From Lawn Darts To Hellfires: Childhood Chaos Meets Army Aviation (Jerry Binning)

A quiet Midwestern start. A detour through tank trails. And a cockpit view of the night the Gulf War truly began. We sit down with Jerry Binning to chart the improbable arc from Charlotte, Michigan to Fort Hood’s heat, Fort Rucker’s flight lines, and the Apache missions that punched a hole through Iraq’s radar on Day One. This isn’t a highlight reel—it’s the texture of real service: lost orders and last‑minute saves, heat so fierce tools burn skin, and the strange calm of learning to trust instruments when your senses insist they’re right.

Jerry takes us inside the grind of basic at Fort Knox, the hard lessons of testing the XM1 Abrams, and the abrupt pivot to aviation when a sergeant helped salvage a flight school packet that was about to vanish into bureaucracy. He remembers the bug‑eyed TH‑55 and the elegant brutality of Huey instrument training, including a startling brush with flicker vertigo. We talk the thrill of the OH‑58 scout, the muscle of the Cobra, and the tech leap of the Apache—plus the logistics job no one glamorizes but everyone depends on: loading C‑5s, building pallets, and making sure an entire unit can move on time.

When the Gulf crisis hit, Jerry’s unit locked down and deployed into Saudi heat that felt like stepping into a blast furnace. He trained for Mission “Normandy,” the low‑level strike that took out radar sites and opened the door for the air campaign over Baghdad. He also shares the kind of incident veterans never forget: a misbehaving “hangar queen,” an unexpected Hellfire launch, and the string of miracles that kept crews unharmed as the missile zig‑zagged to an ammo depot. From there, it’s the long road home, a difficult personal chapter, a few years flying Blackhawks in the Reserves, and the quieter duty of returning to Michigan for aging parents.

If you’re curious about Army aviation, the reality behind “dog and pony shows,” or how leadership is forged under heat, pressure, and uncertainty, Jerry’s story delivers rare detail and calm honesty. Stay for his closing advice to young people considering service: it’s not easy by design, and that’s where the growth lives. If this conversation moved you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find these stories.

Chapters

• 0:00 Early Years In Michigan
• 3:25 60s And 70s Childhood Memories
• 6:10 High School Jobs And First Work
• 8:05 Choosing The Army Over The Air Force
• 10:02 Fort Knox Reality Check
• 13:10 Phases Of Training And Field Life
• 16:00 Christmas Leave And Chow Hall Habits
• 17:55 Driving To Fort Hood In A Storm
• 19:35 Heat, Rebuilding M60s, And Early Cav Days
• 22:00 Testing The XM1 And Field Dog-And-Pony Shows
• 24:50 Tank Driving Lessons And Going Airborne
• 28:10 Applying To Flight School And The Waiting Game
• 31:15 Orders Lost And A Last-Minute Save
• 33:05 Warrant Officer Candidate School Stress
• 36:10 Locker Inspections And Secret “Missions”
• 39:05 Learning To Fly The TH-55
• 41:30 First Solos And A Near Midair
• 43:30 Huey Instruments And Flicker Vertigo
• 47:21 Choosing The Scout Track
• 48:51 Fort Campbell And Cobra Transition
• 51:26 Movement Officer Duties And Apache Armament
• 53:56 Apache Training Brigade And Family Tradeoffs
• 56:51 Desert Shield Arrival And Brutal Heat
• 58:51 Mission Normandy And First Shots Fired
• 1:01:56 Flying Under Threat And Recognition Delays
• 1:04:16 The Rogue Hellfire And Safety Lessons
• 1:07:56 Redeployment And Coming Home
• 1:09:56 Choosing To Separate And Life Changes
• 1:11:51 Reserves, Blackhawks, And Civilian Work
• 1:14:56 Returning Home And Aging Parents
• 1:16:56 XM1 Dangers And Hard-Won Lessons
• 1:19:51 Final Reflections And Advice To Youth

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 1:00

Today is Thursday, October 16th, 2025. We're talking with Jerry Benning, who served United States Army. So good afternoon.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07

Good afternoon.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07

Happy to be here. Thanks for making the trip up from Charlotte. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11

Uh no problem. Or some people call it Charlotte. Exactly. Well, if you don't want to spell it, say Charlotte.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17

Exactly. People will understand. Um so we'll start out real simple today. When and where were you born?

SPEAKER_03: 1:23

I was born in Wood River, Illinois, uh, 1960.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28

Okay. Now, did you grow up in Wood River then?

SPEAKER_03: 1:31

I spent three years there. I don't remember much of that. All right. Where'd you go from there? And we moved to Charlotte, Michigan uh after that. Okay. So I went to school all through, you know, the Charlotte school system.

SPEAKER_01: 1:45

All right. Now tell me a little bit about growing up. Did you have uh brothers and sisters?

SPEAKER_03: 1:51

Okay, I had an older sister. She was a half sibling on my dad's side, and uh a year younger sister that that lived with us. Ended up uh my parents got divorced and ended up with a younger sibling, brother, eight years younger than me. So Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 2:11

And did they all stay right in that Charlotte area?

SPEAKER_03: 2:14

Uh no. Just just me right now. Okay. Her sister was here until about two years ago. She moved to Florida. Side as she liked warm weather. Yeah, I have a brother and a sister that both did that.

SPEAKER_01: 2:26

They were in Arizona, so understand that. Well, talk to me about growing up. What was it like uh growing up in the 60s in uh in Charlotte, Michigan?

SPEAKER_03: 2:35

Uh well, I like seeing a lot of this stuff on YouTube and whatever, as far as growing up back then and you know, drinking out of fountain hoses, uh being kicked out of the house, just as long as you're back before dark. Uh, you know, basically just uh ran wild.

SPEAKER_00: 2:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 2:53

Yeah, I remember those days like you would uh because I was born in 65, so not too far behind you. Um, but yeah, look you the when the streetlights came on, you knew it was time to go home.

SPEAKER_03: 3:02

Oh yeah. And uh I was watching Henry Winkler on a new program he does about how dangerous things were. You know, he did he did covered toys with uh with lawn darts, which uh I don't really remember anybody using them the way they were supposed to be used, is just throw them up in the air and hope not to get hit. Yeah, I remember throwing them up and then everyone would run. Right, right, right. And you know, I don't know if you remember the clackers.

SPEAKER_01: 3:29

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 3:29

Yeah, you'd be clacking away at those and then they'd just disintegrate. Yeah. Yeah, or you'd hit yourself in the I don't know. I guess you're gonna be able to do that. Oh yeah, I've done that too. Yeah, or especially the wrist. I had some nasty bruises around my hand and wrist. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:43

Did you ever did you ever uh so this was probably 70s era, but do you remember the um Il Kinevel stunt cycle? Yes. Did you ever did you ever have the pleasure of owning one of those? Oh I Oh, you missed out. Yeah. That was pretty cool. Yeah, and I remember toys all had sharp edges too. They were made out of everyone had sharp edges.

SPEAKER_03: 4:04

I remember riding back in the back of a pickup truck, too. I was like, all right, you kids, y'all get back there. And I remember my stepmom one time, I think we was backing out of an ice cream joint or something, and she backed out, and before she came to a complete stop, she dropped it and drive and hit the gas, and we just went flying up against the tailgate. Thankfully it it didn't come open.

