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Oral History Interview of
Lieutenant Colonel Bryan D. Green,
U.S. Army (retired)
Interviewed on September 22, 2011 by Michelle Littlejohn on behalf of Dr. Browning's
2011 Fall American Military History Course at Appalachian State University. This
interview took place at Bandys High School in Catawba County, NC where Lt. Col.
Green is the current Senior Army Instructor for the JROTC program.
�Transcript of Oral History Interview with Lt. Col. Bryan D. Green, U.S. Army, retired
Date: 22 September 2011
Location: Bandys High School, Catawba NC
Project for HIS 3823, 2011 Fall .
Michelle Littlejohn: This is Michelle Littlejohn of Appalachian State University. Today
is September the 22nd. I am at Bandys High School in Catawba interviewing Lieutenant
Colonel Bryan Green.
Okay, Lt. Col., to start with, what's your birth date?
Lt. Col. Bryan D. Green: I was born the 25th of September 1961 in Davie County near a
town called Mocksville.
Littlejohn: Okay, is that in North Carolina?
Green: Yes ma'am, North Carolina.
Littlejohn: Okay. Now when you decided to go into the military, you said you did the
ROTC program at Appalachian?
Green: Yes.
Littlejohn: What made you want to do the program?
Green: Well, I had graduated from high school and I wanted to, I wanted to go into the
military and my parents really didn't, weren't to excited about the idea of military
service. My dad had served in the Navy, my grandfather in the Army and relatives had
served in the Army prior to that. And it was the lure of doing something different and
growing up in an area where you had furniture factories and textile mills there just wasn't
a lot of opportunities in Davie County.
Littlejohn: Uh-huh.
Green: So I went to Rowan Community College for two years and worked for a year as
an Assistant Store Manager with B.C. Moores and I really didn't, that really wasn't my
thing so they had a program at Appalachian State where you could transfer your two year
Associate Degree into a four year program.
Littlejohn: Uh-huh.
Green: And I don't know if it was a fairly new program or it's a pilot program but I
looked into that and then called the recruiter, recruiting officer, the RO at Appalachian
State, Captain Rogers and he got me hooked up to go to basic training and did whatever
he needed to do to get me signed up for the fall semester so that, that summer I went to
Fort Knox to basic and then started Appalachian in the fall as a cadet in Military Science
�III student. And the program was a Bachelor of Technology, Bach - Bachelor of
Technology and Business Education. I think the program was set up to train you to be a
community college instructor.
Littlejohn: Uh-huh.
Green: Or you could teach public school but you'd have to get your teaching
certification. So I think I belonged to the department of Education there at Appalachian
as well as the ROTC department. And so I took that adventure and then did my two years
at Appalachian and then, and then by the time I was ready to graduate in '84 there still
wasn't any real job opportunities out there so I decided I was going to go ahead and give
the Army a try and went on active duty.
Littlejohn: Okay. How did you enjoy the program at Appalachian?
Green: It was, it was great cause you already had a ready set made of friends.
Littlejohn: Uh-huh.
Green: And you already had friends and people that were there. You already had a team
that you were part of, so it made the college experience a lot more pleasurable because
you know, you going in you don't know any body and Col. Michael Scott was the
professor of Military Science at the time and he was a Special Forces guy so we did a lot
of fun things in ROTC at Appalachian. And while I was there I was in the Scabbard
Blade and we did the football games, had to color guard and ushers for the game stuff. So
got to see a lot of the home games there at Appalachian. Then they had started something
called the Gold Bar Recruiting Program. So I got selected my last semester of my senior
year to enter the Gold Bar Recruiting Program which was a good deal because they paid
you as a Second Lieutenant and you recruited for Appalachian State so that also became
my internship for my degree. So that worked out well. And so I was getting paid, you
know, in lieu of not getting paid cause I was making- you got paid as a cadet by the
Army and then I, my first semester I worked making doughnuts and getting up at three in
the morning and going to the cafeteria and making doughnuts for a semester and then I,
once I lived in Bowie and then you know walking all over the place and walking down to
the cafeteria I said, you know I got an RA job so I was an RA the other semesters I was at
Appalachian. So it was a good experience. I love Boone and that environment so I got to
come on active duty early and work for Appalachian State till about November.
Littlejohn: Uh-huh.
Green: And then went to my officer basic course at Fort Sam Houston, Texas so I, I can
say I was probably one of the first Gold Bar Recruiters for App.
Littlejohn: Okay.
�Green: So I got to come on early and got to go to all the feeder colleges for Appalachian
State.
Littlejohn: Uh-huh.
Green: They had a old four wheel drive Dodge Ram and that was my vehicle so that was
pretty fun driving down the mountain and up the mountain to the various colleges that
feed Appalachian State.
Littlejohn: So how was - you went through. boot camp?
Green: Went through basic at Fort Knox.
Littlejohn: Basic ... How was that?
Green: It was an eye opening experience cause they were students, college students,
from all over the country there at Fort Knox. To enter ROTC you either have to go
through Military Science I & II as a freshman and sophomore or you would have to
complete a basic training equivalent. Given the time frame I didn't have time to go
through the Army standard basic combat training so cadet command ran what they call a
Basic Camp which is equivalent to, they give you your credit for basic training at Fort
Knox and the Drill Sergeants had just finished with a cycle of recruits for the Army and
now they had cadets. They had all college students and I don't think they differentiated
very much between cadets and college students but it was a good experience. It was
filmed on same site that the movie Stripes was filmed on cause they still have the World
War II wood ...
Littlejohn: Uh-huh.
Green: They had just filmed Stripes not too long ago so.
Littlejohn: Oh wow. (laughs)
Green: It, it was definitely a, it was a leadership experience cause they do the same thing
they did twenty years ago, you know, you rotate into leadership positions, you have to
lead your squad or platoon or company.
Littlejohn: How did that differ with the officer training after you left the ROTC program
at Appalachian?
Green: Well, once you, once you earn your commission you are now a Second
Lieutenant and they expect you to act and conduct yourself as a Lieutenant. We weren't
treated like trainees but any means but they expected a high standard of behavior from
you.
�Littlejohn: Uh-huh. Okay. Let's see. Was there any memorable experiences frnm the
training program that you took away or - ?
Green: Met a lot of folks from all over the country. Especially the ones from Boston you
know they eat with a 'folk and a spoon.' We saw quite a bit of attrition cause a lot of
folks thought that this, this was gonna be an easy ...
Littlejohn: Uh-huh.
Green: Six weeks at Fort Knox and it was actually physically challenging. You were
under mental stress.
Littlejohn: Uh-huh.
Green: So the first week there was quite a few that didn't make it.
Littlejohn: Okay. And once you finished officer training, where did you go from there?
Green: After I finished my officer basic course at Fort Sam Houston I was assigned to
the 197111 Infantry Brigade at Fort Benning, Georgia to 2nd Battalion 69 111 Armor as their
medical platoon leader. I got there in January and the brigade was deploying to Reforger
in Germany so I was there for three days and just long enough to draw equipment and get
on a plane and go to Reforger which is Return of Forces to Europe. This was during the
Cold War so every, every year that as a show of force to the Soviets, the U.S. would
deploy units from the States as well as deploy units and draw equipment in country. We
actually brought our equipment from Fort Benning, which the big climate difference
between Fort Benning, Georgia and Europe so we had a lot of issues in January on this
exercise. Actual unit arrived in Amsterdam and the main body flew into Luxembourg and
that's where I came in and I literally met my platoon on the ground during Reforger. And
then from Luxembourg we went to Kaiserslautem. And Kaiserslautem was a staging base
and from there we did the exercise all across Germany. It was a cold field, field
experience but a good leadership experience to be with a combat brigade on a major
exercise like that.
Littlejohn: Okay. Where did you go after that?
Green: Well I spent two years in the 2nd Battalion 69th Armor and then I was moved to
the main forward support battalion in the 197111 to Bravo Company and spent another
almost year and a half at Fort Benning and after Fort Benning I applied for flight training
and got accepted, made it through flight training up to Instruments and then decided
flying helicopters wasn't for me so then they sent me to the 4111 United States Army
Readiness Group to train reserve component forces ·in Indiana and Ohio.
Littlejohn: Okay. Now where did, where did your career take you after that?
�Green: After serving as a Readiness Group Advisor I went to the Transportation Officer
Advanced Course - it was in Readiness Group that I got involved with deployment and
transportation stuff and after the Transportation Officer Advance Course at Fort Eustis,
Virginia was assigned to Korea to 8th United States Army to the Yon Son Army Garrison.
I originally was slated to go to 2nd Infantry Division but showed up in country, I ended up
being the Installation Transportation Officer for the Yon Son Army Garrison. As a young
Captain in a Major's job and had a fleet of about 1200 vehicles, 700 employees both
Korean Nationals, Korean Service Corps, soldiers - had about 32 soldiers - and we did
the whole range from shipping people's pots and pans to running a transportation motor
pool to driver's training. I guess the highlight of that tour was doing the, cause we had 72
buses there in the fleet and 24 of those buses were ambulance buses so we did a
repatriation ofremains from the Korean War so that was pretty cool. And handled the
cars for the general officers. It was an interesting, good tour, learned a lot about
transportation.
