1 50 3 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/8d1a699827a7096c739e9a5ad18a25a9.pdf 8d03fa2f0cd76cef7d03a54d2627a08a PDF Text Text Military Oral History Interview Transcript Paul Maney Boone, North Carolina 12 October 2011 MO: Marshall Ospina PM: Paul Maney MO: Today is October 12, 2011 and we are in Boone NC, In the History Department on campus of Appalachian State University. I am interviewing professor Paul Maney; I am Marshall Ospina a student here at Appalachian State University. We will begin the oral history now. MO: Where were you born and raised? PM: Marshall I was born in England…my father was a…member of the Air Force my mother was an English citizen. I was born in England lived there for five years and when we came to the states I lived in different times in Northern New England and in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and then in Alaska for four years. Where I supposedly graduated high school. MO: When is your Birthday? PM: October 7th, 1953. MO: When and why did you choose to join the military? PM: Well, I…like I said I graduated in 1971 in Alaska and I did not like it up there I did not care for my family so I moved I basically left home if you want to call it that I hitched hiked out of Alaska down the Alkane Highway and…spent the next three or four months hitchhiking around the country it was something I wanted to do at the time and by October of that year when I turned 18 I was at my grandparents in Pennsylvania and I decided the only option that I really had to go to college was to join the Army so I basically enlisted to get the G.I Bill and that’s what I did in late 1971 four years ago MO: Tell me about your basic training experience. PM: Well, that was again more like the probably the most difficult time I’d say in my life, this was during the Vietnam War going on of course and even though they were drawing troops down…there was that still was back draw, I went in Fort Dix New Jersey at the age of 18 probably totally unprepared for the Basic Training experience…after three months I’d have to say that was probably the worst three months I’ve ever saw of my life, and it was not like the movies they show you where everybody you know pulls together and gets…you know you help one another out it was a very divisive time I saw five people killed in basic training I…I came upon a Jo…a soldier who had sliced his testicles off in the… latrine …I was …on CQ and I found him and I had to break up the whole…I saw people… abused and bullied under the orders of drill sergeants who were psychotic types who were from Vietnam…you know who had gone 1 �to Vietnam and probably got a chance to...indulge all their fantasies about hurting and killing people and…they would...in fact during the time I was in we had people who were drafted of course I was…volunteer but their were people there who did not want to be there and the thing to do of course of course the drill sergeants tried to sort of… point them out to everybody and…literally have them...use the…the troops themselves to police these people to beat them up and intimidate them we had a guy in our… basic training company who get up every morning and defecate in his bed and roll around in it just to try to get out and… he was pointed out to the drill sergeants and later... a bunch of people gave him what they call a blanket party where they throw a…a blanket over your head and beat you up with bunk adapters… this guy has or had his arms broken. The guy who I saw who kill himself was just a heavy set individual who could not do the physical training he was he was bullied and abused there were some awful incidents… that I was telling you about in Fort Dix New Jersey in the winter of 1971 the barracks that were not heated…and situation was pretty… I would say...dictated to our drill sergeant… not to go into that much further that I cant tell you that the follow up on that is…that…after I got out of basic training and I went to my AIT unit some of the people that I was in basic with we ended up in Fort Carson, Colorado and six months later they actually had people from the Judge Advocate Generals (JAG) office come out and take depositions from us about our basic training experience with Drill Sargent Guion. He had run over he run his company at that time over somebody they were going down range road from weapons practice who had a heart attack and...killed him and so after that they had an investigation on what was going on in the various cycles that he went…that he sort of conducted as a drill sergeant… when they came out in… July of 70, 72 to take depositions I sat there with a guy from the JAG for like two hours telling him stories about basic training and what happened so that was probably the most terrific time I have ever seen...you know getting out of that with my sanity intact was you know really maybe an accomplishment… that was the worse I saw of the Army after that it got better but still it was not my favorite time…so how’s that for an answer, ha-ha. MO: What motivated you throughout that very dark period of time? PM: Well, I thought the day after I enlisted I made a mistake…I mean I sat there said oh my God I couldn’t believe I done it you know? I didn’t know it was going be like you have this sort of…vision that you see from these World War II movies where everybody gets in there its all you know...and maybe the drill sergeant’s tough but he’s really…underneath it very fair and everybody bans together that was really not the way it was there was a lot of…I could say during that time I saw…I was really naïve I never even seen anybody drunk in my life until the first night I was in the Army. I end up putting a guy in a wall locker because I refused to have a beer and I still never drank anything mostly because the first people I ever saw drunk acted so stupid I said I would never ever want to do that and so…you know I think that’s another thing the army tries to do of course is to…intimidate a little bit so that you become ultimately…that you are not an individual that you just basically are stripped down to the basics and then you can, they kind of build you 2 �back up but… that in itself was you know a period where you know…I was…having to assert my individuality and I learned a lot about what was going on around me and I guess…about group dynamics and everything, so was there a specific question that I didn’t answer? MO: No you answered it. PM: oh, ok. I was just curious. MO: So was there any hazing in AIT? I mean just… PM: Oh well there was, not like not like in basic I mean in AIT I went down to Fort Jackson, South Carolina I was trained infantry and that was…that was a world of improvement for me I hated my drill sergeant he must have hated me too because ultimately…he…I think that I and a few other people were singled out you know maybe on the basis of what they call GT scores if you have something like… that that’s relatively high maybe the drill sergeants will think that you’re some kind of…you know…egg head or whatever so even though…I always got 500’s on my you know PT and all that. He didn’t like me he thought for some reason cause I couldn’t sleep, I could not sleep and all the time I was there my eyes were literally red as get out so he must have thought I was some kind of drug addict or whatever but this guys eyes were always red too because he was an alcoholic so, so anyways I did not like that he didn’t even promote me to…E2 until I got out of basic when I went to…AIT I was the honor grad I got E4 out of it. So but just because I got… the drill sergeant was without a doubt the most evil person I have ever met. MO: So what…when…were where was your first duty station? PM: Well, I got right after basic and AIT I ended up in fact I was going to Fort Campbell, Kentucky …I was going to go airborne and we had… MO: At Ft. Campbell Kentucky? PM: Yes, Fort Campbell, Kentucky with the 82nd Airborne. MO: I thought it was only in Fort Benning. PM: No, that’s in Georgia, this was back in 1971, 72. So we ended up having a little…misadventure I guess 32 people that evening were sort of injured after…we hit a wind shier…I had a separated left shoulder out of all that it really wasn’t damaging to my in any way I still cant look over my left shoulder I have never parallel parked in my life we ended up having…enough medical attention I was in the hospital for only 3 days but I say that in fact that saved my life because I didn’t get assigned to Vietnam. I don’t know if I was suppose to go to Vietnam anyways some people did at that time even though they said, we weren’t, well I finally got my papers out of all that I ended up in Fort Carson, Colorado with the 4th Infantry Division it’s a mechanized infantry division. 3 �MO: How did you stay in touch with your family? Or did you… PM: I haven’t been in touch with my so called family since then so its been 40 years I had left… I left you know I have two brothers and two sisters their all in Alaska I guess. I’m not in touch with them. I left them totally I left at 17, so I didn’t bother. MO: What was the food like? PM: HA! THE FOOD! I…I’m pretty picky so as far as food goes I’m not...you know that was not my…you know they shove a lot of carbohydrates at you and they make it you know so that…that may be one of those things you look forward too but I certainly didn’t I…you know…many a times I would be at the end of the… chow line and not have anything in my plate so it was you know… I can’t say that the food was…you know…I’m a real picky eater so, ha-ha. MO: How were the MRE’s over there? PM: They…They didn’t call them that at the time they might have had LRRP’s which are Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols, just sea rations, we didn’t, they didn’t have anything called MRE’s when I was in the Army. So basically it was you know you had those going down range and typically I would always get a can of spaghetti or something you know and have to trade that off to have some eggs and some semi kind of looking meat or whatever but it wasn’t exactly actually it was just as bad it was you know no different than eating in the chow line, well I got to Colorado my friend and I one of my best friends, in fact my best, my best friend during the time we had lunch or whatever we go out and get, I never saw tacos or burritos before at the time Mexican food hadn’t really made it throughout most of the US during that time out west I was able to spend my time eating tacos and burritos, ha-ha. MO: Did you have plenty of supplies I mean when you were at you first unit? PM: Oh yeah there was no problem there again this is you know a time when they were drawing down the Army because of people coming back from Vietnam I saw a lot of people who had been there and came back and were you know affected by it and I was affected by the people around me but, I never luckily enough had to be put in a situation like these guys did… and I think ultimately at the time seeing these people the way they responded and the way I felt like…good Lord, their lives are already you know affected they’ll never change I mean I wonder 40 years now 39 years after that time when I got to my duty station in 1972 how many of these people are really, how many went off the deep end, how many were able to save, how many went through counseling how many became alcoholics, how many became drug addicts how many end up killing themselves. I mean you could see it the affect you know people who spent time in Vietnam what had it done to them. MO: Wow, did you feel any pressure or stress throughout your army career? PM: Well, yeah I mean it did especially early on but as I went on in my time in the army I was trained infantry but after…I got to my…after I got to my duty station… one day saved my life or 4 �at least somebody came down from the orderlies room looking to see if anybody in the company could type and