SPEAKER_01: 4:26

Right. Back when they made cars that that lasted, right? Right. Well, talk to me a little bit about school then.

SPEAKER_03: 4:35

Uh don't remember a whole lot about school. I mean, it was just uh I was I did the sports thing and you know um softball, baseball, basketball, PV football. I was pretty much involved in all the sports until I got to high school. And then I was more interested in making money than playing on the football team.

SPEAKER_01: 4:59

Okay. Did you go right to work then when you got to high school?

SPEAKER_03: 5:02

Uh pretty much, yeah. Started working at a pizza joint. Uh started out making pizzas and you know, like doing the the waiter thing, but then I kinda graduated to pizza delivery, which is a little bit better.

SPEAKER_01: 5:20

There's some good money to be made in pizza delivery.

SPEAKER_03: 5:23

Well, and then the size of my town, which uh was probably you know around 17,000, 15,000, 17,000 back then. It was, you know, easier to memorize all the streets and whatnot.

SPEAKER_01: 5:34

So was that back when they had like the guaranteed 30-minute delivery or something?

SPEAKER_03: 5:41

Uh no, that came out later. That was after I got away from that. But yeah, so it wasn't we weren't exactly racing to to to get to the place, but Charlotte has railroads that go through it where sometimes you know you'd be making delivery and you'd get caught, you know, behind a railroad or whatever. Oh, yeah. Or a train going through. And then they'd complain, well, what took you so long? The train, you didn't hear it?

SPEAKER_01: 6:06

It's a little loud. Right. Yeah. So you uh you make it through high school and uh did you graduate? Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 6:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 6:14

And uh what what happens after high school?

SPEAKER_03: 6:17

Okay, well, after high school, um I remember having like two and then three different part-time jobs. I told them all I had two part-time jobs that they had to schedule with when I was basically juggling three. Uh anyway, so I ended up getting a manufacturing job after that. And I don't know, things were going good. I was making pretty decent money, and then uh I got laid off from that, and it's like, well, it w it was hard, kind of depressed back then as far as finding good paying jobs.

SPEAKER_02: 6:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 6:54

I'm not exactly sure how it is now, but I think it's about the same. And uh anyways, my stepdad was National Guard, Army. He's like, You should go on you should go into service. And my cousin, who's a year older than me, had joined the Air Force. So I was thinking about going to the Air Force myself. And he's like, uh, have an army recruiter there with you. You know, just to play them off of each other. Well, and I Army recruiters can talk circles around Air Force recruiters as far as I'm concerned. And anyway, so that's the way I ended up going. Uh I can't exactly remember what I went through, but I remember having to go to Detroit, uh the map station, and you know, they do written tests and they do physical tests and and and that and whatever. I got all through with that and I was talking to a sergeant, and he says, Oh, so you want to be a tanker? Uh no. I'm enlisting to be a diesel mechanic. Uh, well, you need to talk to your recruiter then, because he's got you down here as a tanker, uh, 19 Delta at the time.

SPEAKER_00: 8:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 8:04

And anyway, so I did talk to him on the way back. I'm like, they tell me I'm gonna be a tanker. It's like, well, yeah, that's that's right. He's like, uh, well, they have diesel engines and you're sure to work on them. Spoken like a true recruiter. Oh, yeah. I was I was a little bit miffed, yeah, to say the least. But I, you know, I didn't have a job and I did want to get out of there. You know, I handed up after I lost my job, had to move back home with my parents, and it's like they weren't happy about it. I wasn't happy about it. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 8:34

Now, do you stay at that really nice hotel? What's it called? I think we stayed at the Mariner Hotel when I went to Detroit. It was terrible.

SPEAKER_03: 8:41

I I really don't remember the hotel much, other than there was somebody yelling in the hallway wanting someone to to drink with them. Yeah. Thinking tequila. I don't know. I didn't get involved.

SPEAKER_01: 8:51

But I think they hire someone to do that because I think I had that same experience.

SPEAKER_03: 8:56

Like, no, I don't want to be doing that. Yeah. Anyway.

unknown: 8:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 9:00

Yeah. So I did end up being a tanker.

SPEAKER_02: 9:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 9:02

Uh a driver. Yeah, they sent me down to Fort Knox. Um, where'd you do basic? It was at Fort Knox.

SPEAKER_01: 9:10

Oh, right at Fort Knox. Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 9:12

Well, you know, I wanted to go in right away, and uh, they said like you can go in today. We'll take you right now, you know, if you want to go to Korea. It's like, no, I don't think I want to go to Korea, you know. I don't have any experience with the military, and I'd, you know, pretty much prefer to stay stateside. I'm gonna I want to stay stateside. So they said, well, you know, come back in like a 30 days or whatever, and uh you go to Fort Hood, Texas. And so anyway, like I say, I went to Fort Knox, and have you ever seen the movie Stripes, Bill Murray? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They get off the bus and they go into this dilapidated looking building with signs all over it and stuff like that. It's it was like the exact same thing for me. I got off a bus right there, it was, I don't know, maybe 11 30, midnight, something like that. Go into that building, uh, get yelled at. Of course. And uh I don't know, I don't think they finished until around two o'clock in the morning. It's like, wow, I'm not liking this so far. But those those buildings they showed in that movie is exactly what what was there when I was there.

SPEAKER_01: 10:15

Wow. Yeah. So you so did that movie come out before you went to basic? I'm trying to remember the time. After was it after? Okay. Yeah, see, I get good because we got that five-year difference, so that's that's where I'm getting thrown off. So you get there, they they're yelling at you, it's two o'clock in the morning, and you start to maybe rethink your your decision.

SPEAKER_03: 10:36

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was I was kind of like forced gump on that one.

SPEAKER_01: 10:39

It's like, uh, maybe the army isn't the place for me, but right. But you uh got there. Anything stick out in your mind about basic training?

SPEAKER_03: 10:49

Uh uh, this is my weapon, this is my gun. I'm sure you heard that one. Oh, yeah. This is for fighting, this is for fun. Yep. Uh that sticks out. Uh learning to march. We had some some Marines that took basic there too. And it's like they marched everywhere at half stop. I mean, granted, my time they're finished, they march really well, they look good together.

SPEAKER_02: 11:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 11:16

But I'm like, I'm thinking, I'm glad I'm not a Marine, which my younger brother, he went Marines.

SPEAKER_01: 11:24

Yeah, it's funny how the different services, like you can tell, like when I went from the Navy to the Army, people knew I had been in the Navy by the way I marched. Ah, okay, right. They could like pick it out. I'm like, I don't even know what you guys are talking about. I'm just marching. Yeah. So you get through basic and then is your was your AIT right there at Yes, it was all one unit.

SPEAKER_03: 11:43

It was uh supposed to be three phases. Uh-huh. Um, you know, the first phase, how many other weeks it was? I'm I'm gonna say four, but I'm I don't really remember. It's a while back. Yeah, it's been a few years. You go through the first phase and you can't have nothing at the mess hall but milk and water and and uh you know you pretty much don't have any liberties. Uh and then you go to the second phase, you get uh like brigade passes where you can go to the PX and stuff like that. Uh and then uh the third phase is like AIT have a lot more liberties after that, but we kept screwing up. We were the black sheep. Uh we'd we'd come out of one phase, we would overdo, mess up, and they put us back in phase one. And so my pretty much the whole thing was spent in phase one for me, because we went, you know, we went from phase one to phase three and did the same thing. It's like you couldn't give us any liberties where we didn't just take a mile.

