1 50 4 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/31cf32a13c8fb7d1f7f2d4e7b2e0a37b.pdf 8a9144eb9272b4176efb321d6c425512 PDF Text Text Name: Branch: Years Served: Conflicts: Date of Interview: Ambrose Brennan, Major (Retired) U.S. Army 1957-1982 Vietnam War October 12, 2012 Christian Quinn: This is Christian Quinn. The date is October 12, 2012, we are in Waxhaw, North Carolina. Today I will be interviewing Ambrose Brennan born on February 5, 1939, I will be conducting this interview as a class project for American military history at Appalachian State University, lets get started. What was your branch of service? Ambrose Brennan: infantry QUINN: what was your rank? BRENNAN: I started off as a second lieutenant and I retired as a major QUINN: Where did you serve? BRENNAN: Ft. Benning, republic of south Korea, Ft Bragg, republic of south Vietnam; Ft. Bragg; Ft. Benning; Stauffenenburg, West Germany; [Interruption by another person] Ft. Lewis; Pleiku, Vietnam; Da Nang Vietnam; Lockheed, Vietnam; Punji, Vietnam; Bandar, Vietnam; A Shau Valley in Vietnam; Dak To, Vietnam; Riverdale, Maryland in a reserve component; Ft. Campbell, Kentucky; Indianapolis, Indiana; Frankfurt, Germany; Ft McPherson, Georgia, and then I retired. QUINN: All right, where you drafted or did you enlist? BRENNAN: I was accepted and sworn in at the United States Military Academy QUINN: Went the ROTC route? Brennan: United States Military Academy, took the oath of office as a cadet, bang your subject to uniform code of military justice. QUINN: where were you living at the time? BRENNAN: Bronx, New York QUINN: what was your reason for joining? BRENNAN: I became aware and an admirer of a Lt Col. In my junior ROTC program who had been to West Point and he had flunked out, he was a paratrooper word war 2 veteran a really sharp guy a great catholic man, great family man, and I thought that if he 1 �flunked out and I could make it through maybe I could you know emulate some of the qualities that he had in the service, and I was not surrounded but there were few others cadets at the school I went to that went to the naval academy and to west point and they were really high quality people so at the age of I guess about sixteen maybe fifteen I decided that I should go to the naval academy and fly jets off carriers and be an aeronautical engineer, but I was colorblind so I had to go to the other school. QUINN: so why did you pick the service branch you joined? BRENNAN: well the service branch that’s another thing really the infantry, you know in the mind of an eighteen year old or nineteen year old young man as I was I was vaguely aware of these other branches but probably influenced by you know what I knew about the army which is mostly from movies I didn’t really recognize those other branches so infantry was really the only choice for me. QUINN: do you recall your first days in service? BRENNAN: yeah of course the first days in service are at Ft. Benning your going through infantry officer basic course which was at the time 8 weeks and you know it’s a course to prepare you to be a second lieutenant of infantry and to be a platoon leader and maybe a little bit about being a company commander. The course was not hard you just have to go through it learning all the weapons, fire all the weapons, land navigation. All the infantry trades and all the other I would call them administrative courses so it wasn’t difficult and there was a good spirit among these lieutenants I was going through the west pointers were blended with rotc cadets and we had a good time going through it and than we went from there right to airborne and right to ranger from there and than my first assignment was in south Korea as a platoon leader so I remember quite a bit from that yeah. QUINN: so what war or wars did you serve in? BRENNAN: well now they have classified the cold war so I guess the cold war started when you might say officially when Winston Churchill made his speech about the descendants of the iron curtain so that would have been 47, 1947, but the only shooting war I was in was the Vietnam war, the war in Vietnam which basically started, we started putting soldier in there in probably 1955 I didn’t get there until 1963 and I went back again in 66 and 67 and than of course the cold war was over when the Berlin wall came down basically in 1989 so the cold war lasted from 47 to 89 and than we had gone on to this other war I retired in 82 now the country is faced with this other war of Muslims who are basically Osama bin laden declared war against the united states in 1998 and so I guess you can say that is the official declaration of the Muslim war against the united states against the west and that is ongoing now and will probably be ongoing for 2 or 3 hundred more years QUINN: do you remember arriving, and what it was like when you got there? 2 �BRENNAN: yeah, and of course as a second lieutenant lets not talk necessary arriving at ft benning for training but arriving in your unit your anxious because you don’t know if you can fulfill the responsibilities that have been given to you or awarded to you as a second lieutenant. You have been trained and you have been commissioned but the real army, you haven’t really been in the real army and your trying to find your footing with your commander, the company commander, the first sergeant the other lieutenants in the unit but more importantly your platoon sergeant and your squad leaders and the men in your platoon so your thrust into a new situation you’ve been prepared very well for it, there is still quite an anxiety I think I felt but that anxiety works its self out over the first few weeks once you get involved in unit training and your responsible to give classes and to lead the platoon in filed training, in everything the platoon is doing but specifically with field training so yes I think the first couple of weeks you’re a little anxious to find your footing and particularly with your platoon sergeant that you have a relationship of trust and mutual respect with him but gradually if you understand that you can just work through it but there is a little bit of anxiety as you go in QUINN: tell me about a couple of your most memorable experiences starting out BRENNAN: starting out… QUINN: or from anywhere BRENNAN: well one of the most important maybe not necessary a memorable experience I was blessed by having two people, two key people around me at the time, the first one was a weapons platoon leader who was an ocs graduate a veteran of the Korean war