I raised my hand and said yes I could! So I was brought up to the… orderly room and from that point on I became training NCO (non-commissioned officer) I was given… about 6…6 months I was just training you know assistant then after our, my…my training sergeant retired they gave me they made me a what they called an AJ, “Acting Jack” I have, I was spec 4 but I was given Sargent stripes with only three months left I only had been in the army 16-17 months at that time with three moths left to go actually…a little bit more than 8 months to go they actually promoted me to E-5 as a training NCO but my job was administrative more than I wasn’t leading men into the field or anything as Sargent and even though I was infantry trained I was basically… you know…in that field so that was when it got a lot easier when once I got up there it became a breeze I had no problems after that its not easy for me to take orders but ultimately…when I was working with people who were at least… I wasn’t dealing down with some psychotic drill sergeant or somebody down there… MO: People were competent. PM: Yeah so and I didn’t…you know in a line company I mean again I just did not…just a little too different to get along really well with everybody so it was one of those things…I was in...I was in my time of the army I had 12 or 13 different fights I got stabbed three times I hit a guy through a window and I almost severed my artery here I got three knife wounds here in my chest from a guy that had a lot of, a lot of different incidents, that wasn’t the easiest thing for me. MO: Did you start these incidents? PM: I would never said, no. I thought never, I would never but I wasn’t going to back down from anything either and that’s the thing… MO: Of course. PM: Of course you cant you know you cannot do that for a second so ultimately I never felt like I got the worse of anything either even the guy who stabbed me I broke his nose and was pounding his head on the pavement when they pulled me off him so he got me three times in the chest luckily he only had a three inch blade so I had you know I got holes right there just to prove that their there you cant kind of… you can see there… there… and there the only reason he couldn’t kill me is cause he kept hitting my breastbone instead of my heart which he was going for that’s a lovely feeling hearing a knife hit your breastbone. Ha-ha. MO: How did people entertain themselves? PM: Drugs, alcohol...the…the Army it seemed at that time it actually encouraged people to get drunk because they kept having these company beer parties and everything you know so they would do that it was again during the time of the end of the Vietnam war a lot of the people who were hooked on all sorts of things…I saw people shooting up in the barracks they were doing all you know pills methamphetamines…downers uppers everything so that’s...they…they on the post itself they had you know mess halls open late at night they had I guess different functions and everything you know it was…I guess it was for me it was a little different of course I was 5 �probably...the only…I had my locker full of books ha-ha so…I didn’t...I didn’t partake I still never played a card game in my life a lot of people seemed to play cards a lot you know some people would either lose a fortune or make a fortune but you know I would play chess maybe but there were always a few people who I could get along with you know but that’s as far as entrainment goes that was most of what I saw going on. MO: Where did you travel while in the service? PM: Well, not really I was just mostly in Colorado I was only in for 21 months so by the time I got to my duty station since I didn’t have any family anywhere I didn’t really take any leave and when I got out of the army I was able to sale my leave back… because I didn’t use it so I actually got two months of you know pay when I got out so I didn’t really as far as traveling I was again I spent a lot time in Colorado but that’s I got a chance to see that...so…I didn’t really go anywhere at that time so. MO: Do you recall any particularly humorous…or… PM: Humorous? MO: Or unusual event? PM: well everything was…everything was unusual, I don’t know about humorous as far as the army goes because it wasn’t too humorous it was deadly, deadly serious then it got to the point where I was just waiting out my time after I realized that I wasn’t going to kill anybody or that…ultimately hopefully wasn’t going to kill me I was just wasn’t going to go crazy having people over, I didn’t like the idea waking up every morning knowing that, I have no control over my life that ultimately I was owned lock stock and barrel, but…it seemed funny cause there is this Oscar wild you know writer, he said in one of his little stories that everyday felt like a year a years whose days was long that was my time in the army everyday felt like a year and it was a long year I spent 21 months in, which comes to about 700 days but it felt like that was the longest 21 months of my life and I was glad to get out I mean I processed an early out. I got out with an honorable discharge I got an Army ARCOM an army you know Commendation Medal, it wasn’t I could not have re-upped they wanted me to reenlist, when they made me an E5, it was something they thought alright we will give you some rank and authority but there was no way in the world I was ever going to reenlist, I got out three months before my 20 birthday so I was in and out before I was even twenty. So for humorous stories, I was thinking of humorous stories and I really you know. I could tell you no I shouldn’t maybe I could tell you about getting out of the army, I had already processed my early out because I was you know I got three month drop to get out for school cause they were doing that at the time so as the training NCO my job was to put out a …a weekly training bulletin where you know everybody in the company knew what was going on it would be posted you would have daily activities Monday thru Friday and it was always posted in the company area you had times and if you were like lets say going to have a film on VD or if 6 �you arranged a rifle range to you know for you know weapons training or qualification if you done this you would post it all. Well, my last week in the army just a as a joke I had… made two copies of it one was the real training schedule the other was a joke I had to send it up first of all to my company commander then It went up to battalion then to brigade and then to the post to be authorized it was just preferment just a matter of course but I made two separate ones and on the first one I just did the regular week for the company the second was a joke it was supposedly going to be seen by my company commander and he was going to laugh and then you know give it back to me and say but the last one I had instead of my training schedule it has I put down on it in big letters “MANEY ETS,” which means you get… that’s when you get out and terminated service and underneath it I put down FTA and if you don’t know what FTA means you kind of have to go back to the mid seventies it had meant something that was not complimentary. THE ARMY was the second and third letters of that F the F you could imagine and I sent that up and I thought my company commander would see it and reject it and send it back and said nice joke. Well nobody had looked at it and they sent it up first of all from company to battalion nobody looked at it they signed it the company, the… the COL in charge of battalion signed it he sent it up to the guy in charge of Brigade and it eventually ended up in the post headquarters and my 1SG three r four days later got a call from the post 1SG 4th Infantry Division asking about this Maney guy and it was going to be it was like they were going to the stop my early out because of this little thing that was not suppose to go anywhere if it hadn’t been for my 1SG he basically told me the story he said look you know what did you do and I told him this was a joke and he said Maney you better hide out for the next week I’ll save your buns if you don’t. I don’t want you around the company area you better head over to the PX you better head over to the gym you better be somewhere away from here because these people are coming out here looking for you so my 1SG really sort of saved me and when I was processing to get out through all the little debriefings to you when you get out I kept thinking up to the last minute they were going to get me somehow but actually I got out of there ok so I have a picture in fact my last day getting out my company had gone to Ft. Lewis Washington and there was only a skeleton crew left behind there so nobody really with any power so my last day I took all my gear and my…duffle bag and I got a picture sort of I took it out in front of the company orderly room and took some lighter fluid and squirted it on and threw a match on it and set the whole thing on fire so I got a picture of that. How is that for a funny story? MO: What did you think of the officers or higher NCO’s above you? PM: As far as the officers went you know during that time…the officers were all educated college educated a lot of them even though they were officers were opposed to the Vietnam war they were you know, some I would actually have…had deep conversations with I ended up playing chess with a lot of the officers I seem t have more in common with them even though they were a lot older than me I was only again 18 or so but…some of them were conflicted about you know they had joined the army to kind of like you know… they weren’t all the gun ho kind of career officers you see today and many of them probably were just college educated and you know just being in a position so…I had no problems with the officers at all some of the drill 7 �sergeants in particular and especially people who had been career soldiers who were above like E6 or E7 who were you know terminal alcoholics and…and just people who you know didn’t have much imagination but were just there for a long time and got rank I had trouble with a lot of those people. MO: Do you recall…the day your service ended? PM: Oh yeah, yes December 7th 1973 its Buddy Holly’s Birthday. I got out and basically stayed in Colorado I didn’t really have anything going. MO: That was in Fort Carson? PM: Fort Carson I stayed there and I started school at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs right there that fall. MO: So the weeks, and days after you went right into… PM: I just went right into school there from that you know. MO: So I'm guessing your education was supported by the G.I Bill? PM: That’s how I got it in fact I went to a lot of different schools I didn’t have you know, it took me a long time because I have to say after being in the Army it took me a long time to kind of re adjust but it did leave an affect on me it was not you know something that it just kind of…a lot of things affected me in a lot of ways so I…had…by the time I used the GI Bill up I had you know over 200 hours I had gone to 6 different schools at that stage in the game and finally got my degree in English but it wasn’t I was not…I…I didn’t have a lot of direction and the army really didn’t give me any direction really I was in there for two years. I didn’t learn anything not a single thing other than how tot kill people you know and that was it though I didn’t have any skills but I got out of there in 21months and you know I used the GI Bill and eventually it started me off in the right direction I didn’t use it as well as I could have I was not too, you know pride about using it effectively you know so I made I sort of blew that opportunity even though I used it I those days getting 370 dollars a month from the GI Bill I got that for 48 months that was almost enough to live on you know so. MO: Make any close friendships? PM: My very best friend I met my very best friend in the Army we were…together in Colorado I met him 39 years ago…were best friends today. MO: Did you join any veteran’s organizations? PM: No I didn’t I feel like a lot of the veterans organizations are a little too right wing for me for the most part that I see I see, especially the VA, I mean not the VA but the American Legion which is supposedly a veterans, they all are a little reactionary you know of course those who 8 �were in the second world war might have a reason to be but as they die out I find that you know probably not too many people in my generation are into joining anyway like all those you know service organizations like the knights of Columbus and all that they probably appear to an older group but I often thought though that I should maybe. See the various veterans agencies you know around here Wilkesboro the… to see if I could actually try to see maybe I could become a veterans advocate for issues that I think affect veterans you know ultimately everybody seems to be whenever there’s a war but when these people come back that’s where the problem is of course you know as far as you know getting them adequate medical benefits and you know see what happened to them people get affected you know and whether its psychologically and people are usually afraid to talk about that or physically, they all we pay good lip service to veterans all of this but ultimately when they come back it’s a joke I think so that’s something I would like to maybe involve myself in a bit further. MO: How long did it take you to jump-start that career? How did you get to be a History Professor here at Appalachian State? PM: It took me a long long time. Like I said in fact after I got out of the Army after I started school I you know took semesters off I hitchhiked around the country again I spent most the rest of the seventies hitchhiking around I came to Boone in the late seventies…I never been south of the Mason-Dixon Line but I just hitchhiked, I had been writing to a girl who lived in Boone for a year I never met her just sort of was a roommate of mine it was his finance it was her roommate we talked on the phone one night so I decided to hitchhike out here and visit. I fell in love with the area and moved back and eventually got my degree in history and my masters degree I did not get my…undergraduate degree, I had an undergraduate degree in English but didn’t get my degree in history until I was 40 I didn’t get my masters till I was 45 which I why I didn’t go on for a doctors it was too late and I thought so…it was, it took me a long time I did not have that sense of direction you know I was just sort of being buffered around by the breeze I guess you could say. MO: Did you military experience influence you thinking about war or about the military in general? PM: Oh yes well I had already had strong thoughts about it I mean it wasn’t like I was a vet, you know gun ho for the Vietnam war before hand I wouldn’t have probably enlisted if they hadn’t told me that they were already weren’t sending people over that was the thing of course recruiters lie to you unless you get a sheet of paper saying something I say don’t, to students today don’t sign up unless you get something in writing. But I am as a historian you know I knew a little about Vietnam before most people did because surprisingly my father was in Vietnam in 1962 before two years before the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution he was over there in the air force as a ostensibly as a meteorologist but ultimately as a military advisor so I was 9 years old ten years old when he came back I was interesting I knew a little about Vietnamese history and culture before I was even 12 years old and…after being in that war sort of realizing what and all the consequences the information that came out about it 9 �the secrets bombing of Cambodia by Nixon and Kissinger the way the war was conducted the way we got involved made me look back I did not want to listen to you know. I wanted to know for myself the truth of it all and I think having learned that in fact in the spring I would be teaching the history of Vietnam class at Caldwell community college at Caldwell and so I am going to try to put my knowledge and my you know perspective at least to work there obviously there’s lots of ways to look at it but I think that was the defining moment for my generation and probably American history because all the cultural wars that are being still fought today I think in this country are the results of what took place during the Vietnam War of response whether its either positive or negative. I think you can still draw those, draw those battle lines and see that you know its either on one side where you don’t you know…you think that maybe for instance that the reasons we go to war are wrong that the motivation the…the response and ultimately whether or not you should be drafted to fight what you consider an unjust war why do we go to war you know those very things of course you have, what desensitized me and probably everybody who came of age at that time. MO: What do you feel, how do you feel about soldiers nowadays? PM: Well I…I…excuse me I'm sorry Marshall I didn’t meant to talk over you. MO: No continue. PM: Well, it seems to me that in the time I have been teaching that the students that I have that are veterans are a lot more right wing than the ones that I…the people I was in the army with and the people who study you know the veterans who are my age…I don’t know why that I think probably the draft meant that you get a broader representation of society in the military whereas of course they it seems that people do join up at least are the ones who are highly motivated to begin with perhaps and may have a certain perspective about the military to begin with whether its you look at it ok…as oppose to being able to stand back or feel like you know they didn’t want to be in the military in the first place. I do think…and I have some veterans in Caldwell community college where I just started you know I picked up some classes the other night and I have a few veterans and there just like the other ones pretty outspoken about what they think the way this country is and they…I would just say that today’s student seems to be a little more...right wing in nature than the ones I came up with. MO: If you could do it all again, would you have hitchhiked down from Alaska? PM: Yes, I…I have to say even though the army as I look back on it I didn’t want o learn those lessons I'm not even sure what lessons I did learn if I learned any I would probably say for a long part of my life I thought that was probably one of the most biggest mistakes I’ve done you cant really go back and second guess in fact…I was 50 years old before I fell in love and I told my wife and I’ve told her this since the 8 years we’ve been together I said darling if I had to go 10 �through everything I had to go through that I’ve done already if that is what it would have took to get to you then I would gladly go back and do it all over again so in that sense in my life was going to take me in places you know I use to think it was absolutely why did I go through this but then I talk to people you know then find my experience was pretty unique that I had things happen to me that nobody else did that I survived them ultimately you know I feel like I came out of it I wouldn’t go back. I wouldn’t want to go through it again but I would not trade it for what it gave me to give me this sort of unique sensibility of things so in that, in that sense I don’t regret it there’s some things I wish I hadn’t seen but…you know again it...it made me just my reaction to it you know not everybody spent eight or nine years hitchhiking around the country either so you know that was a consequence the things I learned I mean yeah I met my best friend out of it that’s good enough. MO: And I should have asked you this before but since your father was in the Air Force did that I guess push you or did you ever want to? PM: No it didn’t...at all it didn’t affect me one little bit. MO: He didn’t influence you at all? PM: He was in the air force even though I wouldn’t ever get the sense that he was there because the Air Force was a little different of course he didn’t run, he wasn’t a military type really who made people, I had friends who’s fathers would make them you know stand at inspections but that wasn’t the way it was my father sold also real estate and stuff so he had I saw him just as much with a suit on as I did with a you know uniform so that didn’t affect me and I was already estranged from him anyways so it wasn’t like I was trying to prove anything to anybody you know so. MO: Is there anything you would like to add or anything you would like to share? PM: Well, you know again I’d say that…for anybody who wants to go to the military I guess the thing is if you know what you want to do with it then if you can make…if you can…if you have your own agenda then you can probably us the military to your…you know…benefit by learning enough and getting the GI Bill and you know probably for people who need a little direction might need you know some time to think about it… I still think that maybe you know I'm not again, not for the draft in the military but I am in favor, some kind of form for some national service for 18 or 19 year olds to I’ve them some direction to give them a sense of this country you know so its not just the military that actually is you know should have all the money thrown to it. I'm really against that in a way I as a sergeant when I got out of the army I was only making 440 dollars a month which was...maybe live able then but I see the weight scales now that we have an army that has to almost make pay comparable to civilian occupations even though a lot of the soldiers are on food stamps so that’s a problem as well but I just wonder if we did have national service where you could go into he military is one option you could maybe go into the equivalent of the civilian conservation corps like they had back in the 30’s where you would 11 �work on you know just go out there and plant trees or be in nature just do something to be to give service to this country its almost like a Robert Heimland idea military or some kind of service to almost a citizen. MO: So you think it should be I guess obligated? PM: I think that you know it seems almost reactionary you know and I'm not that way at all but I think to act first of all to give a sense of citizenship and maybe a sense of…commitment in a way you know for maybe generations might have lost that it does. I agonize about these feelings I have about something like that but I think ultimately it would be advantageous for people to get to know the country you know for people to involve themselves in something for students for kids who are kids 18 or 19 a that age maybe between your 18th and 21st or 23rd you know year you have to put in at least one year of doing you know maybe two years of this or one year of that but actually getting out from where you live and going out and giving something back. That would give a sense of citizenship that actually in a way you know would allow you to maybe to…to feel you know to get a real sense of what this country is so that’s one way of doing it. MO: All right PM: How does that sound Marshall? MO: Sounds great. PM: Ha-ha. MO: Well. PM: Anything else? MO: No. Anything else from you? PM: Where’s my free pizza? MO: I’ll get it to you next year. PM: Yes. MO: I actually might start taking that class at Caldwell that sounds really interesting. PM: Well its about time you know well for one thing our department chair person here for a long time had his had his doctoral you know experience in Vietnam so it wasn’t like I was going to be able to teach a class here but…they evidently