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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/e81108a567d8855fddf7cdf5529692ff.mp3
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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/5a29acf22530bb2ea808331ee3a992a7.pdf
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Military Oral History Interview Transcript
Greg Boyd
Kings Mountain, North Carolina
16 October 2011
JB: Justin Boyd
GB: Greg Boyd
JB: Today is October 16th, 2011 and my name is Justin Boyd. I will be interviewing my dad
Greg Boyd for an oral history project for my American Military History Class at Appalachian
State University. I’m conducting this interview at our home in Kings Mountain, North Carolina.
JB: First let’s start off by putting information together about what service were you in and how
old were you when you joined?
GB: I joined the armory when I was 17 in 1978.
JB: What did you go in as?
GB: I enlisted as an E-2.
JB: E-2. Where did you go to basic training?
GB: Basic training was at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
JB: Did you have to wait while you were at basic, or, did you have to wait before you shipped
off to basic training for any extended period of time.
GB: About two weeks.
JB: I know that when I enlisted I had to wait about four months, no, take that back, I waited 7
months before I shipped off to basic training. Why did you decide to enlist?
GB: Where I grew up, there weren’t many job opportunities, couldn’t afford college, so it was
the best alternative at the time.
JB: What was your MOS when you joined?
GB: I was a 63B1P.
JB: Which is what?
GB: Wheeled vehicle power generator mechanic, parachute badge qualified.
JB: Is that, did you keep that same job the whole, the whole time you were in?
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�GB: I made it to 63B4 and then also as a secondary as 62B4 which is heavy equipment
mechanic.
JB: So basically the same thing just more in depth?
GB: No, “63” are wheeled vehicles, “64” is engine air type equipment like bulldozers and
scrapers, and graders, and all trucks, things like that.
JB: You enlisted active duty right?
GB: Yes.
JB: How long were you in active duty?
GB: Four and a half years, I extended for six months for a tour in the Sinai Desert, with
multinational force and observes.
JB: What year were you deployed? What years I should say.
GB: 1982.
JB: It was just 1982?
GB: Yes, part of 1982 and part of 1983.
JB: What were the months from?
GB: Aw shoot I don’t remember, let me think, I believe…I don’t recall, I don’t recall.
JB: Was it hot or cold when you were over there?
GB: Oh, it was hot over there, hot in the Sinai. It only rained only one time for about five
seconds for six months.
JB: Exactly where is the Sinai Desert?
GB: It’s at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula.
JB: Was that part of any war, or were you just deployed there for…
GB: Well it was in accordance with Camp David Accords when the Israelis and the Egyptians,
came to terms on returning the Sinai Desert to the Egyptians.
JB: Go ahead and establish how long were you in the military altogether?
GB: I was in the Army and Army National Guard for 20 years and three months.
JB: And you switched to National Guard after four and a half years of active duty.
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�GB: Yes
JB: Which would have been 1967?
GB: No.
JB: ‘68?
GB: No, I went in in ‘78.
JB: Oh ‘78.
GB: And then switched by 1984.
JB: Ok. Let’s back up a little bit, what were you doing just before you joined the armed forces?
Were you working, or obviously were working, were you married, still single?
GB: Was in high school, I was single, but I was also working as part of a Distributive Education
Clubs of America, which is DECA, an organization at a local hardware store.
JB: Didn’t you meet mom because of the military?
GB: Yea we, your mom and I met in the National Guard in Kings Mountain.
JB: What year was that?
GB: 1987, 1987
JB: 1987? What year did yaw get married?
(Mom) 1989
GB: 1989, April 22.
JB: Yaw were both still in the military at, both still in the Army National Guard at that time?
GB: Yes.
JB: Which wars, if any did you serve in?
GB: During my time in?
JB: Yes.
GB: I think Grenada was the only war, only actual conflict, and I was not involved in Grenada,
but I was in the Guard.
JB: So you…
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�GB: And then Desert Storm came up and we weren’t, I did not mobilize Desert Storm either.
JB: So you weren’t deployed in either of them?
GB: No.
JB: But for both of them you were still with the National Guard unit in Kings Mountain?
GB: Yes.
JB: Which is what unit?
GB: It was the 505th Engineers, Company B of the 505th Engineers.
JB: Okay. During your time in the military, what kind of specialized training did you receive,
like airborne school, air assault school, any specialty schools?
GB: I went to jump school.
JB: Airborne School?
GB: Yes.
JB: When?
GB: In, I actually graduated from school on Thanksgiving Day in 1978.
JB: Was it easy or hard?
GB: It was hard I was there five weeks instead of three.
JB: Why?
GB: I couldn’t do the chin-ups.
JB: You couldn’t do the chin ups?
GB: Yea got recycled twice.
JB: How many chin ups did you have to do?
GB: I think seven.
JB: Seven in any given amount of time, or just seven?
GB: No just seven.
JB: When did you go to PLDC?