he was 9 years older than I was he was a first lieutenant he had been a e7 during the war and had come back from the Korean war in which he had won a silver star and he was from east Tennessee and he was a weapons platoon leader and he showed me how to be a lieutenant in every way in how I conducted myself, what we did for pt on revally runs, on how to conduct training, how to organize a lesson plan, how to research classes and conduct classes, and how to organize the company for training which is essential because that is really all a rifle company does is train for combat so all these training sessions had to have some linkage to them they have to be organized over a period sequentially over months and the specific training courses had to be assigned to either lieutenants or sergeants to give and that whole mechanism, the whole process of how to train a rifle company is a really important process well this guy knew it backwards and forwards and taught me how to do it and directed me when I was wrong and I think that was probably the most important things that went on with me during the first six months and the other part of it is the first sergeant if their was an ideal first sergeant this man was ideal his name is James a smith and he was a big tall drink of water from south Carolina very correct in every manner in which he dealt with commissioned officers always stood at attention when you were talking to him but what he was doing really was training lieutenants without them recognizing they were being trained which is one of the primary duties of a non-commissioned officer to train a lieutenant and to be in total cooperation with him but not really letting on that the lieutenant was being trained and not the sergeant so it really is an art form for NCOs’ so I think that was probably the 3 �most important activity that went on really for the first 8months 10 months that I was a platoon leader and that man went on to have quite an interesting career in special forces and I really didn’t keep tabs on him till about a couple of years ago and finally I got to see him before he died, he died last year a hell of a soldier a great guy and I’m so glad I got to see him few times before he died now let me see if there is another…..well I guess another key experience, memorable experience in a 1964 I worked with a guy named Charlie beckworth, Charlie beckworth was a one of kind, kind of guy, we were in the s3 section of the 7th special forces group, Charlie convinced the group commander to let him organize a group training up in the mountains of north Carolina Pisgah national forest and to this day he picked me and a couple of other captains and a captain form the British special air service and his sergeant, sergeant smith, to go up and set up the training which included land navigation, night compass work, rappel, mountain work with ropes , aviation and physical training for the entire special forces group ending up with a six day escape and evasion problem for the group members. Now the terrain in Pisgah national forest is such it was very exhausting, very physically demanding effort and I would say that was probably one of the best training exercises I had ever been part of and in my case I was one of the instructors and as a young captain I think that was very, it set a benchmark in my mind for how training should be conducted at least for special forces and how training should be conducted for infantry and than course Charlie and I parted company he went to one school and I went to another and I think that was another highlight in my career. QUINN: do you recall the day your service ended? BRENNAN: absolutely, now I was on a parade field on McPherson Georgia with my wife in attendance with my second daughter and my son, there was a short I think small parade there were about six retirees a colonel, two or three lieutenant colonels myself, and a sergeant major and we stood there on the field they pinned a medal on each one of us and thanked us for our service and that was it we went home, and that was the end of our active duty QUINN: so you were awarded that medal, what medals were you awarded BRENNAN: oh god QUINN: you don’t have to name them all, just some of the ones that mean a lot BRENNAN: well I was awarded the bronze star with v device, purple heart, about 4 meritorious service medals, two or three army commendation medals, and of course ranger tab, airborne wings, the others were service ribbons which are awarded if you are in particular place at a particular time in my case it was Vietnam there was about 4 or 5 service ribbons that are awarded when you are there you know I think that is it. QUINN: after your service ended what did you do the days and weeks afterword? 4 �BRENNAN: it’s kind of frustrating the days and weeks before several months lets say six months or longer before, you know I had my resume cracked up and handed it in two or three different resumes and I tried to scout out different jobs in the Atlanta area where we were located I don’t think I went on any interviews after I got out of the service of course I didn’t have a job I had to get a job and continued to pursue writing letters with resumes trying to make contact with various people I think during that period of time I probably got one or two interviews but It did not result in employment so I applied for every job I could find at ft McPherson as a department of the army civilian and I went down to ft McPherson about every two weeks and looked on the bulletin board to find jobs that I knew I probably could do and in the mean time my wife was working so we weren’t in the best financial posture so one of the things going on in the family it was kind of frustrating but gradually I finally opened up the newspaper one morning after about eight months and I said no matter what job I find I’m gonna put my finger on a job I’m gonna get that job today and as it turned out it was a job selling knifes and stem work………..door to door, and I got myself outfitted to try and do that and I can tell you I am the most unsuccessful door to door salesman that the world has ever seen and while I was doing that after about a month and a half of doing that I said again I’m gonna put my finger on a job I can do and it was the delivery of the Atlanta journal constitution, I went over and talked to the guy he called me about two or three days latter and gave me a route well the one good thing about delivering newspapers is that there is work to do everyday, Sunday in particular get up about 3 o