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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/32d1818c78aeebb379cafdc4f4dc2e3c.pdf
213cf3ba6b1cf27723096be077b9be6a
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Oral history Transcript
Appalachian State University
Interviewee: Lt. Colonel Steven Wilkins
Interviewer: Ben Brazaski
October 15 2011
BB: Ben Brazaski
SW: Steve Wilkins
BB: This is Ben Brazaski and I am interviewing Steve Wilkins at his residence on 10/15/2011.
I'm doing an oral history project for my U.S.Military History class for Dr. Judkin Browning.
And could you state your full name?
SW: Steven Patrick Wilkins.
BB: And your birthdate?
SW: 3/27/1960
BB: Is ...ok... Were you serving in any particular war or conflict?
SW: Well…did... I had a full military career... I went into the Army commissioned as an officer in
the Army immediately upon graduation from college... and through the course of my career
participated in three actual conflicts, the invasion of Grenada, Desert Storm and then Operation
Enduring Freedom, the invasion and first year of the conflict in Iraq.
BB: So just to clarify, what branch of the service were you in?
SW: I was in the Army.
BB: And when you left what rank were you?
SW: I retired as a Lt. Colonel… I was actually a Lt. Colonel promotable and that's a ... that's another
part of the story we can talk about later. It's a good thing but because of the war in Iraq I stayed
longer than I anticipated which was not a bad thing but I ended up getting promoted or getting
�selected for promotion but because I stayed in and was extended for that duty.
BB: Was there anywhere else you were stationed outside the United States?
SW: Yes. Early in my career as a young captain after being assigned to Ft. Bragg I was stationed in
Korea for one year. And it was actually a very interesting time period because it's when South Korea
was building up to host the Olympics and there was a huge effort going on in the country and I was
there during the Asian games the year before the Olympics which was kind of a dry run so it was a
very interesting time to be there because they were transitioning from really a third world developing
country into a very, very modern country so it was quite a good time to be there. I served overseas a
lot that is the only time that I had that. We would call a permanent change of station... where
actually moved everything to Korea and was there but I did serve in I lot of other countries in the
early 1980's. I… I went to Central America... Honduras ... many times... when we were involved
in... I wouldn’t call it a conflict, but it was definitely a standoff. Nicaraguan government at the
time was sponsoring a trouble along the border with Honduras and the US had decided that their
activity was aggressive and that we were going to take a stand on that so for several years we did
a lot of exercises down there developing infrastructure where we could reinforce Honduras if
needed. Elsewhere in Central America so I went there many times... participated in the invasion
of Grenada in 1983 so that was overseas and during that same first tour in the army. So... went to
turkey on an exercise which was very interesting ... enjoyed that very, very much... let me think...
where else did I go during that time period? Overseas... well... then I went to Korea. Later on I
ended up going to lots of countries in the Middle East because eventually I went through army
special forces training. Became a Special Forces officer i11 fifth Special Forces group so we
went to the Middle East to do our training. We were oriented... to southwest Asia. Middle East
went to Jordan a couple of times, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, went to Somalia; made a lot of trips to
those locations. Then, later on as we were building up to do the war in Iraq. Went to Germany
and Kuwait several times for planning conferences there... because the headquarters we were
going to fall under in Iraq was headquartered in Germany and then of course we actually went to
some planning conferences in Kuwait itself. Went to Europe a few other times on trips related to
the military so really got to see quite a bit of the world.
BB: When you were in combat situations what exactly was your particular job?
SW: Well when we went to Grenada in 1983, I was assigned to a… I was commissioned a
transportation officer. When I graduated from college I went to the citadel... graduated 1982,
with a political science degree. Badly wanted to be an infantry officer and was initially assigned
that, two years duty infantry, and then control branch of transportation corps which I thought
that was ok because transportation did interest me even though it wasn't my first choice. But then
the army changed its policy that year and I came straight in as a transportation corp. ft. I
personally was very disappointed. But once I got to my first assignment at ft. Bragg, North
Carolina found that I enjoyed that career field very much. We were very… I was in a very active
unit, we were called a terminal transfer unit and essentially we had a lot of people. We were big
company 250 people; we had a lot of cranes, and forklifts, and trucks and bulldozers and
�everything else you can think of. And our job was to run terminals be it either barge terminals or
ocean terminals airfield operations, truck terminals maybe for surface movement to where we
would receive cargo off of ships or airplanes... whatever or maybe load them. We were called a
transshipment point, and it turned out that it was very interesting work. But the particular
company I was in, because it was at Ft. Bragg in 18th Airborne Corp and then develop orient or
train whatever you would say to do these for airfield type operation this… this sort of workhand
that’s because at that time just a few years prior under President Carters administration, the rapid
joint task force in order to project American military power into the middle east if necessary.
