like start to adjust to it and you
start to miss your family a lot because you don't get to talk to them a whole, whole bunch. Just
moving from different bases and different things that go on, you go two or three weeks without
talking to anybody so.
Me: So like when you’re deployed with this group of guys you all train together, have been
together for a while right?
DO: Yeah, some of the best friends that you'll ever make is the guys you know are stuck in the
same situation you are over there and you knows no matter what happens they got your back. I
mean I'm not saying that normal civilian friends won't have your back if something goes down
but like the military guys that are there when it does come down to people shooting at you and
everything and knowing you have to trust them to have your back and they have to trust you too,
It's a totally different friendship than anything else.
Me: So the bonds that came out, the friends you made there...
DO: Oh yeah
Me: That's pretty important stuff?
DO: Yeah through the military you meet people from all over the place, I got friends that I still
talk to today that were with the British Marines and stuff, that we had to do convoys and stuff
with them, and like just the difference in the world that they grew up in and you grew up in, not
to mention just different Marines from like Texas or California or up north compared to just the
people you knew from just being raised and not being that far away from the place you've lived
your whole life.
Me: So you still keep up with a lot of those guys?
DO: Yeah, I talk to an awful lot of them on Facebook or e-mail or stuff like that, just different
Marine buddies and different British Marine guys I met.
Me: So are you still in that same unit or...
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�DO: Yeah I'm with the same unit.
Me: So in the Marine Corps will you stay with that same unit or will you get transferred out?
DO: You can get transferred out with any branch, like4 my unit in Greenville isn't going to
change because I'm with the reserves and everything now but like as an active duty personal, it’s
hard to be active duty and stay on the same base, or same unit, you'll have orders come in from
like Camp Lejeune, NC and they'll move you from there to Camp Pendleton, they'll move you to
Japan and the bases there, just where ever the military sees that it needs you or your rank.
Because they look at you as an individual but over all they look at everyone as, ok we need two
or three lance corporals or two or three sergeants or something, we need them to be in Japan so,
they'll be like well we have more than what we need at Pendleton so we'll just take a couple from
there, I mean when you sign up for the military you sign your life away for that contract and
where they need you they'll put you.
Me: So what kind of lessons, did you have any lessons that came out of your time overseas or
any kind of long lasting change? I know that's not a very well worded question...
DO: You learn more about yourself in an environment like that, like not like your alone by
yourself or anything like that, but just knowing what you can mentally handle in life, I mean a lot
of people without joining the military or anything like that don't really know how stressed out
they can be, I mean I'm not saying that any other job should be that stressful compared to the
military but the life on the line situation and then someone at a base is telling you orders to do
when they aren't even out there in the trucks with you to see what the really situation going on is,
and like us getting shot at and them telling us to duck in the truck and run off and not fight back,
then two weeks later in that same area the same ones that were shooting at you end up hurting
somebody or killing two or three people because they got a bigger ambush that time or just being
able to pass up the opportunity to take out the enemy now to do it later on and maybe they end
up hurting more people between now and then.
Me: So how did you feel about the officers in your...
DO: You'll like some of them, some of them you won't agree with their decisions but over all
you do what your told and if, you can lose your rank and all kind of stuff if you disobey a direct
order from an officer, I mean it's better to so what they say right then and if it's wrong their the
one that takes the fall for giving you the order, it's better to do what's said then to think for
yourself and do something that's wrong in the long run and lose everything you have for a small
decision.
Me: So what was the thing you hated most about being overseas?
DO: It's hard being over there, I mean I was over there for 8 months straight pretty much,
missing your family is tough, and like at the time I was deployed I had a girlfriend over here, just
missing her and not just seeing people and not having the real ability to touch people while
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�you're talking to them, you know using Skype if you have a web cam you can use to actually see
them the rest of the time it's just Facebook chat of phone calls home, you know not being able to
see them or actually be with them when you're talking to them being 13 or 14 hours ahead of
their schedule make it hard to line up a time to communicate with someone back home. So
mainly just like the small things about communication and not being with the ones you care
about the most.
