1 50 5 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/b8f89507e064a025be2474b9356bea19.pdf 9e0ba619f66ff2f7acac2b096bca332a PDF Text Text Nate McQueen Military History Interview: 05 OCT Appalachian State University, Boone NC ME: We r in Boone North Carolina at Appalachian state university my name is Nathan McQueen and I will be interviewing SFC bush for American military history oral history project ME: So sgt bush where were u raised SFC BUSH: I was rais~d in Germany, and Mississippi ME: and how did that affect your interest in the military at all? SFC BUSH: Well my father served 29 years in the army and I grew up a broad all over the world in military bases so that kinda influenced me in the fact that was the kind of life style I wanted to me a part of. ME: And when did you choose that you wanted to join the military? SFC BUSH : Early part of 1990, January bout January February 1990 ME: And have you been in continuously since then? SFC BUSH: I have, 22 years of total since ME: wow .... And which branch were u initially serving in? SFC BUSH: National Guard complete ME: Ok, So you have been in the National Guard the entire 22 years SFC BUSH: Yea, I enlisted as an m-day solider traditional. And then in 1993 I went active duty for the National Guard ME: Can you define m-day solider? SFC BUSH: m-day soldier is a traditional soldier; they perform duties part time for the National Guard. T~1ey serve one weekend a month and two weekends during the summer serve part time and that was my initial assignment and then in 1993 I had the opportunity to go active duty full time for the guard. ME: What made you want to pick this branch of service? �SFC BUSH: It just happened that way ...... there was no I mean there was no, it was just what was the most accessible at the time. ME: alright sounds good, sou mentioned that your father was ~!ready in the military. Was that one of the main factors for you wanting to join the military, or was it more for school? SFC BUSH: A lot of it had to do with my father, but some of it had to do with my current situation within the community. I wasn't headed in the so called right direction so it was basically I needed to do something to get out of town. And in the sense but I knew the military was something that would come in my path sooner or later and it did and I'm thankful for it now. ME: so when did you first go to basic training? SFC BUSH: 13 February 1990 ME: Can you describe some of your experiences while you were there? SFC BUSH: it was pretty good. I mean it's still basically the same concept as it is today. It was 8 weeks back then. I went to ft sill Oklahoma, so it was all male, we didn't have any females there. Strategically it was all combat arms so was no female recruits with us, it was all guys. It was a good times. Met a lot of cool guys, still talk to one of them. As a matter of fact, but overall it was a good experience, it gave me some motivation and direction and ... good foundation. ME: Are there any outstanding memories you have from there or is it just all pretty much a blur? SFC BUSH: No I remember a lot of it, 1 mean still today I can basically take you through basic training. But uh.. probably the most memorable would be the confidence course, it was rainy muddy and it was just a lot of fun we came in and we were just packed full of mud it took us 4-5 days to get everything clean. It was just a really really good time. ME: Can you describe what the confidence course was like SFC BUSH: It is an obstacle course basically it was what civilians would know as an obstacle course. Some of it requires team effort some of its individual part, but its different obstacles you had to maneuver. In a certain period of time, and it was just a lot of fun. Like I said the trenches under some of the obstacles were full of mud and water and it just made for a really really good time ME: I had similar experiences like that from basic training and its definitely memorable. SFC Bush: Those are the ones ... ME: Have you ever been deployed in your military career? SFC BUSH: I have, I have been deployed three different times. �ME: Where to during those ... ? SFC BUSH: I was deployed in 1990 to Desert Storm. I did most of my duty at Fort Hood because by the time we got ramped up and were certified to go across the water things had ended. It was basically a 100 hours war. We remained on active duty for about 7 months so that we could get our VA benefits and finish out training at NTC and places like that. Then in 2001 , 1 mobilized and when to Bosnia Herzegovina for a peace keeping mission, and spent 7 months there. And then in '05 I ramped up and when to Iraq in support of operation Iraqi freedom. ME: What was your initial MOS when you enlisted? SFC BUSH: Initially I was a 13F forward observer, basically I was the eyes on target, enemy target to call in artillery and destroy those targets . .ME: and have you changed MOSs or have you remained the same SFC BUSH: I am a 13 F ultimately but right now as a recruiter I'm a 79T which is recruiting duty ME: What kinds of duties did you perform while overseas? SFC BUSH: In desert stonn I was basically a pvt so it was whatever I was told to do. Worked in the artillery there as well I mean as a forward observer world I was a pion I was nobody as far as rank went. In 0 l I was a platoon sgt for an artillery cell that was in support of an infantry battalion and basically our duties there was to manage 28 weapons storage sites there in country. We keep track of the weapon·s whether or not they were moving them, when they needed to move then for training. All that had to go t through our cell. And we would do surprised inspections on those weapons storage sites it was probably one of the better deployments I've ever had because of the weapons systems I got to see and track and it was pretty cool. 05 I went back as a fire support guy, fires support NCO for the task force I was involved with. And basically our function was to acquire High Value Targets or high value target area. And provide artillery support for our forces on the ground ME: Did your unit suffer any casualties while you were deployed SFC BUSH: Yes ...... (long awkward pause) ME: Have you been a 13F the entire time? SFC BUSH: Well with the exception ofrecruiting duty I'm not a 13f per say now it's my secondary MOS but once I leave recruiting and go back to the field I'm always a 13 F ME: Have you been in the North Carolina National Guard the entire time, or. .. ? �SFC BUSH: Negative, I stated my guard career in Mississippi and then in 2008 I moved to North Carolina. ME: Have you been awarded any medals or citations in your service? SFC BUSH: A few, I cwn a ... I own 6 AAM and 5 RCOMs, overseas service ribbons, NATO service medal. Oh my gosh .. . ME: Can you define the first medal you said AAM? SFC BUSH: AAM, Army Achievement Medal it's for doing stuff that's above and beyond. Your normal duties, the RCOM is another one it's a little bit higher it's the same. Its going above and beyond the what your are required to do, setting the standard exceeding the standard and performing the duties above what is required of me and you get acknowledged for that and so I've strived myself to do that in my career. ME: You mentioned that your first deployment was mostly stateside how long were your overseas deployments. SFC BUSH: again I spent 7 months in Bosnia and I spent 5 months in Iraq so 12 months a year total time overseas ME: And what were your barracks and living conditions like overseas? SFC BUSH: In Bosnia it was nice we lived in a base camp that had what we call .... "Huds" they were wooden barracks, 4 men to a room, 4 men to a building and you know shower facilities everything was there mess hall, very nice, comfortable living. 