clock go get your papers organize your papers and than you hop in your car load them up hop in your car and go deliver them and have them all delivered by 615. So I did that for a little while and than I was, one of the guys had seen I had applied for a job in what amounted to d3 to desk ops of ft McPherson and he called me and I don’t think that we had an interview he knew me so a worked it out so that I had got this job I applied for and got it that put me in a whole different level of operation I was a project manager for a national level exercise and so it placed me in a position where me and my team had to go to a nagathios tank in the pentagon or down to mcdill at that time it would be called recon about once a month and in the process of doing that over about a six month period I ran into some connections in Washington and another contractor up there offered me a job to move my family up there to take an analysis job up there in support of an army software project, at any rate I had promised my family I would never move from Atlanta because we had moved around so much I took a blood oath with them in Frankfurt and than id just asked them if they wanted to go and they all said yeah lets go to Washington so we moved the family up there and had this job and several years later my family was complaining to me about the traffic and I said well you guys told me you wanted to move up to Washington I was content to stay in Georgia and they said a well dad we lied always those are some things that happened along the way QUINN: during all that how did your service and you know experience in the military affect your life, how did it help you? I’m sure in many ways BRENNAN: well ill have to say that your fundamental personality, fundamental values are engendered by your family and your family surroundings in my case my father was an atheist and my mother was a catholic so I was raised a catholic and I went to catholic 5 �school and the catholic school and catholic church and than Christian brothers who taught me in elementary school and as well as high school all that forms in the child a basic personality and an environment of outlook so after I had been I went to military school for high school military boarding school, catholic military boarding school and after having being there for awhile I just thought the logical thing for me, now because my parents didn’t have any money for college the logical thing for me was to go to a warrior service academy so I started of with the naval academy than of course WestPoint, went to marine academy, coast guard academy, the air force academy was not in existence at the time and the new York maritime academy, I think had been into college, and in the mix of all those colleges and in moving through that I finally got into west point and of course the high school military environment and than WestPoint the environment there they put the points and they polish up in there own way the value systems that your family your mother and father and your church have started you out on and they Polish those values up and point you in a direction of leadership of soldiers and all of that mixture of events in a persons life that carries totally on through your entire life that forms the basis of who you are, what you do, how you deal with everyone else, and that motivates you in whatever your doing and whatever duties you have you learn as part of that basis that you are going to perform each duty your assigned or each responsibility that you take on in the best way you can and the most perfect way you can and you get into a habit of performing even the littlest task maybe something that doesn't seem on the surface as important maybe as something lofty but if you begin to perform that task as best you can that idea that process within you allows you to be given more responsibility and perform higher and larger tasks should you be allowed, should you even be afforded that opportunity as you go along so I would say my family my schooling my elementary school my church my high school and WestPoint provided a structure of values and exposed me to a value system but I had to apprehend, had to grasp those things and search them out in my own life. 6 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/40704e9086df45dfb738dfdddc5fdee9.mp3 d10fe1e40495f10dc7683499ce5e8a79 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. File size 59.1 KB 26.9 MB Format, digital MP3 Military Branch military branch (U.S. Army, etc) U.S. Army Officer Rank Officer rank (major, private, etc) Major (retired) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Quinn; Christian Brennan; Ambrose Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Quinn, Christian Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Brennan, Ambrose Interview Date 10/12/2012 Number of pages 6 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:29:13 Date digitized 2/5/2015 Checksum alphanumeric code 264dfb763cd2a14c0e58f5235412c0ca 7d12063eaaa732e607f5293fb58f3165 Scanned by Leah McManus Equipment Adobe Acrobat XI Pro Resolution 300 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. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived UA.5018. American Military History Course Records Recording rate A/V rate (48,000kzh x 16 bit) 48000kzh x 16 bit Format, original Electronic File 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 5018_Brennan_Ambrose_20121012_transcript_M 5018_Brennan_Ambrose_20121012_audio_A Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ambrose Brennan, Major (Retired) [October 12, 2012] Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Language A language of the resource English English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brennan, Ambrose Quinn, Christian 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. Description An account of the resource Major Ambrose Brennan, born in 1939, entered the infantry after graduating from the US Military Academy. He didn't really consider any other branch, he just wanted to do what they did in the movies. The majority of his service was during the Cold War and he says the only "shooting war" he served in was Vietnam. He was awarded a myriad of medals, including a purple heart. Subject The topic of the resource Brennan, Ambrose Veterans Vietnam War, 1961-1975 United States Interviews Personal narratives, American Cold War infantry major purple heart US Military Academy Vietnam War https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/aac695d61df54203b2af110e2d327212.pdf eec3359ddc30fcbf9c753b0b4a212cd9 PDF Text Text 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-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/7b3b3aaf91d83e876ec83f409b826fb9.mp3 36b04bd44e609fac2185fbbc37653317 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/2ed5e381330bafa73db5546cf788dbe7.mp3 36b04bd44e609fac2185fbbc37653317 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/cdea871c58292d8756dbd0d607cafa16.mp3 36b04bd44e609fac2185fbbc37653317 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. File size 1.11 MB 28.8 MB Format, digital MP3 Military Branch military branch (U.S. Army, etc) U.S. Army Officer Rank Officer rank (major, private, etc) Lieutenant Colonel (retired) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Littlejohn; Michelle Green; Bryan D. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Littlejohn, Michelle Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Green, Bryan D. Interview Date 9/22/2011 Number of pages 12 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:31:18 Date digitized 2/10/2015 Checksum alphanumeric code 317530bcdee466bc2707b7c18e334580 ecff57664d5b47ba4e5a5f0001e20136 Scanned by Leah McManus Equipment Epson Perfection V600 Resolution 300 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. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived UA.5018. American Military History Course Records Recording rate A/V rate (48,000kzh x 16 bit) 48000kzh x 16 bit Format, original Document 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 5018_Green_Bryan_20110922_transcript_M 5018_Green_Bryan_20110922_audio_A Title A name given to the resource Interview with Lieutenant Colonel Bryan D. Green, U.S. Army (retired) [September 22, 2011] Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Language A language of the resource English English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Littlejohn, Michelle Green, Bryan D. 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. 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 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/76fd47b969219c60684b8305728c4fcb.pdf 834cacc22a04e20e51ce29e7e6a1dbf6 PDF Text Text 10/15/2012 1:02:00 PM Transcript of Oral History Interview with Kenneth Robert Miller. October 14th, 2012 Boone, NC Thomas Miller: Today is Sunday, October 14, 2012. 6:25PM. Currently in a Lowe's parking lot conducting this interview via phonecall. Kenneth Miller: Did you say 14th7 Thomas Miller: I believe so. October 14th. Kenneth Miller: Yeah, you got it. Thomas Miller: Ok. Kenneth Miller: Yep. Thomas Miller: So grandpa, if you could state your name and your birthdate. Kenneth Miller: Alright. My name is Kenneth Robert Miller. My birthdate is August 6th, 1940. Thomas Miller: Thank you very much and the people attending this interview are myself, Thomas Miller, and my grandfather Kenneth Miller. Ok ... Grandpa ... Kenneth Miller: Yes. Thomas Miller: First question: Which war and branch? Which war did you serve in and which branch of service? Kenneth Miller: I served in the Cold War. And that really took place following World War II all the way up until the Berlin Wall fell. And those dates are kind of considered the Cold War. And I served ... in the United States Army 3rd Armor division as a tank driver. �Thomas Miller: Awesome. What was your rank or what is your rank? Kenneth Miller: My rank ... My departing rank was Specialist 4 th Class. Thomas Miller: Thank you. Where did you serve? Kenneth Miller: Well I took my basic training in Fort Hood, Texas. And that lasted for 16 weeks. I went in the Army in June and so that Fall of 1958 I was sent to Germany at a place called Gelnhausen. G-E-L-N-H-A-U-S-E-N. And that was kind of... It's on the full gap, which is the main route that the .Russians would have taken if they were going to attack Europe. And so the 3rd Armor Division had the responsibility of guarding that full gap and stopping the Russians from doing that if we could. But we were outnumbered considerably and I'm glad they didn't try to do that. So I was in Germany for two years and in the Fall of 1960 I was transferred back to the States and I finished up my tour of duty in ... at Fort Devens Massachusetts. Which is right outside Boston. And that tour of duty lasted something like six or seven months. And ... the night President John F. Kennedy was elected President in the Fall of 1960 I was there in Boston, which is more or less his hometown, and people went crazy and they were watching it on television. It was a late election before it was really known but people kind of had a feeling that he was gonna get elected. And, well I got to see all that. Thomas Miller: That's really cool Grandpa. Personally why did you join? Kenneth Miller: Well. ..We finished up high school and several of us guys really did not want to go immediately on to college nor did we want to waste the next two or three years. So, I guess about five or six of us joined the Army and pretty much we stayed together or close to each other throughout our tour of duty. Mostly in Germany. It was just a question of we didn't want to waste time, we wanted to be productive during that period of time. When I got out of the Army that's when I went to college. �Thomas Miller: ...Why did you choose the Army? Why did you choose to go the Army ... route? Kenneth Miller: (laughs) I really don't know. (laughter) One reason, I think at that time the Airforce required a four year enlistment and so did the Navy. The Marines were a little too rough for us. And so that kind of left the Army and that's the way we went. Thomas Miller: (laughter) You said you went to Germany. Kenneth Miller: Yes . Thomas Miller: Do you remember kind of what it was like? Kind of like the overall atmosphere? The environment? Kenneth Miller: Sure. When I was in Germany from the Fall of 1958 to the Fall of 1960. In that two year period I spent nine months of each year out in the boondocks on manuevers. It was quite the thing at that time because noone was really sure what the Russians were going to do. So we took our tanks and we were always on manuever. And .. . while I was there I did get to go, we had three months back at our base in Gelnhausen each year. I was able to go to Holland for a while and England and France just to visit. And ... That was interesting. The German people at that time, some of them liked us and some of (them) didn't like Americans. If you can remember some of the things that occurred during World War II, Americans and the British carpet bombed a lot of Germany, and