some guy was teaching up in Caldwell has sort of had a break down so I came in just last week to take over his classes and they were so than thankful they offered me a Vietnam history class in the spring so you know take that. And I'm going to try again I’m…the way I look at it… was just a big mistake just a huge mistake and we should’ve never been there in the first place and…when we were there our policies were entirely 12 �wrong and…if you’re interested in all that there’s a really good book written by a guy name Neil Shield it got a Pulitzer Prize its called Jean Paul Van and the American Experience in Vietnam. It talks about a colonel who was there before Gulf of Tonkin and was there watching the South Vietnamese Army be constructed and what we were doing supplying and that’s when we only had 10 or 11,000 advisors over there nearly the time my father was and he kept saying were making a dreadful mistake this is not going to work we are really this government is not supported by its people and that’s the bottom line. There we were supporting a government that was not supported by its people. You know, as many weapons as they needed we didn’t care enough about you know the…democracy whatever you want to call it basically it was a repressive regime same thing that happened in South Korea in the 1950’s you know it was same thing ultimately if you look at the history of Vietnam. In 1956, when the Geneva Peace Accords were signed we were signatory to that but we were looking for a free election in 1958 but when that election was going to be held American diplomats realized that Ho Chi Min the communist would’ve won in a free election in a nut shell he would’ve dominated Diam who was our choice who was a French educated playboy who didn’t even fight the Japanese or the French during the Second World War during the French War and so he spoke English and was Catholic so he was our boy in Vietnam we propped him up for ten years and he didn’t do anything for us ultimately drugged us in I think it was one of the biggest mistakes in American history getting involved just as a big mistake as attacking Iraq. MO: Well, that’s another interview I guess. PM: Yes, I know. MO: Well, this concludes our oral history and I thank you so much. PM: Thank you Marshall. 13 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/fc4915af983ab57b148b10d95f193171.mp3 729fba484d030adf3753ff85303ce739 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. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Maney, Paul Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Ospina, Marshall Interview Date 10/12/11 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 35:06 min Copyright Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Tag Alaska, Fort Dix, Fort Carson, Judge Advocate Generals, hazing, suicide, abuse, Fort Jackson, Fort Benning, 82nd Airborne, infantry, 4th Infantry Division, practical joke, Colorado State, GI Bill, Wilkesboro, Caldwell Community College, 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 Professor Paul Maney, 12 October 2011 Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Maney, Paul Veterans Personal narratives, American United States Interviews Description An account of the resource Marshall Ospina interviews Paul Maney who served during the Vietnam War. He describes his time in Basic Training as very dark and disturbing. He was trained in Fort Dix, but never deployed, and spent most of his time doing administrative work in Colorado. He did not like serving in the military and got out as soon as he could. He used the GI Bill to go to school and eventually became a professor of military history. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Maney, Paul Ospina, Marshall Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Extent The size or duration of the resource. 13 pages Language A language of the resource English ARCOM Colorado Springs Fort Carson Fort Dix GI Bill infantry Paul Maney Vietnam https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/6b5794ae774cfffd73f39a3e5012c8a7.pdf fd3751f7ea8a04945722ef1a875dd11c PDF Text Text Military Oral History Interview Transcript Lieutenant Colonel Haimes “Andy” Kilgore Boone, North Carolina 20 August 2010 JB: Judkin Browning HK: Lt. Col. Haimes Kilgore JB: It is August 20, 2010. We are in Boone, North Carolina on the campus of Appalachian State University. I am interviewing Lieutenant Colonel Haines of Appalachian State University. I am Dr. Judkin Browning of the History Department at Appalachian State University, and we will begin the oral history now. HK: Where were you born and raised? HK: I was born and raised in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a small, little town in the central part of Mississippi, close to Meridian. JB: When were...I should have asked you your birthday. HK: My birthday is 4-5-67. April 5, 1967. JB: When and why did you choose to join the military? HK: I joined the military when I was 17. I enlisted in the Mississippi Army National Guard when I was still in high school. I went to basic training the summer between high school and college. And I joined because it was something I’d always wanted to do. I knew I was going to be in the army, and… college was nothing more than a means to an end. It would get me a piece of paper that I needed to be a commissioned officer. That’s all it was. JB: So you enlisted before you went to college? HK: Yes. I was enlisted in the Guard and then when I was in ROTC in college, I was what we call a simultaneous member program member, which we still have in ROTC. That’s where you’re enlisted in the Guard or Reserve, but you’re also in ROTC, so it allows you to serve while you’re in college. JB: Now, was there a family history of military service that inspired you or were you one of the first in your family to join the military? HK: No, there was a family history. It’s not a glorious history or anything; it’s just that most of the males in my family were in the military. My father retired as an E-8 out of the Mississippi National Guard. He had been active duty in the Air Force. His brother, my uncle, was a Marine in Vietnam and then had come out of Vietnam and gotten in the Air National Guard and he 1 �retired, I think, as an E-8 out of the Air National Guard. Yeah, there was a little bit of a history and I mean, it goes back to pre-Civil War, but no general officers or anything like that in the past. Mostly enlisted. JB: Did your family relate their experiences? Particularly your uncle in Vietnam? Did you grow up hearing of those experiences? HK: A few, not very much, and virtually none of the combat experience. That’s something that’s not really talked about that much. JB: Now, tell me about your basic training experiences. Anything memorable from that time in your life? HK: When I went to basic training was summer of 1985. I’d just graduated from high school and I went to Fort Dix, New Jersey. Because I was in the Guard, I went with what was called a “buddy platoon,” 62 members of the Mississippi National Guard. And so I knew, I think there were nine total people from my high school in that basic training class, so my basic training experience is not typical. My ranger buddy, the guy that lived on the top bunk while I lived on the bottom bunk, was a guy I’d known for probably 15…15 or 16 years out of the 18 years of my life at that point. So it was not where I went off in the middle of strangers. I had a blast in basic training (Browning chuckles). It was…it was fun. It was challenging, but it was only as challenging as you were willing to challenge yourself. It could have been a lot easier if you just wanted to skate by. JB: Have you ever been deployed into a combat situation? HK: Yes. I’ve been deployed twice into combat. The first time was when I was a young 2nd Lieutenant on active duty. I was with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Squadron, Ghost Troop, and I was a tank platoon leader. We deployed to Desert Shield, which evolved into Desert Storm. The second time was more recently in 2004. I deployed at the battalion XO [executive officer] for 3/8 Cavalry, which is a tank battalion in 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. We deployed to the Green Zone in Baghdad with the rest of the division. Most of the division was kind of headquartered at BIAP, Baghdad International Airport, so we were the brigade that split the Green Zone. JB: So for your first combat experience…when did you learn that you would be deployed during Desert Shield? How did that process work to get your over there? HK: Well, it was an ongoing situation, when I actually PCS’ed to Europe. When I got there in August… JB: Of 1990? HK: Of 1990. And I went to First I.D. Forward, which was down in Stuttgart. There was one brigade, which was forward in Germany. The rest of the division was back at Fort Riley. 2 �And…as soon as I got there it was announced that they were going to be drawing down. So I was with, basically, a non-deployable unit…the first day that I met my battalion commander, me and two other second lieutenants who had just got there, we went up to him and introduced ourselves as his new lieutenants and told him that as soon as we got out of Grafenwoehr, where we were at a gunnery, we were going to go look for a new job. Basically, thanks for letting us come to your battalion, sir, but you all are not doing anything fun and sexy, so we’re going to go find a job. And we all went to 2nd ACR and found jobs. The thinking was: something’s fixing to happen…in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and if anybody goes out of Europe, it’s going to be 2nd ACR or 11th ACR, so, you know, we’re tankers, armor guys, so that’s where we want to be. And it just so happened that 2nd ACR did get deployment orders…but my battalion commander was not…pleased with us. He pretty much cussed us out on the spot, looked us up the next morning bright and early; we were all on a .45 qualification range for our pistols—and he apologized for cussing us out and he told us he still wasn’t going to let us go. I think the XO talked some sense into him and he let us go find other jobs, but he didn’t release us. I actually had to take a leave, and because I was brand new in the army I didn’t have any leave built up. I went a hold on leave to go to predeployment gunnery with 2nd ACR. Gunnery got extended, and I had rented a car because I didn’t own a car at that time in Germany, so I was a week late on a German rental car which cost me about three or four thousand marks… that hurts on a 2nd Lieutenant’s salary, but in the end I got my deployment gunnery, did very well, and I got notified on 29 November that I was going to 2nd ACR. Pack your stuff, leave, leave now. I landed in Saudi Arabia on the first 747 out of Europe on 1 December. We would have landed about a day earlier than that, but there were problems…since we were the first planeload out of Europe…there had not been the diplomatic agreements made with countries so they didn’t give us over flight rights. We had to land in Switzerland, and we stayed there on the ground at Switzerland, where they wouldn’t let us deplane for almost 20 hours. JB: On the plane? HK: On the plane. Ran out of all food, water, all the toilets overflowing. It was not a fun flight. We were very happy to get to Saudi Arabia. JB: I imagine. When you were in Saudi Arabia, did you participate in any battles? HK: Yes, we participated in the Battle of 73 Easting. What 2nd ACR did...2nd ACR was the lead element for 7th Corps. The 7th Corps was basically the main elements of what was the Allied battle plan. While the 1st Cav held their nose and their attention around the southern part of the Al-batin Wadi, which is the border between Kuwait and Iraq that goes down and hits the Saudi Arabian border. 