05 in Iraq started out down south for about a month in what we call 2 man little uh .... Cans is what we called them. Basically 2 men in a little building looks like a conex it's been refurbished has air conditioning in the window wall locker, two beds, shower facility it was ok. But Then we moved up north we occupied a bombed out facility. Sand bags no shower facility no mess hall we basically ate "T rats" and MREs for four months and basically lived in a shit hole ME: And how did your morale differ between you and your troop between the two different. .. SFC BUSH: areas? ME: areas SFC BUSH: Down south we were really relaxed wasn't as stressful of an environment we weren't shot at. When we went up north and basically got into the so called fight in support of the 2°d Marine division up there it took a toll on you, I mean you were getting shot at almost daily you were constantly in firefights and we were losing guys and you know the stress level was heightened and we were we were, ya know basically fighting for our lives up there �ME: It must have been rough ME: And then you have the weather to deal with on top of that. I understand it really hot but can you just in some way describe the level of heat? SFC BUSH: Its difficult you know its 112-120 something during the day in a matter of an hour or 2 hours it drops down to 80 something degrees at night. But people think that 80 is not that cold but when you drop 40 something degrees in an hour's time it takes a toll on your body it's a shock so you have to be prepared for both. I mean again 80 degrees doesn't seem that cold night but when you drop that drastically that fast in temperature and your body has been hot all day you have to be prepared for that. ME: I'm sure it would be a shock for your system there ME: When you were deployed how did you keep up with your family? SFC BUSH : The most recent deployment in OS technology has caught up with to so Skyping and email and things like that are very accessible, in certain areas. We had one small computer lab that eventually got established up there where we were so it was 4 computes and you kinda basically rotated in when you could. But always back to the good ole pen and ink, You know, paper and a pen and writing letters, care packages and things like that. M E: So what kind oflasting relationships have you developed with people that you've been in the military with? SFC BUSH: I have I got some good lifelong friends. I have one in individual we have been serving with since we both joined. He's actually in active regular army now. He is a recruiter out in Arizona but he's basically what I would call a life friend. I could pick up the phone any day of the week and he would be there, same for him. Kids I've put in the guard I've kept up with to see them graduate college and move on into the real world or to out to active duty. It's been for me to its been good for me to know that I helped them accomplished that. It's been a good expenence ME: What has your interaction been like with the officers in your unit? Good, bad or all the above? SFC BUSH: For the most part pretty good you know every now and then and I'm sure it goes for us as well it is what you make of it, for the most part most of my leadership has been pretty good throughout out my care rive only had maybe one or two officer that I just couldn't get along with. Or just didn ' t fit with so to speak, for the most part most of my leadership has been pretty good ME: Would you say the same about your subordinates or has that been more of a challenge dealing with them? �SFC BUSH: I would hope that my example in leading by example I would hope that they could say the same about me, that you know having watched SGT Bush and learned from him I was influential or played a significant part of their lives as well and that's what I strive to do to lead by example. ME: As an ROTC cadet I will be a future officer here what kind of advice would you have for me progressing through my career as an officer? SFC BUSH: Take care of your people. I can't stress that enough it's probably the most important. Get to know your people. Understand the way they think so u can know them and learn how to plug them into critical tasks. Utilize their skills and assets, is probably the most important thing as a leader, first line leader especially, Is knowing your individuals and what they are capable of and learning how to utilize them, but definitely take care of them is the ultimate. ME: That's definitely good; do you have anything else you would like to add in closing? SFC BUSH: No, it's just. ... Proud of what I've done, I Jack a little bit for retirement so I'm very proud of my career and consider it to be pretty accomplished in my yes anyway and that's what matters to me, but just thankful for the opportunity of serving my country. ME: Well we definitely all appreciate it too thank you for your time, this concludes the interview. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. File size 986 KB Military Branch military branch (U.S. Army, etc) U.S. National Guard Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource McQueen; Nate Bush; Steven H. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. McQueen, Nate Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Bush, Steven H. Interview Date 10/5/2011 Number of pages 6 Date digitized 2/10/2015 Checksum alphanumeric code 9d16ba4b649902009058fb35e92128e3 Scanned by Leah McManus Equipment Epson Perfection V600 Resolution 300 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal; non-commercial; and educational use; provided that proper citation is used. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived UA.5018. American Military History Course Records Recording rate A/V rate (48,000kzh x 16 bit) 48000kzh x 16 bit Format, original Document Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 5018_Bush_Steven_20111005_transcript_M Title A name given to the resource Interview with Steven H. Bush [October 5, 2011] Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Language A language of the resource English English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource McQueen, Nate Bush, Steven H. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Description An account of the resource Steven Bush, raised partly in Germany and partly in the United States, grew up in a military family. In the early 1990s he enlisted as an m-day soldier, and then he decided to go for full active duty in the National Guard. He did his basic training in Fort Sill and was deployed three times to Desert Storm, Bosnia, and Iraq. Subject The topic of the resource Bush, Steven Veterans Iraq War, 2003-2011 Persian Gulf War, 1991 United States Interviews Personal narratives, American Bosnia Desert Storm Fort Sill Germany m-day soldier National Guard Operation Iraqi Freedom https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/016ad9b4879f4bba6acb5247cbb5dcb2.pdf 3358cf76746340071551dc9b982fd3fb PDF Text Text Paul Borowicz HIS 3823-101 Transcript of Oral History Interview with Ken Shabhaz. March 13th, 2011 Greensboro, NC Borowicz: So, you were in the Air Force, correct? Shabhaz: Yes, I was in the Air Force from 1968 to 1973. Borowicz: Okay, just for the record, we're interviewing Ken Shabhaz. It's March 13 1\ and we're in his office in Greensboro, NC. As he stated, he was in the Air Force from 1968 to 1973. Shabhaz: Yes, '68 to '73. Borowicz: So, roughly, the end of the Vietnam war era? Shabhaz: Exactly. Borowicz: Okay, were you drafted or did you enlist? Shabhaz: I had four draft notices, and went with the Air Force. Borowicz: So, weren't drafted by the Air Force? Shabhaz: Well, the army drafts you, but I was trying to get into the Navy. The Air Force had openings first, so I ended up in the Air Force. Borowicz: Okay. Shabhaz: My two armed guards took me to my last physical, or else they would have put me in the Marines. Borowicz: Oh yeah, I would have gone for the Navy as well. Where was the farthest you were stationed from home? Shabhaz: The farthest from home was Sacramento. Borowicz: So, that was nice that you got to stay in the country. Shabhaz: I got to stay in the country in the middle of the Vietnam war, so it was great. Borowicz: What were your duties during that time? I know you dealt with money and payroll at some point. Shabhaz: Well, at first they tried to make a navigator of me, then a pilot out of me, but they were unsuccessful there, so I ended up a supply officer. I was stationed at Montgomery, Alabama for most of my tour, where I was the base supply officer. Borowicz: What did that entail? Shabhaz: Well, the base supply officer was in charge of anything that was expendable, so all the parts and pieces that go on at an Air Force base, other that the furniture and equipment, I was responsible for. Borowicz: So, what kind of rank do you get for that? Shabhaz: Well, in the Air Force, it was a matter of so long of a period of time, so when I went in, I was a Second Lieutenant. I did the 90 day "wonder crash course" at San Antonio. Borowicz: What's that? Shabhaz: Well, that's the basic training for officers. Officers have a couple of routes. Sometimes, folks are in ROTC or some other activity, but otherwise, they have a basic training that's 90 days, and you come out a Second Lieutenant. That' s the route I ended up going, in the middle of winter, in San Antonio, Texas. Borowicz: Had you already had a college degree before that? �Paul Borowicz HIS 3823-101 Shabhaz: Yes. Generally, at that point you had to have a college degree, so I had already graduated. And, as I said, I already had a couple of draft notices, so I was picking and choosing where I was going to end up. Borowicz: I remember you telling me a story when I think you were in charge of payroll or something ....... when you counted money so long one day, ---Shabhaz: Well, yeah. A lot of interesting things happened. I ended up with special duty and we had to give a surprise cash count, and it was the day they did payroll at the finance office. I was a finance officer, so they wanted me to go in there and count the money. Generally, at that time, they paid most of the military in cash. So, there was seven million dollars in cash in small denominations, that me and two other NCO ' s counted for three hours, and sat there and thumbed through cash. Borowicz: Wow! That's a lot of cash. I had remembered that you said your fingers turned green after awhile. Shabhaz: Yeah, fingers and hands turned green from handling all that money, and besides that, we had a lot of angry people waiting for their paychecks. Borowicz: Now, did you have to go through the regular boot camp as well, for regular training? Shabhaz: No, no training for the officers was kind of the same, similar objectives as the basic training of the enlisted but, how do I say this, kind of more book learning kind of stuff rather that the physical stuff. The Air Force was by far one of the better ones to choose, at that time anyway. Borowicz: So, more of classes than training? Shabhaz: Yeah, classrooms and more of management type things, and how the Air Force and the military is structured. It' s kind of general information. It kept us kind ofbusy. On the drill pad, we spent one or two hours a day. That was always lots of fun. Borowicz: That's one of the things I never understood, the formation drillings. It doesn' t seem to -----Shabhaz: Well, the idea there is basically discipline. Borowicz: Obedience? Shabhaz: Yeah, it's a kind of discipline working as a unit. As officers, we took turns leading the group. Ifthis was an enlisted group, they' d never be leading the group, so we ended up taking turns to lead and march a whole squad. I don't remember how many guys were in it but, when you turned around and saw a lot of people coming at you, right on your heels. Borowicz: So, you said this was in San Antonio? Shabhaz: San Antonio is where I started my basic training. That was 90 days there, then I was scheduled to go into navigator school, which was in Sacramento. So, they gave me a couple of weeks off. I went home for a week or so, and then drove from Detroit to Sacramento and reported out there for navigating school. Borowicz: And you were stationed on Sacramento for most of the war? Shabhaz: No. I spent about nine months there, and didn' t pass navigation school, so I ended up out of navigator school. Then they wanted to send me to pilot school, from the back seat of the F-4 to the front seat of the F-4. I said, "No thanks", and that' s when they decided to send me to Montgomery, Alabama, to be the base supply officer there. �Paul Borowicz HIS 3823-101 Borowicz: What did that entail? Were there a lot of people involved in the war effort in Montgomery, because I feel that most ofthe stuff would be on the West Coast? Shabhaz: Yeah, Montgomery, Alabama was a cushy job to get in the middle of Viet Nam. It was one base, one command. It was the Air War College, basically officers in the Air Force that were the rank of Major, that wanted to become Leutenent or higher, then they basically spent six to nine months there at Maxwell Air Force base to get their master's degree. Most of them ended up getting their master's degree in business administration. So we really didn't have any airplanes assigned to our base, there was over 800 officers there when I got on the base. I had to share my BOQ room for the first two weeks with a one star general cause that was the lowest rank they could find for me to share a room with. So it was a rather unusual place to be. I ended up being in charge of 70 personnel, most of them civilians at that base because once again it wasn;t a heavy