Me: Other than missing people or not getting to see friends and family were there any day to day
things that drove you nuts over there?
DO: Foods not very good because it's the cheapest food there is and it's made for a thousand or
so people at once. So it's not like, every now and then we'd get something decent to eat but if you
out on convoy its nothing but the MREs which will stuff you up and they're not very delicious
either and in the chow halls its eggs that are made out of, powdered eggs and stuff like that, just
small things like that not nothing horrible to deal with.
Me: Were there a lot of political feelings in your unit, did you all talk politics or where the
officers political or any sense of political allegiances or was it just kind of doing your job?
DO: We didn't really talk politics we'd see it on the news and we'd get news updates if it was
something that was happing back home, if it was something happing with the president or
something bad or weather a certain governor was pushing for this, but mainly over there it was
just focusing on what we needed to do there not about anything going on back home unless it
was directly going to affect me.
But like I had been deployed during the pay stop for two weeks, when that happened I'm sure
that everyone that was deployed when that happened changed a lot of stuff over there, being
something political that happened here, I mean that would have been something weird to deal
with. Knowing you're going out to put your life on the line for the government and your country
and everything you believe in, and all the sudden they stop paying you while your over there
fighting for their rights and freedom.
Me: So what was the thing you enjoyed most about your deployment?
DO: It would be the bond that I made with some of the guys and other friends over there, one of
my buddies from South Carolina Randy, me and him didn't even know each other before the
deployment and now we're like best friends. One of the other guys I deployed with he was from
Boston and he'd always pick on me for being a country boy and I'd pick on him for being a
Yankee and just like the bond you make with different people that you would have never met
any way in the world except for being in the military with them. Just like the friendship you've
made with other people.
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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/8e06d26fe4ae33b93a8b58977204206a.mp3
9805ab753d494dd85aec321e3b0f735c
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
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Interviewer
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Interviewer unknown
Duration
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0:21:14
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6 pages
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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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Interview with David Owen, undated
Description
An account of the resource
David Owen, Marines, Lance corporal, 22 years old. In this interview David Owen talks about how his boss at work influenced him to join the military. He goes on to discuss his deployment to Afghanistan and some of his experiences there. Some of his experiences include; dealing with the heat and environment, combat, the things he missed, and the bonds that were created with other soldiers.
Date
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Undated
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).
Subject
The topic of the resource
Owen, David
Veterans
United States
Interviews
Language
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English
Afghanistan
David Owen
Marines
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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
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�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.
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�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?
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�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?
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�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
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.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Sponsel, Nathan G.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:24:53
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound.
29 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 Daniel Sponsel, 25 August 2011
Subject
The topic of the resource
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
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
11/25/11
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
chaplin
Daniel P. Sponsel
Iraq
JROTC
Korea; medic
Marines
Nathan G. Sponsel
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/cbfbdc96490e0b287e0a539efb15751b.pdf
5e4d961e229175a12c27c00e02c7e081
PDF Text
Text
Davis William Craig interviews Former Marine Corporal William Chris Ray
Chapel Hill, NC
13 October 2011
DC: Davis W. Craig
CR: W. Chris Ray
DC: Today is October 13, 2011. We are in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Chris Ray, birth date...
CR: December 10, 1988.
DC: This is being recorded for Appalachian State University. Mr. Ray served in operation...
CR: Enduring Freedom.
DC: Enduring Freedom, with the Marines. Chris, were you drafted or did you enlist?
CR: I enlisted my senior year of high school, 2007, in January, and shipped off to boot camp
July 1, 2007.
DC: What made you want to join the military?
CR: I think I knew I was going to join the military...when I was in seventh grade, after seeing
9/11, it was one of those things that was in the back of my mind I was exploring other options,
then if came time to...apply to colleges and whatnot...the only school I applied to was
Appalachian State, and got in there but didn't really want to go to school so I chose to go into the
corps, it was something different.
DC: Why did you pick the Marines?
CR: Well, the reputation they have is a overall little better than the other branches and I wanted
to be in the infantry, and the Marine Corps infantry is probably the most prestigious out of all the
branches, as well. So that's probably why I chose that.