SPEAKER_01: 12:42

You got really good at phase one, though, right?

SPEAKER_03: 12:44

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:46

Well, great. And then you so you finish up AIT and then uh where do you go from there?

SPEAKER_03: 12:51

Uh I did want to tell one story before we finish uh Christmas fell before I got before I finished down there. So we, you know, we basically got to borrow some leave time, and I went back home to my see my family. Uh anyway, sitting down to dinner, I was usually uh the first one to the table and the last one to leave. I was a slow eater. I was not a slow eater after so many weeks in the army because if if you ate slow, you didn't eat. Right. So anyway, I come home and you know it's it's home cooked food, so it's good, and I'm just tearing it up, but not realizing it. I grab seconds, tear it up, grab, grab thirds, I think the last whatever was there or whatever, and I look up at my family, and they're all just staring at me like, oh my, this is not the same person that left here how many ever weeks ago. I think there were sparks coming off my plate, but I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01: 13:51

That's highly possible.

SPEAKER_03: 13:54

Anyway, it's like, oh, okay. Better slow down on eating. Try to be normal. Right. Some things have changed, right? Right. Well, I just remember, you know, like I say, if you didn't eat fast, you didn't eat. Yeah. Especially if you're like one of the last ones in.

SPEAKER_01: 14:09

Did they do the thing where like when the last person sat down, the first person had to get up in the Choha? I I vaguely remember something like that when I was in basic training.

SPEAKER_03: 14:18

I don't remember that so much, but uh I just know you had to be extremely fast if you were like one of the last few people to get in, because I don't know, I didn't time it. Maybe they did, I don't know the uh drill sergeants, but it's like, okay, so-and-so on your feet, we're out of here. And I mean it was you had to get if because if you didn't get up and start moving right then, you were in trouble. Right. Yeah, they weren't messing around with that kind of thing, were they? They were not.

SPEAKER_01: 14:47

Well, it's so is there anything else uh you want to talk about uh through that base basic training AIT time frame? Uh no. Okay. All right. All right. So where do you go after uh AIT? Did you come did you come home again?

SPEAKER_03: 15:04

Or did you just go okay? I come home and uh I had a actually I had a pickup truck at home and my stepdad uh uh ended up selling that for me and getting me a car. Or, you know, it was actually his mother's car, so it was a poor galaxy anyways. Like I think I'd prefer to have a a car over a truck and drove down to Fort Hood. Which had an interest interesting story on that too. They had like a snow slash ice storm, you know, out midwest down into the down into Texas, and uh uh I was on a road in Oklahoma and there were like potholes in the road. And with this ice on there, I mean it was just real terrible. And I remember hitting this one pothole that actually busted the belts on my tire and and dented the rim. And but I had to I had to keep going, you know, because I only had so much time to get down there, and it's like, wow, this is scary. Yeah, because they don't want to hear your excuses when you get down there. Didn't you watch the weather? It's like, yeah, it was terrible.

SPEAKER_01: 16:16

Exactly. That must have been a terrifying drive down. It was. It was, but I made it.

SPEAKER_03: 16:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:23

And what was it what was it like for Hood then?

SPEAKER_03: 16:27

Well, it was different. I was, you know, I was raised in Michigan where you have four seasons. Uh, you know, you watch the the trees change and and whatnot, and you get down to Texas and it's like pretty much summer and winter.

SPEAKER_00: 16:43

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 16:44

And uh it was ungodly hot in the summer. But I was I know I was stationed, my first unit was uh second to the fifth cav. Uh and at Fort Hood they had uh the Cav and then they had the armor unit different sides of the of the base, and then I think they had three corps or something like that there. But uh so I went into second to the fifth cav, and this was the unit that was designated to test the XM1, which is the first production models of the of the M1 tank.

SPEAKER_02: 17:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 17:18

You know, it hadn't been accepted by the Army yet, they have to test it first. Right. Give it to us and see if we can break it. So uh anyway, when I was first there, I think it might have been maybe about a year before we got the XM1. But uh anyway, we had to rebuild the M60s, uh M60A1s, I think they were. You know, we had to put brand new track on them and basically replace whatever was replaceable on it. Well, when when we had to do that, Texas had a heat wave at that time. It was over 100 degrees for over a hundred days. And so you'd be down in the motor pool and you you set this big crescent wrench down or something like that, or a tankers bar or something like that, and you go to grab it like 30 seconds later and it would burn your hand. Wow. So yeah, it was awesome.

SPEAKER_01: 18:12

Did you get some pot holders or something at the PX to take care of that?

SPEAKER_03: 18:15

No, they they changed their hours where we started going down there in the morning uh before light, and then I think we were pretty much finished uh before noon, by noon or before noon, and then we went back in there in the evening, so kind of like split shifts, but yeah, they just it was really, really hard to work with that heat, you know, and and you not being able to hold on to tools and stuff. Oh yeah. Yeah, you can almost fry an egg on the sidewalk, couldn't you? Absolutely.

unknown: 18:43

Excuse me.

SPEAKER_01: 18:53

Just so I know where to clip that out. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh no, no, that's that's that's why we do it this way, right? Right. Um, so okay. So what was the rest of your time like at uh at Fort Hood then? What kinds of what what kind of duties did you have? What kind of things did you do?

SPEAKER_03: 19:12

Uh it was pretty much all that when we got to XM1. Uh huh. It was because I mean we we got it and uh like a little bit of training on it and whatnot, and we moved to the field uh for like six months straight. Uh we'd come back in every three to five days, you know, because we had married people. Right. It's like uh go home, see your wife, be back in the morning. That's nice. Or go see your family. Right, you know. Right. But uh I know one thing I didn't like about it, you know, it wasn't too bad at first, but then towards the end they got to everybody wanted to see them. You know, senators, congressmen, generals, and it's like, oh, I gotta see this so they wanted to just be uh parade ready as far as how we looked. Yeah. You know, spit sign boots, uh and all that. And you know, but we we were living in the field, so yeah, you were still working. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01: 20:06

So anyway, yeah. Every day's a dog and pony show when you're doing that kind of stuff, right? Exactly. Yeah. I always wonder what that meant, because we said it all the time, but I didn't really get what it meant. But anyway.

SPEAKER_03: 20:19

Yeah, well, that's pretty much it. It's like, yeah, you gotta be spit shine and prayed you're prayed ready or whatever, and you you know, and you're living in the field. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't work very well.

SPEAKER_01: 20:30

And so how long did you how long were you at Fort Hood?

SPEAKER_03: 20:33

Uh I was at Fort Hood for three and a half years, I think. Because I mean my enlistment was three years. Right. And I had made it through all I mean, I started out driving on the M60, I ended up being a driver on the M1, and then as I progressed to uh spec four, I ended up getting special duty where they wanted me to be a Jeep driver for for our EXO executive officer. So I'm like, okay, I can do that. So I drove for him for a very brief period before I went on leave. Come back from leave, and everybody says, hey, guess what? You're the CO's driver now. Like, no, no, you mean XO. No, no, no, you're the CO's driver. Apparently the driver he had didn't know how to drive a stick.