Littlejohn: Did you enjoy your time in Korea more than you did in Germany?
Green: Well I would go, I would be going back to Germany several times over my career
but Korea was a good tour. It was an eye opener, an eye opening experience especially to
see the demilitarized zone which is like a mile Ion- mile wide, most fortified border in the
world. Unless you've seen it, it's, it's, it's, it's hard to fathom that you know we are
always at the close brink of war there on the demilitarized zone. Most folks never see that
and hear the speakers blaring, see the North Korean soldiers and at that time there was
still Russians in North Korea. Korea was a good experience.
Littlejohn: Okay. Now after you left Korea, where were you assigned?
Green : I was assigned to the 24th Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia. And it's a
mechanized division. They had just redeployed from Desert Shield I Desert Storm. My
advance course had gotten cut early, cut - cut - reduced by I think two months and they,
there was several of us on the slate to go to the Middle East but the war ended early so
they had to reassign us so I got reassigned to go to Korea and then by the time I got back
from Korea most of the divisions in the States had redeployed back so I arrived at Fort
Stewart as the 24th had redeployed from Desert Shield I Desert Storm and then of course
there was a reduction of force after that operation so I saw a lot of friends get rifted out of
the military. I went to the Main Support Battalion in the 24th Infantry Division, served as
the Adjacent for the battalion that was 1200 soldiers ih the battalion, 7 companies and we
had detachments up at Hunter Army Airfield that supported the aviation brigade. And
then I commanded a company in the Main Support Battalion. That was a good experience
being a company commander and after that they asked me to come up on Division Staff
so I came up on Division Staff as a Senior Captain, worked as the Division
Transportation Officer for three months until the actual Major came in from Command
and General Staff College. And during that time, you know, I saw several deployments,
everything from Haiti to Suriname to the Middle East. It was good, good experience
working on Division Staff and rotations to the National Training Center.
�Littlejohn: Uh-huh. Do you have any particular memories from any of those
deployments that you Green: I remember one field exercise. A guy I worked with was from Alabama, a big
tall, lanky guy, Major Floyd Driver. And he was a quiet, quiet guy, you know, he wasn't
real loud and boisterous. But we were out on a field exercise and a gator had wondered
into our bivouac area and I had the night shift, he had the day shift, was getting ready to
change shifts, it was early in the morning and this gator had wondered almost up to our
top. And I had never seen anybody actual wrestle a gator in real but he wrestled this gator
and took some parachute cord, tied his mouth shut, tied him up and then the MP's came
and got the gator later that day. So it was a good thing he knew how to handle a gator.
Littlejohn : It sounds like it.
Green: Cause we didn ' t have any ammunition or anything to take care of that alligator.
Littlejohn: So did you see combat in any of your deployments?
Green: I was never sent direct - well I was sent to the war zone in Bosnia. I had finished
my tour at Fort Stewart and was offered a command in Alaska as a Port Commander. So I
took the tour to Alaska. And got to see most of Alaska and the West Coast. Several
deployments of moving the brigade in Alaska to Thailand or down to the Joint Readiness
Training Center at Fort Chaffee. Moved ammunition and after I finished my command
tour in Alaska I went to Combined, the Combined Arms Support Command at Fort Lee,
Virginia, which I worked in Director of Combat Developments for fielding this new
Striker Brigade, that's, that's what we worked on was the Striker Brigade it's called
Strike Force and it ended up being the new Striker Brigade that the Army has. And while
I was there I was sent to, deployed to Bosnia - originally supposed to go to the
Intermediate Staging Base, Logistics Base in Tazar - but when .I showed up they told me
not to unpack my bags, that I was doing down range to the 1st Armor Division. So I spent
one night at the ISB and then was down range with the 1st Armor Division and spent the
rest of my tour down range with 1st Armor in Bosnia as part of Stabilization Forces Eight.
Yugoslavia, former Yugoslavia was basically the whole place was mined with mines.
You could see signs of war everywhere. If you just think of a place where they didn't
pick up the trash for about five years and you got Bosnia.
Littlejohn: Oh wow . How did it feel to be over there? Was the feeling more intense than
it had been in Korea or - ?
Green: Yeah because, you know, actually seeing the mass grave sites and what hatred
does to people and the horrible conditions these people had endured and it made you
proud to be an American.
Littlejohn: At any time were you afraid or fearful for your life or were you guys in a safe
zone?
�Green: No, we were actually in the operational zone. We had to have two vehicle patrols
when you went out in certain sectors, three vehicles in other sectors, had to take a
machine gun, combat life saver, had to draw your basic load cause it was still fairly
dangerous. Crime was very bad because of the civil war that had been going on in
Bosnia. People were still being found dead. General Ellis who was the commanding
General of the 1st Armor Division actually put in one, one day, in an average day we
would have 97 combat patrols and all the logistics that goes to support all that and that's
what we tracked as the DTO, Division Transportation Office. So saw a lot of stuff there
in Bosnia.
Littlejohn: Did any of your men ever get injured while you were deployed?
Green: As I look back through the career a lot of, almost every NTC rotation they would,
somebody would lose their life in training. It was just the nature of the training. The
Army is very safety conscious so it happened either with the unit I was with or with the
unit that was there. Anything from getting pinched between two vehicles or a rock hitting
a soldier in the head being thrown up from another tract. Of course the operations at night
we were still fielding night vision devices at the time so one morning at National
Training Center a tract flipped over, broke a guy's neck. Everybody that was inside the
Fire Support Tract was injured so medevaced, all those got medevaced out. While I was
in Bosnia, the only injury was to one of the contractors. They were working on a bull
dozer and the guy didn't block up the blade correctly and the blade fell on him and the
son was up at Camp McGovern.
Littlejohn: So while you were away, how, what happened with your family? I know you
have children so ... When did you get married?
Green: Got married in 1984 and first child came along in 1986 while I was at Fort
Benning and then the other two came along when I was at Fort Stewart. I'd say military
life is pretty hard on family especially if you get to be, your kids get old enough to be in
high school. Changing high schools is a lot harder than changing elementary schools and
elementary kids tend to make friends a lot easier than kids when they're in high school.
But I guess, looking back, it made them a stronger person.
Littlejohn: Okay. Did any of your children go into the military?
Green: No. My son, his eye sight was really bad so he wouldn't have passed the physical
for eye sight and my two daughters had asthma so asthma is a discriminator for entering
the military. He, he had thought about it but as a graduation present I got his lasik
surgery.
Littlejohn: How would you have felt if they would have joined the military since your
family was not for you going into the military?
Green: I would of been proud of them. And still proud of them.
�Littlejohn: Okay. So while you were away, what would you guys do to entertain
yourselves or-?
Green: Usually there was no time for entertainment. It was long days when you were
deployed, anywhere from 18, 20 hour days. There was days when you deployed you
don't, you don't, the events dictate your schedule so a lot of time you'd go for a couple
days without sleeping. But I can't remember anything enter-, some of the troops, you
know, occasionally play cards and stuff but by time you figure in their guard mounts and
duties, you know, as well as doing their regular jobs, there wasn't a lot of entertainment
time. Now places like in Bosnia, the USO was there and, you know, they had morale
welfare recreation had facility there and occasionally they'd show movies during, at least
one or two movies, a week. I think they brought the Dallas cheerleaders in but I didn't get
to go see them.
Littlejohn: Okay. Where did you go after you left Bosnia? Did you get to come back to
the States?
Green: I came back to the States to Fort Lee, Virginia and then, and after I got back from
Bosnia was offered a job at the Battle Command Training Program at Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas. And the Battle Command Training Program trained division corps and brigade
commanders so basically I was with a team of Majors and Lieutenant Colonels that
trained general officers and staffs of those, of war fighting divisions. So I started out as a
Combat Service Support Observer Controller and after, after a year there I was promoted
to Lieutenant Colonel and became the Boss Chief, Chief of the Combat Service Support
Team. So during that time I traveled and saw every division in the Army including some
of the Guard, Guard Divisions and we'd do something called a War Fighter exercise
where we'd train the commanders and their staff
Littlejohn: Okay. So did you enjoy that experience?
Green: Yeah. It was good experience, met a lot of folks.
Littlejohn: Okay. And after you left that position, where did you go?
Green: Left that position, I was offered a job in, at Transportation School as the Deputy
Assistant Commandant and during that time I spent about a year as the Commandant and,
and then Second Gulf War broke out and had deployed of the ?1h Transportation Group.
General Dale at the time asked me to, to go over and take what was left of the ?1h Group
which was a provisional battalion of about 1800 soldiers, 7 line companies and 3
detachments of Army buses, so I did that.
Littlejohn: Where exactly did you go?
Green: I was actually station - I was rear detachment at Fort Eustis.
Littlejohn: Okay.
�Green: But during that time we, we had everything outside of the theater of operations in
Iraq so we had boats in Spain, we had boats in the Mississippi, we had boats down in the
Caribbean supporting Special Forces, we had stuff down in South America supporting
Special Ops in the Amazon, we had part of our company deployed out to Fort Lewis,
Washington for a joint logistics over the shore operation and then, a given day out of that
battalion we had about 90 soldiers that did funeral detail for that area of Virginia.
