1
50
1
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/040ead966d7e44a1c7d22ff29a0f17e4.pdf
3c0b346aae56c7becea1d214868faf3b
PDF Text
Text
Name:
Branch:
Years Served:
Conflicts:
Date of Interview:
Patrick McGarrell, Airman 2nd class
Naval Reserve/Air Force
1954-1959
Cold War
October 12, 2012
David Broome: Alright, my name is David Broome I am sitting in Concord, North Carolina with
a Mr. Patrick McGarell. We are located in his house like I said in Concord, North Carolina on
Oct 12 2012 and I’d like to thank mr mcgarell for allowing me to have his time and allowing me
to ask him about his military experience. And Mr McGarrell if you could state your name for the
record
Patrick McGarrell: Patrick B. McGarrell
Broome: Okay, thank you sir. And what branch of the military were you in?
McGarrell: Well originally I put in 14 15 months in Naval Reserve and then enlisted in the Air
Force.
Broome: Okay, is there any particular reason why you changed from…?
McGarrell: Oh yes, I joined the Naval Reserve just to make some extra money. But when I
came ready to join, I did not want to go in the navy. I debated between army and Air Force…and
when it came down to the last minute I went Air Force.
Broome: Alright, sir. Also, can I get you to state your date of birth for the record? I should have
asked you that previously
McGarrell: December 31, 1936
Broome: Okay, sir so you said… for the naval reserve you joined to make some money, was
there any other reason behind it initially?
McGarrell: No, no.
Broome: You were just in for it for the money?
McGarrell: That was the easiest way to make some extra money.
Broome: Okay, alright. And you said you did not want to be in the navy?
McGarrell: Right.
Broome: Is there any particular reason why you chose not to?
Mc Garrell: I just didn’t want to.
BroomeYou just didn’t want to..?
1
�McGarrell: I’d gone through a little bit of the navy, two weeks basic training.
Broome: Uh hmm.
McGarrell: I saw it, I just didn’t want to do it.
Broome: How was the basic training of the navy compared to the basic training of the air force
which you eventually chose?
McGarrell: Just different… In the air force if you kept your nose clean and just did what they
told you to, there was no problems. As one of our DIs, or TIs as they called them in the air force
Boy scout camp was harder than the air force basic
Broome: Really? Did they really say that or did you just..?
McGarrell: Yeah, yeah.
Broome:Alright, so you ended up joining the air force …and once you initially joined the air
force, what did you..what role were you?
McGarrell: In basic training
Broome: You were just in basic training?
McGarrell: Yeah, in Lackland, Texas. Lackland Air Force Base at San Antonio, Texas…
Broome: Okay.
McGarrell: Back when I went in, every male had a 8 year military obligation. It could be served
in several different…so much active duty, so much reserve duty or joining the national guard and
put in 6 months and then so many years. And,.. this was the easiest way to do it.
Broome: Do you know what year it was…you immediately joined?
McGarrell: I joined the naval reserve in jan of 1954 and enlisted in the air force in april or may
of 1955.
Broome: You said it was 1955, sir?
McGarrell: Yeah.
Broome: Okay. Alright, so you started..you joined the naval reserve because you wanted some
extra money and after basic…basic training, you decided you wanted to join the air force and
you said basically that the air force seemed to be easier than boy scout camp. Do I have you right
there?
McGarrell:Yes, yeah.
Broome: Okay, well once you joined the air force, what was your..primary duty for …what was
your role?
McGarrell: Okay, okay
2
�Broome: Did you work radios or did you..?
McGarrell: Okay, after we got out of basic training, everybody was supposed to go to some kind
of school. They sent me to prelanguage school,…which was where you went through the entire
English language in t30 days. You had to take a test every day and they had a 97 …98 percent
washout rate on it. They had no business sending me to that school. I graduated from high school
with…C average in English. But they had to have so many bodies in that school so…When I got
out, washed out, went back to Lackland Air Force Base for reclassification, went through the
procedure again and they sent me to Air Police School in California… They called it air police
school in fact, Air Base Defense…And there was some police training in it, most of it was
infantry training: learning how to provide security for…air force base you know, infantry in case
we were attacked, all that good stuff.