SPEAKER_02: 21:27

Oh.

SPEAKER_03: 21:28

And you know, pretty much uh the commander had to have a driver that could A read a map, drive a stick, and be able to talk on the radio. And I could do all that.

SPEAKER_01: 21:38

So well, and and the thing I don't think a lot of people know is like officers aren't supposed to drive. Right, right. Correct. That's that's enlisted work there. Then and it's there's I've been told a few times. Get out of there. Yeah, exactly. You know, I want to go back a little bit though. Tell me, what was it like to to drive a tank?

SPEAKER_03: 22:00

Uh it was a little bit difficult at first. I mean, especially when you're buttoned up, you can't see much outside. Right. Uh I have this this one deal where I had switched tank commanders, um, had a platoon sergeant who I'm not exactly sure where he went, but I ended up with a new platoon sergeant, and they, you know, they operated up there differently. And I kept trying to tell the new guy, it's like, look, if you, you know, if I can't see well enough or whatever, and you want me to turn hard right, you have to tell me turn hard right. Don't just tell me turn right, because I'm gonna, you know, turn right a little bit and then let go.

SPEAKER_02: 22:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 22:37

And uh anyway, I don't know. We had somebody in the tank with us, somebody that wanted to see the M1s. And I'm following other tanks in the in the trailer, whatever. And you have to imagine Fort Hood, it's all dry and dusty or whatever. It's basically the desert.

SPEAKER_00: 22:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 22:56

So I'm driving along, and all I see in front of me is dirt, dust flying. So uh we're coming up on a turn. He says left turn. So I turn left and straighten out, and he's like, no, no, no, hard left, hard left. Well, by the time it cleared, so we ended up hitting a ditch, but uh thankfully no one got hurt. Yeah. Uh it it was the suspension system on the M1 is is pretty amazing. You uh wouldn't think much about it unless you probably came from an M60 or like an M113. Those things are terrible. I mean like riding a gravel truck or something like that. Oh man, they just jar your teeth. Yeah. And then the M1, which is smooth and rock and roll. And actually got one airborne uh shortly after we first got out. We hit the I hit this ditch, and it's like, oh, that was neat. I want to try it faster. And my tank commander was yelling at me, and it's like, uh, hang on. So I did a little bit faster, and I think the first half of the road wheels came off that time. It's like, oh, okay, one more time, and this time he's he's with me. He's like, Okay, let's hit it again. Did it pretty much full bore and uh it left the ground? Wow. Oh, that's awesome. Well, you're supposed to test them, right? Well, right? You were just doing your job. I was. That was one of my good memories.

SPEAKER_01: 24:16

Yeah. Yeah. And so when you're you when you're driving, it's like a little portal or something to look at, because I'm not really familiar with tanks, or do you have like a periscope that you use to drive, or how does that work?

SPEAKER_03: 24:26

Well, you have three portals, one that looks out, I'm gonna say thirty to four, well, not forty five, I'm gonna say about thirty degrees left, thirty degrees right, and one straightforward. Okay. Uh and then you can take that one that goes straight forward out, and you put a night vision uh system in there. And pretty much when you're driving at night, that's all you can see is straightforward. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 24:46

So Well, and you don't uh with night vision, you don't really have depth of field either. Like you're just seeing, but you don't really know how far things are, right? Right, correct. That must make for some fun driving.

SPEAKER_03: 25:00

Uh that's true. Well, on you know, like uh full moon nights, it's it's kind of like daylight out there. Uh but when you have no moon nights and very little stars, it's it's really gets pretty hard to see to see.

SPEAKER_01: 25:14

It's uh it's an acquired skill, right? Exactly. Yeah. So uh where do you go from Fort Hood then? Because your enlistment's up, right? At the end of the year.

SPEAKER_03: 25:25

It's coming up, yeah. I actually had applied for uh flight school. I had my platoon leader uh he applied to flight school. I'm like, wow, I didn't you know I didn't know you could do that. So I didn't get much information from him, but it he told me that you had to start out taking uh a fast test, a flight aptitude skills test. And so I mean he had his packet put in and he pretty much left right away. So anyway, I went to take this fast test and you know I passed it. So I started putting tried to put my packet together, and I figured my battalion headquarters would know how to put this packet together because he did. He did it all himself or had help with someone else. They knew nothing about this stuff, so I ended up having to go back to this place I tested at, and there was a sergeant there. Uh I think his name was Sergeant Bragg, Sergeant First Class. Anyways, he he helped me put my packet together. And you know, so I passed the test, got my packet together, and sent it away. And then I waited forever to uh you know to get word on this, and I got 15 days short. No one knew it but me. Oh I mean, I had 15 days left on my ID. That's that kind of close. It is. I'm like, oh come on, please, just send word down. But anyway, um they sent us to draw new equipment from supply. And I get up to the supply sergeant and he starts throwing this stuff at me, and it's still in bags, it's brand new. I was like, oh, you know, I really don't want this stuff, given that I'm probably gonna have to turn it back in in a couple of days. He's like, What? Like, yeah, that's right. I'm 15 days short. Do you want to give this to me? He's like, wait a minute. He runs off and calls the first sergeant, comes back to me, Benning, first sergeant wants to see you. And anyway, uh, I think he's supposed to know about things like this, you know, like getting lists down from whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 27:33

He's supposed to come talk to you and all that stuff, right? That didn't happen.

SPEAKER_03: 27:37

Exactly. So I think it pretty much embarrassed him, and he was a little bit upset with me. And he's like, I need to know today, right now. It's like a Friday, right? Stay in right now. Are you staying in or are you getting out? I'm like, oh well, first sergeant. He's like, fine. Report to me Monday morning and get your clearance paperwork. Okay, no problem. So anyway, I went back to this Sergeant Bragg that helped me put my packet together and told him, oh, you know, I appreciate the help. You did a good job. It was fantastic. I said, but I ain't heard nothing. I said, I got 15 days. First sergeant says I need to get out. He's like, no, no, no, wait a minute. Says if you're if you're waiting for word on a school that you had put a packet into or whatever, you can extend six months at a time. I'm like, I can. I did not know this. So basically that's what I what I did. But when I went back to see the first sergeant Monday, I was like, no, no, no, I've changed my mind. I'm not getting out. I am not re-enlisting, but I'm instead extending. He was not a happy case. It was not the answer he wanted to hear. No, him and I didn't get along.

SPEAKER_02: 28:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 28:47

To say the least. I can kind of hear it in your voice a little bit there. Right, right. So, anyways, ended up getting uh accepted to flight school, and the lady, I think she was a division level, told me I was accepted to flight school that I should be expecting orders anytime because they said and send this list down to brigade and then brigade would send it down to me. And uh anyway, so I didn't get anything. I called back and I was like, I I've got nothing from. It's like, well, let me give Brigade a call. So she called back and she says, uh, I gotta send them another list because they can't find your name on that list. And still nothing. So I'm like, well, how about if I come and get that list from you? Because Brigade was telling me that I wasn't on it. Right. And take it to Brigade so I can point it out to this person there where my name is on the list. And anyways, I found out the confusion. Everybody's name on that list of uh, you know, be made up in individual orders from this block list. Everyone is typed in there, like off a computer, typewriter, whatever, and my name is written in on the very top. Oh well, so the lady at Brigade didn't see it written in at the top, and she's like, Oh, there you are. She grabbed her copy. Oh yeah. So anyway, I ended up with like uh five days to to clear and get out of Fort Hood. Uh-huh. And went to flight school.