7th Corps would go do a wide flank out to the west and hit the Iraqi forces on the northern side of Kuwait, so coming in from the west. And we led 7th Corps. 3 �If you read in some of the history accounts, they say it was a lightning strike and it was a fast move, but it was very, very, very slow for us. It was: travel a little bit, stop, wait for a couple of hours, travel a little bit more, wait for a couple of hours. It was anything but a lightning strike. Of course, we were the first guys up there, so there was nobody in front of us. And the way 2nd ACR went about it, they put squadrons on line and they had two squadrons on line and they had one back in reserve. 2nd squadron was up in front, on the left front, or the northern edge of that as they turned to the east. 3rd squadron was to the south of us. And then on the afternoon of 26 February, there was a Shamal, basically what you call a sandstorm. And if you can imagine hurricane force winds blowing across the desert picking up anything in its path, that's a Shamal. You couldn't see without artificial assistance. We could see with our sights, because we had thermal sights and stuff, but you couldn't see hardly with the naked eye. If you tried to see with the naked eye, all the sand flying around would damage your eyes. And so we were just basically creeping forward when we met elements of the Tawakalna Division. Now they'd been some combat with 2nd ACR elements prior to that, but I was a tank platoon leader. Tank platoon leaders usually are back behind the scouts. Our scouts had seen contact and we had an advanced element from the squadron out front from Fox troop, and they had seen quite a lot of combat, but it was not the sustained, main defensive belt of the Iraqis. And what 2nd ACR was aiming for was the Republican Guard divisions from Saddam's forces. Basically, those were his elite professional army. The regular army units were kind of conscripts, and so that's what we were going for. We targeted for the Tawakalna and kind of hit them in the side. They did have a little bit of warning that we were coming that way so they had dug defensive positions, but when we hit them, they were not prepared. Vehicles were not cranked, vehicles were not manned. They were hunkered down with the sandstorm thinking there's no way the Americans are moving in this. And to an extent they were right, there was nothing flying because you...well, there was nothing that could see the ground that was flying. There was plenty of aircraft flying above the Shamals and all the bad weather, but they couldn't target anything in a raging sandstorm, so it was just the ground forces that were moving. And our movement at that point, when we gained contact, was literally about as fast as a man could walk. You were feeling one-track pad hit the ground at a time. There were other elements of our squadron that were getting contact. Our troop commander, Captain Sardiano, felt that it was imminent, so what he did was he pulled his scouts in and he put his troops online. So now he's in the center of the troop. He's got a tank platoon on each side of him so he's got his tanks in the middle and he's got his scouts spread out to the side. Now this made it easy to command and control, but when he did that, our frontage dropped substantially. And we had another cavalry troop that was beside us that our scouts were supposed to be maintaining contact with. Well, they lost contact with Eagle Troop in the sandstorm. And Eagle Troop got into a large fight with basically, at least a battalion of T-72s and some other vehicles and there's a pretty famous account of that. The Eagle Troop commander was Captain McMasters…when we were in Sardiano, he knew we were going to hit something. Well, the first 4 �inkling that we were moving into their defensive belt was, we saw through our thermal sights some mounds out in front of us and what you're basically seeing is a green, grayish picture on a little TV screen that anything out there that has heat in it shows up as white. So the hotter, the whiter. We were watching these two mounds and we see people coming out of one mound, and it was like, they were glowing, they were so hot in contrast to everything around them. And we knew there were no Americans in front of us, so that was probably the only correct fire command that I gave the whole time. Gunner Coax Troops he puts .762 into the guys that were coming out of the bunker and it was like kicking over an ant bed. And so what they did was they were coming out of the bunker... and they were running from one little mound to another. Now I'm a dumb redneck, but I can figure one's a mound and one's an armored vehicle and so I told the gunner to shoot the vehicle, and that's probably a little bit calm for what I said (laughter), I know I did not give a good fire command and I probably kicked him a couple of times as I was telling him to shoot it. But he put a heat round into the vehicle. It turned out it was a BMP 1....and about the time that... JB: A BMP is? HK: A Soviet-designed infantry carrier. It has a short-barreled 73 mm cannon and it has a small sagger rocket mounted above the cannon, and it has a lot of room in the back for a squad of dismounted infantry. So it was pretty potent weapon in its day, but it was quite obsolete when you look at the Bradley. And there were other types of BMPs on the battlefield so it was real important that we identify what type of vehicle that it was. So later on, I got kind of quizzed on what we had killed. Was it a BMP 1 or was it a BMP 2? BMP 2 had an upgraded missile system and an upgraded gun. Much more capable than a BMP 1. But the troop commander shot the vehicle probably not more than a second after I did. And now if you can imagine that the sandstorm was blowing from right to left as you're looking, and now added to 70-75 mile per hour winds that are going from right to left with all the sand in front of you, you've got smoke from a burning vehicle that had...was full of fuel, full of ammo, white hot, and now you've got this dense, black, hot smoke, and you're looking in thermal sights. So you can't see through the smoke, it's whiting out your sights. But every once in a while, if you've ever seen a leaf blow in a wind, it never blows in a straight direction, it's always twirling. But every once in a while you can see the smoke part and you can see past it to vehicles being cranked, guys running around, everybody is now alive. What they didn't realize was that that vehicle had been killed by a ground...an American ground vehicle. Everybody thought was, it was killed by the air, because they didn't see us, they didn't hear us, they had no way of detecting we were even there. But they were getting ready anyway. And we think that the way that the guys in the bunker actually knew to come out of the bunker that something's up was they could actually feel the ground shaking from all the armored vehicles, because it will do that. Even just a couple of tanks will make the ground shake for a while. But I got on the radio and I called my troop commander and said, "Sir, there's something going on behind the smoke. Request to take my platoon and punch a hole in the smoke and sees what's 5 �on the other side." He waited a second and told me "Roger, do that" and then at that point, I dropped off troop net and talked to my platoon sergeant and told him that I was going to operate on platoon net, I need you to monitor troop. We had two radios, but you could only talk on one. We had M1A1 tanks with a 120mm main gun; they were very modern, but we still didn't have good radios. So I dropped down to platoon net and about the time I'm dropping to platoon net the troop commander is calling me to tell me stop, wait, I'm coming with you with the rest of the tanks. Never heard him. Because I'm on platoon. And oh, by the way, my platoon sergeant got excited and never went to troop net. So we take off, disappear on the other side of the smoke, and about the time our tanks disappeared, all hell broke loose. Because when we punched through, we were looking at least a company plus of dug-in BMPs and tanks with infantry running all over the place. So as soon as we went through, and I did not issue, I don't think, a platoon fire command, where I, as a platoon leader can give a report to all my tank commanders to be ready, I'm going to shoot you all at once. It's a massive volley from a tank platoon, but we didn't do that. We...everybody was on their own. Each tank engaging whatever targets that were in his sector, and if we're tanks online, everybody knows where their sector is. So they're shooting in their sector and they're killing anything in their sector. And that's exactly what they were doing. It was main guns, it was .50 cals, it was 240s, it was loaders and tank commanders shooting off the top of their tanks. Because what was happening was the bunkers were getting engaged and destroyed, the tanks and BMPs were getting engaged and destroyed, and if you were in front of our tanks, you were going to get shot. You were going to get killed. It doesn't take guys in combat long to figure stuff like that out. So, the infantry was trying to stream past our tanks and Bradleys because that's behind us. Now, I can swerve my turret and I can shoot anything behind me, why am I going to shoot a guy running, screaming his head off, that's trying to get out of the way versus shooting a T-72 that's trying to kill me. So, the infantry's running... we were basically leaving them alone for machine guns, and the guys behind us, when they popped through the smoke, they were getting cut down. But, that didn't last but maybe three or four minutes. Now, at the time it seemed like it lasted a lot longer. And...When I finally went back up on troop net to give a spot report, which is basically to tell my troop commander Hey, this is me. This is what I'm doing, I need to give you an updated situation. Tell him what I'm engaged with, what actions I've taken, have I killed anything, what have I killed. Have I taken casualties and all that. And you try to do that very quickly. Let's just say that he was not happy to hear from me at that point, since I had not talked to him since I started firing. And that had been a couple minutes. And he was on the other side of the smoke with the rest of the Cav troop, not knowing exactly what to do, and if there's 120mm tank rounds and large caliber machine guns going off, you probably don't want to just drive up into that. So, he waited till I got on the net. He told me to get my ass back on the other side of the smoke, so I pulled my tanks back. It took me a little while to get my tank commanders back on the radio, because you're fighting your tanks. You can either fight your radio or you can fight your tank. 6 �Usually you can't fight both. So I basically had to scream and holler and get my platoon sergeant to scream and holler, get them up on the radio and get them to pull back. We pulled back and... We had basically killed everything that was up there. And it was just a small strongpoint about...I think there were 13 vehicles we killed in that spot, and untold number of infantry. JB: And how many tanks were in your platoon? HK: Four. Typically the way a Cav troop is set up is you have a tank...well, you have a commander that's in a tank. You have two tank platoons, each with four tanks. So you've got nine tanks. Your XO is usually fighting a TOC, which is a non-tactical big box on tracks. But that is your tactical operations center, your TOC. Our TOC had broken down, so our XO, our executive officer, the 2IC of the troop was basically fighting out of a Bradley. He had made the crew compartment of the Bradley into his TOC, or into our TOC. And then additionally, you have two scout platoons. Scout platoons have Bradleys, and they have six Bradleys per scout platoon, and you also have a mortar section, with two mortar tracks. So