Broome: Okay…Do you remember any particulars how ..your training for Air Base Defense was
different than your basic training?
McGarrell: Oh, yeah…you had all kinds of weapons training …and.. in Air Force Basic training
the only basic training you had was with something called a carbine. Which is a World War II
type weapon, not much more than a .22, but in Air Police School, or Air Base Defense, we
trained with the M1 rifle, which was the…standard weapon of.. military really at the time. And
the Browning Automatic Rifle, we trained with ….45 pistol, a ....little .45 caliber machine gun
called the “grease gun”, and a .30 caliber ground machine gun…Then they demonstrated mortars
to us, which we would never fire, but they demonstrated that they were in.. arsenal.
Broome: Okay. So they were in arsenal but you never really..they kind of demonstrate them but
you never really had hands on experience with them?
McGarrell: Oh, right.
Broome:..How, just out of curiosity, I’m assuming it being military that they would take this
training very seriously.
McGarrell: Oh, yes.
Broome: Did they?
McGarrell: Oh, yes.
Broome: So, it was definitely a step up compared to Air Force Basic training.
McGarrell: Oh yes, and the reasoning for all this was during the Korean War they had a bunch
of air police killed guarding an air base, where they weren’t trained to..you know…fight like
that. You know they were..and the Air Force was responsible back then for its own security of
their own air base. Previously, when it was part of the army, the army was the security. But when
the air force became a separate military service, the air force became responsible for its own
security.
Broome: Do you think that was the right move by the air force?
McGarrell: Oh yes, oh yes.
3
�Broome: Let me ask you this, I know you said, you said it several times now that I’ve gone
through it that the basic training for the air force was rather lax..
McGarrell: No, it wasn’t lax. It wasn’t as physical as you’d have in the army, specially marine
corps, something like …it was more mental training.
Broome: Do you, hypothetically…Do you think that the lack of physical training would have
contributed to all the Korean incidents that you noted? You don’t think that was it, you think it
was just planning and things of those nature?
McGarrell: No, lack of the infantry type training
Broome: In regards to the mental training, what did they have you exactly do? Like, what was
the training like?
McGarrell: Classes, most of the time. You just would do some marching, a little PT, but a
majority was sitting in classes.
Broome: Alright, so it was more like…like a school type setting?
McGarrell:Yeah, yeah.
Broome: Okay…So after you left the prelanguage school, and.. you did they tell you to go there?
Did they just send you off?
McGarrell: Oh, yeah.
Broome: Did you choose to go there…?
McGarrell: No, I didn’t choose it they just said where you were going. That’s the way the
military does it.
Broome: Yeah, so you get no say so, it’s just you’re basically going to do this?
McGarrell: Right, yeah.
Broome: Did you express any interest in that at all or..?
McGarrell: No.
Broome: And this prelanguage school..what did…what was the goal of it so that people that
graduated from it would do..?
McGarrell:…If you made it through that you were sent to several of..there were several
colleges/universities around the country where you would learn.. you can learn Chinese,
Russian, all these so called..so called enemies of the time where you become an interpreter and
analyst.
Broome: Do you wish you had gone that route in hindsight?
McGarrell: No, nah.
4
�Broome: Is there any particular reason why?
McGarrell: Just had no interest, ya know.
Broome: And you said most..you said there was a washout rate I believe of 97..98 percent. Do
you believe there was enough public education prior to this?
McGarrell: Oh, yeah. It was just a ..tough…It was just …so…tough.
Broome: It was just very tough?
McGarrell: We had one guy in the class, there. He had a …he was an English graduate, that’s
what his degree was in ..
Broome: Oh, wow.