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�GB: I believe PLDC would’ve been, about 1987 or ‘88.
JB: And just to clarify, what kind of school is that?
GB: That is the primary leadership development course.
JB: For what?
GB: That was for my promotion to E5, and that was at Asheville, North Carolina.
JB: Was it like a, an actual military place, like a base that you went to in Asheville, or was it..
GB: Well it’s, it’s an actual military school sponsored by the state of north Carolina, all the
requirements, are military have satisfied pt test, and a couple other things.
JB: And did you ever go to ANOC?
GB: Yea I went to PLDC, BNOC, and ANOC, phase 1 and phase 2.
JB: What is BNOC?
GB: Basic NCO course.
JB: Was that part of the same thing as the E school.
GB: No that was for E6.
JB: E6? And when did you go there?
GB: Eh probably shoot, ‘91, ‘92
JB: And what is ANOC?
GB: ANOC was advanced NCO school for E7, and that would’ve been about 1995.
JB: So you got E7 in 1995?
GB: Eh probably ‘95 or ‘96
JB: Did you, did you ever serve in any non-combative oversea deployments?
GB: Yea, I went to Ecuador, and Honduras.
JB: When did you go to Ecuador?
GB: In early, it would’ve been late 80’s wouldn’t it (asking wife)?
(mom) Where?
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�GB: Ecuador.
(mom) It was actually when mawmaw had her surgery, which would have been, Justin was born
in 91, it would’ve been in around March of 1992?
GB: Yea been in ‘92, and
JB: Was it, was this when you were in the National Guard?
GB: Yes.
JB: Obviously.
GB: Yes, well it was humanitarian nation a village had been cut off from society by a mudslide;
we went in and had to cut a road from Keto to the village.
JB: Was it successful?
GB: Yes, I believe it took more than one rotation; it probably took two or three rotations to
complete it.
JB: How long were you there?
GB: I was there three weeks.
JB: Three weeks in Honduras?
GB: Two weeks in Honduras, three in Ecuador
JB: Ok. What was the weather like while yaw were down there in Ecuador? Like What part of
the year was it?
GB: It rained a little bit, but it wasn’t too bad.
JB: From the mudslides?
GB: Yea
JB: That’s what caused the mudslides.
GB: Well the mudslides actually happened long before we got there.
JB: But, the weather wasn’t too bad once yaw got there, like…
GB: Nah, it probably rained a couple times.
JB: On, once yaw started, once yaw started clearing away the mudslides and stuff.
GB: Nah we actually cut a new road, the mudslide road was,
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�JB: Okay.
GB: Given up.
JB: So the weather didn’t really make…
GB: No.
JB: Make yaw stay there longer?
GB: We had bulldozers going in the river pushing rock out to go to the rock crusher, so it
wasn’t real bad.
JB: How long were you in Honduras?
GB: Two weeks.
JB: At the same time?
GB: No it was later, it was probably in ‘93, ‘94
JB: What did yaw have to do there?
GB: We were part of a US effort to build what was that an updated road, almost a highway,
within Honduras.
JB: A highway?
GB: Yes, it wasn’t really a dirt road, it was kind of improved, it was an improved surface road.
JB: So like gravel?
GB: Probably packed gravel.
JB: Sort of like what we have out there on the greenway trail?
GB: Yes.
JB: I know that from when I went down to Honduras a couple years ago, it was very humid.
We went down in the middle of the summertime, so I guess technically there it was, well let’s
see is Honduras above the equator or below?
GB: Below.
JB: So technically it would have been the rainy season I guess there, but it only rained like one
day, but it was very humid, was it humid while you were there?
GB: Yes, it was hot and humid.
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�JB: How hot?
GB: Probably in the middle 90’s, high 90’s all the time.
JB: And high, very high humidity?
GB: Yes.
JB: What about any stateside deployments?
GB: We had one to Florida for hurricane relief, and…
JB: Which hurricane?
GB: That would’ve been Fran, I believe.
JB: What year was that?
GB: Shoot, I don’t remember.
JB: Before I was born?
GB: You can Google that.
JB: Before I was born?
GB: No, you can Google that.
JB: All right.
GB: We had the one there hurricane Hugo we got deployed for, we got deployed for a bunch of
wild fires also up in the mountains of North Carolina.
JB: Were you in North Carolina for the Hugo relief?
GB: Oh, yes. Yes, we were staying over in Mecklenburg County most of the time.
Mother: That was September of ’89
GB: We also had about three deployments to San Diego, California for border type missions
two were fence related and one was actually a road up into brown mountain, made it easier for
the border patrol to go up into the mountains and bring the illegal’s back down.
JB: Where is Brown Mountain at?
GB: In Southern California.
JB: So it’s right on the border with Mexico?
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�GB: Yes, it actually close to Tijuana.
JB: Were they having a lot of problems down there, or was this, they were just putting the fence
up sort of?
GB: No, they’ve always had problems. They’ve got probably a couple hundred border patrol
officers working in that region.