Probably the hardest part, we had, I had, even though I only had 1800 soldiers, I had
about 6,000 family members that were left behind so the operational side was second
place to taking care of families.
Littlejohn: Where did you go after that?
Green: After that I went back to the Transportation School and retired.
Littlejohn: Okay. So how long have you been retired?
Green: Been retired since 2004.
Littlejohn: And how did you end up at Bandys High School?
Green: Started looking around, you know, cause I saw another reduction in force on the,
on the rising and I ran into a JR OTC instructor there at Fort Eustis and I sort of came
across the program when I was a Gold Bar Recruiter at Freedom High School cause that
was one of the schools I went and sat up at so I said, "That sounds like a good job. I think
I would enjoy doing it." So I applied to about six different schools and also applied at
Freightliner and some other places, Target Distribution Centers, and cause a logistics
officer' s in fairly, fairly high demand. So I got offered a job at Hickory and it was a new
program so I started the program at Hickory and then after working at Hickory, I, I
worked, Bandys was my host school so they were the ones that were looking after me as
a new program and when Mike Colbert retired, I moved over to Bandys out in the county.
Littlejohn: What made you stay in the military for all those years because you had many
different positions, I'm sure you probably could of found a job fairly easily with your
experience?
Green : I would say it was the people.
Littlejohn: The people? Do you still keep in contact with people that you were deployed
with or people you led?
Green: Yeah. I still, I still maintain contact.
Littlejohn: Do you see them regularly?
Green: No, not regularly.
�Littlejohn: Okay.
Green: Ever so often.
Littlejohn: Every so often, huh? So what was your most memorable experience being in
the military, the one thing that you took away from it?
Green: Wow. That's a hard question. I'd probably say the camaraderie. You work for
some good people and then, there was always a few turds in there but there's turds in
every organization.
Littlejohn: What was probably the biggest drawback of spending your life in the Army?
Green: Being deployed away from your family. It takes its toll after a while but it was
probably harder on the families than it is the servicemen.
Littlejohn: Okay. Did you receive any awards or medals for your time in?
Green: Yeah. I, I received a few. You need to know what they are?
Littlejohn: If you'd like to tell me, that'd be great.
Green: I got, I got 8 Meritorious Service Medals, 8 Army Commendation Medals, 4
Army Achievement Medals, a NATO Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, a
Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Ribbon, probably missing some in there but, quite a few
awards I reckon.
Littlejohn: How do you feel with your current job as the JROTC instructor, how do you
feel that affects your, or your impact on students? Do you feel like you instill in them the
lessons that you took away from the Army so that they may want to follow that career
path themselves?
Green: Well, our mission is not to recruit for the Army. We're more, our mission is to
motivate young people to become better citizens and we're more of a character building
program, teach leadership, we teach life skills, we teach them how to be confident, teach
them how to dress. So we're, we're preparing them for life after high school cause there's
no other program that'll teach a high school kid how to be responsible and how to be on
time and how to follow instructions and how to gain some confidence cause, you know,
there's, where else can you go and lead a squad or lead a platoon or a company and we
use drill and ceremony, we teach teamwork and discipline, so and we do have students
that do decide to go into the military and they, they do very well. If you, if you take
JROTC and complete three semesters, you can enter the military- the Army, the Navy,
or Air Force- as a, in the grade of E3 and that's about $500 a month raise. Puts you
ahead of your peers so within a year you'll make your Specialist, within two years you
could easily become Sergeant and then if you decide to go the officer route, you already
�know how to wear a uniform, you know how military rank and chain of command works .
You got a few leadership skills there to get you started and, so you're ahead of your peers
even in ROTC if you, you learn what you needed to learn in JR OTC. But a lot of our
students, I would say only 2 to 3% go into the military and the rest go ahead and pursue
college or a career path in a trade.
Littlejohn: Do many of them go on to the ROTC programs at college?
Green: We, we' ve had, we usually have, like see last year's class, one at UNC Charlotte,
2, 3 joined the military. It varies from year to year based on you know, their academic
performance, you know, can they get accepted into a college.
Littlejohn: What would be your advice to them if they went into the military?
Green: Do your best. And be honest and lead by example.
Littlejohn: Okay. That's very good advice. That's good advice for everyone I believe.
What do you plan to do after you finish up here at Bandys?
Green: Probably retire and raise chickens or something.
Littlejohn: (Laughs) Do you plan on returning home or you gonna stay in this area?
Green: I hadn't decided. I like Catawba County and I, there's still a little bit of the farm
left in Davie County so I hadn't decided whether I'd go back to Davie County or not
cause I got a lot of friends up this area.
Littlejohn: Okay. Well I really appreciate you taking your time to talk to me and it was a
pleasure to hear your story and I'd like to thank you for your service to our country.
Green: That's all you needed?
Littlejohn: Yep. Is there anything that you wanted to add?
Green: Nah, I don't have anything to add.
Littlejohn: Okay. Thank you.
�
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/36018e7b8b932beba559f4f37cc2c0d8.wma
ecff57664d5b47ba4e5a5f0001e20136
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.
File size
1.11 MB
28.8 MB
Format, digital
MP3
Military Branch
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U.S. Army
Officer Rank
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Lieutenant Colonel (retired)
Creator
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Littlejohn; Michelle
Green; Bryan D.
Interviewer
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Littlejohn, Michelle
Interviewee
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Green, Bryan D.
Interview Date
9/22/2011
Number of pages
12
Duration
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0:31:18
Date digitized
2/10/2015
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alphanumeric code
317530bcdee466bc2707b7c18e334580
ecff57664d5b47ba4e5a5f0001e20136
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Leah McManus
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Epson Perfection V600
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300
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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.
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UA.5018. American Military History Course Records
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48000kzh x 16 bit
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Document
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5018_Green_Bryan_20110922_transcript_M
5018_Green_Bryan_20110922_audio_A
Title
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Interview with Lieutenant Colonel Bryan D. Green, U.S. Army (retired) [September 22, 2011]
Type
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Oral History
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English
English
Creator
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Littlejohn, Michelle
Green, Bryan D.
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<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>
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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
Lieutenant Colonel Green grew up in a military family in the 1960s in a small town, and saw his chance to make something of himself in the military. He didn't join right after high school, but went to basic training over the summer and started at ASU the following fall as a cadet in Military Science. He served most of his time during the Cold War. He now works for Bandys High School in the Junior ROTC program.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Green, Byran D.
Veterans
Cold War
United States
Interviews
army
cadet
Cold War
Fort Knox
Lieutenant Colonel Green
military science
ROTC
Senior Army Instructor
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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
9ebe8f31c5ccaeeecb9a7f422eaf0eb4
PDF Text
Text
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
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.
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
4 pages
Language
A language of the resource
English
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Subject
The topic of the resource
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
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/f173b496627fce1dda86d7b153acc751.mp3
f70a6fcfbf5e7a172d31af3aeefed5d3
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3fc180388b1b6b77e308ece7b62ad854
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/.
Description
An account of the resource
Colonel David Hubner talks about his career in the military spanning multiple decades. He began in Germany, was deployed in Iraq a couple of times and moved around the United States to several training camps. He retired after his sons graduated high school and his body began to show signs of wear and tear. He explains that active involvement in one's community is necessary and that serving the military allowed him to gain a solid perspective.
PDF Text
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Transcript of Oral History Interview with Retired Col. David Scott Hubner Sr.
10/15/12.
Sunbury, GA
Scott Hubner – It is October 14th 2012, and I am recording retired Col David S Hubner for an interview for
the Appalachian State US Military History class.
Alright, Col Sir, Where and when were you born?
COL Hubner – I was born in January 1961 in Montclair, New Jersey.
Scott Hubner – Alright, did you move around a lot younger?
COL Hubner – Well, my father was an IBM field engineer so when I was twelve years old we moved to
North Carolina. We lived in Cary, North Carolina, my dad was working in the research triangle as a field
engineer, and so we bought a house there and I went to middle school and high school in Cary, North
Carolina near Raleigh.
Scott Hubner – So then you went on to college and joined the Army after college?
COL Hubner – I had a high SAT score and got a letter from West Point and the Citadel. And I had a friend
who had a sister who went to Appalachian and when I found out that Appalachian had coed and the
same ROTC commissioning program that they had at the citadel I decided to go to Appalachian. I had
never visited there, so I went up there after I graduated in May 1979, August 1979
Scott Hubner – Alright, so studying, doing ROTC at Appalachian what branch did you want to move into?
COL Hubner - Well when I started ROTC I wasn’t sure if I was going to join the army. I had an uncle who
was in the navy and he had traveled around the world and that interested me. I had always wanted to
see Europe and Germany as my great grandfather had been a German and my other grandpa had been a
Scot. So I studied at Appalachian I didn’t contract until my junior year because I wasn’t sure that’s what I
wanted to do, but after being around the program for a while and having a roommate who was in ROTC
I thought what you know ill go in for a tour and see what its like, Get stationed in Germany. And I was
intrigued by from my military history studies the cavalry and armor in particular, and what they had
done in modern warfare so I decided that you know I was going to do something I wanted to be full bore
I didn’t want to be an admin guy in the army so I decided that after doing commandos and doing a lot of
foot patrols that being a tanker would be a lot more fun and you know tanks lead the war.