McGarrell: It was just a extremely… rigorous course. I don’t know if you’ll call it a course…or
if you’ll call it an elimination round.
Broome: Well, after you went through the…elimination round…were you proud about
becoming part of the Air Base Defense?
McGarrell: Glad or not, I do not know. It was just a school they assigned me to to go to.
Broome: Do you remember any of the other options for schools around this time period?
McGarrell: Back then, there was everything that was open. I don’t remember..ya know?
Broome: You don’t remember it?
McGarrell: I know one guy though, when we go to…school in California, one guy was very
upset about it. He didn’t wanna be no policeman. He didn’t wanna shoot anybody…His father
knew some politician and he was from Colorado. His father knew somebody who knew
somebody who got in touch with somebody in Washington. Next thing we know he had orders to
go to weather school… So, you could get out if it, you know, but I didn’t know anybody.
Broome: So, you didn’t have any connections so that you could get out of it?
McGarrell: Nah, no.
Broome: How many people do you think tried to get out of it?
McGarrell: He’s the only one that I know of.
Broome: And it was simply because he simply didn’t like that assignment or because he didn’t
like the whole idea of it really?
McGarrell: Well, the whole idea of it really. He wanted to learn something else.
Broome: Was there…so he was ready join and serve and everything but he did not want to join
that particular school for air base defense, correct?
5
�McGarrell: Who him? Yeah.
Broome: And you didn’t have any strings you could pull to get out of it?
McGarrell: Nah.
Broome: If you had a string to pull to get out of it, would you have?
McGarrell: Looking back on it, I believe I would have, but that’s from hindsight. At the time,
maybe I was too dumb to…use any strings.
Broome: Alright, so …we’ll go back to your little story of your life here. After you get through
the air base defense school, for lack of a better term, what happened then?
McGarrell: I was…I went to Keflavik Air Force Base in Iceland.
Broome: Okay, how long were you stationed in Iceland, sir?
McGarrell: One year…and I went there by choice.
Broome: Is there any particular reason you chose that base?
McGarrell: Well when …I was finished up class…in Air Police School/Air Base Defense
School the top ten percent in the class got their choice based on first, second, third. Anything was
open in the world. We knew we were all going overseas…I was either second or third on the list
..I knew I did not want to go to the Far East, I would have been shipped out of the base I was on,
that was a three year tour. I did no want to go to Europe for three years, so I saw this list…Who
ever heard of anybody going to Iceland? Since it was a one year tour, I said I’d take that
one…And Iceland sounds bad but it wasn’t that bad. It’s on the Artic Circle, but it really doesn’t
get that cold…Coldest I saw it was in a year’s time, fifteen above zero. The warmest I saw it was
five above zero, but it felt hot…and that’s because the Gulf Stream swings up around there, just
enough to offset the temperature coming from the Artic Circle…ya know. We had snow, but we
didn’t have that bad a snow. Course I do remember seeing icebergs floating. Back from our
barrack you could see the ocean…I remember seeing the icebergs floating out there but, ya know
didn’t think anything about it…And there’s plenty of people that live in Iceland, civilian
population up there.
Broome: You know what, let me ask you this, where were…I should have asked you this earlier.
Where were you born?
McGarrell: Roanoke, Virginia
Broome: Roanoke, Virginia. So, ..the climate of Iceland was a little different than that of
Virginia
McGarrell: Oh yes.To show ya the difference, we got on a plane out.. of McGuire Air Force
Base in New Jersey. We just had regular airforce clothes on. Some people flying out of there to
Greenland which is maybe 800 900miles west of Iceland on the same latitude, longitude,
whatever that is, they could not get on a plane if they did not have Artic survival gear on..with
them. Now, that’s the different in those two places not that far apart.
6
�Broome: Wow…Do you have any training prior to joining…prior to joining Iceland being in the
Artic like you said?
McGarrell: No, nah.