you've got, in our Cav troop, thirteen Bradleys, nine tanks, two mortar tracks. Very, very lethal combination. JB: Did your platoon suffer any casualties in this conflict? HK: None. But, about... well, I won't even try to tell you how long it was before this happened, because I have really no idea. Time is... time is a resource that you use, but you don't really understand how long it's taking you to do stuff in combat. You have no idea of time. You want to do everything in a hurry. So, you're blood's pumping, you've got adrenaline going, and you're really not sure how long it's taking you to do stuff. Probably a couple of minutes after we pulled back, the closest Bradley to our left, 1-6, First platoon, number 6 track, Staff Sergeant Caffey's track, was hit by a cannon, a 73mm cannon from a BMP. Now the only BMPs were the ones that we had just engaged. Now when the first round hit, his gunner, Sergeant Andrew Moller, looked at Sergeant Caffey and went, "What the blank is that?" Then about one second later, the 2nd round hit, and it punctured the turret of the Bradley. You have to understand that where it hit was below the tow launcher for the Bradley. In the stow or travel position, that tow launcher is down and it's covering a weak spot on that turret. But when he's stationary, and that tow is engaged, that tow comes up and out, and is sitting above the turret, leaving a vulnerable weak spot and this cannon projectile happened to hit that weak spot. 2nd round penetrates the turret of the Bradley, decapitates Sergeant Moller. I believe, looking at the AAR he died sometime around 1430 to 1500 on February 26, 1991. That was really the only killed in action we had that day. Now, the rest of his crew on that Bradley, they took some busted eardrums, some shrapnel...Staff Sergeant Caffey was kind of screwed up with shrapnel for a little while, but he managed to evacuate himself out his side of the turret. The over pressure of the explosion jammed all of the doors on the Bradley, so the guys that were in the back in the back of the Bradley and the crew couldn't get out except through the driver's hole, 7 �and you could go around the turret on the left and get out where the driver's seat is. The driver had his hatch cracked, so it didn't get jammed. They actually left the vehicle running and evacuated their wounded. First sergeant comes up and he's evacuating wounded. Somebody else had to go turn their track off. At that time they should have evacuated the track, they didn't. They left it sitting up there, and what the... what the track had done, the track commander, the BC, Bradley Commander, had decided he wanted to get a better look at the battlefield, so he went to the highest piece of terrain in that desert, which was only a couple of meters higher than everything else, but he skylined himself, and he got killed. And I'm pretty certain to this day that the BMP that got him was probably one that was sitting unmanned that we probably put a couple of holes in with Sable rounds, but not a heat round. A Sable round is nothing more than just a big steel dart. And it will just punch a hole in it. But if it doesn't hit something vital, like engine, ammunition, fuel, it just punches a hole in it. So that track probably had a couple big holes in it, but it was still functional, because there was nothing else left over there that could have done that and so that was very...well, it really took the motivation of the troop down when Sergeant Moller was killed, but they got the rest of the crew evacuated, and basically on a larger scale what had happened was that 2nd Squadron, 2nd ACR had been coming in from the west. The Iraqis were trying to retreat from Kuwait and were going basically straight north. We stuck out and formed a salient into their escape route. And so what they were doing was they were bumping into Eagle Troop on our right and kind of flowing around the front of Eagle Troop and Ghost Troop, and wrapping around Ghost Troop, trying to get back into Iraq and escape towards Basra, to the north. And so, throughout that afternoon, we kept on coming into contact with what we thought were people that were...were units that were basically attacking us. They weren't really attacking us, we know that now. They were just trying to escape. They were trying to get out of the way and we were stuck in their way. And the reason I say they were hitting Eagle Troop to our right was the other troop from our squadron had not moved up as far as Eagle Troop and 3rd squadron on its right was still behind them. So we were sticking out. We were the lead element, the sharp point of 7th Corps there for a while. Now we had some bad reporting going on. The platoon leader for first platoon called that he was black on ammo. Black means: I'm less than 40 percent, which is: I don't have enough ammo; I need help immediately. Well, he was not black on ammo. He was black on Tows, but he still had 25. Well, he didn't clarify that. So his report goes up, incorrect, to the troop XO, who goes "Oh, shit," calls up squadron and says "Ghost troop is black on ammo." That causes a huge stir because we can carry a whole lot of ammo, and so they pushed a tank company up to basically take over our fight for us. And I don't think the tank company got much of a fight after they got there because there was not much left. But that was a...a little bit of a scary...a relief in place. Because there was still a fight going on, and you've got…and then it was starting to be dark and you've got a tank company that hasn't seen a whole lot of fighting and there seeing hot spots in front of them. Some of them were our vehicles; some of them were the enemy's vehicles. 8 �They're seeing what they think is rounds being shot at them, tracers, and they can tell that it's enemy tracers by the color, because their color tracers are different from ours, but when you hit a vehicle filled with ammunition, it burns. It burns, it explodes, tracers go off. There were no shots coming against Hawk Company coming up behind us, but they came up firing. Between me and my wingman at that time was about 500 meters because we had spread out. Sandstorm was over by that time. We had good visibility so we spread out. I had four tanks come up firing between me and my wingman and we had not seen an alive target in hours by that point. Three tanks from Hawk Company shot 1-6, our Bradley. So we were never able to evacuate Sergeant Moller's body from the battlefield. He was cremated where he died in the turret of Ghost 1-6. And if you...a Bradley is an aluminum fighting vehicle and aluminum burns. It burns very, very hot. I think they hit it with two heat rounds and a Sable round. We went back a couple days later and evacuated that vehicle from there. JB: Now, were you awarded any medals or citations for your service in Desert Storm? HK: I got a Bronze Star for valor...let me see, I had two Silver Stars in my platoon, I think three or four more Bronze Stars with Valor, three or four more Bronze Stars. I think I had the most decorated platoon out of Desert Storm. But I'm not sure about that. But I think it's true. JB: After Desert Storm was over, what were your other duty posts after the war? HK: Well, when we got back to Europe, 2nd ACR basically drew down after about a year. I didn't want to come back to the States. I was having a ball as a single Lieutenant with nothing to spend money on for six months during the war, so I'm flush with cash. I stayed there. I went to Schweinfurt to 3/4 Cav which was a Division Cavalry squadron with the 3rd I.D. and I think I came back in '94, a few years later...to go to my Captain's career course. After that I went out to Fort Bliss, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment where I worked as a staff officer, then a troop commander. While I was out there they actually moved the regiment north to Fort Carson. I got a second troop command at Fort Carson, and that was all fun and games. And then, after being a troop commander, I was allowed to go back to Mississippi, and I went to Camp Shelby, by Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where I was the Cav team leader for a training command basically. What we did was we trained the National Guard. So I got to go to this TSB, Training Support Brigade, and I was in an armored task force as the Cav team leader. And I actually worked with the 155th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, which I had been a member of when I was in college, and so all the people I'm working with, or most of them, I knew. It was a great experience. I got to go back and help train some of my friends. I did that for a few years. In 1999... or 2000, excuse me, 2000-2001, I went to Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. Do that for a year, got a master's degree and then in 2002... And I was there for September 11, at Command and General Staff College... I got to go to 1st Cav, and the reason I went to First Cav was we knew something was fixing to happen in the Middle East, and I just knew that 1st Cav would be in on it. So I actually changed the unit I was going to--I was supposed to go to Fort Lewis to be in a striker unit--but who want to be on a striker if you're going to get shot at, I'd rather be in a tank, so I went to 1st Cav. 9 �JB: Now, when did you learn that you were going to be deployed a second time to the Middle East? HK: Well, we thought we were going to be deployed for the initial push into Iraq. In fact, our division commander told us we were. But we were on one of the original troop lists, but they took 1st Cav off. They basically dumbed down the amount of troops going in, so we did not get deployed. The division just across post--the 4th Infantry Division, at that time nicknamed the Indoor division because they usually didn't do anything…they did get deployed...in the plan they were supposed to go through Turkey but it didn't work out with the Turks. So they ended up coming in later through Kuwait and going north. But we sat out the initial push at Fort Hood. And then we were told we were going to be in what was called OIF 2, Operation Iraqi Freedom II, so we were one of the first divisions out of the United States to go over and relieve the guys that went in first. We actually took over for a division out of Europe, 1st Armored Division. JB: And what month was that when you... HK: I went over in February. The rest of the unit got over in March. I was the advanced party for our brigade. JB: What year? HK: That would have been 19...2004, excuse me. JB: When you were in Iraq the second time, did you see any combat? HK: Saw a little bit, but it was a different flavor. When I went over, I was the battalion executive officer for a tank battalion, and our job basically was we owned the Green Zone, the international zone, and some of the areas around it that affected it. And our brigade owned all that and a little bit more area. Our battalion, an engineer battalion, a field artillery battalion, and our brigade headquarters, along with a national guard infantry battalion that belonged to us from Arkansas, and another national guard infantry battalion from Washington State, were all stationed in or contiguous to the Green Zone. But it was basically my battalion's battle space. We owned all the checkpoints and entry control points, ECPs, for the Green Zone. So it was more of an urban fight. You've seen the footage on TV of the VBID, the vehicle-born-improvised explosives devices. Basically we lost, I think we had 17 VBIDs on our checkpoints while we were there, with a little bit of loss of life, with a few Americans killed, a few more Iraqis killed of our soldiers. Now there were a lot of civilians, because basically what they would do was wait until there was a crowd. They'd actually call in a bomb threat on a northern checkpoint, force everybody to come in to the southern