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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/15e80041c2eb220296a7798fded4381e.mp3
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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/0ccb842014d24bfa48e576888d65f28c.pdf
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Transcript of Oral History Interview with Cadet Jacob Smith.
October 10, 2012
Boone, NC
Holly Sovine: I’m Holly Sovine and I’m here with Jacob Smith, former enlisted infantry
soldier, conducting an oral history project for military history. Let’s get started. Where
were you born and raised?
Jacob Smith: I was born right here in North Carolina, in High Point, North Carolina, raised in
the Triad area.
Sovine: And when is your birthday?
Smith: Born June 12, 1987.
Sovine: When and why did you choose to join the military?
Smith: Joining the military was something I always wanted to do since I was a kid. I kind of
flip flopped of course, as kids do, about what branch I wanted to do, there were times I
wanted to be in the Marines or in the Navy. I know, even in the navy or be in the air force.
[Laughter] But ultimately, as I grew up and matured and everything and it really started to
come in that seriously I could do this if I wanted the Army is what best suited me. So that’s
why I did that.
Sovine: Okay. Is there any kind of family history of military service?
Smith: No, not that I know of. I think my grandfather was in the navy for a short time when
he was a younger man but other than that there’s no long family history of that’s the
tradition or anything, no.
Sovine: What are some memorable basic training experiences you had?
Smith: Memorable basic training. I would say one would probably be when we used to do
the bayonet course. We did that fairly early in our training and I remember that was the
first time I felt like “wow” I’m really doing this I’m really becoming a soldier. Everything up
to that point had been filling out papers and learning how to march. It just kind of…small
things…it was the first time I was just like “wow” I’m going be an inftantryman and I’m
going to do this and it was a big eye opening moment I had.
Sovine: Okay, what are some other duty stations you had?
Smith: After basic training I was stationed at Ft. Lewis, Washington as part of the first
brigade 25th infantry. I wasn’t there very long though because at the time first brigade 25th
was a striker brigade and the Army wanted a striker brigade to be permanently stationed
in Europe so they chose our brigade and what we did was, over the course of a year, our
brigade picked up personnel and equipment and moved across, pretty much across the
�whole globe and were re-stationed to Vilseck, Germany and were re-flagged the second
cavalry. The second cavalry’s history had always been in the European theater and the 25th
has always been in the Pacific so they wanted to keep that kind of in that direction.
Sovine: What does re-flagged mean?
Smith: Re-flagged basically means they moved us and then they said “Ok, you are no longer
the 25th infantry, you no longer wear the patch, you no longer have those unit designators,
instead you are the second cavalry.”
Sovine: Okay.
Smith: It’s like when a football team moves and they change the name.
Sovine: Oh, okay. [Laughter] Have you ever been deployed in a combat situation?
Smith: Yes, I have been deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom in August of 2007 to
November of 2008. I was one of the first people that was part of the troop surge that
President Bush enacted with more boots on the ground and longer deployments to bring
stability to the country. I was one of the lucky few to be considered a part of that. In fact, he
was giving a speech the day we got into Kuwait, we were kind of curious as to whether that
was us or not.
Sovine: And what was your whole deployment experience?
Smith: Deployment is an experience all in its own; it’s hard to kind of compare it to
anything else. At first we were deployed to Iraq and we were on victory based complex on
camp striker and our main operation area was the Hadar area. While in Baghdad, it was
troops in contact just about everyday. Everyday something happens somewhere. It was in
Hadar that we lost the first six guys from our deployment. The first two died just from
simple ricochets, bullets that bounce off something and just happen to catch them in the
wrong place. The next three died from what we call HBeds which are basically house born
IEDs. Booby-trapped houses, they rigged the buildings themselves to actually blow up if
somebody walked in them. And then the last, Geiger, was on one of the main routes they
had emplaced an EFP or energy focus propellant. Basically it’s using copper to penetrate
through the slat armor of the striker and that’s when Geiger died. So then our total was up
to six at the time. Then we moved as part of an operation to push Al Qaeda out of a certain
area in the Diyala providence that coalition forces really hadn’t had a big presence in so it
was kind of a safe haven for them. So our battalion who dove into the Diyala providence to
meet up with the second infantry division that was already there and move with them to
push Al Qaeda out of that particular area. And so, the beginning of the operation it was kind
of like Iraq. There was somebody in contact everyday. But that’s where we lost the last six
guys while on our deployment. The Recon platoon before, on the way, in the transition had
struck an IED. No deaths. A few injuries and a vehicle was decommissioned because it was
flatlined and it had to be majorly repaired before it could ever roll again so the Recon
platoon was already down men and equipment and when they walked into a building Al
�Qaeda had already had all four corners of the structure and the roof of first floor, the floor
of the second floor, basically laid down with explosives. So when they walked in the entire
structure blew up. Killed the platoon sergeant, two squad leaders, two team leaders, and a
grenadier and injured a bunch of other guys. It basically combat ineffected that entire
platoon with al the casualties and everything. [Sovine: Yeah] After that though, gloves came
off. If we though that Al Qaeda was using any building at all for storage of equipment or
using it as a hideout or anything like that, if we suspected that we made sure no one was
around the immediate area and we’d drop 500 pound JM bombs off of an F15 on top of it.