And the army 18th airborne corp. at fort Bragg was a key component of that so they designed
18th airborne corps around the 82nd airborne division, 1015t airborne division, 24th infantry
division, and others to be able to go into an austere environment rapidly. And our company was a
key part of that because we on the early deployment list to go in and actually manage all the
cargo and people that would be coming into airfields to support the operation and that’s what we
did in Grenada. My platoon...my company commander, myself, and my platoon ... we had just
come out of an exercise, a huge exercise, down in Florida training to do this very same thing for
many weeks in the tropical environment so that it all fit well. We deployed to Grenada to run the
airfield at pt. selines and that's what we did and it was very chaotic. A lot of people at that time
kind of described Grenada as a convoluted messed up disorganized operation that demonstrated
how the services couldn't communicate well with each other some of that was true but some of it
was a little bit overstated because the operation was conducted with almost no notice the 18th
airborne corp. units had literally no notice when we were told we were going to be deploying. At
that time we had practiced deployments, no notice deployments all the time because of the
situation in central America, and we would often fly units down there and they would practice
and they would parachute in, or go in by ship, or a combination of the two and hang around and
train for a few weeks and come home. That was a regular thing, getting an alert at fort Bragg
those days to deploy. This was 1983; late summer early fall 83 was not an unusual thing at all so
an alert in the middle of the night was not unusual at all. Well practiced but then people were told
we were going to Grenada. Most people didn't know there was such a place called Grenada and
assumed it was a fictional....oh well here's another training exercise and this time rather than call
the enemy atlantians or something, which is typically used for calling it Grenada, so it’s an
invented place. People didn't realize it was for real till they actually started passing out the live
ammunition and giving the shots and all those things at fort Braggs green pope air force ...green
ramp like we always simulated in previous exercises so my organization went down and parked
at the end point selines airfield and just set up a very shabby tent… little tent operation because
that's all we had. We were out in the dirt, it was dusty, it was hot, and we were offloading
primarily c141 aircraft and after the initial we came in actually very, very, early on with the lead
elements with the 82nd airborne division because that’s what the war plans and you did. And we
set up an operation and it was very chaotic at first because c141 transport aircraft were arriving
every fifteen minutes. Part of the airfield was under construction and all cluttered up and so you
only one aircraft of that size could land at a time so one would land and it would taxi down to the
airfield turn around open up we would offload it, it would take off and another one would come
in and land just minutes after it took off. This was around the clock day and night. Our crew was
working shifts twenty four hours a day and not long in the operation because of the short
duration. We actually had to start loading planes out because a lot of the stuff that was brought in
early on particular combat equipment like artillery and heavier munitions and things weren’t
needed. The real fighting last only about a week there was some other events after that but it
�became apparent that a lot of the forces that were there needed to leave and that we needed to
start bringing in military police civil affairs people and people like that, you know for stability
operations. So then what we had to do, is units would be told that they could leave, they would
come near the airfield and park and get all their stuff ready and coordinate with us to we develop
load plans and stage them all and do all the things you need to do to prepare cargo. And people
you know to load on an airplane quickly leave and then when an airplane would load come and
offload supplies you know we would quickly as we could have another load with people and all
standing by that we could put back on it. And that went on for several weeks at a very hectic pace
after about six weeks the whole operation ended and turned into a civil affairs operation. And in
December… and we were actually along with the deputy commander Gerald Ferris we were
actually the last unit to leave Grenada. Two airplanes came in at the very end and he and his
group were on one and our last element with one fork lift was on another and that's how I closed
out, so that's… that was my role in that particular conflict.
BB: Just going back to kind of jog your memory about an early service. Where were you living
when you decided you wanted to join the military?