checkpoints, and then blow them up. They loved to target civilians. Then I was doing that for only about three months of that deployment and then I moved up to be the brigade 10 �executive officer for 3rd brigade, so I was responsible for most of the logistics of the brigade and we had, I think at the height of it, we had about...about 10,000 soldiers under 3rd brigade, just a little bit short, which is a whole lot of people for a brigade. JB: How long did you stay in Iraq on your deployment? HK: Altogether, it was about 14 or 15 months. I ended up also being one of the last guys out of Iraq for the division, and I had been one of the first in for the brigade. But our brigade was the last one in, so we were the last one out. JB: And so that would have had you leaving May or June of 2005? HK: It was around April... April, first part of May, 2005. JB: Where were your duty posts after that stint in Iraq? HK: I got to go to United States...basically, Southcom, which is in Miami. And that's...what the U.S. military does is they divide the world up into areas, then they assign a four-star headquarters to all areas. Southcom is United States Army Southern Command, and it is responsible for everything in South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. But they had just stood up a small joint headquarters for Southcom for the four-star, called a standing JointForce Headquarters. The way we fight now is...really the Army doesn't ever go in and do anything by themselves, they go in as joint force, with the Air Force, with the Navy, if possible, with the Marines. They'll be multiple services in there. The way you do that is you form a joint force headquarters. What our unit did, was we had people from all different services in one small headquarters, and we could fall in on your service headquarters, be it Marine, Army, Air Force, Navy, and we could "purple-ize" you. You know you think of the Air Force and Navy being blue, and the Army being green. Well, we think of the joint force being purple. So we can fall in with all these different types of people in your headquarters and we could instantly turn you into a joint headquarters. And that was interesting. I got to go a lot of places in South, Central America and the Caribbean, you know, that were not usually places you think of U.S. Army soldiers deploying to. JB: And then you...wound up in Boone? HK: And then I got to be a professor of military science, and I got to come to the infamous Mountaineer Battalion and been here for two years, got one left and having a blast. JB: You had two different stints in Iraq, and I'm curious if you could speak to what were the differences in your two trips a decade apart into Iraq? HK: Well, the first one was real simple. It was just desert warfare. You didn't have to worry about any civilians. You didn't have to worry about any politics. And for me, where we were located within the American forces, anything in front of me was enemy. I didn't have to worry 11 �about shooting it. I didn't have to go: Is that guy pointing a weapon at me? If he's out in the middle of the desert and he's wearing a uniform, he was dead. Point blank. Now, the second time we went in, we were in the city, it was an urban environment. Everybody over there looks the same. And you're an American, you don't speak Arabic, you don't speak their language, you don't know their culture. It was hard for you to tell the difference between a good guy and a bad guy. Now, if you took a regular Iraqi and you stood a Jordanian guy up in front of him, he was instantly [snaps his finger] tell you, that's not an Iraqi, he's from Jordan. Don't you hear that? Can't you understand that? And it's like, you know, taking a Chinese guy and having an American from Boston and an American from Atlanta speaking. We hear the difference but they don't. We don't hear the small little subtleties in their language. So it was very, very different. We were also there at a time when the coalition was trying to stand up a Federal government for Iraq. And so, we were the forces making that happen. There was a State Department presence there, but they weren't doing very much. So we were actually trying to be the peer mentors to stand up their Congress. We were standing up their armed forces. We were...we had a U.S. Army major with a finance degree was the one trying to set up their stock market system. Because we couldn't get the state department to come in with pure mentors. A lot of people don't understand that when we went to war in World War II, if they needed an expertise...if you were a small town mayor and they needed a mayor for a town in Germany, they'd draft your butt, and you were in Germany several months later running that town. We didn't have anything like that, and we still don't. We...we are a pretty pure combat and logistics oriented force, and we contract out a lot of our upper level logistics, because we just don't want to spend the money on the force, because it's very expensive. But it was a totally different situation the second time. We were involved in politics, which is never a good thing for a military force. JB: You've been in the army now for 25 years. How have you seen the army change during your tenure? HK: Well, first off, I'll speak to the Reserves. When I came in the Reserves were just that, just a part time force. Some units were better than others, but they had never really deployed in a long, long time, and they were not that professional. That's not the National Guard Reserves that you have today. These guys are deployed as much or more than their active counterparts. And if you had the unprofessional people before, they're not in it now. They either got out quickly, or they didn't survive the environment and they were fired. So the reserves are tremendously better. I can't even...they're exponentially better than they were for the active force, I think it's gotten better and better. We've survived some political regimes that took us way down, but we're...we stayed a very professional force. We've got the best hardware in the world, and I think we've got the best soldiers and best NCOs in the world. The only thing that kind of bothers me sometimes is that some of our senior leaders seem to be more political than anything else. Maybe that's the state of affairs that we live in today, but it's pretty shallow for some of the stuff that's done. 12 �JB: Is there anything else that we have left out that you would like to speak to, or a closing thought? HK: [long pause] Not right off the top of my head. JB: Well, if not, I thank you very much for your time. It's been a very enlightening and pleasurable interview. HK: Alright, thank you, sir. JB: Thank you. 13 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/33574704758452eb7fa251886f3a1593.mp3 dc584703cbc09affd99f6a6be485a4dd 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. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Kilgore, Haimes Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Browning, Dr. Judkin Interview Date 8/20/11 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 42:23 min Copyright Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Tag Mississippi National Guard, ROTC, Fort Dix, Desert Shield, Calvary, Baghdad, Fort Riley, Germany, Bronze Star, Army Southern Command, Southcom 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 Haimes Kilgore, 20 August 2010 Subject The topic of the resource Operation Desert Shield, 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War, 1991 Kilgore, Haimes Veterans Personal narratives, American United States Interviews Description An account of the resource Haimes Kilgore, interviewed by Judkin Browning, enlisted in the Mississippi National Guard at age 17. He was deployed into combat twice, the first time during Operation Desert Storm and the second time to Saudi Arabia, and speaks of his experiences. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kilgore, Haimes Browning, Judkin Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Extent The size or duration of the resource. 13 pages Language A language of the resource English Battle of 73 Easting commissioned officer Desert Storm Fort Dix Green Zone Baghdad Lieutenant Colonel Haimes National Guard Saudi Arabia Shamal https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/5a29acf22530bb2ea808331ee3a992a7.pdf d2ceb4999e13cd9f7daf277ec095c0f9 PDF Text Text Military Oral History Interview Transcript Greg Boyd Kings Mountain, North Carolina 16 October 2011 JB: Justin Boyd GB: Greg Boyd JB: Today is October 16th, 2011 and my name is Justin Boyd. I will be interviewing my dad Greg Boyd for an oral history project for my American Military History Class at Appalachian State University. I’m conducting this interview at our home in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. JB: First let’s start off by putting information together about what service were you in and how old were you when you joined? GB: I joined the armory when I was 17 in 1978. JB: What did you go in as? GB: I enlisted as an E-2. JB: E-2. Where did you go to basic training? GB: Basic training was at Fort Dix, New Jersey. JB: Did you have to wait while you were at basic, or, did you have to wait before you shipped off to basic training for any extended period of time. GB: About two weeks. JB: I know that when I enlisted I had to wait about four months, no, take that back, I waited 7 months before I shipped off to basic training. Why did you decide to enlist? GB: Where I grew up, there weren’t many job opportunities, couldn’t afford college, so it was the best alternative at the time. JB: What was your MOS when you joined? GB: I was a 63B1P. JB: Which is what? GB: Wheeled vehicle power generator mechanic, parachute badge qualified. JB: Is that, did you keep that same job the whole, the whole time you were in? 1 �GB: I made it to 63B4 and then also as a secondary as 62B4 which is heavy equipment mechanic. JB: So basically the same thing just more in depth? GB: No, “63” are wheeled vehicles, “64” is engine air type equipment like bulldozers and scrapers, and graders, and all trucks, things like that. JB: You enlisted active duty right? GB: Yes. JB: How long were you in active duty? GB: Four and a half years, I extended for six months for a tour in the Sinai Desert, with multinational force and observes. JB: What year were you deployed? What years I should say. GB: 1982. JB: It was just 1982? GB: Yes, part of 1982 and part of 1983. JB: What were the months from? GB: Aw shoot I don’t remember, let me think, I believe…I don’t recall, I don’t recall. JB: Was it hot or cold when you were over there? GB: Oh, it was hot over there, hot in the Sinai. It only rained only one time for about five seconds for six months. JB: Exactly where is the Sinai Desert? GB: It’s at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. JB: Was that part of any war, or were you just deployed there for… GB: Well it was in accordance with Camp David Accords when the Israelis and the Egyptians, came to terms on returning the Sinai Desert to the Egyptians. JB: Go ahead and establish how long were you in the military altogether? GB: I was in the Army and Army National Guard for 20 years and three months. JB: And you switched to National Guard after four and a half years of active duty. 2 �GB: Yes JB: Which would have been 1967? GB: No. JB: ‘68? GB: No, I went in in ‘78. JB: Oh ‘78. GB: And then switched by 1984. JB: Ok. Let’s back up a little bit, what were you doing just before you joined the armed forces? Were you working, or obviously were working, were you married, still single? GB: Was in high school, I was single, but I was also working as part of a Distributive Education Clubs of America, which is DECA, an organization at a local hardware store. JB: Didn’t you meet mom because of the military? GB: Yea we, your mom and I met