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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/cbfbdc96490e0b287e0a539efb15751b.pdf
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Davis William Craig interviews Former Marine Corporal William Chris Ray
Chapel Hill, NC
13 October 2011
DC: Davis W. Craig
CR: W. Chris Ray
DC: Today is October 13, 2011. We are in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Chris Ray, birth date...
CR: December 10, 1988.
DC: This is being recorded for Appalachian State University. Mr. Ray served in operation...
CR: Enduring Freedom.
DC: Enduring Freedom, with the Marines. Chris, were you drafted or did you enlist?
CR: I enlisted my senior year of high school, 2007, in January, and shipped off to boot camp
July 1, 2007.
DC: What made you want to join the military?
CR: I think I knew I was going to join the military...when I was in seventh grade, after seeing
9/11, it was one of those things that was in the back of my mind I was exploring other options,
then if came time to...apply to colleges and whatnot...the only school I applied to was
Appalachian State, and got in there but didn't really want to go to school so I chose to go into the
corps, it was something different.
DC: Why did you pick the Marines?
CR: Well, the reputation they have is a overall little better than the other branches and I wanted
to be in the infantry, and the Marine Corps infantry is probably the most prestigious out of all the
branches, as well. So that's probably why I chose that.
DC: Do you recall your first days in service? What do you remember about when you first...got
in?
CR: Like in boot camp?
DC: Yeah.
CR: It was pretty hot, pretty miserable, you know, being like 18 and...you know getting thrown
into something like that, I think everyone kind of questions themselves, like "What did I get
into?" And then, after I went to boot camp, that lasted thirteen weeks, about three months...[I]
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�Went to School of Infantry, which lasted about two months, and then went to my deploying unit,
which was seventh battalion, sixth Marines. It was...a tough experience. You learn a lot. It's
certainly not for everyone; there were times when I was hating life.
DC: How did you get through it?
CR: I set out to accomplish something; I'm not really one to quit on anything so...relying on
myself, relying on the guys around me because we were all going through the same thing.
DC: Do you remember any specific instructors?
CR: Yeah, I remember all of them. I didn't really like my boot camp instructors; I didn’t really
have too much respect for them just because, in the Marine Corps there is a big rift between the
infantry guys and the non-infantry guys. At the time, of course, you fear them, you respect them,
but looking back on them...they're jokes. And actually, my School of Infantry main instructor
actually deployed with me to Afghanistan, last summer.
DC: Where exactly did you go on you first deployment?
CR: My first deployment, it was called the twenty-sixth Marine Expeditionary Unit, and I went
to Italy, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Bahrain, Kuwait, Croatia, Egypt, and Greece.
DC: What do you remember about your first deployment, specifically?
CR: I hated it, honestly, because the only thing we did was, we were deployed as, it's called a
Force In Readiness, our whole job is to basically float around the Mediterranean and the Arabian
Gulf...Persian Gulf, just to see if anything, in case anything, pops up in any other country, we are
supposed to be there to take care of it...we trained other militaries, we trained the U.A.E.'s first
mortar platoon ever, which was pretty cool, but overall that deployment wasn't really what I'd
joined to do.
DC: What was your job?
CR: I was a mortar man, so we were part of the Eighty-One Millimeter Mortar platoon. So
basically, our job was the first, indirect support of the riflemen and the standard grunts.
DC: Did you see any combat?
CR: On the first deployment?
DC: Yeah.
CR: No.
DC: Let’s talk about some other deployments, where else have you been stationed?
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�CR: I've only been stationed in Camp Lejeune, but I went to Marjah in Helmahn Province,
Afghanistan last summer...my second and last deployment.
DC: Did you see combat there?
CR: Yes...my second patrol ever...actually my first patrol ever we were indirectly involved in a
firefight then my seconds patrol ever we got in a firefight and three of my buddies ended up
getting shot, two of them went home...one of them shattered...his femur in one of his legs and
just really messed up the other one and another one got shot in the back of the head and actually
survived.
DC: What did that...what did the first combat that you were involved in...what was going
through your head once you realized that you were actually in a war, fighting?
CR: It was pretty surreal...it was one of those things where as a kid you see all these movies and
stuff and war is so glorified and all that...I guess people see it as cool and awesome until people
start getting hurt, but...at the time I think it was a really big wakeup call seeing as the first couple
of patrols, that really set the tone for the rest of deployment. We had a couple of guys that were
really freaked out after that but I think that just really made us more aware of...what could
happen at any second, at any time.