SPEAKER_01: 30:20

Now, where'd you go to flight school at? Fort Rucker, Alabama. Oh boy. That's a nice that's the that's even warmer, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03: 30:27

It is, but you know, I like for I like Fort Rucker. Yeah. I I could see myself living down there even now. It's uh it's very warm and humid in the summer, but most generally uh not too bad in the winter. Yeah. Uh it was a different world.

unknown: 30:44

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_03: 30:44

I was not interested, you know, I wasn't hadn't really been inspected like that, I guess. Uh huh. You know, playing that game with you gotta have your underwear, t shirts, and whatever rolled in how many ever inches and having A uh working display, they called it, where you know you had to use it, but it had to be perfectly displayed. Yeah, no uh no shaving cream and the shaving cream lid and all that stuff, right? Exactly right. Yeah. And then starting out, you had uh you know, you had your display locker, which had your uniforms and whatnot, and your underwear, your your class A's, your your shoes, your boots, and this. But you had a uh shared locker for extra stuff. And uh so you'd have like a combination locker that you both had to combination to, and whoever was in it last before leaving for the morning or whatever had to make sure it was locked. Well, we had gotten word from a guy that for whatever reason he had to go back to the barracks, said I I think you guys' uh area got trashed. It's like what? And I remember I had I was the last one in that shared locker. Did I forget to lock it? I you know, because I mean that was that was an invitation to trash your your displays if you left it unlocked. Right. Uh anyway, sure enough, come back and my area and his area is just totally trashed and found out the reason, you know, why it was unlocked or whatever. Uh they left uh the desk drawer upside down on top of our garbage heap. And he and my uh locker mate had taped the combination to the bottom of the drawer. Oh. And it's like, you know, I mean, I didn't get I didn't get mad. Yeah, I was more or less relieved that it wasn't me because I was the last one in it. But it's like, really? Seriously, you didn't think they would find that?

SPEAKER_01: 32:42

Yeah, that's yeah, but that's probably something someone's done before. Absolutely. I'm sure they look for that stuff. So when you go to flight school, though, so you're enlisted um at the time. Are you going through officer or warrant officer school then?

SPEAKER_03: 32:57

Yes, yes, it's warrant officer candidate development course. And uh uh well, I'm if I come in off the street or I'm enlisted, they automatically bump you to E5 pay. Unfortunately for me, I was already in E5, so And no bonus for Yeah, I I didn't get any extra money.

SPEAKER_01: 33:16

Yeah, it's all the same. And you didn't they there wasn't like a a college requirement or any of that then for you to No, there you there was as far as getting promoted later on.

SPEAKER_03: 33:26

Right. But uh CW2 from CW1 to Warren Officer 1 to CW2 was pretty much automatic, but after that they wanted you to have college. Okay. You know, to three and four, which is all they had at the time. Now I believe they have like a master warrant five, something along those lines anyway.

SPEAKER_01: 33:45

The stuff all changes every couple of years, I think. So you're in Warren Officer Candidate School then, basically, and um Yeah, what's other than other than having your area trash, what's kind of what what's the rest of that like for you?

SPEAKER_03: 33:59

Well, it's all structured. I mean, they pretty much harass you from the time that you get up till the time that you go to bed. And uh it's just all designed to see if you can handle the stress. I mean, because we were taking ornhoffic development course right there at Fort Rucker, which you know is the flight school for the Army helicopters. So most of us were we're going that route. Uh there were a few other ones, you know, it was going into maintenance or finance or CID or stuff like that, but uh most of us were going right from the development course right into flight school.

SPEAKER_01: 34:38

Okay. So this is really this course that you're in right now, is this is all just about being a warrant officer. You're not even looking at correct.

SPEAKER_03: 34:46

It's it's the equivalent of uh officer candidate course, you know, for uh lieutenants, wannabe lieutenants courses, same stuff. We're just gonna make you wish you weren't here.

SPEAKER_01: 34:58

Right. We're gonna find your weaknesses, we're going to exploit them. Exactly. Yeah, I missed that.

SPEAKER_03: 35:04

It was very physical too, a lot of running and a lot of uh carrying logs and teamwork, team building.

SPEAKER_01: 35:12

Yeah. How long was that school?

SPEAKER_03: 35:15

I wish I could remember. I'm thinking it was about 10 weeks, maybe 12 weeks, but uh I don't think it was a short school by any means.

SPEAKER_01: 35:24

No. So any anything uh anything stick out in your mind when you think about Warren Officer School?

SPEAKER_03: 35:31

Oh, I love the way they used to trash your displays, you know. They would say, okay, we're going on uh these secret missions or whatever into this other country, but you have to dress like a local. So they would tell you how to dress, you know, like a low quarter on one foot and a boot on the other, where your your class A trousers with your, you know, and they would just make up this ridiculous uniform, right? Which when you put it together and put it on was destroying your display. So you go on about five different missions or whatever, one after another, and by the time you were done, your display was destroyed.

SPEAKER_01: 36:07

It's all by design. You know, when you were talking about that, it reminded me when I was going through um uh OCS, uh, we were out in the field and we were doing stand to at like, I don't know, six o'clock in the morning, and um, all of a sudden, the the instructor was like, Oh my god, we have a golfer. There's a golfer with us. And we're like, what is he talking about? He's like just yelling at my friend, like, oh, you're a golfer, aren't you? Well, he had put on his winter uh pants, his winter trousers and his summer top. Ah, and so the big joke was golfers' shirts and pants don't match. Ah, and so yeah, that was the big thing. I'll never I'll never forget when you said that. I it brought that right to my mind, like how you had a dress like that. That's funny. Yeah, yeah, they they find every little thing while you're there.

SPEAKER_03: 37:00

They do. Yeah, that was the last time my uh display was destroyed like that. I mean, our bar locker was always locked after that. But uh I mean that that's the worst because they turn everything upside down, they just undo everything.

SPEAKER_01: 37:18

Yeah, they ever tie like your boots to somebody else's boots and that kind of thing, too, when they're trashing your lockers. They used to do that to us. Yeah, I don't so much remember that one.

SPEAKER_03: 37:26

I just remember that it was a you know, because you only had you everything was structured. You only had so much time for working on your personal stuff, and when it's destroyed, it's like, oh so then after the secret mission, I it must have been a real nightmare trying to put that all back together. It was, but they they just weren't finding enough demerits you know on their daily inspections, like, okay, well they got this, they're they're a little bit too good at this, so we're gonna have to send them on some missions. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 37:55

So it's a little bit different from your basic training experience then when you could set back to phase one.

SPEAKER_03: 38:00

I wasn't uh I wasn't used to that, but I mean I did come in knowing a lot more than other people. Like I could uh march people and uh stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01: 38:10

So what kind of mix was it between people who had like military experience and people that were just coming in sort of off the streets?