SW: Well it's hard to say exactly when and where. I was actually born in Durham, North
Carolina and grew up there and went all twelve years k-12 to school in northern Durham County
and it was a fairly rural area. A lot of us kids were kind of interested in military stuff we played
in the woods a lot. We hunted and had guns then and I had lots of relatives that had been in
WWII and Korean war veterans uncles and such and I had heard them talk and things. Although
they didn't talk about it a lot, I just kind of became interested in it and liked the outdoors. And
when I was in high school I decided I wanted to go in the military in some shape or another as a
result of through college ROTC I wanted to do... I just wanted to try it. I didn't know whether I
wanted to come out and go into the National Guard. I knew I wanted to be commissioned an
officer and be in the National Guard, army reserves, the active army, or something of that sort. I
really wasn't even settled on the army, I was just kind of going in that general broad direction. So
I'll never forget I got to so I decided to go to the Citadel. Actually had narrowed my colleges
down to two choices, Appalachian state and the Citadel. And I liked Appalachian because they
had forestry programs and things like that that interested me, and they had ROTC. And then I ran
across a Citadel recruiter at one of our college days in high school and they had some impressive
literature. We used to joke later on that it was propaganda but it was interesting and I liked
Charleston, South Carolina. I had been there so I said “gosh well I'm taking a military career let's
go to the citadel and see what I really think maybe and then decide,” and I'll never forget that I
was so unsure of it. I didn't know this but when I went to the citadel, everybody there, 100
percent of the corp. of cadets had to be enrolled in some ROTC, that's just part of the way the
college worked. You don't have to go on active duty in any part of the military afterwards, but
you do have to enroll in ROTC. So freshman year first thing we're standing in line being told
what to do and we were told you know this line had to sign up for the ROTC you wanted I told
one of the upperclassmen. I said “well sir I don't know which one I want to sign up for,” Hahira,
and he said “just pick one and you can change later.” I guess I had kind of a perplexed look on
my face and he said “just pick the army it's the biggest one.” And so that's how I decided, and got
into army ROTC and enjoyed it. At that time the detachment officers, the NCO's that were there
were very impressive they were all Vietnam veterans because we really hadn't been out of that
�conflict very long so just about every career officer and NCO were, and they were really a sharp
bunch. They were very impressive, they worked with us well. I like the sound of the things that
they did during their career. There were pretty good mentors overall so I kind of got interested in
that. And then, sophomore year, some friends and I found out about a program. The South
Carolina national guard had to wear mummy... college students that were in ROTC could enlist
in the National Guard and you know ... you know... you were automatically qualified to do that
and you... they made you private first class immediately. Your something when you came in and
then you could be a sergeant within a year or something, and we though, a lot of us thought it
was a good idea because we didn't have a lot of money and... You know... you get paid for drill
hush every weekend and again. I thought that would be a good introduction to the army, since I
was leaning that way, so I did that. I enlisted in February, this is February 1980 my sophomore
year, and then since it's the National Guard they can schedule when you go to basic training. So I
enlisted in the National Guard field artillery unit in Georgetown, South Carolina. Just as a side
note, this is a very interesting unit, second oldest unit in the United States Military called the
Swamp Fox Battalion, named after Frances Marion, cause that's the area, Georgetown, South
Carolina where Frances Marion operated in the revolutionary war, and our unit crest had the fox
on it which was the Swamp Fox Battalion one of the oldest units in the military. So that was a
very interesting and I went to basic training that summer at Fort Jackson, South Carolina and it
was very hot at Fort Jackson in the summer. It was very interesting training and looking back on
it, at the time, I just did it to do it but looking back on it I am glad that I experienced… since I
had a career as an officer I was glad I got to experience what our entry level soldiers you know,
get as their first training and indoctrination into the army. I found a very useful thing to have
experienced later on in my service. The funny thing though is I had a I got home... I'd only been
home a few days from basic training and waiting for the school year to start again and I got a
call from a marine recruiter out of Charlotte. At that time the marines were doing a transition
from older aircraft to newer aircraft aviation parts. She called me up and said, “hey I'd like to
offer you a guaranteed marine aviation contract. When you go back to school your junior year,
you change to Marine Corp ROTC and if you're physically qualified and you meet the
requirements for you to graduate you automatically get in a flight training program. If you meet
all the and...it's interesting, cause I'd always wanted to fly, but I just had come back from army
ROTC. That experience with basic training said, “no thanks, I'm already in the army national
guard, I just got back from basic training.” And then when I hung up I thought well this guy must
think I am really a nut If I just finished army basic training and I turned down a flight contract to
they probably didn't want me anyway. But anyway, that's just how I just kind of fell into the
army program gradually not that committed you know. But I decided somewhere along the way,
I don't remember when I decided I would seek a regular army commission and then I would go
on active duty immediately after college, but I can't put a finger on exactly when and where.
BB: Was there any time during you military career where you actually saw active combat?