DC: Do you recall your first days in service? What do you remember about when you first...got
in?
CR: Like in boot camp?
DC: Yeah.
CR: It was pretty hot, pretty miserable, you know, being like 18 and...you know getting thrown
into something like that, I think everyone kind of questions themselves, like "What did I get
into?" And then, after I went to boot camp, that lasted thirteen weeks, about three months...[I]
1
�Went to School of Infantry, which lasted about two months, and then went to my deploying unit,
which was seventh battalion, sixth Marines. It was...a tough experience. You learn a lot. It's
certainly not for everyone; there were times when I was hating life.
DC: How did you get through it?
CR: I set out to accomplish something; I'm not really one to quit on anything so...relying on
myself, relying on the guys around me because we were all going through the same thing.
DC: Do you remember any specific instructors?
CR: Yeah, I remember all of them. I didn't really like my boot camp instructors; I didn’t really
have too much respect for them just because, in the Marine Corps there is a big rift between the
infantry guys and the non-infantry guys. At the time, of course, you fear them, you respect them,
but looking back on them...they're jokes. And actually, my School of Infantry main instructor
actually deployed with me to Afghanistan, last summer.
DC: Where exactly did you go on you first deployment?
CR: My first deployment, it was called the twenty-sixth Marine Expeditionary Unit, and I went
to Italy, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Bahrain, Kuwait, Croatia, Egypt, and Greece.
DC: What do you remember about your first deployment, specifically?
CR: I hated it, honestly, because the only thing we did was, we were deployed as, it's called a
Force In Readiness, our whole job is to basically float around the Mediterranean and the Arabian
Gulf...Persian Gulf, just to see if anything, in case anything, pops up in any other country, we are
supposed to be there to take care of it...we trained other militaries, we trained the U.A.E.'s first
mortar platoon ever, which was pretty cool, but overall that deployment wasn't really what I'd
joined to do.
DC: What was your job?
CR: I was a mortar man, so we were part of the Eighty-One Millimeter Mortar platoon. So
basically, our job was the first, indirect support of the riflemen and the standard grunts.
DC: Did you see any combat?
CR: On the first deployment?
DC: Yeah.
CR: No.
DC: Let’s talk about some other deployments, where else have you been stationed?
2
�CR: I've only been stationed in Camp Lejeune, but I went to Marjah in Helmahn Province,
Afghanistan last summer...my second and last deployment.
DC: Did you see combat there?
CR: Yes...my second patrol ever...actually my first patrol ever we were indirectly involved in a
firefight then my seconds patrol ever we got in a firefight and three of my buddies ended up
getting shot, two of them went home...one of them shattered...his femur in one of his legs and
just really messed up the other one and another one got shot in the back of the head and actually
survived.
DC: What did that...what did the first combat that you were involved in...what was going
through your head once you realized that you were actually in a war, fighting?
CR: It was pretty surreal...it was one of those things where as a kid you see all these movies and
stuff and war is so glorified and all that...I guess people see it as cool and awesome until people
start getting hurt, but...at the time I think it was a really big wakeup call seeing as the first couple
of patrols, that really set the tone for the rest of deployment. We had a couple of guys that were
really freaked out after that but I think that just really made us more aware of...what could
happen at any second, at any time.
DC: Now, this hasn't been addressed yet, what ranks did you hold in your time with the U.S.
Marines?
CR: I came in as a Private and was meritoriously promoted to Private, First-Class after boot
camp, and then about eight months later I was promoted to Lance Corporal, and then after that I
was meritoriously promoted to Corporal and that's the rank that I held until I got out.
DC: Were you awarded any medals or citations or any sort of decorations?
CR: Yes. Obviously...they give out a lot of medals, a lot of them don't matter, but the only ones
that people really care about are the Combat Action Ribbon saying you've been in combat,
received fire, exchanged fire...I was awarded the Purple Heart, which is not a medal that anyone
wants but... you're more proud of that than anything else...I got a Purple Heart for...in October of
[2010] I got blown up by a DFC, which is a Directionally Fragmented Charge, which is a type
of IED, so it's basically a shotgun out of the ground ... I ended up breaking my shoulder, pretty
much got peppered all over the front of my body...I got medi-evaced to Germany and then to
Maryland and then finally went back home.