the Germans never did forgive America for doing that. But, those times are gone now, that was over fifty years ago. And the bomb damage that I saw, a lot of it, what they did was just build up fences so you couldn't see it. They more or less just hid the bomb damage. Although they were rejuvinating as a nation real quickly, at this time they were still making early progress. What people would do, the younger people at that time, what they did, the Germans to go on some time off. (coughs) Excuse me. They would take motorcycles and camping equipment and travel throughout Europe on motorcycles and camping equipment. There was no such thing as a beach, or anything like that. Or a Disney World, that just didn't exist. And that's how they kind of entertained �themselves. But a lot of Germans when I was there really didn't like Americans and some areas were put off limits to us because of that. But by and large I met some very good people there. And I got to go into some homes of some of the Germans and have meals with them and enjoy being with them. Thomas Miller: That's really cool Grandpa. What are some of your ... You already kind of touched on a couple of those kinds of memories, but what were some of your most memorable experiences? Kenneth Miller: In Germany, the memory that will never leave me was how cold it was. When we were out in the field at best we hadn't... The tanks that we had to stay in to stay warm. We had tents on occasion and if we were real lucky we had some temporary barracks to stay warm. But the temporature would get down to something like thirty below zero at night throughout the winter and there was always snow on the ground. It was just very miserable and that's my most vivid memory was that weather. I really did not like it. During the summer time it was okay, but even at that it was just an awful way to make a living. Thomas Miller: I think I saw you upload a picture on Facebook of you a while back. Of you in Germany I believe. Do you know which picture I'm talking about? Kenneth Miller: Say what Tommy? Thomas Miller: Do you know which picture I'm talking about? It's of you and I think you're at a campsite of some sort. There's snow on the ground everywhere. Kenneth Miller: Yeah, that was two locations. One of them was Vielfleckin, the other name kind of escapes me. But...where I was in Gelnhausen, as the crow flies it was forty miles to the Soviet border. East German border actually. So we were forty miles away from five divisions of Russian armor. And Vielfleckin was in one direction and this other site that we went to was in another, but both of them were up toward the East German border. And �we stayed within two or three miles of the East German border and did our manuevers. And they watched us as we did them. (cough) Thomas Miller: How did you feel? How did you personally feel doing those manuevers with Russians so close? Kenneth Miller: How did I feel about what? Thomas Miller: Just in general, about doing those manuevers and knowing that the Russians were so close. Kenneth Miller: Well ... We tried our best not to think too much about it. I was seventeen, eighteen years old and we didn't think the Russians would come after us. (cough) As it was I mean we're talking full-time nuclear war if they would have done that. And there were a lot of NATO troops there along with us. So they would have had a difficult time entering central Europe to begin with ... even though we were greatly outnumbered. But we never really thought about that, day to day. It was only something we thought about when we were called out on full alert, which is something like three or four times a year. We'd get a midnight phonecall, everybody had to run to their tanks and go to designated spots. You had so long a time to get there. And it was only during those times that you would really think about the Russians and what was really going on. Thomas Miller: Were you awarded any medals or citations? Kenneth Miller: Well, the only medal I got was a good conduct medal. I did get some medals for being an excellent rifleman. But no medals because I was not actually in a war. I ultimately also got the Cold War medal but no shooting war. Thomas Miller: While you were stationed in Germany how did you stay in touch with your family? Kenneth Miller: The only way I could and that was by mail. U.S. mail. I'd write letters to them, and they would write letters to me. It would take, oh I �don't know, two to three weeks to ... for my letter to get to them and for them to respond another two to three weeks. It was a slow process, and we always did look forward to mail call hoping that we'd have a bunch of mail. Sometimes we'd get a couple of letters, sometimes none. But U.S . mail was the only way. There was no such thing as telephones to call home or iPads (laughs) or computers, facetime and all that. None of that existed. Thomas Miller: What did you guys do to entertain yourselves? Or to pass the time? Kenneth Miller: Well. .. (laughs) Sometimes we would visit a local guesthouse, which were what we called the bars. The beer was excellent. We did travel around locally when we had the chance, but you got to remember when you're out on manuevers like I was, so much of the time you had no opportunity to go anywhere. So, it wasn't... We just didn't get to entertain ourselves very much. (cough) Thomas Miller: (Pause) Umm ... Kenneth Miller: I got another vivid memory which is part of that too. The music that we listened to included The Platters musical group back then was very popular. And they had this song "When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." I remember that song playing over and over and over. And it would make us so homesick, that it was pathetic. Thomas Miller: I'm sorry to hear that Grandpa. Kenneth Miller: That's right. (laughters) Thomas Miller: What did you think about your officers or your fellow soldiers. Kenneth Miller: Back when I was in the Army, there was also a draft. Now I volunteered, and me and my friends all volunteered. But most people, probably most, were drafted. So you had no choice about who were your �bunkmates or (coughs) who you associated with or whatever. And there were truly all types of people. There were some I'm sure were told to get in the Army or jail. They had no choice. Some had never finished highschool, that wasn't necessarily a requirement either. Well, you know, you met all types of guys. Most were really great guys, a few of them were not. Thomas Miller: After your term ended did you keep in contact with any