war kind of effort. So it was not a bad place to spend the next three years. Borowicz: Doesn't sound bad at all. Shabhaz: No it wasn't, I was most fortunate. I ended up, they sent me to Supply School in Denver, Colorado in the peak of ski season, I'm not a skier but I ended up being the designated driver when we went to the ski resort. So that was an interesting three months there. And shortly after returning from that Linda [his wife] and I got married in april of 1970. Borowicz: Did you meet her in college before? Shabhaz: Yeah, we had met in college and we were engaged. Part of it when you're looking at Vietnam is you're uncertain of where you're going to end up at. But when it looked like I was going to end up at Montgomery, Alabama we decided to get married. Borowicz: So I assume you guys were able to keep in touch pretty well since you were here. Shabhaz: Oh yeah Borowicz: And with your parents and everything? Shabhaz: Yeah, I mean writing. Back then most of it was still written communication, cause telephone was too expensive and the Internet hadn 't come around yet. Borowicz: Yeah no cell phones or anything yet. Shabhaz: No, no cell phones just yet. Borowicz: So most of the stuff, like the supplies, you did on the base, was that for food and uniforms? Like suppliesShabhaz: It covered everything. It covered mechanical parts although we did have a large fleet of aircraft assigned to the base, it was a popular place to get your aircraft repaired. The Air National Guard for example, was real big back then in the South, so some planes would be brought in from out lying areas, because we had the capacity to repair them. Borowicz: I didn't know the National or State Guard had planes. Shabhaz: Oh yeah, the National Guard had planes, cause we were sitting at that time in the South, and a lot of the concern was from Cuba and other places as well. It was a popular place to bring a broken airplane, because we had two of the best golf courses in the country. So, if you had to spend a couple of days in one place, you could always play golf. Borowicz: Yeah, that sounds really nice. What was the food like on the base? �Paul Borowicz HIS 3823-101 Shabhaz: The food, well, for an officer. . .I generally ate at the officer' s club, which was great. It was like going to Greensboro ' s Country Club and having dinner all the time. Borowicz: So, you said the people there were one star generals or above? Shabhaz: Well, they were majors or higher, as far as the officers were concerned. Borowicz: So, most people there were officers? Shabhaz: Well, the majority of the military were officers, and there were a lot of civilians as well. Most of the running of the base was done by civilians. I'm not sure what our population mix was, but we probably only had 25 to 30% military, it was mostly civilians. Then, the air college itself had a lot of military itself, but once again, it was major rank or above. That's what all the Generals were around for, it was basically the teaching. They teach classes, they' d come in and teach maybe a six week period, and then move on to something else. That's why the officers quarters ended up with a lot of Generals in them. Then, once Linda and I got married, we basically moved off base, that' s what we did. So, I had to learn to eat her cooking. Borowicz: You were stationed there for the rest of your service. Shabhaz: Yes, ended up there for three and a half years, so was fortunate that part of the program they offered on the base was from Auburn University, so I signed up for that as well, and ended up taking some of my classes on base and off base. I had so much to do, but managed to go to school full-time and be in the military. Borowicz: Sound like a busy schedule. Shabhaz: It worked out very well. In fact, when the war started to wind down, they wanted to give me an early out, but I said "You can't, I still have a semester left". And at Maxwell, at that point, once again, it was the base that ended up with the prisoners of war, you know, the POW' s, the one' s that finally got released after the war, because once again, it had so many amenities, it was pretty much like a country club. Borowicz: Did you come into contact with any of them, or no? Shabhaz: No. Borowicz: Just a different part of the base? Shabhaz: No, well that happened just after I had gotten out. The war was just ending when I was getting out, and the prisoner release was three to four months after that. Borowicz: So, you said it was a voluntary leave at the end? Shabhaz: Yeah. Borowicz: Just stuck around and got your education? Shabhaz: Right Borowicz: What did you get your degree in from Auburn, did you say? Shabhaz: I ended up with my Masters Degree in Economics, basically. I had gotten my Bachelors Degree from Aquinas College in Business and Accounting, so what they offered was a government administration or business administration kind of classes, so I took those. Borowicz: And you said that, or like when you were released, I guess released was a bad word ... Shabhaz: No, that' s not a bad word. Borowicz: Well, when you were done--Shabhaz: Finished the tour �Paul Borowicz HIS 3823-101 Borowicz: So, when you finished the tour, was it hard for you to go from that kind of life to civilian life, or was it like you already said, you were living offthe base with your wife? Shabhaz: No, the hard part at the time, was that there were a lot of other folks getting out of the military at that time, so it was a job situation. So, we spent the next four months after we got out of the military, traveling around doing job interviews. I got out in, what was it, December, and so we'd find somebody to pay room and board to for a night or two, and we'd travel the South in the middle of winter doing job interviews and ended up in Greensboro, a lot by chance. Borowicz: Well, I'm glad you're here. Shabhaz: Thank-you. Borowicz: Do you still have any close friendships with anyone you served with? Do you keep in contact with anyone? Shabhaz: Well, there was one individual that turned out to be most unusual. I don't know if you remember Father Ken Boyack? Borowicz: No. Shabhaz: He was a Paulist priest, and it turned out that he was stationed in the military at the same time. He was in a different section of the supply area at the same time, in the equipment area, the heavier items. But, it turned out that he and I kind of knew each other, you know, we socialized, but then I don't know, what was it, ten, fifteen years later, he shows up at St. Paul's Catholic Church as a priest. Borowicz: Wow, was he a chaplain in the service? Shabhaz: No, he was just another supply officer in the service, and he decided to become a priest, after or during his service, I'm not sure. I'm not too sure of the situation. But, he's the only one from military service days I've ever kept up with. Borowicz: Where's he at now? Shabhaz: He's up in D.C. We talk when he's down here. We get Christmas cards, and do that kind of stuff. He's in charge of a lot of their outreach programs .... Borowicz: Are you in any Veteran's organization of any type? Shabhaz: No, not really. The Boy Scouts is the closest thing