DC: What circumstances led to that?
CR: I was a Squad Leader, so I had about ten Marines under me, eight Afghan National Army
soldiers, we had to do a vehicle checkpoint that morning at an Afghan police station...We were
doing checkpoints and the Taliban obviously watched us go down there and they knew we had to
head back to our main patrol base, eventually. They'd been watching us for a couple of
weeks...So I split my squad up, I sent one of my team leaders on the East side of the road and I
3
�went on the West side, we never take the road because of the risk of IEDs, and they set up, I can't
remember exactly it's kind of hazy, but they set up a fake IED that I went to go check out...and it
wasn't really anything, and then I decided to cross the road and it was a remote controlled IED.
They basically waited for me to cross then the next thing I remember was waking up...I really
couldn't hear anything, my ears were ringing, I looked down and there was blood all over my
legs, my face, my shoulder, my chest, so I was kind of a little freaked out, but I couldn't really
move, I was in the middle of the road so I basically called over my radio, let everyone know that
I was hit and as soon as I did that, when [the enemy] opened up with some small fire so that no
one could come out and get me on the road. Since my legs weren't really working, I kind of
crawled down into a ditch and fired blindly, suppressing so someone could at least come over to
me and render me aide, applied tunicates and whatnot and everyone came to support. [I] Went on
a helicopter to a hospital and just dealt with recovery in the hospital and physical therapy after
that.
DC: [mutters, pause] When you were overseas how did you stay in touch with your family?
CR: [We] had a satellite phone that we were able to call every once in a while. I got to talk to
my family, I'd say once or twice a week. They would cut off our limitation, we weren't allowed
to use the phone if people were severely injured or if we had guys killed in action, which was
fairly frequent...so that was the only way, was through satellite phone.
DC: Was the food any good?
CR: No, the food was horrible. I ate spaghetti and meatballs for...three months. Now, if I see
spaghetti and meatballs I’m going to throw up, but the actual Afghan food was really good. What
it was, they eat a lot of flatbread, rice, and chicken.
DC: Did you do anything special for good luck?
CR: We kind of all had a routine...certain things that we liked to do...but I don't think I had
anything for good luck.
DC: What sort of culture...cultural experiences did you experience in Afghanistan?
CR: It's completely different; I don't really understand it still, but just the way that the women
are treated. We would ask a lot of the ANA, the Afghan soldiers, if they even knew why were in
Afghanistan, and most of them had no clue. And just dealing with the people...it was...especially
with the men...sexual relations with women was taboo but it was frequent for...they wouldn't call
themselves gay but...they were more affectionate to men than women.
DC: How did you guys entertain yourselves while you were over there?
CR: Well, I read a ton of books but that was pretty much it, other than that we didn't have much,
a couple of people had some laptops, but we had a generator so our power was limited...other
than that we talked a lot about everything.
4
�DC: Do you recall any instances of something goofy you all did for camaraderie?
CR: Yeah...lots of times. We had to do these vehicle checkpoints all the time so to mess with the
locals we'd sometimes tell them to get off their motorcycles and we'd go do donuts on them, or
we'd pretend we were pissed at them and pretty much hold them down and just tickle them, you
know, just stuff like that. Some of them liked us and some of them got pretty annoyed or
offended by it but we'd do stuff like that for laughs.
DC: Were there any other pranks or shenanigans going on?
CR: I mean, yeah there were lots of things we would do that we weren't exactly supposed to with
the motorcycles and stuff, but elders had beards and you're supposed to be really respectful
toward the elders. Some of my younger guys would go up there and tell the elders they needed to
search for IEDs in their beards...stuff like that. [They] messed with the Afghan soldiers a lot, the
kids we got them to...we'd teach them rap songs and stuff like that.
DC: Did you keep a diary or take any pictures?
CR: I did, I kept a diary and then it got ruined. I took a decent amount of pictures. Also, I think
my camera got messed up somehow so I wasn't able to get all of them but, yeah, I was able to
record some stuff.