SPEAKER_03: 38:17

Uh most of us had military experience. There was there was a few that and right offhand, uh I'm thinking they didn't make it. Like my uh locker mate, uh, he didn't really handle the stress too much. He didn't like being yelled at all the time and and worrying about this and that and the other thing. Maybe he started he started talking to me later. I I think I'm gonna I'm thinking I'm gonna quit. It's like look, they're just messing with you, man. If you want to, it's what you want to do, you gotta get through this part first. Yeah. Which he was wanting to go to flight school as well. So I was like, if you don't get through this, it's gone.

SPEAKER_01: 38:55

Well, the whole purpose is to make you quit.

SPEAKER_03: 38:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 38:58

And they do the quitter. They busted him. Yeah. That's too bad. So you uh you uh obviously made it through Warren Officer uh school, and then so did you have a break before you went on to flight school or kind of what was that transition like?

SPEAKER_03: 39:13

No, it was it was pretty much right straight into uh flight school. And uh lots of memories from that.

SPEAKER_01: 39:22

Yeah, what were you learning to fly?

SPEAKER_03: 39:25

Well, at that time they were training us, they had a TH 55, and it's uh little helicopter with uh like a pole coming out the back with uh with tail rotor and uh three blades for the main rotor and and this these bug eye looking complexiglass windows, and what looked like a VW engine on the back of it.

SPEAKER_01: 39:49

Like something you might build in your own garage.

SPEAKER_03: 39:51

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But they were they were very durable. And uh so learning to fly that that was pretty good. I mean, I started out having a little pro little bit of problem finding what they call the hover button. You know, everybody's out there to the training airfields practicing hovering, and you know, you come back at night and it's like, oh, I did it, I I got it, you know. So everybody's getting it except me. That's what it felt like. Right. So I remember the next day I'm out with my instructor pilot. He's like, Look, you know, I don't I don't know what's what's what's taking you so long to get this or whatever, it's just but look, uh uh call, we're gonna go to XX runway, column, and hover down there. I'll be on the controls with you, and you know, just riding along with you, and you fly it out there. So I did all that, and I mean it was not a problem. I'm you're supposed to be uh hovering at three feet. I was doing that, had the heading that I wanted, got to the runway to where I was supposed to take off. Then I look over at him, and he's got his foot up on the door because we didn't have doors, so he had to guess a jam or whatever. Yeah. And he was kicked back smoking a cigarette, and I lost it. I'm like, I've been doing this myself, you know. I can't I can't hover. And he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And he comes on the controls with me. But anyway, after that, it's like, okay, so obviously I can do it. I just need to get out of my head. And yeah. And it was it was the other memorable experience I have with that was you know, after you learn to hover or whatever, they start doing uh solos where you know you have two students, one instructor pilot. So the uh one student would fly from the the base field to the training field. And then the other one would fly it back at night. And then you flew with the instructor while you were at the training field. Uh so anyway, I'm flying back to the to the base field, and we had in the aircraft what's called a uh PWD proximity warning device with all those helicopters flying around, they they want this, you know, little to let you know that someone's around you. So my PWD starts going off and it's got lights on it to tell you basically which direction it's coming from and whether it's above or below you. And if it doesn't tell you above or below, it's the same level. So if it's going off, it's not telling me which direction. It's not telling me whether it's above or below me. I'm like, I'm looking everywhere, looking everywhere. And then finally I see this other TH-55 coming directly at me with two pilots in it, you know, so it was an instructor pilot and a trainee. But why he was there, you know, because they had specific corridors that you were supposed to use or whatever, and it's why he was coming at me on my corridor. I have no idea, but it's like I had to take evasive maneuvers. And it's like, and I'm just I'm not very far along to be flying like this, you know. Uh-huh. Had to kind of like roll it over and lose altitude. And anyways, it I still wonder what he was doing there. It's like if you got an instructor in there, he's supposed to know better.

SPEAKER_01: 43:48

So when you're um when you're like going out to the training field, is that like a is it like this little line of these these helicopters heading out? Exactly, yeah. And then in the night they're all heading back in. Correct. Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 44:01

All right. Well, I mean, sometimes it was like that. Other times uh you would finish up, you know, at different times. So when when your instructor got out, he would just, you know, okay, take her back to the base field, and then he got into a bus with uh the other pilot and they bust back to the base field.

SPEAKER_01: 44:18

Okay. And how long, how long is this particular school? Is it a pretty long one?

SPEAKER_03: 44:25

Uh it seems to me it's like uh six to nine months, somewhere in there. And then you I mean you go through stages, you have to this was the basically learning how to fly, which uh wasn't long after I got out. They dropped the TH 55 and started training, training them in the uh Huey, okay. Uh H1, Iroquois, yeah, uh Vietnam. Uh I mean everybody knows a helicopter from the yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 44:51

Every time you get in one, you hear the that that Rolling Stone song playing in the back of your head. Yeah, I know exactly. I flew in one of those a couple weeks ago. Did you?

SPEAKER_03: 44:59

Yeah, down in Brighton. Well, that was kind of what you know. I really wanted to get into flight school after flying that thing. We had uh we flew in Fort Hood and I was sitting in the inside. My uh my feet were hanging outside the helicopter, but they were on the edge there, and they were flying low, low, yanking and banking.

SPEAKER_01: 45:16

I was like, I want to do this. Yeah. You know the crazy thing about that is I've never felt unsafe in a helicopter. I don't like heights. Oh, right. I've never felt unsafe in a helicopter. I love having the door open and just awesome feeling having the door open. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. So you um how so you've you learned to fly in these smaller ones, and then uh so how do you graduate into and figure out what you're gonna do next?

SPEAKER_03: 45:41

Well, so then they kind of it's kind of like uh a qualification course. You go from the TH 55 to the UH1, can you fly it? Uh it's it's a very quick period on there, though, of you know, training you how to fly the Huey before they move you onto instruments, which is uh instruments is exactly like it sounds you're flying off instruments, you're not able to see anything outside. Uh you know, you go by uh radio beacons and whatnot, and uh anyway, that that takes up a good portion of flight school right there.

SPEAKER_01: 46:19

Yeah. So how do they so when you're getting trained to fly on instruments, what do they blindfold you? Or they put something over the window, or how's that work?

SPEAKER_03: 46:28

Um this this visor on your helmet that you know it's kind of like uh uh the horses in horse racing all over where you can't see out to the sides.

SPEAKER_02: 46:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 46:39

And they put uh tinfoil in the chin bubble of the Huey, so you can't see nothing that way either. And so you really can't see it out the upper window because you got this bill coming out in front of you, and then you got the blinders on the side, and you're just focused on your instruments. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01: 47:00

So d does that really help you to trust those instruments then? Because is it isn't it possible that you could feel one way, but your instruments are telling you something different?