Scott Hubner – Alright, so when did you commission and I assume you commissioned Armor?
COL Hubner – I did, I got my first choice because I did well at advanced camp and despite a mediocre
academic career at Appalachian. I had a good strong camp and was able to get my first choice which
meant I was able to get armor and active duty. So I actually graduated in 1984 and spent an extra year. I
�changed majors midway thru from business to English and when I figured out I was going to go in the
army and they told me it really didn’t matter what my degree was, I know that’s changed some. But I
went to Fort Knox for officer basic in June of 1984 after graduating from Appalachian.
Scott Hubner – What do you recall from your first days in service?
COL Hubner – You know it was kind of scary because you know here I am driving up to fort Knox
Kentucky and I’m a brand new lieutenant. You know I’m in my class A’s I have to go sign in, weigh in and
go through all of the admin stuff. You know it was a nerve racking thing at first and then you start
meeting other guys from others schools, who were there for the same basic course and they put you in
tank crews when you’re in armor so I had three guys I was pretty close too and we did a lot of things
together from different schools. One was from UT (Tennessee), one was from Gettysburg College and
the third was from Arizona so we were a good mixed bunch and you know it was a bonding thing. And I
took it very seriously because I knew that I was out of college and this was now a profession. I wanted to
be good at it; I didn’t feel like I knew a whole lot about armor when I got there.
Scott Hubner – Alright, so shortly after you commissioning, where did you find yourself? What was your
first assignment?
COL Hubner – Well my first assignment was to Fort Knox KY and I was not happy, so I called armor
branch and they wound up getting me a trade with a guy who wanted to stay close to home. I really
wanted to go to Germany and see Europe because I wasn’t sure how long this army thing was going to
last and I figured that you know that I should have an opportunity to do that. And that was where at that
time because the cold war the Army considered the best units were over there. So I wanted to go to an
armor/cavalry unit or a tank battalion that was on the border or in Germany and I got my wishes. I was
sent in November to Bovergan, Germany. Which was then considered to be the first infantry division
forward, it was a brigade plus of mechanized and I was assigned to second battalion 37th armor.
Creighton Abrams was the 37th tank so he was our kind of our honorary guy and I was a young lieutenant
platoon leader in Charlie Company, second battalion 37th armor. On M60 A3 tanks, that’s how old I am.
Scott Hubner – So when was the first time you saw the war like experience, in the Gulf War?
COL Hubner – Well, after Germany I went to the armor officer advanced course and I got married
towards the end of my time in Germany a lady I met at Appalachian in German class actually and she
came up a couple times in the summer to teach for Appalachian in the summer program. So we dated
and decided to get married so we came back and I wanted to be closer to her parents in South Carolina
and my parents in North Carolina. So I asked for Fort Stewart and at first they didn’t have it, but
eventually someone resigned or something happened because I was eventually able to get my
assignment to Fort Stewart. I was assigned initially to second brigade 24th infantry on the staff as a
planner and eventually after an NTC rotation was moved down to take Delta Company 1-64 Armor.
Before I went down to delta company they were shooting a gunnery and the guy that was leaving delta
company did not want to shoot, he was working on going to recruiting command, not going to be in
armor anymore so he wasn’t excited about getting on the tank and the battalion commander offered
me the opportunity to go through gunnery. Of course I had to do the gunnery skills test and go through
�at night after my day job as brigade staff, go through training on the machine guns and everything and
then go through crew drills. That was a fortuitist experience for me because that was the crew that I
would go to war with. So we bonded very early and if we hadn’t had that experience, we would’ve
jumped on that tank without having gone through any training and it’s a fairly complex beast and if you
don’t know what you’re doing you can get hurt or you can hurt somebody else. So I trained with that
crew, we shot a gunnery, we qualified and then a couple months later we were on an airplane headed to
Saudi Arabia to be the line in the sand.
Scott Hubner – Did you see combat in this tour?
COL Hubner – Yes, I had the ability to use a LORAN and I was pretty good with a map I had been a scout
platoon leader in Germany and the battalion commander had known me from Germany he was our S3
for a year. He knew me when I was a scout so he wanted my company to lead the brigade into Iraq. We
actually crossed the berm my company, the night before the attack and secured crossing points in Iraq.
Then the next morning the battalion task force came through and we started the advance into Iraq. It
was three days of road marching, a couple of good skirmishes, and then we did a deliberate attack on
the Republican Guards Secured Airfield in Jalibah, Iraq. The in southern Iraq we got in a fight there with
the Republican Guards. A couple kids got hurt, some killed. Not in my company but because my
company was in the lead we saw a good bit of action, a couple of bronze stars for valor. We had a kid on
a plow tank, his tank got caught in wire and jumped off of the tank under fire and pulled the wire out of
the plow while he was being shot at. So it was a pretty wild experience and then we chased the
Republican guard towards Basrah until they finally had a peace settlement. Basically, four or five days of
nothing but attack, penetration, pursuit, and then cease fire.
Scott Hubner – Was that the last time you got into real contact in your Army career or was there
another time?
COL Hubner – I then went on to be an S3(Staff Operations Officer) at Fort Riley, Kansas. After spending a
little time as a PAO(Political Affairs Officer) and going to the Majors course. After that I was assigned to
an ROTC duty at East Tennessee State University as a PMS, I thought that was pretty much it, I was
promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. Then I got a call from a guy who had known me, a two start general,
General Craddock who had selected me to command a tank battalion in the First Infantry Division in
Europe. I went over to Europe and commanded that battalion deployed it to Kosovo which was kind of a
low intensity conflict at that time and then we got the call to go to Iraq for OIF II(Operation Iraqi
Freedom II). In OIF II we were in Sala Adin which was a very hotly contested area of the Sunni
insurgency. My task force was centered in the city of Balaad and fought in Samarra in operation Baton
Rouge. Also fought during the first election and before that the unit was awarded the Valorous Unit
Citation, to this day the proudest award because that was a unit award and not many units get to be
chosen to be valorous units. So I was the commander of 1-77 armor for three years in Schweinfurt,
Germany. But only in Schweinfurt for about 10 months we were deployed twice, once to the Balkans,
and once to OIF II. We had 90 plus purple hearts. Six of my soldiers were killed. I got blown up a couple
times by IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) and also had a mortar round land on top of the room I was
in. But we made it through pretty much unscathed I was blessed.
�Scott Hubner – After OIF II where did your military career go?
COL Hubner – Well after battalion command I was selected for the war college. After I was at the war
college I was called by our branch and they said basically you are a top choice for brigade command,
but we’ve only got two armor brigades open and then a training brigade and we think you should wait a
year and try to compete for one of the maneuver brigades. Because I had been in battalion command
for three years and I had been through what I had been through I didn’t mind taking the training brigade
I thought It would be a good command. So I told them I was going to go ahead and compete and I was
selected after the war college to go ahead and command the 1-94th armor brigade which is the Armor
branches training brigade. I trained the 19-Delta Scouts and 19- Kilo Tankers, tank and Bradley
mechanics and they also had some basic training units, at that time they did. So it was a seven battalion
brigade and the most interesting thing about that was, I took command and we were in a surge in Iraq.
So we had a heavy training load and our attrition went very high and there was some concern that we
were letting to many people go in the Army. But I think because we held that standard our branch is
better off now with enlisted soldiers than they might’ve been than some of the other branches because
they let some people in that should not have been in during that period. And that why there is a lot of
the discipline problems that are in the army today. So after that brigade command I had two children
that were both in high school, I wanted to try to see them through in one school. So I met the
commander of the ROTC General Bartell. He interviewed me and wanted me to come be his 1st brigade
commander which was the military colleges of the country so I did that for a year. Then he asked me to
be the 1st chief of staff at Fort Knox, which I did and enjoyed as we tried to bring ROTC headquarters to
Fort Knox, which we did. At that point I was nearing the end of the road, physically I had some issues
with my back and my sons were out of high school so there wasn’t a whole lot more I really wanted to
do in the army at that point. But I did deploy one more time; I got the opportunity to go work for
General Bartell in Iraq, in a brigadier generals position. I was the chief of current operations for all US
forces Iraq. It was a great experience and it was kind of a neat thing for me because I had been in the
original desert shield/desert storm when we first got into a conflict with Iraq, I then had fought in OIF II
as a task force commander and had been there for the first election, and then as a United States forces
Iraq senior staff officer I got to help plan with the withdrawal and the end of the conflict in Iraq for US
forces. So that to me was perfect, I got to do that for six months and I submitted my retirement
paperwork before I left so that I could come back and get all of the VA and medical things done, my sons
were now out of high school and so I retired with full honors after 28 years of service. I went to work
with some guys, actually my boss was a guy I knew in desert storm so it all comes around I guess.
Scott Hubner – So you retired as a full bird Colonel, what do you remember about taking that step, that
last day in the Army, retirement?
COL Hubner – I really, because I didn’t want to dwell on the past I really just stayed focused on the
current and the future. I kind of learned from the army to live your life that way, not to get stuck on the
past too much, maybe when I’m older, later and when I stop working. I was hustling trying to get moved
out, get all of my VA stuff done. So it was a sense of relief that it was all done, I felt like I had a good run.