DC: Now, this hasn't been addressed yet, what ranks did you hold in your time with the U.S.
Marines?
CR: I came in as a Private and was meritoriously promoted to Private, First-Class after boot
camp, and then about eight months later I was promoted to Lance Corporal, and then after that I
was meritoriously promoted to Corporal and that's the rank that I held until I got out.
DC: Were you awarded any medals or citations or any sort of decorations?
CR: Yes. Obviously...they give out a lot of medals, a lot of them don't matter, but the only ones
that people really care about are the Combat Action Ribbon saying you've been in combat,
received fire, exchanged fire...I was awarded the Purple Heart, which is not a medal that anyone
wants but... you're more proud of that than anything else...I got a Purple Heart for...in October of
[2010] I got blown up by a DFC, which is a Directionally Fragmented Charge, which is a type
of IED, so it's basically a shotgun out of the ground ... I ended up breaking my shoulder, pretty
much got peppered all over the front of my body...I got medi-evaced to Germany and then to
Maryland and then finally went back home.
DC: What circumstances led to that?
CR: I was a Squad Leader, so I had about ten Marines under me, eight Afghan National Army
soldiers, we had to do a vehicle checkpoint that morning at an Afghan police station...We were
doing checkpoints and the Taliban obviously watched us go down there and they knew we had to
head back to our main patrol base, eventually. They'd been watching us for a couple of
weeks...So I split my squad up, I sent one of my team leaders on the East side of the road and I
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�went on the West side, we never take the road because of the risk of IEDs, and they set up, I can't
remember exactly it's kind of hazy, but they set up a fake IED that I went to go check out...and it
wasn't really anything, and then I decided to cross the road and it was a remote controlled IED.
They basically waited for me to cross then the next thing I remember was waking up...I really
couldn't hear anything, my ears were ringing, I looked down and there was blood all over my
legs, my face, my shoulder, my chest, so I was kind of a little freaked out, but I couldn't really
move, I was in the middle of the road so I basically called over my radio, let everyone know that
I was hit and as soon as I did that, when [the enemy] opened up with some small fire so that no
one could come out and get me on the road. Since my legs weren't really working, I kind of
crawled down into a ditch and fired blindly, suppressing so someone could at least come over to
me and render me aide, applied tunicates and whatnot and everyone came to support. [I] Went on
a helicopter to a hospital and just dealt with recovery in the hospital and physical therapy after
that.
DC: [mutters, pause] When you were overseas how did you stay in touch with your family?
CR: [We] had a satellite phone that we were able to call every once in a while. I got to talk to
my family, I'd say once or twice a week. They would cut off our limitation, we weren't allowed
to use the phone if people were severely injured or if we had guys killed in action, which was
fairly frequent...so that was the only way, was through satellite phone.
DC: Was the food any good?
CR: No, the food was horrible. I ate spaghetti and meatballs for...three months. Now, if I see
spaghetti and meatballs I’m going to throw up, but the actual Afghan food was really good. What
it was, they eat a lot of flatbread, rice, and chicken.
DC: Did you do anything special for good luck?
CR: We kind of all had a routine...certain things that we liked to do...but I don't think I had
anything for good luck.
DC: What sort of culture...cultural experiences did you experience in Afghanistan?
CR: It's completely different; I don't really understand it still, but just the way that the women
are treated. We would ask a lot of the ANA, the Afghan soldiers, if they even knew why were in
Afghanistan, and most of them had no clue. And just dealing with the people...it was...especially
with the men...sexual relations with women was taboo but it was frequent for...they wouldn't call
themselves gay but...they were more affectionate to men than women.
DC: How did you guys entertain yourselves while you were over there?
CR: Well, I read a ton of books but that was pretty much it, other than that we didn't have much,
a couple of people had some laptops, but we had a generator so our power was limited...other
than that we talked a lot about everything.
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�DC: Do you recall any instances of something goofy you all did for camaraderie?
CR: Yeah...lots of times. We had to do these vehicle checkpoints all the time so to mess with the
locals we'd sometimes tell them to get off their motorcycles and we'd go do donuts on them, or
we'd pretend we were pissed at them and pretty much hold them down and just tickle them, you
know, just stuff like that. Some of them liked us and some of them got pretty annoyed or
offended by it but we'd do stuff like that for laughs.
DC: Were there any other pranks or shenanigans going on?