I guess, but I've not maintained any kind of interest in that. Borowicz: Well, I think that's just about it. Thank you so much for your interview tonight. Shabhaz: You're welcome, it was a pleasure. Thank you Paul. � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/4cee11b31bc5557d53b378fd22c140e6.mp3 037152c569a2e485cee56bbf5cb58bd4 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. Shabhaz, Ken Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Borowicz, Paul Interview Date 3/13/2011 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:17:18 File name 2013_063_Shahbaz_Ken_interview 2013_063_Shabhaz_Ken_transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ken Shabhaz, 13 March 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Borowicz, Paul Shabhaz, Ken Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 5 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Veterans Shabhaz, Ken Personal narratives, American United States Interviews Description An account of the resource Ken Shabhaz recounts his service in the Air Force as a base supply officer in Montgomery, Alabama. He served for a few years in the Vietnam War and then went back to school for Economics. He never was stationed outside the United States but was moved around to several different cities. Air Force base supply officer Ken Boyack Ken Shabhaz Lieutenant Montgomery National Guard POW US Navy https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/72738ed39724bfa07650a6f9b4e5ce5c.pdf 94d71c3c7ef3553b285167cb222e62a6 PDF Text Text Transcript of oral history interview with Spc. Nathan Hester by Mark Vanburen March 13, 2011 Boone,NC Mark Vanburen: Hi this is mark vanburen and we are going to doing an interview today with Specialist Nathan Hester. It is March the 13th at 6:46 pm we are located at my house in Boone .. . So Nathan tell us a little bit about why joined the military? Nathan : I joined the military because I felt that it was my duty as an American to help my country and there pursuit... in the war on terror Mark: ok, well what exactly do you do in the military? What is your military occupation specialty? Nathan : My military occupation specialty is a 19 delta, cavalry scout. We specialize in reconnaissance of the enemy as far as collecting intell on where high value target are were they operate the trafficking of weapons and also explosive materials Mark: ok, are you National Guard, Active duty or Reserves Nathan : I'm part of the north Carolina national guard I'm in the 30th heavy brigade combat team, part of the 1-1 oth combined arms battalion headquarter and headquarters company .. Scout platoon Mark: roger that... what... excuse me .. have you ever been deployed to a combat zone? Nathan : yes I have ... I was deployed to FOB ST. Michaels in Maumudiyah Iraq about fifteen miles southwest of Baghdad from 2009-2010 Mark: and what exactly was mission when you were overseas? Nathan : our mission specialized in counter lED missions and observation posts on where high value targets were and a lot of.. activity were lED's were placed that were .. that we got from intel gathered by our company Mark: now what is an lED? Nathan : an lED is an improvised explosive device usually made .. put together from .. anything from a small home made explosive .. consisting of C4 or other chemicals ... mixed with things around the house as far as marbles and nails, rocks up to ... artillery rounds wired together in order to detonate and explode and inflict causalities on whom ever the terrorist decide to . Mark: now did .. when you were over in Iraq did you ever see an lED come across one did did any of them ever explode while you around it Nathan : I personally never came in contact with an lED I was actually in my home in Shelby, Norh Carolina on R&R from my deployment for two weeks when my platoon was hit by an lED �Mark: and in any of the missions you did looking for IEDS you never ... yall your platoon never found them you, never answered any calls to have them exploded or anything like that? Nathan :... yeah we did ... we ... we worked with a lot with the air force EOO attachment to our FOB and we ... were called out multiple times in order to investigate possible lED and .. sightings of lEOs Mark: ... could you explain for everybody exactly what EOO stands for? Nathan : EOO stands for Explosive ordnance disposal and its ... part of the military that specializes in.. explosives and the disposal of them . As far as using they have a lot of ... technology that they use a lot .. of infrar.~ d ... technology ,robotics and stuff in order to gather .. intell on possible lEOS and IEDS like when there called out they'll usually send the robot forward and check out the lED and .. place .. C4 near the lED in order to detonate it and so nobody has to physically get close the lED . Mark: ok .. so ... how was everyday living like overseas? Would you say it was good or bad? Nathan : it was actually ... not that bad . I didn't think it was as bad as it was going to be . We actually ... we were in tents that were covered with ... insulated type of foam and that allowed our tents to have electricity wired to them to give them ... air condition ing and stuff like that .. we had bathroom trailers and shower tra ile rs. Our chow hall wasn't that good, the food wasn't that great but we were on a smaller FOB and most of the cooks we had in our chow hall didn't really ... weren't really the best at there jo b but you know we got a lot of care packages from our families and friends and the USO and other organizations that like to help out solders during deployment so we were able to have our own food and stuff like that. We ... as far as we had electricity you know so we were able to you know ... buy a couple of TVs from ... off the internet or from the PX on base and hook them up in our tent so we can watch movies and play games and stuff like that there in our downtime when we weren't outside the wire running missions. Mark: So what would you say would be one of you' re the best experience you had in your ... tour of combat? Nathan: I' d say the best experience I had was ... doing some OPs, observation posts, along the ... Route Jackson which is one of the main alternate supply routes in through Mahmudiyah and Iraq and we actually leading up the OPs we had to dismount our humvees and walk into our position and I was ... assigned the position of point man for those missions so it was pretty much my job to navigate the squad through the terrain in order to get to our observation post so we could hunker down and begin to ... gather intel on the enemy. Mark: So what about that experiences with observation ... posts was so rewarding? Anything in particular? Nathan : Well again the ... experience as far as ... and a little bit of leadership not as far as leading the entire movement from the officer's standpoint of the squad. But as far as being the pointman and having to call out ... you know having the responsib ility of calling out anything you see and taking it upon yourself to ... keep the people behind you safe you pretty much have to be on your toes at all times and �make sure that you