SPEAKER_03: 47:09

Oh, yeah, yeah. I had a problem with that. Yeah. I didn't know it at the time, but I'm susceptible to uh flicker vertigo. I don't know if you've heard of it. Never heard of that. Um well, how it happened to me, I'll explain it. Uh you know, I'm doing doing this approach, and the sun is behind me. So I'm on my enterprise, I'm doing this approach, doing everything right. But with the sun behind me, I got this uh shadow of the blades going across the instruments. And you know, it's like flashing. Hands flicker vertical. So I mean, this is doing this, and and you know, I'm starting to feel like like I'm rolling right or rolling left or wanting to do somersaults or whatever, and uh anyway, it it got explained to me that that's you know, that that's what was happening to me, but it's really, really hard to fight.

SPEAKER_01: 48:04

Yeah. Yeah, that's when you really do have to look at what's that telling me.

SPEAKER_03: 48:09

Right, right, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 48:10

Which I think they say is what happened to uh uh Kennedy when he was flying this plane.

SPEAKER_03: 48:16

Well he had uh a spatial disorientation, I think, where you couldn't tell from the from the sky to the horizon what was what? It all just kind of like melded together with the with the stars reflecting off the water and whatever.

SPEAKER_02: 48:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 48:31

And yeah, when when your brain's telling you, hey, you know, you need to roll 30 degrees, right, or whatever, it's really, really hard to fight that.

SPEAKER_01: 48:40

Right. Which is why they have school.

SPEAKER_02: 48:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 48:43

Yeah. So then uh what so what happens after you're flying the the UH1s then?

SPEAKER_03: 48:48

Uh the UH1s, so then you know, I mean that's like one of the biggest parts of failing flight school is not being able to get instruments, they're hard. Uh anyway, then you go into uh your aircraft of what you're gonna leave flight school flying. Um they had at the time they you know they had the the Cobras OH-58 Scout helicopter, uh you could stick with UH-1, uh and they had Blackhawks coming out at that time. And anyway, so I ended up going the scout route route, and uh I actually really enjoyed that. It was kind of like driving a little sports car, a little MGB type, you know. Yeah, you can fit this thing anywhere and pretty much bend it to your will. Oh, it was just a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01: 49:43

And that's a that's a single person? Was that a single person?

SPEAKER_03: 49:47

Well, a single pilot, you didn't have to have another person in there, but uh, you know, you could have up to four people in it. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01: 49:54

All right. They had front and rear seats. And where do where did you end up flying that at?

SPEAKER_03: 50:01

Did you say right there at the end Yeah, I I trained and qualified in it right there at Fort Rucker and then uh graduated flight school. That's that's when they actually pinned the uh the the bars on you as far as now you're W1. Because you I'm even though you passed the Warren Officer Development Course, you know, you have to pass whatever it is or be good enough to to do whatever it is wherever they want you, whether it's you know CID, finance, or or flight school. Right. So anyway, so that's when I got my bars and got uh shipped off to Fort Campbell.

SPEAKER_01: 50:37

So was your family there when you graduated? Yes. And how was that? Like what what what was their reaction to all of this?

SPEAKER_03: 50:43

Oh they were extremely proud. I was uh I don't know, I was extremely nervous, uh, because just they're just on you about everything left and right, and don't be late, and uh it was stressful, it was a stressful time.

SPEAKER_02: 50:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 51:00

But I was married, uh had two kids, and you know, my parents were divorced, but both both sets of them came and also my uncle on my mom's side, and it it was it was a pretty enjoyable time.

SPEAKER_01: 51:16

Oh, it's very cool that everyone could be there. When when did you get married? Somehow we missed that part.

SPEAKER_03: 51:22

Actually, when uh I ended up re-enlisting because you know, back when I was extending a month at a time. Right. So every month I had to get in line to get paid. I had to get in line to get a new ID card. Next month I had to get in line to get paid. I had to get in line to get a new ID card. So I did that for uh I'm not exactly sure, but like four or five months, and finally I'm like, well, you know what, uh they're after on all this money, it had gone up in this time frame. Right. Offering all this money for re-enlistment. Like, I think I can, you know, do another three m three years, take this money, and then if you know if I get accepted flight school, like you know, I can get out of it. Uh so anyway, I re-enlisted, went home on leave, met my future wife, uh, and when I came back to after leave, she ended up coming down months later or whatever, and we ended up getting married there right there on Fort Campbell.

SPEAKER_01: 52:27

All right.

SPEAKER_03: 52:28

At a chapel.

SPEAKER_01: 52:30

That's a familiar scene.

SPEAKER_03: 52:33

Uh that's a pretty weird story too, because uh the chaplain wanted to meet with us, I think, three times or whatever. So we met with him twice, and the third time was actually the Sunday before we were supposed to get married, which ended up being a Monday. Um so we had services, he said see me after services, and anyway, come time to get married the next day, you know, after he approved us to get married and said he would marry us or whatever, he didn't show up. It's like what? And it's like I I don't really have a phone number for this guy other than you know for the chapel. Right. Uh eventually did get him, though. I think uh I had talked to him once before and he's like denying that it's him. And ended up getting him there, and you know, I'm just figuring a chapel, they always have someone that can play the piano or organ or whatever. Right. Um, so we didn't have anyone to do the wedding march, but I had a platoon leader that's like, hey, if you let me practice a little bit, I think I can do it. Wow. But I can't believe that uh, you know, the chaplain who was supposed to marry me didn't show up. And no no excuse, and uh I don't know. He might have said something I really is just all falling apart for me. Uh yeah after that. It's like I can't believe this.

SPEAKER_01: 53:54

But you got through it. Yes. You got married. And then did you have kids like pretty much right away?

SPEAKER_03: 53:59

Right away, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 54:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 54:01

And so yeah, she ended up she uh was actually pregnant with our second child when uh I went to flight school. Oh, okay. So that made it extra miserable for her. Yeah. Well, like I say, Fort Rucker's pretty hot, and we did we did that during the summer.

SPEAKER_01: 54:19

Yeah, not a great place to be pregnant, I wouldn't think. I don't think so.

unknown: 54:22

No.

SPEAKER_01: 54:23

So you uh you get done at Fort Rucker, though, your family shows up, you graduate, and then you head to uh where'd you at? Fort Campbell. Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 54:34

Screaming Eagles.

SPEAKER_01: 54:35

Yeah, so let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_03: 54:38

Well I got there, got settled in, everything was was was pretty good. Um flying the OH-58, the scout, and like I said, I enjoyed flying it because I wasn't real experienced at it, but it didn't take me long to get real real comfortable with it. And what I didn't know was Fort Campbell like to or the attack unit that I was in, they they like to get scout pilots because they couldn't get too many cobra pilots coming out of flight school, but they could get scout pilots. So they'd grab a scout pilot, hang on to them for a few months, and then send them back down for a cobra transition. Uh-huh. That's how they got their cobra pilots. And that's what happened to me. It's like I just get comfortable in this aircraft and you're sending me for a cobra transition. But you know, driving around that little sports car, really fun and easy to drive, and now I'm driving a garbage truck, you know.

unknown: 55:35

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 55:36

What it felt like.

SPEAKER_01: 55:37

Heavily armed garbage truck, though.

SPEAKER_03: 55:38

Oh, yeah, I know, but I mean, just you know, if I'm trying to put in pictures of driving something, you know. Oh, yeah. Driving a sports car all fun and easy, you can zip in and out of traffic. Now you're driving a garbage truck, and you you, you know, it just takes that much more attention to what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01: 55:53

Yeah, it's a whole different ballgame.