Broome: I know you said in one year you were obligated to serve one year…Do you wish you
had gone in hindsight the European route or the Asian route?
McGarrell: Nah, no. Although, I have learned later that Bermuda was on the list. Course, that
would have been a three year. We had an air base in Bermuda. I thought maybe..maybe..but ya
know. The way things have worked out because I went to Iceland…met an airman there who had
his high school annual and things…that’s why I’m here today, that’s why you’re here today..ya
know…
Broome: Alright.
McGarrell: Things have a way of working out in life, ya know. If you..You trace…If you can all
trace it back to some point in your life when you get old enough, you trace it all down to why
you there..and where you are today.
Broome: Uh Hmm. Alright, so you were in Iceland a year. Do you know your rank at this point?
McGarrell:I went up there as an airman 3rd and got promoted airman 2nd after I’d been there…56 months.
Broome: Do you feel like it was easy to move through the ranks or it wasn’t?
McGarrell: Well…The first promotion was…but in the air police field, once you got the airman
2nd it was hard to get the airman1st because there weren’t that many openings. They would give
so many openings per promotion cycle..which was every quarter for career fields. Mechanics, jet
mechanics…stuff like that…they could get promoted real quick. You could make staff sergeant
in two years…When I got out, let’s see…when I got out…I had 30-something months in grade
for promotion. I was airman2nd and there’s very little chance of getting promoted
Broome: Do you ever feel bad that it was harder for you to get promoted or?
McGarrell: Oh , yes, money.
Broome: Yeah, because of course with the extra…
McGarrell: Not that great of money, but money. A difference every month..
Broome: Right, yeah. So the money appealed more than the actual having prestiege.
McGarrell: Yeah, I mean we all did the same thing.
Broome: Okay, so you said that…It was mainly based on the money and that they basically you
would have liked to be promoted would you have not?
McGarrell: Oh yes.
7
�Broome: …But that it was easier…It would have been easier to join another field if say you
were just in it for a promotion, like some people may have hypothetically been.
McGarrell: Alright, so...But now here’s the kicker, when I got to Iceland, a bunch of them
said,”Any of yall know how to type? I raised my hand. I had some experience on a typewriter.
They said, “We need a clerk in the Provost Marshal’s office, are you interested?” I said yeah, I’ll
go there. The Provost Marshal office is the head of the air force police squadron. More or less the
chief of police of the base. They need somebody to type security clearances there. That’s what I
did for about eight months, sitting in an office typing security clearances.
Broome: Did you like the office environment?
McGarrell: Yeah.
Broome: Or would you have rather been more outside?
McGarrell: It was the military I worked the day shift five days a week. If I had been on the air
police still I’d be working rotating shifts that rotated every month. After I got…after I had maybe
been doing that eight months or nine months that after I got back to the states I wouldn’t be
doing that. I better go on regular police duty and found out what I’m supposed to do out
there…So, I did that about three months.
Broome: Then this three months was the regular…for lack of a better word.
McGarrell:Guarding airplanes..working a gate every once in a while.
Broome: Okay. So after you had the eight months as a clerk and the three months after being
with the air police..being outside doing your rounds that kind of thing, what happened after that?
McGarrell: I was sent back to the states.
Broome: You were sent back to the states?
McGarrell: Assigned to Kessel Air Force base in California.
Broome: Okay. So were you glad to leave Iceland. Were you glad to leave Iceland?
McGarrell: It’s just..it’s just something you did, ya know. You served your time and did what
they told you to.
Broome: So basically I do my time and then I’ll move on and it’s all up to them and I have no
control over it?
McGarrell: Right, right.
Broome: So, how did you like the California Air Force Base you were based at?