of those people? Kenneth Miller: I kept in contact particularly with a fellow down in Tennessee, who was in my outfit. (cough) Now he was a little older than me. Four or five years older. And he was drafted. But he and I became very close friends and he had his wife over there. We had a good time all of us together. And I kept in touch with him until he died about three years ago of Parkinson's Disease. He was from Athens, Tennessee. Now, in addition to him, the guys that went in the service with me, most of them are still around here. Most of them are still living even if a couple of them aren't in great health they're still around. But the fellow down in Tennessee was the only one I really kept in close touch with over the years. Thomas Miller: Do you remember the exact day that your service ended? Kenneth Miller: Yeah. It was May the 10th, 1961. Thomas Miller: Where were you at the time? Kenneth Miller: Fort Devens, Massachusetts. I was in a small outfit there that was really a military police outfit. And my responsibility was to keep their weapons. I was a weapons expert, small arms .... And keep their weapons safe and clean and whatever. (cough) Thomas Miller: Weapons expert. Kenneth Miller: Yeah. Thomas Miller: Sounds pretty cool Grandpa. �Kenneth Miller: Yep. Thomas Miller: What did you do the days or weeks after your service ended? Kenneth Miller: Well, I'll tell ya we all received a special bonus pay when we left the Army. Wasn't much, but it was I don't know fifteen hundred dollars or something like that. And me and a couple of buddies, I don't even remember them, we went to New York City and we spent it all about a week, maybe less than that. Then I came on home. I had a car at the time and I just drove back to Frankfort (KY) after that. Thomas Miller: And you said that you went to school afterwards? Kenneth Miller: Yeah I uhh .. . That summer I got back in Frankfort somewhere at the end of May (cough) maybe a little sooner. And met up again with an old girlfriend. She and I got married that summer and then she was going to Eastern Kentucky University and I went to that school because she was there. And then I went through that university and got my degree in three years to try to make up for some lost time. And so that's kind of what I did, you know after I got out of the Army. Thomas Miller: Did you join any veteran's organizations or anything like that afterwards? Kenneth Miller: I don't think so Tommy, I uhh .. We at that time in the 60's or whatever, we kind of had our fill of the military. When I was in the Army the officers lived pretty well. Like your dad (cough) he lived okay compared to the enlisted people. We didn't have a very good time necessarily, we were on kind of the bottom of the food chain, so I don't know. I just had enough of military and for ten or fifteen years I just, you know on rare occasions will I even talk about it. Thomas Miller: I guess that kind of ties into one of the last questions. Did your military experience influence the way that you thought about war, politics or about the military in general? �Kenneth Miller: Yes, very much so. I saw how soldiers really lived and what sacrifices that soldiers make to serve ·this country. Even in peace time the sacrifice is tremendous. And I got every admiration for them. Today we have an all-volunteer Army, and I would say that the guys in the Army from the Private to the General are much better troops than we were back in my day. And they're better educated, better trained, have better equipment, live better, eat better, but still it's a sacrifice because they don't.. .much. I've met many of the families of those who have been killed in Iraq and Iran . Iraq and Afghanistan, not Iran. (cough) And they .. .Several of these families, they got nothing. They got nothing. And they're very poor people. You want to reach out and help them some way. You just... The need is overwhelming. Thomas Miller: Just overall, how has your service and experience affected your life in general? Kenneth Miller: My service? Thomas Miller: Yes sir, and your experience. Kenneth Miller: (cough) Well, I certainly grew up in a hurry while I was in the military. I became a much more mature and responsible person and that stayed with me my entire life. You learn how to do things for yourself. You learn how to be a man, what most people would consider to be a man. Things that come to you sooner (cough) than probably you would have received them had you not gone into the military. So it gives you an appreciation for other cultures, and other ways of life that you come into contact with. It was a big benefit to me. I 'm glad I did it, I'm glad that I went in, I'm glad I served. I 'm glad that Kenny went in and I was so proud of him and what he had done. You just can't say enough about that. Thomas Miller: Is there anything else that you would like to add? That we haven't really covered in this interview? Kenneth Miller: Well, not.. .not so much. It was a hard life for three years in the military. It wasn't easy, but there were exciting times, exciting moments. We try to forget the hardest of the times, I think all of us in the �military do that and remember the better times. But it's something that I'm extremely proud of. Anything else? Thomas Miller: I think that may be it. I'll have plenty of questions for you whenever I see you next time. Kenneth Miller: Ok. Thomas Miller: Actually, is there anything while you were over in Germany ... any kind of experience that. .. is the most memorable to you that you just reflect back on? Kenneth Miller: While I was in Germany? Thomas Miller: Yes sir. Kenneth Miller: Tommy, not so much. I think the combination of times that we were called out on alert was the times that we were most on edge and probably will stay with me forever. And they have for this day. Those were memorable times, even then you know some of your friends didn't come back because of accidents that can very well happen as you're driving these big armor vehicles around on snow and ice and everything else. That kind of sticks with you a little bit. But ... I don't know Tommy, that's kind of about as memorable as it gets. Thomas Miller: Yes sir. Alright well thank you Grandpa. Thank you for your service Grandpa. Kenneth Miller: Okie dokie. I 'm gonna sign this paper here and I'll get it back to ya in a few minutes. Thomas Miller: Yes sir. But thank you so much for everything really. Kenneth Miller: Ok. Thomas Miller: I appreciate it. �Kenneth Miller: You take care Tommy. Thomas Miller: You too