DC: Do you recall the day that your service ended?
CR: Yes.
DC: Where were you?
CR: I ended up that morning, in Lejeune, checking out was just...the greatest feeling in the
world. I was waking up, I was about to be free. I ended up packing up all my stuff, picked up my
final papers, drove to Wilmington [North Carolina], where I lived at for the summer.
DC: What did you do in the days and weeks following your [completion] of your enlistment?
CR: I was just a beach bum; I did whatever, a whole lot of nothing, really.
DC: Did you work or go back to school?
CR: I'm back in school now and I'm working...I'm at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
and working a part-time job, too.
DC: Is you education being paid for by the G.I. Bill?
CR: Yes, by the post-9/11 G.I. Bill.
5
�DC: I know you've had to take a forty-hour a week job; can you explain the complications
behind the tardiness of your government payments?
CR: Yeah, I finally started getting my G.I. payments now. I could live off that now if I wanted to
but working pretty much a full time job gives me more money, more experience. It'd be nice to
have some time off but it's kind of weird going from the past four years with not that much
downtime to go on with too much free time. I think I do better when everything a little busier, a
little more efficient.
DC: Would you say that the military made you a scheduled person?
CR: Yeah, yeah, in a lot of ways and in some ways I kind of despise the habits and things the
Marine Corps has kind of drilled into me, but for the most part, I think I'm pretty close to full
adjustment back to civilian life.
DC: What sort of things do you catch yourself doing?
CR: Some stupid things...For some reason the Marine Corps...they don't like us to use blue pens
for anything...I don’t have any blue pens, it's pretty stupid, but...[Chuckles] for some reason I
don't use blue pens.
DC: Did you make any close friends while you were in the service?
CR: Yeah, certainly, certainly. One of my best friends he was actually one of my team leaders,
he's going to school as University of Alabama...another one of my really good friends, who's
actually from Raleigh, he's back in Raleigh going to school there...But certainly the guys that I've
met there I'll keep in touch with for the rest of my life.
DC: Have you had any thoughts about joining a veterans' organization?
CR: Yeah, I probably should. UNC doesn’t have a veterans' organization, which is actually
something that I've talk to a couple other veterans with at the university, trying to start one. And
there's also, local VFW and American Legion and stuff like that which...if I had more free time I
would do something like that but I guess I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
DC: Did your military experience change your feelings about the war, or war in general, or the
military?
CR: Certainly. Before I went in, I was pretty naive and I actually supported the war in Iraq and
the war in Afghanistan, then you start investigating things on your own and reading...more things
come to light. I ended up being definitely being against the war in Iraq and still support the war
in Afghanistan but I'm completely against the way that we are going about it.
After seeing, out of my squad, four out of ten of us have Purple Hearts, two of my guys got shot,
one of them has to walk with a cane for the rest of his life, and another one of my guys got blown
up by a smaller IED than what I got hit by and he ended up losing both legs and three fingers. So
6
�stuff like that makes you certainly way more critical of politicians and anyone who says they
support the war when they haven’t been over there...something along those lines. There's
certainly nothing glorified about war at all.
DC: Well, I think that is about all we need, thank you very much, Chris.
CR: [I] appreciate it.
END OF INTERVIEW
7
�
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/ab25383043a4994e0db5593ce2941b2c.mp3
b7c9b096d43eb66de3fe3b2b82319fc3
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
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.
Craig, Davis W.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:09:50
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound.
7 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 William Chris Ray, 13 October 2011
Subject
The topic of the resource
Operation Enduring Freedom, 2001-
Ray, William Chris
Veterans
United States
Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
William Chris Ray, Marine Corporal, was born on December 10, 1988. In this interview he discusses how 9/11 impacted his decision to join the military. He goes on to discuss his experiences in boot camp and his time while being deployed. He also talks about his job as a mortor man and specifically dicusses his time in Afghanistan and how he stayed in touch with his family.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/13/11
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
9/11
Afghanistan
Davis W. Craig
Marines
military experiences
mortor man
William Chris Ray