accomplish your mission ... as far as being in the OPs and ... gathering intel on the enemy is that' s the job I signed up to do so I get a great sense of pride from it so ... being out there at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning for several hours at a time ... looking through infrared sights ... watching for movement and people trafficking anything in or trying to plant lEOs is ... very rewarding. Mark: Now if you don't mind explain to us what was one of the worst days you had in Iraq or worst experiences? Nathan : I have to say the worst experience was ... when my platoon got hit by an lED and I was actually not in Iraq. So I wasn't there to be able to be there for support for my platoon during that time. Luckily, nobody got hurt and ... that's a blessing to our platoon and the people other part of our platoon . That really hit me hard when I couldn't be there ... for my brothers when ... something like that happens. Mark: how did it feel when you returned back to the United States after ... what was it, ten month deployment? Nathan : yea, right about ... a little over ten months. Yea, it felt great. It was great, came back with ... great sense of pride in yourself and your ... your unit and your country and helping fight the War on Terrorism and going over there and working hard day in and day out to do the best you can . It felt great coming back and having all the ... gratitude from people and respect from people. Having people come up to you and say thank you ... thank you for your service and ... it felt really good . It gives you a lot of confidence and it really it's really a great self esteem boost when you come back. Mark: Now that you're back what are your current goals and ambitions with the military and how would you have described your experience in the military so far? Nathan : my current goals in the military are to finish school ... stay in the national guard and finish college and get my four year degree and then apply to officer candidate school for active duty and graduate from officer candidate school and get my commission as an officer and go onto be an officer in the military and have a long rewarding career. As far as ... my experience in the military so far ... it's been up and down there' s always down times and good times. As far as the training you get and ... sometimes the training you gets great and sometimes you don't understand why you're having to do what you do but it all has a purpose even if the purpose isn't seen right then and there at all. It's all positive and sometimes you don't feel like you have the best leadership and that might be the case sometimes but that's when you just have to ... band together with your ... your brothers and keep working ... and accomplish a mission. So I' d have to say that my experience so far in the military has been very rewarding and positive . Mark: is there anything else that you'd like to say about your military experiences ... before we end this interview? Nathan : No, I think I pretty much said alii needed to say. Mark: Ok well once again this is Mark VanBuren interviewing SPC Nathan Hester on March 13. Thank you. � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/6f265216dbe2f6b677471131b022553c.mp3 7698ca83cef3f44d7380954eecce5d35 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. Hester, Nathan Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Vanburen, Mark Interview Date 3/13/11 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:12:35 File name 2013_063_Hester_Charles_interview 2013_063_Hester_Nathan_transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Nathan Hester, 13 March 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vanburen, Mark Hester, Nathan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 3 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Subject The topic of the resource Hester, Nathan Veterans Iraq War, 2003-2011 Personal narratives, American United States Interviews Description An account of the resource Nathan Hester joined the military to serve his country and fight in the War on Terrorism. He was a cavalry scout serving in the National Guard and was deployed for ten months in Iraq. His primary job there was counter IED missions. Cavalry Scout IED Maumudiyah Iraq National Guard War on Terrorism https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/88f95986a099fdaa7887f71cb59dcfd1.pdf ee1404c580149b0b5fdb456d63ba403b PDF Text Text 3 . 2.0V ^ Chris Garner Dr. Browning Military History Interview Transcription Chris: Hello this is Chris Garner here with SPC Seth Crawley on Thursday March 3 2011 in Boone, NC. This interview is part of a requirement for Dr. Browning's Military History course. Chris: Alright for the record SPC Crawley when were you born? SPC: I was born November 25 1987 Chris: So you were how old when you enlisted? SPC: I was 19, just turned 19 Chris: Ok, ok and which branch did you enlist? SPC: Army National Guard Chris: Alright and your current rank? SPC: I'm a specialist Chris: Alright and where did you serve? SPC: Baghdad, 20 minutes south of Baghdad....for 10 months Chris: What exactly did you join for, what was your reasoning? SPC: I've always kinda wanted to do something with the military I applied to go to West Point, Annapolis, which is the Naval Academy and just didn't have the grades good enough for that and then my parents got a divorce so I needed someway to pay for college and what other better way to do it than do the military Chris: Why did you pick the Army as your branch? SPC: To tell you the truth I really don't know... I was young and dumb and didn't look at anything else. My roommate joined before I did and got back from basic training and started talking to me about it and since it's the national guard I'm getting state and federal benefits which is about the most you can get with doing the military so that's why I went that way or that route Chris: Ok, tell me about your boot camp and training experiences �SPC: Ha, I left to go to boot camp February 21st of 2007 in Fort Seal, Oklahoma. I did OSET which is one station training basically 16weeks of basic training. We did BRM, drill and ceremony, you can name it, we did it. It was cold, hot, rain and snow all in one day kinda... it was tough, very tough not being able to talk to your family and friends and that's really the first time I've ever been away that long of time by myself being young I struggled with it at first, but once you get kinda used to it its just another thing. Chris: Why you were there, do you remember you drill instructors? Or now that your back from basic? SPC: I mean I know I could look at em and tell you "hey that's my drill sergeagnt" but their names the only drill sergeant I remember was DSG McCullah, because he was the meanest. Chris: Ha, ok...how did you get through basic, I know its kind of a long time? SPC: Laid low, didn't talk much. My drill sergeant didn't even know who I was until about the fourth week of basic training, he didn't even know I was in his Platoon to tell you the truth. Chris: haha, alright of your actual army experiences, which war did you serve in? SPC: Operation Iraqi Freedom and I was there from 2009 to 2010. Chris: Ok, and where exactly did you go....you said? SPC: I was about 20 to 25 minutes south of Baghdad right off of NSR Tampa Chris: Ok, what was your first day arriving there like? SPC: hot and nerve racking. We landed, I road a C141 from Kuwait into Baghdad the plane basically didn't even stop when we landed, they just let down the back door and we jumped off, it was like a turn and burn and there we were. I didn't know where I was, what I was getting into, and I didn't know if I was going to have people shooting at me soon as I got off the plane or it was gonna be like a vacation where I was at, didn't really know what I was gettin into at the time. I mean, just like anything else you kinda get accustomed to it. Just do your thing Chris: Alright, what was your thing? What was your job while you were there? SPC: The first half of the tour I was my PSG Driver and then the 2nd half of the tour I was the lead vehicle gunner and I had a SOcal. M2. We stayed on a JSS base, which is a joint security station, basically what that means is we had my battery because I'm in field artillery was on a base or a JSS I should say with another Iraqi company and �we did full spectrum operations, we did security, tower guard, ran patrols, convoy security, you name it we about did it. Anything from cleaning the FOB to going and knocking down doors, that's what we did Chris: Well, tell me a couple of your most memorable experiences while you were there? SPC: I remember one of the first missions we went out on, we went and there was supposed to be a weapons cache at this house that the Al Queda took over and supposedly there was a bunch of 155 rounds there, RPGs, pressure plates anything and we were supposed to clear that and I remember walking in and it was a really big house and there wasn't anybody there...they and been gone for a while but I remember seeing hooks with nooses hanging up and little children's shoes and books, everything scattered around. Apparently from what the Iraqi officer that was in charge of the company that we normally went out on missions with told us that they killed almost every IP which is Iraqi Police officer that was in that village either tortured them or hung them and buried them in the middle of the court yard. I remember going around and looking and I could literally pick up bones like femurs and stuff of humans, it was, it was an eye opening experience and another memorable moment I remember (snicker) I got hit by an IED we had, thankfully it was from what we can put together it was controlled by phone because we had our dukes on and rhinos and dukes a jammer so it jammed the radio frequency it didn't go off until we got by, but it was still close enough to get your attention. We got mortared, got rocketed, basically about anything you can think of it happened other than, we got small arms fire, but no like direct fire, basically just shootin and run, and hidin. Chris: So the unit you with, you guys didn't take on any casualties did you? SPC: No, but we actually did have a casualty not with us our LT that had just got promoted from butter bar to first LT he was with another unit and he was meeting with some lAs and some Iraqi civilians to get intel and a guy wearing a suicide vest come up in the middle of the circle and blew himself up and killed him, but that's the only person that I had any type of contact with that I knew that died. Chris: Ok, on maybe a lighter note, were you awarded any medals or citations for your service or your time? SPC: I got an ARCOM, Army Accommodation Medal, (snicker) I got a master driver for driving over 500 miles, I got an army achievement medal, um... that's basically about it, nothing too outstanding. Chris: Alright, while you were there how did you stay in touch with your family and friends? SPC: Over the SKYPE and the frequent phone call every now and then. I would email, didn't do too much writin because by the time, if I wrote a letter to somebody �I could basically tell them by the time it got there, it would take almost 2 weeks, sometimes a month before it would get there...so stayed away from the writing, but I would probably talk to my mom and my dad at least once a week, tell them I was ok. Chris: What was the food like, while you were there? SPG: Terrible, I would rather eat the sheeks food than have to eat... we, since we were on such a small base we had a MKT which is basically on kitchen on wheels and the cooks were not doin the best job and I'm still suffering from that to this day with my digestive system... so it wasn't the best, that's for sure. Chris: How often did you have MREs, was that just when you were on the field, or in the field? SPC: I basically stripped MREs down and got the candy out of them, you eat one for lunch for about a week and that's about all you can do. I just quit eating lunch. Chris: What about supplies, did you have plenty of supplies? SPC: Oh yeah, we had anything you could think of... I carried a combat load had everything but frag grenades....flash bangs, smoke, carried 270 rounds, my M4 the M2,1 mean we carried anything from flash bangs to two cases of Gatorade when we went out on missions, but we always had supplies, that was never an issue Chris: When you weren't running a mission how did people entertain themselves? SPC: Goofin off or workin out, I worked out a lot to relieve, get rid of built up hostility and anger, it was a good way of doin it. Played basketball, we made us a basketball court, made us a volleyball court since they have an abundance of sand over there. You can be surprised what you can come up with, with so much time on your hands. Chris: Were there any kind of pranks you guys would pull on each other? SPC: I had a mouse trap put on my computer one time and I didn't know it.. I come in from a mission one day and I put my hand on my mouse pad to like wake my computer up like I did every other day and somebody thought it would be cute to put a mouse trap that was set on my mouse pad and it nailed me, but be assured I got him back (laughs) I promise. Chris: What about the officers? What did you think about them? How were they? SPC: They were, I liked all of my officers except one and I'm not going to get into all the details about that because that's not my place nor my rank, but the only thing I didn't like about it, about him, was he would never listen to his soldiers. And the bad thing about it was is he was my PL and he wouldn't, it was always his way or the �highway, he never would listen, but that was the only issue we ever had out of any of our officers. All the rest of them, you couldn't ask for anybody better. We even had a change of command while we were over there and it was right in the middle of the tour, we went from our previous captain, Captain Bowls and Captain Gill you would of never thought we had a change of command..it was smooth sailing, I was impressed, I thought it was gonna go worse than it did but I was very, very surprised and I was happy, I was very happy. Chris: What did you do on leave, I know you get a 2 week leave? SPC: I went, I came