in the National Guard in Kings Mountain. JB: What year was that? GB: 1987, 1987 JB: 1987? What year did yaw get married? (Mom) 1989 GB: 1989, April 22. JB: Yaw were both still in the military at, both still in the Army National Guard at that time? GB: Yes. JB: Which wars, if any did you serve in? GB: During my time in? JB: Yes. GB: I think Grenada was the only war, only actual conflict, and I was not involved in Grenada, but I was in the Guard. JB: So you… 3 �GB: And then Desert Storm came up and we weren’t, I did not mobilize Desert Storm either. JB: So you weren’t deployed in either of them? GB: No. JB: But for both of them you were still with the National Guard unit in Kings Mountain? GB: Yes. JB: Which is what unit? GB: It was the 505th Engineers, Company B of the 505th Engineers. JB: Okay. During your time in the military, what kind of specialized training did you receive, like airborne school, air assault school, any specialty schools? GB: I went to jump school. JB: Airborne School? GB: Yes. JB: When? GB: In, I actually graduated from school on Thanksgiving Day in 1978. JB: Was it easy or hard? GB: It was hard I was there five weeks instead of three. JB: Why? GB: I couldn’t do the chin-ups. JB: You couldn’t do the chin ups? GB: Yea got recycled twice. JB: How many chin ups did you have to do? GB: I think seven. JB: Seven in any given amount of time, or just seven? GB: No just seven. JB: When did you go to PLDC? 4 �GB: I believe PLDC would’ve been, about 1987 or ‘88. JB: And just to clarify, what kind of school is that? GB: That is the primary leadership development course. JB: For what? GB: That was for my promotion to E5, and that was at Asheville, North Carolina. JB: Was it like a, an actual military place, like a base that you went to in Asheville, or was it.. GB: Well it’s, it’s an actual military school sponsored by the state of north Carolina, all the requirements, are military have satisfied pt test, and a couple other things. JB: And did you ever go to ANOC? GB: Yea I went to PLDC, BNOC, and ANOC, phase 1 and phase 2. JB: What is BNOC? GB: Basic NCO course. JB: Was that part of the same thing as the E school. GB: No that was for E6. JB: E6? And when did you go there? GB: Eh probably shoot, ‘91, ‘92 JB: And what is ANOC? GB: ANOC was advanced NCO school for E7, and that would’ve been about 1995. JB: So you got E7 in 1995? GB: Eh probably ‘95 or ‘96 JB: Did you, did you ever serve in any non-combative oversea deployments? GB: Yea, I went to Ecuador, and Honduras. JB: When did you go to Ecuador? GB: In early, it would’ve been late 80’s wouldn’t it (asking wife)? (mom) Where? 5 �GB: Ecuador. (mom) It was actually when mawmaw had her surgery, which would have been, Justin was born in 91, it would’ve been in around March of 1992? GB: Yea been in ‘92, and JB: Was it, was this when you were in the National Guard? GB: Yes. JB: Obviously. GB: Yes, well it was humanitarian nation a village had been cut off from society by a mudslide; we went in and had to cut a road from Keto to the village. JB: Was it successful? GB: Yes, I believe it took more than one rotation; it probably took two or three rotations to complete it. JB: How long were you there? GB: I was there three weeks. JB: Three weeks in Honduras? GB: Two weeks in Honduras, three in Ecuador JB: Ok. What was the weather like while yaw were down there in Ecuador? Like What part of the year was it? GB: It rained a little bit, but it wasn’t too bad. JB: From the mudslides? GB: Yea JB: That’s what caused the mudslides. GB: Well the mudslides actually happened long before we got there. JB: But, the weather wasn’t too bad once yaw got there, like… GB: Nah, it probably rained a couple times. JB: On, once yaw started, once yaw started clearing away the mudslides and stuff. GB: Nah we actually cut a new road, the mudslide road was, 6 �JB: Okay. GB: Given up. JB: So the weather didn’t really make… GB: No. JB: Make yaw stay there longer? GB: We had bulldozers going in the river pushing rock out to go to the rock crusher, so it wasn’t real bad. JB: How long were you in Honduras? GB: Two weeks. JB: At the same time? GB: No it was later, it was probably in ‘93, ‘94 JB: What did yaw have to do there? GB: We were part of a US effort to build what was that an updated road, almost a highway, within Honduras. JB: A highway? GB: Yes, it wasn’t really a dirt road, it was kind of improved, it was an improved surface road. JB: So like gravel? GB: Probably packed gravel. JB: Sort of like what we have out there on the greenway trail? GB: Yes. JB: I know that from when I went down to Honduras a couple years ago, it was very humid. We went down in the middle of the summertime, so I guess technically there it was, well let’s see is Honduras above the equator or below? GB: Below. JB: So technically it would have been the rainy season I guess there, but it only rained like one day, but it was very humid, was it humid while you were there? GB: Yes, it was hot and humid. 7 �JB: How hot? GB: Probably in the middle 90’s, high 90’s all the time. JB: And high, very high humidity? GB: Yes. JB: What about any stateside deployments? GB: We had one to Florida for hurricane relief, and… JB: Which hurricane? GB: That would’ve been Fran, I believe. JB: What year was that? GB: Shoot, I don’t remember. JB: Before I was born? GB: You can Google that. JB: Before I was born? GB: No, you can Google that. JB: All right. GB: We had the one there hurricane Hugo we got deployed for, we got deployed for a bunch of wild fires also up in the mountains of North Carolina. JB: Were you in North Carolina for the Hugo relief? GB: Oh, yes. Yes, we were staying over in Mecklenburg County most of the time. Mother: That was September of ’89 GB: We also had about three deployments to San Diego, California for border type missions two were fence related and one was actually a road up into brown mountain, made it easier for the border patrol to go up into the mountains and bring the illegal’s back down. JB: Where is Brown Mountain at? GB: In Southern California. JB: So it’s right on the border with Mexico? 8 �GB: Yes, it actually close to Tijuana. JB: Were they having a lot of problems down there, or was this, they were just putting the fence up sort of? GB: No, they’ve always had problems. They’ve got probably a couple hundred border patrol officers working in that region. JB: How big is the region? Just all around the mountain? GB: I’ll give you an example they’ve got a greyhound bus that they’ve beefed up just a little bit to, to go up in the mountain to bring them down a busload at a time. JB: Sheesh GB: One of the trips to San Diego was to build a sewer line. The people of Tijuana had their raw sewage coming into the United States so we built a diversion culvert, to take it back to Mexico to a waste treatment plant that was, I think built by the US. So what we were doing was rerouting their raw sewage back to them. JB: Ha-ha-ha (chuckling) Tell me about a couple of your most memorable ex, memorable experiences throughout your whole career in the military. GB: FTX’s were always memorable, I had some good experiences it we-, in the field with the platoon and the guys. JB: Is that when you with the Guard unit or during some kind of training? GB: With the Guard. JB: Where did yaw go on yaws FTX’s? GB: We went to Fort Jackson, we went to Fort Bragg, we went to Camp Butner, then Fort Pickett. JB: Virginia? GB: Yes, places not too far away, but we got to travel a little bit. JB: Did yaw go on about one a year? GB: Yes, we probably went on one FTX a year, and one summer camp a year. JB: Summer camp being AT? GB: Yes. 9 �JB: Two weeks? GB: Yes, the most memorable AT was the one during the day when we were getting on Fort Bragg it was 80 degrees during the day, but that night it snowed. JB: Ha-ha. GB: First Sergeant Ellis came out of his tent that morning and he said “I don’t care what color it is, if it will keep you warm, put it on.” JB: Ha-ha. GB: It was like 35 degrees that morning. JB: Was this during the summer time? GB: Yea, right on the verge, like early spring. JB: So sometime around March, April? GB: Yes. JB: And it snowed in Fort Bragg down there in Fayetteville? GB: Yes. JB: When I was in Fort Bragg this summer, it was 104 degrees every day. GB: Man oh man, it can get hot. JB: When you were on your deployments, either in state or in Honduras or where ever you were, were you able to, and how did you stay in touch with your family? GB: In the Sinai they actually installed a satellite station for us to make calls, through the nearest military installation to where we were calling, in my case it was through Fort Bragg to Fort Benjamin Harrison, then to my hometown in Indiana. JB: Which was where? GB: Jasonville, Indiana. JB: Is that where your parents lived? GB: Yes. JB: Or what about all the rest of your family? GB: Oh they all lived up there at that time. 10 �JB: Ok. All in Jasonville? GB: Yes. Any place else other than the Sinai, we just used a standard phone that was provided by the unit. JB: Like a sat phone? GB: No, it was an actual landline. JB: What about when you were in Honduras, and Ecuador and stuff? GB: I don’t remember making any calls in Honduras or Ecuador. JB: And you were only there for a couple weeks though. GB: Yes. JB: What about stateside? GB: What do you mean? JB: Were you able to contact your family stuff when you were in Florida or California or? GB: Oh yes, in San Diego I just used a pay phone. I had a calling card. JB: Ha-ha they had payphones back then? (jokingly) GB: Yes. JB: Ha-ha did you have cell phones back then? GB: No, I didn’t. JB: What about email? GB: Cell phones were still as big as suitcases back then. I didn’t have any email either. JB: All right so when did you finally retire out of the Guard? GB: In 1998. JB: 1998? What all went down? Were you, did you, do you miss it at all? GB: Well yes, but the guys that the unit gave me several gifts. One of them was actually a pretty nice golf club. Your mom through me a party and a fish fry, and had several people at the house from the unit. It was real nice. JB: Do you miss it at all? 11 �GB: I miss the guys. JB: You don’t miss being actually in the Guard though? GB: Well, not really, no. I figured I could contribute to my retirement better working than I could in the Guard. JB: Well, I believe that about sums it up thank you for time dad. I hope I could bring back some good memories. GB: You’re welcome. 12 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/e81108a567d8855fddf7cdf5529692ff.mp3 4b822763fe03c1297ee75eb6370786ad 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. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Boyd, Greg Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Boyd, Justin Interview Date 10/16/11 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 16:07 min Copyright Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Tag Army, Fort Dix, mechanic, Sinai Desert, Camp David Accords, Army National Guard, 505th Engineers National Guard Unit, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Fort Bragg, Fort Butner, Fort Pickett, Sinai 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 Greg Boyd, 16 October 2011 Subject The topic of the resource United States Veterans Boyd, Greg National Guard United States Interviews Description An account of the resource Greg Boyd, Army and Army National Guard, was born in 1961 and joined the armory at age 17 as an E-2. He discusses meeting his wife while in service, family, training, and deployments to Honduras and Ecuador as well as domestic deployments. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boyd, Greg Boyd, Justin Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Extent The size or duration of the resource. 12 pages Language A language of the resource English Airborne School Army National Guard Ecuador Fort Dix Honduras Sinai Desert