I also felt like I had done everything I had wanted to do in the army. It was time to go and hand it over to
younger folks that were hard charging and ready to lead. Also as I senior leader you see sometimes the
�army goes through ups and downs and I felt that I did not want to go through another downturn where
we reduce forces, and cut civilian jobs. Because as a senior leader, the generals expect the colonels to
carry the mail, the bad news and though the colonels don’t always agree with the decisions of course
they salute and move out and do that. I was tired of doing that as a chief of staff, that’s why I also took
that duty in Iraq, we also got a general in Cadet Command General Mark McDonald but he wanted his
own chief an artillery guy so it was time for me to move on and it really gave me the opportunity to
reflect so now I look at it and say “now what can I do to make my mark as a private citizen” so that’s
what I’m trying to do now.
Scott Hubner – Is there anything you would like to add that we haven’t covered in this interview thus
far?
COL Hubner – I think that everyone should serve their country in some form or fashion whether it is
their community or nation. I really think that should be a prerequisite to citizenship or at least to being
able to vote. If you have never been a nurse or teacher, firemen, policemen, or a volunteer at
something you should do that. I was blessed to have the physical and mental capability to be an officer
in the Army and I loved it, I don’t regret a minute of it. I think it’s a great start for young people and it
gives you a good perspective. I think it’s very important to help you with your perspective of the world. I
raised my children to be citizens of the world not just citizens of just North Carolina or South Carolina or
whatever. I want them to understand that we are blessed here and only by the hard work and bravery of
the ones before us. So I want them to have that mental outlook.
Scott Hubner – Thank you for your service, Retired COL David S Hubner. Thank you for your interview, I
appreciate your time.
COL Hubner – Thank you.
�
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Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC).
Oral History
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Interviewee
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Hubner, David S.
Interviewer
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Hubner, Scott
Interview Date
10/15/12
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:19:13
File name
2013_063_Hubner_DavidScott
2013_063_Hubner_DavidScott_transcript
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Title
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Interview with David Scott Hubner, 15 October 2012
Creator
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Hubner, Scott
Hubner, David S.
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<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>
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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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5 pages
Language
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English
English
Type
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Sound
Subject
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Hubner, David S.
Veterans
United States
Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Colonel David Hubner describes his service in the military which spanned multiple decades. He began in Germany, was deployed a couple of times to Iraq, and moved around the United States to various training camps. He retired after his sons graduated from high school and his body began to show physical signs of wear and tear. He explains that serving one's community is necessary and being a part of the military allowed him to gain a solid perspective.
ASU
colonel
Fort Knox
Germany
Gulf War
Jalibah Iraq
ROTC
senior leader
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/2200d1209d06673630bab91b8fee4e81.mp3
b451c065bd4196a79fecbb1149588e10
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/7b7ee1eed3e098039fbec481d0138bb7.pdf
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PDF Text
Text
Military Oral History Interview Transcript
Jeffrey A. Gordon, U.S. Army Veteran Sergeant First Class, retired
Skype Interview - Boone, NC
16 October 2011
MG: Matthew Gordon
JC: SPC Jeffrey A. Gordon, retired
MG: It is Sunday, October 16th, 2011. I am at home in Boone, North Carolina conducting an
interview via Skype with retired U.S. Army Veteran Sergeant First Class Jeffrey A. Gordon. I
am Cadet Matthew Gordon of Appalachian State University, and I will begin the oral history
now. Sergeant Gordon, where were you born and raised?
JC: I was born and raised in Logansport, Indiana.
MG: When was your birthday?
JC: September 18, 1960.
MG: What did you do just before you joined the armed forces? Where were you living at the
time?
JC: We were living in Logansport, Indiana and worked several different jobs.
MG: When and why did you choose to join the military?
JC: Because I wanted to get out of Logansport, Indiana.
MG: Okay, at what age did you enlist?
JC: I enlisted when I was 17 as a junior in high school, and was leaving for active duty after I
graduated in 1979.
MG: Was there a family history of military service that inspired you or were you one of the first
in your family to join the military?
JC: My Grandpa was in the army at one time, during World War Two, but other than that I was
the first one from the direct family to join.
MG: Did your parents approve of you wanting to serve?
JC: My dad. My grandpa was in the Marine Corps as well.
MG: Okay, okay.
1
�MG: Did your parents approve of you wanting to serve in the military?
JC: Yes, because like I said he was in the Marine Corps and then actually my uncle was in the
Marine Corps as well that probably helped inspire me.
MG: Sure.
MG: Why did you choose the enlistment route over the officer route?
JC: Because I was ready to get out of Logansport and I figured I'd get my college in the Army,
which I did.
MG: What was your MOS (military occupational specialty) at the time?
JC: My first MOS was 13 Bravo as a cannon crewman and then after four years of that I
reenlisted as a 97 Echo which was an interrogator (Human Intelligence Collector).
MG: Okay, do you recall your first days in service? What did it feel like?
JC: My first day was traveling to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. It was scary and when I got there it was
very cold and again scary because it was just crazy back the joining for basic training and
everything.
MG: How did you feel about leaving home?
JC: It was different. I was ready to go, ready to leave Logansport. But I had to leave your now
your mother; she was my girlfriend or fiancé…so that wasn't fun. But I was ready to go.
MG: Describe your training? Where was it and how long was it?
JC: We went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma was there for 12 weeks which included the first and then
they started a new program called OSUT, which was One Station Unit Training. We stayed right
there at Fort Sill and went right to the artillery phase of training after basic. It was a total of 12
weeks.
MG: Sure, what are some of the things from your training that stand out in your memory?
JC: The first thing was that I didn't realize I was going be actually a cannon crewman. I thought
I was going be telling the artillery guns where to shoot and working on the computers, but that
didn't work out. There was a little problem with my contract. But it was…it was fun, I mean it
was a lot of hard work, lost weight, got muscle…and worked real hard. I mean I didn't really
workout a whole lot before that. So it was, it was good training.
MG: So, where all did you serve?
2
�JC: Well we started at Fort Sill then from there we, I went back to Logansport, Indiana as a
hometown recruiter. I did that for three months, from there went to Fort Carson, Colorado. After
Fort Carson, Colorado went to Babenhausen, Germany. I reenlisted in Babenhausen for
interrogation school went to Fort Huachuca, Arizona and then to Monterey, California for
defense training for Polish.
After that went to Munich, Germany for three years and worked with the 1811 MI Battalion,
debriefing Polish defectors, after that we came back to the United States to Fort Hood, Texas,
and applied to work in the embassy after the wall came down. We applied to come work in the
embassy in Warsaw. I got accepted for that, and then we came to Columbia, Missouri and
worked with the ROTC Department and then I retired.
MG: Okay, how hard was it being away from family, friends, and loved ones?
JC: Well, our family was with us, so leaving Logansport, Indiana wasn't too hard (laughing)
honestly. We were ready to go and travel and see the world.
MG: Sure.
JC: Even though our children thought that it was bad thing to do for...for 17 years, but we did it
anyway
MG: Sure (laughing). What kind of assignments were you assigned to throughout your career?
JC: Well, like I said, four years in the artillery, as a cannon crewman, started out on eight inch
artillery at Fort Carson and then when I went into Babenhausen was also on 8 inch Artillery and
then we did a three month tour with the 105 cannons, which was air assault. After that
interrogation school debriefing Polish defectors for three years in Munich and then went to Fort
Hood.
I was the operations sergeant and actually the platoon sergeant for a counter intelligence platoon
to Warsaw, Poland. I was the Operations NCOIC (non-commissioned officer in charge) for the
defense attaché office and before that we were in Washington, D.C. for training. When we came
back to the United States and was the NCOIC of the Cadet ROTC Detachment. I was the
personnel or NCOIC, then I retired.
MG: Tell me about your most memorable experiments...experiences and highlights throughout
your service?
JC: Oh, that's a tough one. Probably the most fun with the unit, it was a pretty tight group.
Training in Fort Huachuca for interrogation was real interesting and fun. I mean it was tough, but
fun. And then spending three years working with Polish Defectors in Germany was good. It was
a great experience being able to send people to the United States. After that the platoon sergeant
time was because we got accepted to go to Warsaw. Then work in the embassy…that was real
rewarding because again, we were sending Polish military cadets and student to the United
3
�States. We enjoyed that and Poland was probably the most fun and rewarding because we did so
many different things.
MG: Sure, so on your time on leave where all did you prefer to travel too or where did you
travel?
JC: Most of the time on leave we always came back home to Logansport because everybody
wanted to see us. But we did get to travel overseas a lot. When we were in Germany we traveled
all over Europe. When we were in Warsaw we got to see the border of Russia unofficially. But
just being able to travel with the military is one of the best things. You do get to see a lot of stuff.
On leave, we always came back home, it seemed like. Instead of taking vacations, which we
probably should have done more.
MG: Did you plan to retire from the Army or was that just something that came too thought as
time passed?