Grandpa. I love you. Kenneth Miller: Love you. Thomas Miller: Bye. Kenneth Miller: Bye. � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/270f51fb23b622c9676cc27f42bf218c.mp3 d617b6ac701f14c80a808907b1f2a46a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. File size 986 KB 23.8 MB Format, digital MP3 Military Branch military branch (U.S. Army, etc) U.S. Army Officer Rank Officer rank (major, private, etc) Specialist 4th class Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Miller; Thomas Miller; Kenneth Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Miller, Thomas Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Miller, Kenneth Interview Date 10/14/2012 Number of pages 11 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:26:01 Date digitized 2/10/2015 Checksum alphanumeric code b7aba978dcace17e89007a4a11ce22a3 d617b6ac701f14c80a808907b1f2a46a Scanned by Leah McManus Equipment Epson Perfection V600 Resolution 300 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. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived UA.5018. American Military History Course Records Recording rate A/V rate (48,000kzh x 16 bit) 48000kzh x 16 bit Format, original Document 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 5018_Miller_Kenneth_20121014_transcript_M 5018_Miller_Kenneth_20121014_audio_A Title A name given to the resource Interview with Kenneth Robert Miller [October 14, 2012] Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Language A language of the resource English English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Miller, Thomas Miller, Kenneth 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. Description An account of the resource Kenneth Miller, born in 1940, enlisted in the army in 1958 because he did not want to go straight to college after high school. However, he still wanted those in-between years to be productive. He was stationed in Gelnhausen, Germany for two years during the Cold War. He never saw combat, but worked as a tank driver. Subject The topic of the resource Miller, Kenneth Robert Veterans Cold War United States Interviews 1958 3rd Armor Division Cold War Fort Hood Gelnhausen Germany specialist tank driver US Army https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/b70d691be8511025dc46bd8cd3986a53.pdf 8351f6d5cb81151c10f8946c9cb25dfa PDF Text Text Andrew Nicolaysen Name: Branch: Years Served: Conflicts: Date of Interview: Eric Nicolaysen U.S. Army 1956-1958 Cold War (Korea) October 14, 2012 Andrew Nicolaysen: Okay, so my name is Andrew Nicolaysen, and for the record, what is your name? Erik Nicolaysen: Erik Nicolaysen Andrew: And we’re conducting this interview over the phone. I’m in Boone, North Caroline and you’re in Chappaqua, New York. Erik: Correct Andrew: And it is the 14th of October 2012. Erik: Okay Andrew: …When and where were you born? Erik: February 8th, 1933. I was born in Mt. Kisco, New York. Andrew: Okay, and where did you, or what…branch of the military did you serve in? Erik: I served in the US Army Andrew: Was that active duty or National Guard? Erik: Both Andrew: Did you serve in active duty first? Erik: No, what I did is I…joined the… I actually joined the reserves, not the National Guard. I…the New Jersey…reserve division…When…New Jersey while I was attending Rutgers University…and over the 3 years that I served with the reserve unit…I made corporal…meanwhile I was also tracking with the ROTC at college…and I took a commission upon graduation from college…in 1956…and got a promotion while I was in duty and ended up leaving the service as a…as a 1st lieutenant. I then spent some time with a signal core company in Ossining, New York. But then they were disbanded about a year after I got out of the service. …I then spent about 6 months working with a medical unit and was stationed up…up near West Point. On the…eastern side of the Hudson…a medical evacuation units, because they were short officers…and then I…at that point, since they had full, they had official medically trained officers in, so I was superfluous to them and went to the…ready reserve. And stayed with the 1 �Andrew Nicolaysen ready reserve until I got an honorable discharge and all told I spent about 11 years in the service in one connection or the other. Andrew: Do you remember why you joined the military? Erik: …I just felt there was a duty, there was also a case too that the…draft was in effect at that point, most people were…or a significant number of people were getting drafted so I figured I was gonna go no matter what…and…I decided that if I was gonna go, I’d prefer to go as an officer. ….and I was studying engineering, and signal core went well with the engineering so I decided to…to…join the signal core unit at Rutgers University. Andrew: When did you first go to Korea? Erik: I went to Korea in late 56, stayed there through to the beginning of 58. Andrew: And what did you do there? Erik: I was assigned to the 51st signal battalion, and my first job was battalion motor pool officer. We were responsible for the…secondary level of maintenance…on the battalion vehicles. We had somewhere between 5 and 600 vehicles of assorted types: deuce and a half, tractor-trailers, ¾ tons, jeeps…and…we then…and the normal preliminary maintenance was done with each company, but then the major overhauls…were done by us and then if there was a real major job the vehicle was transferred to the ordnance department that did the overhaul, but generally…probably 90 to 95% of the work on the vehicles was done at the battalion level. Andrew: Were you… Erik: …then I got…after a while I was transferred…from that to a radio teletype platoon, which was responsible for…radio teletype communications…between ICOR headquarters and all the way down to Busan. …and then I…I finished…my last month or so of being in charge of the…the maintenance unit that took care of the…generators and….welding equipment to smaller equipment of that nature. And I was in charge of running that…operation for the last month or so before I was discharged. Andrew: How did you end up in the motor pool if you were a…signal officer? Erik: …because when I…got there they looked at…our private work, and I had worked on the assembly line at General Motors. So there were 3 of us who were lieutenants who arrived at the same time…and the other 2 were assigned to line companies. By the way, I was trained in microwave equipment, and the nearest microwave equipment was in Hawaii. But when we arrived the…other 2 officers were assigned to line companies, basically