McGarrell: Well, it was a SAC base, a Strategic Air Command base and at that time SAC was a
little…rigid..but they had to be about what they were in for, ya know… Actually, where I was
staged in in California, I liked it. It was in San Joaquin Valley…a hundred or so miles south of
San Francisco and a couple hundred miles north of LA…It wasn’t a bad place but SAC used to
8
�have some strange rules. They used to have these alerts all the time, base sirens were supposed to
go off and you were supposed to report. One of the guys had a way of knowing when they were
going to have and alert.. and if it was our time..when we were off duty we’d always make sure
we were off base when the alert went off..So we didn’t know about it…But the alert went off one
time and we didn’t know about it and we had to go report and they said everybody was restricted
to base, everyone was going to pull twelve hour shifts, and that…we didn’t know what was
happening and they didn’t tell us what was happening. They started loading…This was a B-52
base where they trained, cross-trained B-50 pilots to fly the B-52 and we saw something coming
from the weapons dump, the bomb dump. They were carrying what they called “weapons”. A
“weapon” was nuclear weapon. They started loading them on the planes. We’d never seen them
do that before. So, two days later they told us what was happening. The United States had sent
Marines into Lebanon and something was going there in the country of Lebanon and they didn’t
know how Russia was going to react, so they was getting ready. When we saw them loading
those weapons on those planes it kind of scared us a little bit…As it eventually turned out
nothing happened, but for two or three weeks we could not leave the base and those guys that
were married, they could leave the base but only go to their quarters where they were living off
base. Then they started easing up, we could get off base and then a month or two later they stood
us down and we went back to regular shifts…That was kind of scary at the time.
Broome: Okay, and what year was this..do you recall?
McGarrell: It seems like ’57 or ’58.
Broome: And this was..as you say..you were almost shocked..
McGarrell: Yes.
Broome: In regards to the weapons you referred to, did everyone just know that, “Hey we have
nuclear weapons over here” or was it…a closely guarded secret.
McGarrell: We knew they were there. Now, talking about closely guarded. At one time, every
time they brought a weapon from the …bomb dump to practice loading it onto a plane it was
covered with a tarp and it had an air police security escort leading it…Then they finally got
smart and said, “Why are they doing all this? The Russians know what they look like, they
probably got our plans.” So, they didn’t cover them up no more. They provided their own
security, the people from the bomb dump…The finally got smart…The reason they thought they
were keeping it from the Russians..Sure,..the Russians knew what all we had. They probably
knew more about than most of us did.
Broome: Speaking of that, of course this is during the Cold War. Did you ever notice in
particular for California or even Iceland how the Cold War related to the training, any
restrictions on you, or any knowledge you gained from that?
McGarrell: Nah, no.
Broome: It didn’t have any kind of effect on the Air Force as whole that you know of?
McGarrell: No, not that I know of. Talking about the Cold War, Russia used to have so called
“fishing trawlers.” They used to come up around Iceland, we knew that they were intelligence
9
�ships is what they were..trying to see in..The navy had a squadron of …submarine hunters that
they had up there P-2Vs “Neptunes.” They used to go out and bomb this fishing trawlers with
their garbage from their lunch.
Broome: As in nice little friendly international hospitality for lack of a better word in the
Northern Atlantic?
McGarrell: Haha, right right.
Broome: So basically they’d drop their trash as a friendly, “Hello,hey we know you’re there”
kind of thing. So, other than that little humorous anecdote, was their other experience you had
other than the nuclear weapons of course?
McGarrell: I saw Sputnik, …the first Sputnik, they told us when it was going to come over.
They said sometime in the evening. They said if you look there you can see it. You could see
it…shining in the air…
Broome: How was that moment for you?
McGarrell:It was…interesting.
Broome: Was it scary?
McGarrell:Nah, no. It was just a something they put up there shining at us.
Broome: Just the Russians being the Russians kind of thing?
At time of Sputnik were you even in the Air Force?
Did you hear anything from your superiors regarding Sputnik?
McGarrell:They told us about it. Where we could see it that evening.
Broome: There was no suspension no…nothing like that?
McGarrell:Oh, nah. No.