JC: No, I think after the first time I reenlisted I figured we'd stay the whole duration and then
retire because of the benefits and the way everything was going the economy. You know the
benefits are a great thing. Having the medical and having the check come every month, that's
nice.
MG: What did you do towards the end of your career?
JC: Well, towards the end it was more administrative work with ROTC and trying not to lie to
them. Tell them how great the military was at that time (laughing) back in '95. But yes, I mean
ROTC was time go, it was time to retire once I got to that assignment because the military was
drawing down so much. It was time to go, time to move onto something different.
MG: Do you recall the day your service ended? Where were you?
JC: We were in Columbia, Missouri trying to figure out what we were going to do next. We had
two kids and that scared us. We actually all went to Disney World for a week and then came
back and started our own business and worked with training people. So it was different.
MG: How long were you in the service?
JC: About 17 and a-half years. At that time they were allowing people to retire early. So I did
get to retire instead of getting bought out, like they were doing to a lot people. But I did retire
with benefits and medical.
MG: What influential experiences did you draw from the military in general? How has it
affected your life today?
JC: Well, that's a tough one. I think overall, it affects every part of your life. As my wife says,
I'm bossier now (laughing) and in charge, want to be in charge all the time. But, it's just the
overall experience you can’t beat it. I think every 18-year-old kid should go in the military just to
4
�get that, whether its two years experience or what. They ought to some type of service because it
just makes you a better person. And you get to see a lot in the world if you go out there. But if
you stay in your hometown all the time, you don't get to.
MG: True. So would you do it all over again if you had the chance?
JC: Oh definitely, we’d go back to Poland now if there was a chance (laughing). Even as a
retired person.
MG: Why would you want to do it all over again?
JC: Oh, I you just, the travel and the people…you get to learn everything and your spending
time in foreign countries and you get to see a lot, a lot when you are in the military if you choose
to go out into the world and go to different places overseas you can't beat it. I just think, don’t
think you can beat it with anything else.
MG: Just to kind of bounce back to another question…what was the transition between field
artillery to interrogation?
JC: Oh, that was huge. That was a totally different concept of combat arms…it was an eye
opener. Combat arms versus a military intelligence unit are different styles of leadership,
different attitudes towards the military. Honestly, dealing with the artillery it was all male, and
then in military intelligence you had to deal with the female aspects of everything as a leader.
And all the different issues that come up. So that was a huge transition and then after, then three
years of that in military intelligence was being in civilian clothes and not really being associated
with the military. So that was fun, but it was also a big transition.
MG: What persuaded you…or what skills or mindset did you have towards switching from field
artillery to interrogation?
JC: I looked at the senior NCOs in artillery and most of them were deaf, or had hearing aids. I
figured after 20 years of shooting artillery I'd be deaf you know in both ears. I already lost
hearing in one ear in four years. So I figured it was time to get out of that. Because you just don't
get to wear your hearing protection when you are trying to hear commands and that type of thing.
Back then, now it's all computerized, so it 's a lot different.
MG: So tell me a little more about this transition, what was training like as far as interrogation
goes?
JC: Well, eight weeks at Fort Huachuca (Arizona) of role playing and actually interrogating you
know learning how to question techniques and dealing with belligerent people. Because
prisoners aren’t always going to tell you what they want. So you got to figure ways to get it out
of them. But stick to the Geneva Convention and not do anything wrong. Eight weeks of that,
and then basically it was one year of learning Polish language, which was a very, very hard year.
A lot of personality problems with the Polish instructors and our son was born the night before
the biggest phase test…and I needed to pass it. So he picked a good time to come into the world
5
�(laughing). But it was all worth it. And then I spent another eight weeks learning strategic
debriefing and different techniques like report writing and that type of thing. It was a lot of fun.
MG: Did you see any kind of combat situations? What kind of training were you involved in?
JC: No combat. I guess we are considered Cold War Veterans. When Saddam went into Kuwait,
we were on our way to Washington, D.C. for training. We continued on to Washington and did
not go back to Fort Hood. When the wall came down a lot of the Eastern European languages,
jobs were done away with because they didn't need them anymore. So, no...never saw any
combat. We had our own situations in Poland. But we did get to shoot a lot of weapons in
training.
MG: How hard was it learning the languages? What kind of languages did you have to learn for
interrogation purposes?
JC: Polish. It was a pain in the butt. Four years of college level classes were crammed into one
year, eight hours a day of classroom instruction. Probably two hours of memorizing, two to four
hours a night memorizing statements and phrases and vocabulary and then you go back in the
next day. It was just a constant. It was one year with I think a two week break every three months
or something. It wasn't fun. So a lot of stress, a lot of drinking, a lot of partying on Friday
nights, Saturday nights you party. Sunday night you start studying for class on Monday. Several
weddings, lots of kids born (laughing). It was different.
MG: On that note, what are some of the craziest things you and your buddies did while you were
in the service?
JC: Oh, I don't know what's really crazy outside. I mean we did a lot of crazy fun stuff in the
military. I mean I think one of the funniest things we did or was we had a big pizza party for the
Marine Corps security detachment in Warsaw. I knew the flight crew that was bringing in an
empty plane and we brought in twenty large pizzas from Pizza Hut out of Frankfurt, Germany
(laughing) strapped down in the middle of this 141. We had a pizza party at the Marine Corps
bar that night. Thanks to the Air Force! (laughing) That was probably one of the funniest.
MG: Well (more laughing) is there anything you would like to add that we have not covered in
this interview, or like a closing thought?
JC: A closing thought would be that…to reiterate I think every 18 or 19 year old kid should
go...male or female…should do some type of service in the military or federal government or
something. And get out and see the world…and then maybe come back and go to college. Then
if they decide to join the military, they can go enlisted or officer route. It’s really up to them. It
was a fun time, we did get to see a lot, our kids got to be in foreign countries and travel on
airplanes a lot. No regrets at all in the military. I mean…things change, it's a lot different now
than when I retired in'95, but it's all good.
MG: What kind of changes would you say that have occurred or that you've seen occur since
your time in service?
6
�JC: Technology's probably the biggest thing. Another crazy thing we probably did was in 1989
but we had White House communications technology and we set up a little satellite dish on the
runway in Warsaw and I got to call my dad back in Indiana. Back then we had to use a satellite
dish. Now today you can just pick up a phone. So technology is just advanced so much that you
never really kept up with everything in the artillery. There's probably so many computers that
control everything...I mean we did everything by verbal commands. And the uniforms are
different; they are so much better than what it was. That's been 20 something years ago.
MG: Well, I thank you very much for your time and patience throughout the interview. And just
wanted to thank you again.
JC: No problem, thank you
JC: Don't work too hard now!
MG: All right, we'll see you later now.
JC: All right.
MG: Bye.
7
�
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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.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Gordon, Jeff
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Gordon, Matthew
Interview Date
10/16/11
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
22:46 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, NCO, Logansport, Indiana, cannon crewman, human intelligence collector, interrogator, Fort Sill, Fort Carson, Germany, Fort Hood, ROTC, Fort Huachuca, University of Missouri, Poland, enlisted man
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Jeff Gordon, 16 October 2011
Subject
The topic of the resource
Cold War
Gordon, Jeff, 1960-
United States
Veterans
Military Intelligence
Interviews
Army
Officers
Description
An account of the resource
Jeff Gordon, born September 18, 1960, served 17 and a half years in the U.S. Army (enlisting in 1979), retiring as a Veteran Sergeant First Class. He served as a cannon crewman and interrogator (Human Intelligence Collector). In the interview he talks about his career (including service in seven states, Germany, and Poland) plus the benefits for U.S. youth to see the world through military service.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gordon, Jeff
Gordon, Matthew
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
The size or duration of the resource.
7 pages
Language
A language of the resource
English
cannon crewman
Fort Sill Oklahoma
Germany
interrogation
Logansport
Marine Corps
ROTC
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/9ea04fe2cc6a8a07e749db88b752f1ce.mp3
1d86179bcce70d65f2766ff1b1b58afa
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/f510a890e73e5b7de45451d89c9b252d.pdf
ff82f45aa6f924112e9ff84c352eb8bc
PDF Text
Text
Military Oral History Interview Transcript
Captain Richard Meyers
Boone, North Carolina
11 October 2011
DJ: Daniel Johnson
RM: Richard Meyers, Captain
DJ: My name is Daniel Johnson. I'm conducting this interview on 12th October, 2011 in the
ROTC Department at Appalachian State University. I am interviewing Captain Richard Meyers of
the United States Army, whose current position is....
RM: Recruiting Operations Officer.
DJ: Recruiting Operations Officer for Appalachian State ROTC. Ok, let's get the questions
started. When were you born?
RM: When?
DJ: Yes.
RM: October 2nd 1980.
DJ: When did you enlist?
RM: I enlisted in the Army in March; I think it was 14th 2003.
DJ: Okay.
RM: And that was into the Reserves?
DJ: In the Reserves. Were you trying to participate in the SMP program?
RM: I was at Clemson University.
DJ: So you were in ROTC before you joined...?
RM: Yes, I completed my first semester my freshman year and enlisted there in the second
semester of there my freshman year of college.
DJ: Did you go to basic training in the summer of 2003?
RM: I did, yes, in the summer of 2003.