CR: I mean, yeah there were lots of things we would do that we weren't exactly supposed to with
the motorcycles and stuff, but elders had beards and you're supposed to be really respectful
toward the elders. Some of my younger guys would go up there and tell the elders they needed to
search for IEDs in their beards...stuff like that. [They] messed with the Afghan soldiers a lot, the
kids we got them to...we'd teach them rap songs and stuff like that.
DC: Did you keep a diary or take any pictures?
CR: I did, I kept a diary and then it got ruined. I took a decent amount of pictures. Also, I think
my camera got messed up somehow so I wasn't able to get all of them but, yeah, I was able to
record some stuff.
DC: Do you recall the day that your service ended?
CR: Yes.
DC: Where were you?
CR: I ended up that morning, in Lejeune, checking out was just...the greatest feeling in the
world. I was waking up, I was about to be free. I ended up packing up all my stuff, picked up my
final papers, drove to Wilmington [North Carolina], where I lived at for the summer.
DC: What did you do in the days and weeks following your [completion] of your enlistment?
CR: I was just a beach bum; I did whatever, a whole lot of nothing, really.
DC: Did you work or go back to school?
CR: I'm back in school now and I'm working...I'm at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
and working a part-time job, too.
DC: Is you education being paid for by the G.I. Bill?
CR: Yes, by the post-9/11 G.I. Bill.
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�DC: I know you've had to take a forty-hour a week job; can you explain the complications
behind the tardiness of your government payments?
CR: Yeah, I finally started getting my G.I. payments now. I could live off that now if I wanted to
but working pretty much a full time job gives me more money, more experience. It'd be nice to
have some time off but it's kind of weird going from the past four years with not that much
downtime to go on with too much free time. I think I do better when everything a little busier, a
little more efficient.
DC: Would you say that the military made you a scheduled person?
CR: Yeah, yeah, in a lot of ways and in some ways I kind of despise the habits and things the
Marine Corps has kind of drilled into me, but for the most part, I think I'm pretty close to full
adjustment back to civilian life.
DC: What sort of things do you catch yourself doing?
CR: Some stupid things...For some reason the Marine Corps...they don't like us to use blue pens
for anything...I don’t have any blue pens, it's pretty stupid, but...[Chuckles] for some reason I
don't use blue pens.
DC: Did you make any close friends while you were in the service?
CR: Yeah, certainly, certainly. One of my best friends he was actually one of my team leaders,
he's going to school as University of Alabama...another one of my really good friends, who's
actually from Raleigh, he's back in Raleigh going to school there...But certainly the guys that I've
met there I'll keep in touch with for the rest of my life.
DC: Have you had any thoughts about joining a veterans' organization?
CR: Yeah, I probably should. UNC doesn’t have a veterans' organization, which is actually
something that I've talk to a couple other veterans with at the university, trying to start one. And
there's also, local VFW and American Legion and stuff like that which...if I had more free time I
would do something like that but I guess I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
DC: Did your military experience change your feelings about the war, or war in general, or the
military?
CR: Certainly. Before I went in, I was pretty naive and I actually supported the war in Iraq and
the war in Afghanistan, then you start investigating things on your own and reading...more things
come to light. I ended up being definitely being against the war in Iraq and still support the war
in Afghanistan but I'm completely against the way that we are going about it.
After seeing, out of my squad, four out of ten of us have Purple Hearts, two of my guys got shot,
one of them has to walk with a cane for the rest of his life, and another one of my guys got blown
up by a smaller IED than what I got hit by and he ended up losing both legs and three fingers. So
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�stuff like that makes you certainly way more critical of politicians and anyone who says they
support the war when they haven’t been over there...something along those lines. There's
certainly nothing glorified about war at all.
DC: Well, I think that is about all we need, thank you very much, Chris.
CR: [I] appreciate it.
END OF INTERVIEW
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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/ab25383043a4994e0db5593ce2941b2c.mp3
b7c9b096d43eb66de3fe3b2b82319fc3
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.
Craig, Davis W.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:09:50
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound.
7 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 William Chris Ray, 13 October 2011
Subject
The topic of the resource
Operation Enduring Freedom, 2001-
Ray, William Chris
Veterans
United States
Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
William Chris Ray, Marine Corporal, was born on December 10, 1988. In this interview he discusses how 9/11 impacted his decision to join the military. He goes on to discuss his experiences in boot camp and his time while being deployed. He also talks about his job as a mortor man and specifically dicusses his time in Afghanistan and how he stayed in touch with his family.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/13/11
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
9/11
Afghanistan
Davis W. Craig
Marines
military experiences
mortor man
William Chris Ray