Broome: Alright. So, you’re in California and you witness the issue with the Strategic Air
Command and I know you said…let me go back in my notes here…How were they rigid?
McGarrell:Uh, they didn’t put up with any foolishness, period.
Broome: So, they were very …very serious regarding their training and their basic guidelines
and rules they had to follow.
McGarrell:And like I said, this was a training base where they trained B-52 pilots. I saw two of
them twice while I was stationed in California. One of them landed short of the runway and
…one landed on the runway and something happened and it burned right on the runway. Thing
about it, some of those plane that were there are still flying today, 57 years later.
Broome: The B-52s you’re speaking of?
10
�McGarrell:Yes, because they have…they rebuild them and upgrade them all the time.
Broome: Does that ever concern you out of curiosity?
McGarrell:Nah, they are very interesting, I’ve been all over them. On my shift, evening
shift…nothing going on we’d be… walking flight line guarding these things. We’d climb up in
them up through the wheel well, go up and sit in the pilot’s seat for a while and there was a
catwalk that went from the pilot’s seat all the way to the tail gunner…We’d go and crawl in there
and just sit up there. First thing they ever tell everybody is, “See this D-ring here?” Yes. “Don’t
ever touch that.” That’s for the tail gunner to pull if he ever had to bail out. He could pull that
and the tail would drop off and he could bail out. They said, “Don’t ever touch that.”
Broome: Did anybody ever touch it?
McGarrell:No.
Broome: It was an understood thing, “Hey, let’s not touch this.”
McGarrell:Yeah, this was among the people…I work and out on the flight line. Not for the
superiors.
Broome:..Of course you weren’t officially allowed to do this, were you?
McGarrell:…It’s very mind numbing, dull, boring work. You’re walking around stupid
airplanes carrying a rifle for eight hours…
Broome: …To keep your own morale up, “Hey there’s an airplane let’s climb in it, right”?
McGarrell:Yeah. You could almost train a monkey to do this thing.
Broome: That’s an interesting way to put it there, sir…So, you said it was very dull and mind
numbing. Was it basically the same experience you had in the clerk’s office in Iceland?
McGarrell: Nah…up there in Iceland, while I was doing that job in the clerk’s office I was
doing basically the same thing but seeing different people everyday…There was only three or
four-three of us in the office and once a while I’d see the squadron commander come in…He
didn’t pay us any attention. We were doing our job and that’s all he cared.
Broome: …Going back to your story you’re in California on an Air Force Base you’re guarding
B-52 at a training base, correct?
McGarrell:Right.
Broome: …What happened next?
McGarrell: Along about…in January or February of 1959..my time was up in April or May I
forget at the time, I forget, but in January or February they called three or four or five of us in the
squadron commands office and asked how many of us would reenlist. None of us raised our
hands. He said y’all will all be separated within two weeks…Said the only catch about it is that
if you want reenlist after that you can’t reenlist for 91days. By being out 91 days you’d lose a
stripe....
11
�Broome: Did you ever think of reenlisting or was it an instant, “I don’t want to do that kind of
thing”?
McGarrell: I didn’t think…I didn’t want to reenlist…You couldn’t get out of the career field. I
couldn’t see 20 years guarding air planes.
Broome: So you didn’t see that there was any…?
McGarrell: There wasn’t a future in it
Broome:..wasn’t a future in it.
McGarrell: Right.
Broome: Do you regret that? Do you regret that at all?
McGarrell: I have at times. Maybe if I’d been in a different career field, I’d have stayed in, but
not in that field….Although one time during Vietnam I was living in Fayetteville.
Broome: This was Fayetteville..?
McGarrell: North Carolina, where Fort Bragg is. All my neighbors were army…airborne. They
were also training new recruits at Fort Bragg for Vietnam. I thought about, “Could I reenlist?” I
thought about it and thought no I couldn’t I had married in the time and had one child. I could
not make enough to support them. If I had been single I may have gone back in then…
Broome: It was one of those things financially..You didn’t think you could support a larger
family which you had which in California was just you….You were..I know your time ran up in
April or May of ’59, you were discharged then?