JB: How big is the region? Just all around the mountain?
GB: I’ll give you an example they’ve got a greyhound bus that they’ve beefed up just a little bit
to, to go up in the mountain to bring them down a busload at a time.
JB: Sheesh
GB: One of the trips to San Diego was to build a sewer line. The people of Tijuana had their
raw sewage coming into the United States so we built a diversion culvert, to take it back to
Mexico to a waste treatment plant that was, I think built by the US. So what we were doing was
rerouting their raw sewage back to them.
JB: Ha-ha-ha (chuckling) Tell me about a couple of your most memorable ex, memorable
experiences throughout your whole career in the military.
GB: FTX’s were always memorable, I had some good experiences it we-, in the field with the
platoon and the guys.
JB: Is that when you with the Guard unit or during some kind of training?
GB: With the Guard.
JB: Where did yaw go on yaws FTX’s?
GB: We went to Fort Jackson, we went to Fort Bragg, we went to Camp Butner, then Fort
Pickett.
JB: Virginia?
GB: Yes, places not too far away, but we got to travel a little bit.
JB: Did yaw go on about one a year?
GB: Yes, we probably went on one FTX a year, and one summer camp a year.
JB: Summer camp being AT?
GB: Yes.
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�JB: Two weeks?
GB: Yes, the most memorable AT was the one during the day when we were getting on Fort
Bragg it was 80 degrees during the day, but that night it snowed.
JB: Ha-ha.
GB: First Sergeant Ellis came out of his tent that morning and he said “I don’t care what color
it is, if it will keep you warm, put it on.”
JB: Ha-ha.
GB: It was like 35 degrees that morning.
JB: Was this during the summer time?
GB: Yea, right on the verge, like early spring.
JB: So sometime around March, April?
GB: Yes.
JB: And it snowed in Fort Bragg down there in Fayetteville?
GB: Yes.
JB: When I was in Fort Bragg this summer, it was 104 degrees every day.
GB: Man oh man, it can get hot.
JB: When you were on your deployments, either in state or in Honduras or where ever you
were, were you able to, and how did you stay in touch with your family?
GB: In the Sinai they actually installed a satellite station for us to make calls, through the
nearest military installation to where we were calling, in my case it was through Fort Bragg to
Fort Benjamin Harrison, then to my hometown in Indiana.
JB: Which was where?
GB: Jasonville, Indiana.
JB: Is that where your parents lived?
GB: Yes.
JB: Or what about all the rest of your family?
GB: Oh they all lived up there at that time.
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�JB: Ok. All in Jasonville?
GB: Yes. Any place else other than the Sinai, we just used a standard phone that was provided
by the unit.
JB: Like a sat phone?
GB: No, it was an actual landline.
JB: What about when you were in Honduras, and Ecuador and stuff?
GB: I don’t remember making any calls in Honduras or Ecuador.
JB: And you were only there for a couple weeks though.
GB: Yes.
JB: What about stateside?
GB: What do you mean?
JB: Were you able to contact your family stuff when you were in Florida or California or?
GB: Oh yes, in San Diego I just used a pay phone. I had a calling card.
JB: Ha-ha they had payphones back then? (jokingly)
GB: Yes.
JB: Ha-ha did you have cell phones back then?
GB: No, I didn’t.
JB: What about email?
GB: Cell phones were still as big as suitcases back then. I didn’t have any email either.
JB: All right so when did you finally retire out of the Guard?
GB: In 1998.
JB: 1998? What all went down? Were you, did you, do you miss it at all?
GB: Well yes, but the guys that the unit gave me several gifts. One of them was actually a
pretty nice golf club. Your mom through me a party and a fish fry, and had several people at the
house from the unit. It was real nice.
JB: Do you miss it at all?
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�GB: I miss the guys.
JB: You don’t miss being actually in the Guard though?
GB: Well, not really, no. I figured I could contribute to my retirement better working than I
could in the Guard.
JB: Well, I believe that about sums it up thank you for time dad. I hope I could bring back
some good memories.
GB: You’re welcome.
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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.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Boyd, Greg
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Boyd, Justin
Interview Date
10/16/11
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
16:07 min
Copyright
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.
Tag
Army, Fort Dix, mechanic, Sinai Desert, Camp David Accords, Army National Guard, 505th Engineers National Guard Unit, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Fort Bragg, Fort Butner, Fort Pickett, Sinai
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 Greg Boyd, 16 October 2011
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States
Veterans
Boyd, Greg
National Guard
United States
Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Greg Boyd, Army and Army National Guard, was born in 1961 and joined the armory at age 17 as an E-2. He discusses meeting his wife while in service, family, training, and deployments to Honduras and Ecuador as well as domestic deployments.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Boyd, Greg
Boyd, Justin
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>
Extent
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12 pages
Language
A language of the resource
English
Airborne School
Army National Guard
Ecuador
Fort Dix
Honduras
Sinai Desert