back up here to Boone saw some of my friends, I went down to Wilmington, NC for a couple days, spent some time with my family, spent some time with my girlfriend, at the time, basically just hung out... I got a tattoo (laughs) of my fist holding my dogtags up saying OIF 2009-2010. Drank some, that's about it...had a good time. Didn't want to go back that's for sure. Chris: After your leave, how much longer did you have? SPC: I was the 2nd chalk to go out on leave so basically I was there a month before I went home to go on leave and when I got back I was there for another 8 and a half months. I didn't leave again. I didn't go on RR, because you can go on RR down to Kuwait its like for 3 and a half 4 days you can go do that, like 3 or 4 people got to do that and go on leave, but didn't have enough rank to do that apparently....so its all good. Chris: Once you got back when did you return to school? SPC: I got back, I left December 1st of 2009 I got back January 24th of 2010 so I didn't have I got back to late to start that semester so I started this past fall was actually my first semester going back to school. I did take a summer class to kind of get back in the groove of studying and stuff over this past summer, but my first full semester was fall of 2010. Chris: Ok, and you said your National Guard so your education is supported by GI Bill? SPC: Yes it is. Chris: Tell me about the friendships you made since you've been in the service. SPC: You'd be surprised who you can become friends with you think the people you'd never even think about talking to, would all of a sudden become some of your best friends, people you can count on, when your put in a stressful situation like that being put on guard 24hrs a day, 365days a year and your just constantly on edge and on A game youd be surprised of how good of friends you make with some people because I mean the guy to the left and right of you has your back and literally �they got your back, I mean its some friendships I know I'm not even trying to make a career out of the military, I'm doing my time and I'm doing my six years getting schooled paid for and I'm getting out, but I know that even after I get out I'm still going to be friends with 95% of the guys Chris: Talk a little bit about your military experience, did your military experience influence your thinking about the war or the military in general? SPC: Can you repeat that? Chris: Did your military experience influence your thinking about war or the military in general? You going over there? Did it have any kind of... SPC: When I went over there I had a pre conceived notion anybody that watches the news has a pre conceived notion about war when you are actually put into it it's a way differnet outlook, the stuff that they cover on tv is only a 4th of a fraction of a percent of what really goes on, and I don't think that's right I think people should know, I think people should know what happens, what goes on from day to day and not just in Iraq I think it should be all over the country, since they are actually paying for this to go on so I feel like they should know whats going on, to a certain extent, I mean I know that OPSEC and stuff like that you gotta keep quiet about some certain things I understand that but I think they should broadcast more of what goes on, what they can broadcast I should say cause like I said I mean it's the tax payers money that's going to do all that and it's a lot of money involved in war. As on my outlook I come... are you talking about like how the war affected me? Chris: Right SPC: It changed my outlook a significant amount, I've had some problems since I've gotten back like anybody that's been deployed it can be anything from having an upset stomach everyday to having some major problems I mean I have friends that went over there with me that have flashbacks almost everyday, I have them to an extent. But, I feel like I mean I don't feel like I know I grew up a lot, a lot and you have to because I mean if you don't, if you don't except what you're doing and really pay attention you're talking about dealing with your life. It just makes you appreciate things a lot better I should say. Chris: Is there anything that we haven't covered that you'd like to add, anything that I didn't ask that has your mind kind of stirring? SPC: let me think...I think that anybody that joins the military especially in todays time I feel like they should be deployed, atleast do something because the way I look at it is I would, I would at first when I joined I didn't want to go nowhere I just wanted to get my money, do my thing, go to drill once a month, AT in the summer, do that for 6 years and I'm done, but after I went over seas I feel like everybody that joins the military should do it, I mean its what you sign your name on the dotted line �for, to serve and defend our country. So I don't feel like people, I mean I know countless people that just, when we found out we were getting ready to get deployed just started coming up with some of the craziest stuff to try and get out of it and I don't, if you're going to do that then you really need to consider your career in the military for sure, because you're taking the easy way and that's not right to me. That actually pisses me off, to an extent because I mean I had a chance of staying home I had a 2year college first program and I waived that to go with my friends because I couldn't of thought of even begin to wrap my head around the fact that something happened to them and me not be there and I don't ever want to go back, but I'd never change it, I wouldn't take it back for the world. It makes me who I am today, that's for sure...that's probably about it. Chris: Alright well I appreciate your time and I guess that wraps up the interview with SPG Crawley and thanks again for your time. SPC: No problem � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/3f71607f2798f2af05b965335601f085.mp3 c34c51200f816df9ddbc124bfd2c85c8 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. Crawley, Seth Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Garner, Chris Interview Date 3/3/11 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:23:55 File name 2013_063_Crawley_SethW_interview 2013_063_Crawley_Seth_transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Seth Crawley, 3 March 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Garner, Chris Crawley, Seth Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 7 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Subject The topic of the resource Crawley, Seth Iraq War, 2003-2011 Veterans Personal narratives, American United States Interviews Description An account of the resource SPC Seth Crawley is a specialist in the National Guard and was stationed in Baghdad as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was there for about a year fighting the terrorism of Al Qaeda. He explains that it has been hard adjusting back to regular life, especially on his digestive system and mental health. Al Queda Baghdad National Guard Operation Iraqi Freedom SPC Seth Crawley 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