McGarrell: Yeah, right…Then after that that I was in what they call inactive reserve up til my
eight year obligation was up, which would have been…about 1962. You didn’t really have to do
anything. You were supposedly viable to be called back up if there was an outbreak in
hostilities…There was nothing.
Broome: …Let’s say you joined the Air Force a couple years later that would have put that 1962
to 1965, 1966.
McGarrell: I’d be in the middle of Vietnam probably…Now, joining the Air Force when I
did..or going it closer. Back then…they had a GI Bill then that ran out I believe January 1954. If
you were in before then you got what they call education benefits and all that…and I never
thought about that. I went in 2 or 3 months too late to get that. It would have made a big
difference in my life…It would have made a difference in my life if I had went in early enough
to get those benefits. I could have gone to college earlier instead of going to college when I was
40-something.
Broome: So, ’59 you are out of the Air Force,…what’d you do career wise?
McGarrell: I became a police officer in Roanoke, Virginia.
Broome: Do you feel like your military experience in the Air Force helped you get this job?
12
�McGarrell:Oh yeah.
Broome: Just outta curiosity, how was the civilian police force of Roanoke, Virginia different
than the…?
McGarrell: Oh..night and day. In the civilian police force you’re dealing with, all kinds of …I
don’t wanna call people “garbage”…You’re dealing with a lower, generally a lower classes of
civilians. In the Air Force, you didn’t have those types of problems. You were doing something
entirely different, like I was guarding airplanes or working on gates going into and off the base.
Broome: So you ended up being a police officer in Roanoke for two and a half years? How’d
you like that?
McGarrell: I didn’t. Towards the end I could see that there was no future in it. If you wanted to
get ahead you had to play the politics..and two and half years I was the low man on senority in
my shift. There was very little turn over. So I got looking and I was able to get in a management
training program at a retail store and they trained me to be store manager.
Broome: A retail program?
McGarrell: Old W.T.Grant Company, they didn’t at that time, they didn’t require the manager
to be a college graduate. They had certain tests they put you through …and if you passed these
tests and fit their profile, they’d put you in the training program…They’d teach you everything
you needed to know to run..a store.
Broome: Alright, well, I know you talked about this training program. Do you feel like there was
more..I know you spoke of your future several times, do you feel that in your civilian life there
was ..easier to advance in your career?
McGarrell: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Everywhere I’ve been. I’ve had several different careers in my
time but you can do it. At least when I was in a military you were on a certain path and that was
it.
Broome: You said once you were in a certain path that was it. Do you think there was any
flexibility? ..For your example you came out of your training and you were going to Air Base
Security and you were stuck on that more or less, you felt stuck there.
McGarrell: Oh yeah.
Broome: Well, let me ask your overall military experience as a whole? Does that still effect you
today?
McGarrell: Oh yes, you gain discipline…I think part of what’s wrong with our country today,
and there are some things that are wrong with the country, is that there is no …military training
or not necessarily military training but ..obligation to do something for the country for a couple
years. Back then, there basically was and I think it made a difference.
Broome: Would you be in favor of having some kind of, not necessarily military obligation but
some kind of service obligation?
13
�McGarrell: Yes, yes.
Broome: You said back when you were serving you had an eight year obligation.
McGarrell: Yes, eight year obligation you had. Now there were certain ways of getting
out..physically…or some guys would get married and have a baby real quick that’d get them out
of it. Or if you were a ministerial student or a medical student you could get deferred.
Broome: Alright, but you said you gained a lot of discipline. Is there anything you notice about
yourself that still shows the fact that you have a military background Like is there any particular
trait?
McGarrell: People, several people, have talked about the way I walk and stand.
Broome: The way you walk and stand?
McGarrell: They say, “Were you in the military?”
Broome: They can almost pick you out of a crowd you’d say?