stringing wire and things of that nature. And I was assigned the headquarters company because I had worked on the assemble line at General Motors during the summer, and therefore they thought I knew something about…trucks. Luckily I had a sergeant who knew what he was doing. Much more so than I did, that was for sure. 2 �Andrew Nicolaysen Andrew: …Because you were there after the armistice, what was the nature of the combat that was happening in Korea at the time? Erik: Basically there was no formal combat, but the North Koreans…were, still had a propensity for sneaking through the…DMZ, we were only 10 miles south of the…DMZ in Uijeongbu, Korea, and we were 10 miles south of the DMZ so…our line companies, who were generally out…doing a lot of…small…squads stringing along wire and things of that nature. They were working behind the…sneaking through the…front lines or they would come south, even around the…water. Even to the east and west coasts, and therefore there were certain instances…of…attacks by them on…isolated units…although it was more a nuisance than anything formal because…the activities during the Korean War were such that…that the South Koreans hated the North Koreans with a passion. And the first…Korean or…farmer who would spot these guys would immediately run to the nearest police or army station and report ’em so…although they did pull us…to movement into the field on occasion and stuff of that nature, they never lasted very long and don’t…to the best of my knowledge, there were few if any prisoners taken. Andrew: What were some of your most memorable experiences, while you were in the military? Erik: It was a job like anything else, I mean, that…you know, I could remember…when I was in the…still in college, I went to Camp Gordon for summer. The other 2 summers that I was in, I went to…Camp Drum with the reserve unit…but I mean, that was mainly just training. The entire time we were there, we were being taught the equipment…small unit…activity for a supply unit or a support unit rather than a, you know, combat infantry… Probably the thing that sticks with me the most was …qualification with weapons for the entire battalion and we had about…we had about, I think about 1800 enlisted men…and then we had about 6 or 700 Korean troops that were attached…and basically we had to qualify ‘till there was one captain, and myself and another lieutenant, and we worked…for about 3 or 4 weeks, I’m trying to remember now, but…qualifying everyone on their individual weapons and then we had…their table of organization called for half a dozen .30 calibers, we had…oh maybe half a dozen .50 calibers that were mounted on the top of the…deuce and a halfs when they had a ring to fire with them, and then we had some bazookas…and…we had 1 or 2 recoilless rifles. So basically we to…you know, talk through firing for the entire battalion and then individual weapons and then we had to…do the crew served weapons. Andrew: Did you make any…close friendships and relationships while you were in the Army? Erik: Yeah I did, but…because of my age now, I think all of them are dead. I know 2 guys I was closest to…were dead and I think most of the rest of them that…I was in at that time are also deceased. Andrew: Has your service and experiences affected your life? Like, continuing on? Erik: Oh, I think it made for a little bit better organization…you know, follow through and not put things off…you know, that carried over, I did…I did do constructions projects after I got back out, In addition to working in the ...insurance agency. I built…5 or 6 commercial buildings 3 �Andrew Nicolaysen and half a dozen homes and remodeled other homes…and that required considerable organization to do that as a side line, you know. Andrew: Well, I think that’s about everything I need, unless there’s anything you would like to add. Erik: …not really…you know, there was…I enjoyed the period of time…I remember…one thing I do remember about Korea was the coldness, when we went out in the field…wind used to come out of Siberia, and…temperatures below 0…were not at all unusual and…I can remember crawling under trucks with the old blow torches to release the brakes where they had frozen overnight, and stuff of that nature, so we could move the vehicles. And…for those kinds of things, everybody pitched in, officers, noncoms…you know…you know, If you wanted to move the vehicles and get out of there, everybody did what they could, so…it was…but I do remember how God awful cold it got. Andrew: Okay, well, I think that…about finishes it up. 4 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/41cb084ed42d8679e9969932f4a024b3.mp3 fd3c8ae26e98f363cd41cb0dd388f1b8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. File size 126 KB 11.6 MB Format, digital MP3 Military Branch military branch (U.S. Army, etc) U.S. Army Officer Rank Officer rank (major, private, etc) 1st Lieutenant Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nicolaysen; Andrew Nicolaysen; Erik Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Nicolaysen, Andrew Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Nicolaysen, Erik Interview Date 10/14/2012 Number of pages 4 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:12:40 Date digitized 2/6/2015 Checksum alphanumeric code fe82e370cdc15928e9fe8095315af49e fd3c8ae26e98f363cd41cb0dd388f1b8 Scanned by Leah McManus Equipment Adobe Acrobat XI Pro Resolution 300 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. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived UA.5018. American Military History Course Records Recording rate A/V rate (48,000kzh x 16 bit) 48000kzh x 16 bit Format, original Electronic File 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 5018_Nicolaysen_Erik_20121014_transcript_M 5018_Nicolaysen_Erik_20121014_audio_A Title A name given to the resource Interview with Erik Nicolaysen [October 14, 2012] Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Language A language of the resource English English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nicolaysen, Andrew Nicolaysen, Erik 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. Description An account of the resource Eric Nicolaysen enlisted in the US Army reserves in 1956, served in the Cold War, and spent some time in Korea. He did not see any combat during his time in the military. Subject The topic of the resource Nicolaysen, Erik Veterans Cold War United States Interviews 1956-58 51st signal battalion Cold War Eric Nicolaysen General Motors Korea radio teletype reserves US Army