1
�DJ: Where did you train?
RM: Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
DJ: And your MOS was?
RM: 21 Bravo at the time. It's now 12 Bravo, which are combat engineers.
DJ: Combat engineers. What interested you in the combat engineers more so then any other
branch at first?
RM: Well, I had a short AIT, which was good for doing while I'm in college, and
also...wanted to do something combat related. And went ahead and did combat engineers.
DJ: Combat engineers. Why did you, what made you interested in ROTC, the Army in the
first place?
RM: Well, when I was high school, I had a young lady who sat in front of me in English
class. My senior year and she asked me what I was going to do after high school and I said
that I was thinking about going to college. And she said, “Were you thinking about doing a
ROTC scholarship?” And I was like, 'What's that?'
So one thing led to another with that and I found it what it was. Went ahead and applied for
one. Had never done any JROTC. No one in my immediate family was in the military.
They all had mixed feelings about it. I did not get a scholarship, but decided I would still do
ROTC while I was in college.
DJ: Were you always interested in the Army branch of ROTC? Army branch more so then
any other branch?
RM: Yes, yes, always interested in the Anny branch.
DJ: Let’s go back to boot camp. Do you remember anything about boot camp, first arriving
there, the drill sergeants?
RM: Yes, I can't remember any of the drill sergeants' names, but I would know their faces
if I ever saw them again. I have seen one of them before at Fort Riley before I went to Iraq.
I remember being on the cattle car, going to where basic training was going to start for us.
After we did all the in processing, I remember getting off and getting yelled out. We had to
unload our duffle bags and get everything inspected. But it was pretty fun looking back at
it, though wasn't fun at the time.
DJ: Through 72-days, you would never want to do it again, but you didn’t mind doing it.
RM: Yes.
2
�DJ: Did you have any people to help you get through it or…
RM: Just some other people that were there. I really didn’t need too much help getting
through it. It really wasn’t that difficult compared to other things I have done. But, it's
always nice to have other people to talk to, to vent after the days over with.
DJ: The random people, the battle buddies?
RM: Yes.
DJ: When I went there, I was ok with most of the guys.
RM: Yes.
DJ: Did you ever serve in any conflicts?
RM: I was deployed to Iraq. Left in October 2008, and spent a few weeks in Kuwait doing
more training there. Then went up into Iraq. I think it was early November 2008 when we
arrived.
DJ: So you were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom?
RM: Yes.
DJ: Was there a different name for it by then?
RM: No, it was Operation Iraqi Freedom. But it was just for a year.
DJ: A yearlong deployment?
RM: Y e s .
DJ: What part of lraq were you in during that time?
RM: Well we flew up; when we left Kuwait we went up to Camp Tahji, which is in
Baghdad. And got a bunch of briefings there for a week or two. Then we flew to...think it
was FOB or Camp Spiker, and we stayed there for a few days. That was part of our
movement up north; we were just waiting for our helicopter ride. Then we finally got one
and went to Mosul, and landed in FOB Marez via Chinook helicopter. And spent the night
there and then the next day, and we left the following night to go up to where. We spent
most of our time, which was in Erbil Iraq, with- in the Kurdish region.
DJ: Do you remember when you first arrive what it was like, or?
RM: Yes. I do so...it was hot. It has a totally different smell, especially up in FOB Marez.
3
�It’s kind of hazy there all the time that I noticed. Throughout the whole deployment every
time we went there it always seemed like it had a haze over it. Not a very friendly city. I
remember the first night going outside the wire there when we went up to Erbil. I was
supposed to be riding in the back of one of the MRAPs that we had on our transition team,
because we still had the old team there showing us how they did things. And our combat
medic was going to be driving in the 1114, which is the HMMV.
But compared to the MRAPs the armor is not as great. So I switched out with him and
drove. And I remember driving through Mosul at night following the other MRAPs and that
HMMV it just struggled keeping up. It's not made for all the armor it was carrying. But it
was a little; I don't know if it was scary, but it was a good bit of an adrenaline rush at first,
because all of the training you get is, you know, “Hey! Watch out for piles of rocks. Watch
out for trash.” Well on the sides of the streets in Mosul are all those things. So, you’re trying
to look for IEDs...and it just gets to a point where it's like, you know what, whatever. I'm
just going to drive now. I'm the rear vehicle. Just going to keep up with everyone else. So
that was a little nerve racking, but looking back at it, it was good times, nothing happened.
DJ: (Laughing) When you first arrived there. What was your assignment while you were
in Iraq?
RM: We were part of a fire support officer for a border transition team. Never had to call
for artillery or air support while I was up there because we were with the Kurds. Very pro
American, willing to help us. Heck I mean when we drove around they were providing
security for us, you know? A good group of people. But we were just training them on how
to better secure their borders up there. Their regional headquarters was in Erbil, and it had
control over three provinces. Dahouk, Erbil Province, and Sulaymaniyyah province which,
that encompasses a few kilometers of the Syrian border, all the Turkish border, and then a good bit
of the Iranian border. So, we did a lot of driving while we were up there.
DJ: My dad's unit during the Gulf War, their furthest advance was actually Dahouk in 1991. The
82nd.
RM: Yes.
DJ: That's where they stopped and then had to start going backwards. Because they were going
too deep into Iraq and then the war was over back then...Did you take any contact while you were
in Iraq?
RM: No one ever shot at us that I know of. We never shot at anybody while we
were over there that I do know for a fact. The only incident we had a night when
we were going into Mosul. We were following another convoy that was taking
supplies into FOB Marez. And we got held up by a route clearance unit that had
found an IED on the route that we were taking. So we had to wait for them to do a
controlled detonation on it before we could move on. So we were supposed to get
there at midnight and I think we got in probably one or two o clock in the morning.
So...
4
�DJ: Did anything really stick out to you from your deployment? Like your most memorable
experience?
RM: Most memorable experience...nothing really stands out. We helped with some of the
schools getting repairs done on them. That was a pretty good experience. You know, doing
patrols with the Iraqis, especially along the Turkish border, whi ch for the most part wasn't
too threatening. But there was intelligence that there was a lot of drugs flowing into Turkey
from that area because it’s an easier way to get into Europe, corning from Iran and places like
that.
So I just remember walking along and....with my pistol drawn through the tall grass and
trees along a river that borders Turkey looking for people with the Iraqi border police. You
know I take it back, one event that really stands out, we were up...I'm trying to think the
name of the city I can't remember it now. We were on the Iranian border and we were
investigating some incidences where the Iranians were shooting some artillery into Iraq.
They said they were targeting P-jact, which is a separatist organized group that fights with
Iran for Kurdish independence.
When we went there we talked to a gentleman whose son was killed by Iranian artillery. And
he still had damage on his house like there was still hole in the roof on it. And he was
showing us his hot water heater, w h i c h was riddle with shrapnel. We walked around there
for a while. Pulled some evidence out of some of the craters that were there. Found pieces of
rockets that the Iranians had fired into Iraq. And then when we left we were back at one of
the Iraqi border forts, probably about 10 miles away. And they carne in running...running
into the room while we were talking to the commander through our interpreters, pretty
excited about something. And the Iraqi commander got up and was telling us to come with
him. And he ran up- went up to the roof of the border fort. And Iran was shelling the same
area we were just at again.
So that event really sticks out to me. I don’t think a lot of people know there are instances on
a regular basis between those two countries that isn’t mentioned in the media here in the U.S.
DJ: Pretty interesting.
RM: Yes.
DJ: Were you awarded any citations for your action in Iraq?
RM: I was awarded a Bronze Star for the work we did up there up north. I was a unit
administrative officer since I didn't really have to deal with calling in artillery for anything.
And I advised the Iraqi border police headquarters on how to better keep track of their
personnel. Make sure people that were injured or killed patrolling the border received- their
family received the benefits that they were entitled to. Just keeping up with that stuff. And
then, also did a little bit of training too with the Iraqis. So...
5
�DJ: Did you...how did you stay in touch while you were over there? Was there Internet video
or....
RM: In the later stages I was able to use video Skype. The bandwidth we had over there
wasn't the greatest so a lot of times, I just used video audio Skype. And it worked just
like a regular phone. Set a phone number up before I left to go to Iraq while I was
visiting my parents in Maryland. They got a phone number so they could call me in Iraq,
and if I was in my “ choo,” which is where we lived, our little housing unit.... And my
computer was on hooked the internet the phone would ring. Very rarely did that happen
but I could always call them if we weren’t out on missions.
DJ: Did you feel any pressure while you were over there being in command or was it pretty laid
back considering the area you were in?
RM: I wasn't the highest ranking officer on our team. We had a lieutenant colonel and a
major who got promoted to lieutenant colonel while we were there. One other major who
was our intelligence officer and then myself. And then we had two senior non
commissioned officers, two E-7s, and a staff sergeant who was our mechanic.
I wouldn’t say it was laid back, definitely had plenty of work to do while I was over
there, but I didn't feel any pressure really, that you know worried about someone getting
hurt. Mainly because of the area we were in. And I knew, I mean I was a gunner on one
of the MRAPs while we had them. And we had one of the senior non commissioned
officers and our mechanic was the other gunner. And you know I knew had my back and
I had theirs. But I wasn’t really worried about anything happening where we were.