SW: Well, it depends on how you define active combat. If you're talking about kind of what you
see in the movies, you know, throw a hand grenade and close quarter combat; I didn't experience
any of that. And in fact up until the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, most people in the
army did not experience that since Vietnam. Because the conflicts we were in Grenada went by
very, very, quickly and I was not in an infantry type unit, and most of the infantry that landed in
�Grenada didn't engage in fire fights either. They did a lot of searching a lot of patrolling,
certainly saw some of that, was certainly around it, heard it. We all felt like we were in
potentially in some danger you know at first but didn't experience it them... but later on I
participated in desert shield/ desert storm. There's a gap in what we're talking about and then I
went into army special forces training was in fifth group and we did a lot of training in the
middle east, and then in 19… I guess it was 1990... late 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Since
that was our area of the world, in fact we had only been back from a training exercise in Jordan
like sixty days when that happened. So we were one of the first units to deploy, and we were
there a long time, and through the course of that conflict we did see... I don't know that anyone
ever shot at me, I never shot at anybody. It's certainly possible at some time that closer to
potential danger than we thought, you just don't know. You don't know those things, you really
don't know what happened ten or fifteen minutes before you were there that changed the whole
scenario, or what could have happened if somebody hadn’t have done anything else. But again
that conflict was the United States Army in particular is... once the land war started used such
overwhelming force, it was like a tidal wave, and although I saw the results of it, we were right
there. Our job was to work with the Arab units, in the northeast Saudi part of the peninsula, a
very multinational unit under Saudi leadership. So we were right there as they were doing their
thrust of the east coast, and going into Kuwait city to liberate it. But frankly at that time I was
more afraid of getting hit by celebratory gunfire. It was going on in Kuwait city by
Kuwaiti's...then then then then enemy at that time. Then later on when I was in Iraq with the
1015 airborne division, again we had moments in the early part of that war where some of our
infantry units did experience close combat for periods of time. Now later on it would be much
closer... you know, you know as things change it’s a different story. But during that time period
we were moving through cities and all in Iraq it was a very uneasy feeling you know especially
later on as the counter insurgent started to pick up and there were incidents around us. I
awakened one night where right outside our place somebody had come by our place and thrown a
few hand grenades at our guards outside and things of that nature. But I don't know that I was
ever directly fired at during any of these conflicts.
BB: When you were overseas was there any way to contact your family? And did that progress
as your military career evolved?
SW: Well yes, there always was, but it changed dramatically during my military career. When I
did the invasion of Grenada for example, we had no postal. At that point that was, this was 1983,
there's no personal computers, there's no internet, none of that stuff. We had no postal service for
a little while because it was such a hastily put together operation, but we did have after a while
and we could write letters. There was a little army postal detachment and you could send letters
out and you could get letters back as well. It would be a little slower than the mail service in the
U.S.. Then again, when I went to Korea it was the same way. Communication was primarily
letter writing and of course with the U.S. forces had been in Korea a long time there was a very
developed postal system there. Letter writing was very reliable, of course it was slow, no
computers, could talk on the phone. In fact at that time I was engaged to my wife, Meg, and we
had very good phone service in Korea. So I could actually call her on the phone and go through
an operator and the time difference was ... Korea is pretty much on the exact opposite time,
twelve hours apart from the United States, the timing had to be just right to make a call. But, and
�then sometimes the international lines would be clogged up and you couldn't make a call so we
had good communications. It was just different than today, slower; you had to anticipate if
somebody wasn't there. People didn't even have answering machines then really, so if you called
somebody, and it just rang, and they weren't home you missed it. They wouldn't even know you
had called, so there were different challenges. I remember calling back to my unit from down in
Honduras, off the back of my air force jeep, I wasn't aware of it, but one of the forward air
controllers that was with us, somebody had told me that you could make a call that I needed to
call back to my unit cause we were out in the middle of nowhere, up in the mountains of the
Guatemala border operating a dirt airstrip up there in a place named kookieaqua, and that was my
first experience with this sort of thing. Is with the air force foreign air controller was able to
patch, was able to make a call, a radio call to... to a mars station. They called them at Scott Air
Force base, in Illinois, and was able to get a phone patch back to Fort Bragg so I was able sitting
in the middle of nowhere talking off a little Air Force, you know combat foreign air controller
jeep to be able to call back, but again, that was hit or miss.
�
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/96dccec1e0720aa5a0b9c243b9248ec4.mp3
d46420e8fe53abdaccadc07b32d16332
Dublin Core
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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.
Brazaski, Ben
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:11:53
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound.
6 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Steven Wilkins, 15 October 2011
Subject
The topic of the resource
Veterans
Wilkins, Steven
United States
Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Steven Wilkins, Lt. Colonel, US Army, was born on March 27th, 1960. In this Interview Steven Wilkins describes some of the places he has been stationed outside the U.S. during his military career. He talks about being in Korea, Central America, and the Middle East. He mentions his specific job while in the Army. He also discusses his decision and influences to enter the Army and specifically mentions experiences as a child and going through ROTC.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/15/11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, Appalachian Collection, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC).
Language
A language of the resource
English
Ben Brazaski
Fort Bragg
Grenada
Iraq
North Carolina
ROTC
Steven Wilkins
US Army