McGarrell: Yes, I never notice it, but…
Broome: It’s just one of those things that people notice about you. And I’m sure that must look
great on a resume, pretty great, having military experience on your resume.
McGarrell: Yeah, it did. In some cases it does.
Broome: Do you think that helped you with you retail position you spoke of?
McGarrell: Oh yeah, because back then, they didn’t pay much to a trainee, but if you were
married you got $5 above the starting pay and if were in college and if you had been in service
you got $5 more.
Broome: And you were married at the time?
McGarrell: Yeah, so I got two out of three.
Broome: Alright, and you ended up in retail and have been in a couple of different..positions,
jobs, fields, since then. Let me ask you this question and you can answer it however you want.
Do you ever regret your military service?
McGarrell: No, not at all.
Broome: You don’t regret it and you feel like you learned a lot from it?
McGarrell: Yeah, yeah I learned some things and got to see some things..How else would I ever
see the country of Iceland?..How else would I have seen California? I was in California twice,
when I went to school out there and when I came back from overseas I was stationed out
there…I met some nice people out there.
14
�Broome: Well, sir, we’re coming to the end of our interview here is there any final statement
you’d like to make regarding military or anything like that or how you feel our military is…the
Air Force in particular ..or just military in general in the current state.
McGarrell: As far as I know, it’s …they’re all in good shape…I talked to a young man
yesterday. He had a Marine Corps lanyard and I asked him, “Are you a Marine?” He said, “No, I
leave in December for basic training. I said, “Good luck” and I said, “I admire any young man
who can make it through the Marine corps boot camp.” The Marine Corps is the hardest boot
camp there is of course there are tears. The Army is next followed by the Navy then the Air
Force. Anybody who makes it through boot camp in the military today, even the Air Force, basic
training, I respect them.
Broome: Alright, sir well we are going to wrap up our interview. I’d like to thank Mr. Patrick
McGarrell again for the record and what was your rank again, sir?..What was your rank again sir,
your highest rank achieved?
McGarrell: Airman 2nd.
Broome: 2nd Airman Patrick McGarrell, thank you for your time.
15
�
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/6d4045f1d4e61c9997c59801d6cf9b29.mp3
b31a5f5c2efea9a79f825a5ad271f317
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.
File size
57.3 KB
55.1 MB
Format, digital
MP3
Military Branch
military branch (U.S. Army, etc)
Naval Reserve/ Air Force
Officer Rank
Officer rank (major, private, etc)
Airman, 2nd class
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Broome; David
McGarrell; Patrick
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Broome, David
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
McGarrell, Patrick
Interview Date
10/12/2012
Number of pages
15
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:40:10
Date digitized
2/5/2015
Checksum
alphanumeric code
ad8317757023073c53d9b505a3b19758
b31a5f5c2efea9a79f825a5ad271f317
Scanned by
Leah McManus
Equipment
Adobe Acrobat XI Pro
Resolution
300
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal; non-commercial; and educational use; provided that proper citation is used.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
UA.5018. American Military History Course Records
Recording rate
A/V rate (48,000kzh x 16 bit)
48000kzh x 16 bit
Format, original
Electronic File
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/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
5018_McGarrell_Patrick_20121012_transcript_M
5018_McGarrell_Patrick_20121012_audio_A
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Patrick McGarrell, Airman 2nd Class [October 12, 2012]
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
Language
A language of the resource
English
English
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Broome, David
McGarrell, Patrick
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used.
Description
An account of the resource
Patrick McGarrel, born in 1936, went to basic training twice: first for the Naval Reserve and second for the Air Force. After that he went to a language school which he said had "a 97, 98 percent washout rate" and flunked out. He ended up serving at an Air Base in Iceland for a year.
Subject
The topic of the resource
McGarrel, Patrick
Veterans
United States
Interviews
Air Base Defense
Air Force
Iceland
Korean War
language school
Naval Reserve