DJ: Were other parts of lraq hot at that time?
RM: They were. When we would go into FOB Marez in Mosul we would definitely be
packing everything we could. Didn’t mess around in that city. You know I never really got
scared while I was over there; it was more of like a, kind of an adrenaline rush. I mean when
you’re going through those city streets in Mosul, knowing that city is probably the second
worst in Iraq outside of Baghdad. It's pretty real. And you know you’re always scanning the
buildings around you because you don’t want someone shooting down on you, from you a
multi story building. So that keeps it pretty real keeps the adrenaline going, but never really
afraid though while we were going through all that. Looking back on it, it was kind of crazy,
but
I wasn’t too concerned while I was over there though.
DJ: Did anything funny a lot of funny events that happened over there?
RM: Funny events?
DJ: Or something goofy?
RM: We had a bunch of cats on our FOB. Not really sure how they got there but they would
6
�eat the trash. They were kind of nasty, like alley cats. They were like rats when it came to
trash. You know they would always be around it. We had a small dining facility that some
foreigners worked in. I think they were from Bangladesh. But they had a little dumpsite for
all the trash and stuff, and the cats would always be going through there. And I was going to
work in our headquarters one morning; I think it was probably a Saturday. We norn1ally
didn't work on Saturdays because the Iraqis didn't meaning we didn’t go outside the wire.
But I went to the headquarters to do some administrative stuff and I heard this noise outside,
and I was like, “What is that?” I opened the door and it was these two male cats, I mean just
fighting. Clawing each other, biting. They were rolled up in one ball. And there was fur
flying through the air. So I had tossed some rocks at them to break them up. And they got off
each other and they were looking at me.
They had fur hanging out of their mouths, they were dripping with blood and stuff, and I was
like, “Oh my goodness.” I ran them off. But, that was probably, I don't know if it was the
funniest thing, but it was definitely one of the craziest things I saw while I was over there.
But, I mean we had quite a few things. When the Iraqis would get ammunition we would have
shooting competitions with some of the border police out on the areas where no one was
living. We pretty much set up range and we just had shooting competitions with them. So that
was pretty fun.
DJ: Once you got back, what did you do? Did you do a deployment drawdown with your unit
or…
RM: When we got back, we went back to Fort Riley where we did our initial training for
the transition team. And we spent I don’t think it was quite a week while we there doing
all of our redeployment stuff. All of our medical and some of our other administrative
paperwork so we could go home. The cool thing about it was that we were put in the front
of the line anytime we were doing redeployment stuff if there was another unit coming
back because we hadn’t seen our families yet.
We flew straight back to Fort Riley and our families were scattered all over the-really all
over the world. So we were waiting to get back with them. So they jumped us to the front of
the line. We were able to out process after we turned in our weapons and everything...in a
few days, and then got us on aircraft to go home or to our next assignments. So that was a
pretty interesting time. I didn't know it at the time when I was going to airport from Fort
Riley to fly back home, my grandmother had passed away that morning. So that was a little
tough to deal with, coming back to that. And it delayed me getting to my next assignment. I
spent a little more time home then I was planning on.
DJ: So after deployment did you automatically get sent to another station or...
RM: They go to their next assignment or go home if they’re taking leave first. It really
varied depending
on the individual.
7
�DJ: So you were part of the 1st Armored or 1st Infantry Division?
RM: I did all the training at Fort Riley through the 1st Infantry Division, 1st Brigade.
When we got over to Iraq we were attached to 3rd ACR at first but they were leaving.
They left pretty much a month after we got there. And then we were attached to 2-1 Cav
the rest of the time.
DJ: What unit were you part of during this time?
RM: More so 2-1 Cav. I mean, because they were the ones that had all the logistical support
for us and the administrative stuff too.
DJ: That's interesting. So what was your next assignment after?
RM: It was here at Appalachian State University ROTC.
DJ: Did you choose to come here?
RM: I did. I was dating a woman at the time who lived in South Carolina before I went to
Iraq. And my plan was try to get an assignment to the Southeast, even if that meant Fort
Stewart, Fort Benning, or Fort Bragg. And then someone mentioned, “Hey you could also
do ROTC?” So I sent an email to my branch manager saying, “Hey look if there's an ROTC
that has an opening anywhere in the Southeast, I'd like to go there.
My first choice is Clemson because I'm a alumni b u t if that doesn't work out I'm open to
pretty much anything.” A few months into the deployment he sent a message to me saying,
“Hey would you want to go to Appalachian State University.” And I was like, “Yes, that's
fine.” So I already knew about it, or knew about the university because Clemson would
compete with them in Ranger challenge and I knew it was a good ROTC program b e f o r e I
got here.
DJ: And Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore and Sergeant Major Arbogast were here at the time?
RM: Correct. Yes.
DJ: That’s pretty interesting...What did you think when you first met them when you first
came here?
RM: I thought they were pretty high speed. Obviously the program, the cadets that we were
commissioning were solid, especially tactically. So, I think they were great people.
DJ: Because I know that’s like way before my time, those early years. Because I really
didn’t start getting involved until they were on their way out.
RM: Yes.
8
�DJ: So...this is your last year and then you move on to another assignment.
RM: Right. After this I go to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for my Captain's career course. Really
I'm behind right now. Had I not gotten an ROTC assignment they were going to send me to
the Captain's Career Course right after I got back from Iraq.
DJ: And the Captain's Career Course is the next step to be appointed to major?
RM: Well, you need to have it for theory you need to have it before you do a command.
DJ: A company command?
RM: Correct. Or in my case a battery command. And it also gives you training in how to
be a staff officer as well.
DJ: That's pretty interesting. So after that, you complete that you find out what your next unit is?
RM: Correct. I don't know what my next assignment is yet. I've tried looking into that, but
my understanding is when I get to Fort Sill the branch managers will come and figure out
who’s going where at that point in time
DJ: Is there any other places you would like to go, any stations in particular?
RM: I would love to get back to a line unit, even one that’s deploying. My request that I
sent it before being told, “Hey look just wait until you get to the Career Course.” Fort
Stewart down in Georgia, Fort Benning in Georgia, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and if I had
to do an overseas one I put Hawaii. I've already been to South Korea. I wouldn’t mind going
to Germany, but for right now I want to hold on because I just got married. So, trying to stay
in the United States for a little bit.
DJ: So you chose artillery? Was that your first choice?
RM: Yes, artillery was my first branch choice.
DJ: Was there anything that really interested you about it?
RM: Just that it was a combat arms branch. Infantry, I didn’t necessarily want to do that. I
don’t know
why now, but I think my second choice was armor. So I was just looking to get another job
like combat engineers.
DJ: Something....
RM: Just had a lot of firepower.
DJ: You could be out there doing the combat job?
9
�RM: Yes.
DJ: That makes sense. So did your service in Iraq affect your life any? Give you more perspective?
RM: It gave me more perspective. When I watch the news now, especially with the Arab
Spring going on, from what it's called anyway. My perspective on the Muslim religion is a
little different. There are definitely Muslims out there who are pro United States in the
Kurds. I still debate whether there are any pro Americans in the Southern parts of Iraq. But
I wasn’t there, I don’t really know. So it gives more perspective when I listen to the news. I
understand the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslim. And why they fight with each
other all the time. I understand that region is very unstable having been there. Probably the
direct effect on coming back was probably my driving habits. Took me a while to slow
down, because I
was used to driving pretty while I was in Iraq.
DJ: Habit always checking the trash and stuff like that?
RM: Well, not so much, but looking for stuff that was going to blow up. We didn't have too
many issues with that but you know the way we drove in Iraq, we just drove fast.
DJ: Fast but safe.
RM: Yes.
DJ: That makes sense. All right. I think that covers just about all the questions Captain
Meyers.
RM: All right
DJ: Thank you for your time.
RM: Yes, not a problem.
10
�
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
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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.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Meyers, Richard Allen
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Johnson, Daniel
Interview Date
10/12/11
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
29:10 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, officer, recruiting operations officer, ROTC, ASU, Appalachian State University, Clemson University, Army Reserves, Fort Leonard Wood, combat engineer, Fort Riley, Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Baghdad, Kuwait, IED, Bronze Star, Fort Riley, 1st Infantry Division, artillery
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 Richard Allen Meyers, 12 October 2011
Subject
The topic of the resource
Iraq War, 2003-2011
Meyers, Richard, 1960-
Veterans
Personal narratives, American
United States
Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Richard Meyers, born October 2, 1980, enlisted into the Army in 2003. Current position as of 2011--Recruiting Operations Officer for Appalachian State ROTC. Served in Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq War) for one year, 2008-2009. In this interview, he discusses his experiences doing patrols and advising Iraqi border police in Erbil, a Kurdish region of Iraq.
Creator
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Meyers, Richard Allen
Johnson, Daniel
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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10 pages
Language
A language of the resource
English
combat engineer
IED
Kurds
Mosul
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Recruiting Operations Officer
reserves
ROTC
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/32d1818c78aeebb379cafdc4f4dc2e3c.pdf
213cf3ba6b1cf27723096be077b9be6a
PDF Text
Text
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
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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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