[Laughter] And so once we started blowing up houses Al Qaeda kind of backed off and we
drove them out. And the rest of the deployment was…I don’t want to use the phrase
“smooth sailing” but it was not constant contact everyday.
Sovine: So did you or any other soldiers in your platoon receive any kind of awards?
Smith: I personally didn’t, other than just an end of tour award that kind of everybody gets
it. Kind of congratulations thank you for, you know the end of the deployment and
everything. But a few of the guys did. A lot of Army Accommodation medals with valor and
a lot of bronze stars all around for guys who did something heroic but I personally didn’t.
Sovine: Okay. So how did you come to end up in Boone, North Carolina?
Smith: After deployment, went back to Germany, finished out my year, and separated from
the Army. I loved the Army. The Army was great to me but I always wanted to go to school.
At the time, my wife she had just finished. By the time I had got done with the Army, my
wife had just finished her bachelor’s degree here at Appalachian. And so she wanted to
continue on to get her master’s degree and I wanted to start my undergrad so, and she
specifically wanted to get it at Appalachian and I wanted to get it at Appalachian. They were
good to her while she was here and I’d come and visit her a few times and I really enjoyed
the area and I really liked the university. And so….[Long pause]…[Laughter] That’s why I’m
here.
Sovine: So how did you come to be a cadet with the ROTC program?
Smith: You know being a cadet was a really hard decision. I had about a year from when I
transitioned out of the Army to when I started school and I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to
do it. But I signed up for the class and started taking it and kind of did to keep my face…to
put my foot in the door but I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to commit. I toyed with a lot of
emotions. There were days where being in the Army was great, you were completing the
mission you had a clear assignment of what your objective was and what you were doing
and it made you feel accomplished and good, but then there were days when you really just
kind of didn’t like what was going on. It’s like any other job you know? I really had a hard
time with making a decision to become a cadet. I did a lot of self-reflection, a lot of you
know praying to myself, I thought to talk to my wife and everything. Getting in with the
program and getting back in the feel of the Army and deliberating with my wife I decided I
wasn’t done with the Army and that was the best decision for us.
�Sovine: Good good. All right, well is there anything else you’d like to include in the
interview that we haven’t covered?
Smith: It’s not so much now that the Iraq war is dwindling down but at the time, when we
were there we used to watch the news and the news used to kind of make what was going
on over there sound much worse than what it was so I used to tell people all the time when
they asked me how it was take what you watch on the news but scale it back some. Any
time anyone gets into contact or anything ever happens a report is filed obviously and so
one thing we would do is we’d watch the news and hear about something…gunfire where
ever in some province and we were like “okay” and we’d go back and we’d go and we’d dig
up you know and find the report from the actions that happened and everything and the
news would make it out to be some massive fire fight and really it was just some guy leaned
out of his window with his AK and popped a few rounds off and then coalition forces just
shot the crap out of the side of the house. I mean it’s really not as bad as what it sounded as
the news was making it out to be so yeah they would kind of blow things out of proportion
and not only that but you got to keep in perspective that when…I would tell people keep in
perspective that when you hear on the news everyday “more gunfire more this and more
that,” it’s not happening to the same people. Iraq’s a big country. That’s like saying that
crime is happening across America, well yeah but America’s a big country. [Laughter]
Somewhere in the country it’s going to be happening but it’s not all happening in the same
little town. So you know it would be hours of…minutes of pure adrenaline you know when
something happened, but then you’d go hours and days without anything. It would go like a
week or so and you’d be thinking to yourself “God, I wish somebody would shoot at me just
so I’d have something to do.” [Laughter] “I’m tired of just driving around and walking
around just kind of making my presence known.” You know I used to always tell them, the
news they question a lot you know why we’re there and everything else but until you’ve
actually stood there and you’ve fought the enemy but not only that you’ve helped build the
infrastructure, you’ve helped the locals, you’ve made their life better, you’ve started to
establish them and get them back to a state of normalcy…until you’ve actually done that
you see the positive change you know the positive change and all the good things we did no
matter how minor they were that’s not what makes the news. It’s always the bad stuff. So
until you’ve actually stood there…you didn’t…I could understand where they would
question it but you really just don’t know.
Sovine: All right, well I want to thank you for your time and this was a great interview.
Thank you.
Smith: Thank you.
�
Dublin Core
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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.
Smith, Jacob
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Sovine, Holly
Interview Date
10/10/2012
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:12:27
File name
2013_063_Smith_Jacob_interview
2013_063_Smith_Jacob_transcript
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 Jacob Smith, 10 October 2012
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sovine, Holly
Smith, Jacob
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
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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.
Extent
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4 pages
Language
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English
English
Type
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Sound
Subject
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Iraq War, 2003-2011
Veterans
Smith, Jacob
Personal narratives, American
United States
Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Jacob Smith, born in 1987, talks about his work with Operation Iraqi Freedom. He fought against Al Qaeda and explains that it wasn't as bad as the news makes it out to be.
25th infantry
Al Qaeda
bayonet
cadet
Jacob Smith
Milennial Generation
Operation Iraqi Freedom
ROTC
striker brigade