SPEAKER_03: 55:55

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 55:55

So how long were you at uh at school to fly the the bigger oh the bigger aircraft? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 56:01

You know, I don't think the uh transition was all that long. It might have been like four weeks, six weeks maybe.

SPEAKER_01: 56:08

So in your experience though, is it like a helicopter's helicopter then? I mean, there's different subtle differences, right?

SPEAKER_03: 56:14

Right. For the most part, uh you know, the the blades all turn the same way. You uh counteract a torque with a tail rotor, they all got the tail rotors. Um I never flew one, but a Chinook, it's gotta be a little bit different of a story. Uh that's more like driving a greyhound, I guess.

SPEAKER_01: 56:34

Yeah, yeah, or great big delivery truck or something.

SPEAKER_03: 56:37

Something.

SPEAKER_01: 56:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 56:38

18 wheeler, I don't know. I have ridden in them, but I haven't flown one.

SPEAKER_01: 56:43

Yeah. I uh I I flew I flew in one one time and I remember there was uh hydraulic fluid coming out of one of the hoses. Right. And I I looked at the at the crew chief, I'm like, I'm like, hey, you know, there's fluid coming out of there, right? And he goes, Yeah, don't worry about it unless it stops.

SPEAKER_03: 57:01

I was like, okay, that must just be how these things work. Right, right. We put extra in it.

SPEAKER_01: 57:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 57:07

Just for that purpose.

SPEAKER_01: 57:09

Exactly. So you got tricked into uh into flying this new uh this new helicopter, and uh you go off to school and then you come back. Did your wife stay at uh at Fort Campbell.

SPEAKER_03: 57:22

At Fort Campbell, then while you're it was just a pretty quick turnaround. Um more complicated the aircraft, uh the longer the qualification course is. But uh me and another guy from my unit ended up the same thing. He was a scout pilot, and it's like now you're gonna be a cobra pilot. So we we went down there together and drove down there. It's I'm thinking like four to six hour drive from Fort Campbell to Fort Rucker. And anyway, got the Cobra qualification and back to Fort Campbell we went. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 57:57

And then so this would have been what uh late eighties. Uh together.

SPEAKER_03: 58:04

Okay, so I started flight school in eighty-four, graduated in eighty-five, and it was like uh I really don't remember what time of year it was for the cover transition, like say six months. I'm gonna say it's still probably eighty-five when I went down there, maybe eighty-six when I came back.

SPEAKER_02: 58:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 58:25

All right. So you're back eighty-six, and then what so what kind of things are you doing there?

SPEAKER_03: 58:30

Uh we're deploying a lot or going to the field a lot. Yeah. Um, you know, sometimes they would load aircraft up into uh an Air Force transport aircraft, which uh for us pretty much was always a C5 for the aircraft. I mean 141s could handle the the trucks and the jeeps and whatnot, but the aircraft always pretty much went into a C5. Uh but we we flew different places too with uh you know in the aircraft and set up uh you know camp someplace and play army and week later we go back or two weeks later, go back to Fort Campbell and but it was always training. I mean serious day in, day out training. Now, did you stay at Campbell for a while? Actually I stayed there quite a while. Actually I was there till uh until I got out in ninety one.

SPEAKER_02: 59:24

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03: 59:26

So uh I became a movement officer, uh, you know, responsible for these deployments that I was talking about, uh loading aircraft into the C5, 141s for for the other stuff, and then uh you know, I was in charge of people that were in charge of other things like like the equipment, I'd have someone in charge of that. Uh another person would be an officer, would be in charge of all the personnel, you know, making sure they're where they're supposed to be. Yeah. And then usually like uh uh supply sergeant would be in charge of building the pallets.

unknown: 1:00:08

They had to go with us.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:10

And so, like I said, I did that for quite a while, and when it came down that our unit was gonna be fielding the age sixty four, uh the commander chose people that he wanted to keep in his unit, especially with the warrant officers, and got them sent off to schools. Me and myself and some friends of mine uh went to the armament course, the age 64 armament course in Fort Eustace. You know, that was kind of to get us locked in to, you know, we're going to age 64 and we're gonna stay at Fort Campbell. Okay. So we were supposed to go down, you know, from Fallon Armor course, go down to Fort Rucker again for the qualification course.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:07

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:07

Well, it kept getting grounded and kept pushing it back and pushing our dates back, and we finally made it and had to go to Fort Hood to the Apache training gate, is what it was called, and the whole unit would go down there for like six months and train on the tactics the pretty much the same tactics as you usually would in a cobra, but you're in a new aircraft, so go down there and train for six months. Months and then come back.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:39

You're still married at this time, too, right? Correct. Yeah. So you're in and out.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:44

Yes. I was uh the armor course, if I remember right, was somewhere three to four months long. So I mean I'm out there four uses without my wife and children and come back and uh I didn't want to rent a place or or get a house or whatever. So uh they ended up going staying with her her mother back in Michigan, which is where I'm from, Charlotte. Yeah. And you know, I kept saying, Well, you can come down to Fort Hood with me for those six months. So we had some wives and families go down there, but they kept pushing it back, pushing it back, pushing it back, and you know, I'd already been four months without my family, so it's like, okay, well, I'm gonna rent a place. I'd no sooner rented the place and got them settled and whatever, and off to Fort Hood I went. It's how it works. For six months, yeah. It's like, okay, you were gonna go with me, but now you're not.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:39

Well, and when you say they were ground, like they're they were grounding the whole fleet, right? Yes, absolutely. I don't remember exactly why or what, but you know, when when they're unsure of something, they ground everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:49

Well, you don't want don't want to take any risk, right? Exactly. At least not not during peacetime when you don't have to. So you uh off to Fort Hood for six months and then you come back. Um, I I want to go back to so you mentioned Fort Eustace, which I I hadn't heard that name in a long time. I didn't really ri realize that they did anything at Fort Eustace because uh because they used to call it Fort Useless.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:14

Right, right. Even Uncle Sam thinks it sucks. Yeah. That was the acronym.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:20

That's funny.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:23

Yeah, I it was it's kind of interesting that they they they had that course there. Uh but there was a lot of uh warrant officers you know, we'd be mixed in with uh NCOs and whatnot. But uh I the class that I was in was mostly officers.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:41

So you get you get back and you uh start just kind of going back into training mode then?

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:47

Exactly. Deploying uh training, and again, you know, you're you're the first ones at Fort Campbell. Uh so everybody wants to see you, you know, back to uh deploying a lot and and dog and pony shows for whoever wants to see you. Back to your M1 days, right? Exactly. I've been through this, I know what it's about.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:09

So it's kind of cool though that you got to be on kind of the cutting edge of the new tank and now the cutting edge of these new helicopters. Exactly. Um yeah, not a I don't not a lot of people have that sort of experience.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:19

No, and and usually when you get uh, you know, uh your advanced aircraft like me starting out would have been the Cobra. Uh-huh. Uh you know, and then of course they were transitioning to the 64, so I got into that. But you're pretty much locked in flying a 64. Oh uh, you can't like say, Oh, I want to fly Blackhawks. No, no, no, no. You we trained you to fly a 64, you're gonna fly a 64. Right. But uh there was you know, there was a few people that that got around that. I had uh one guy in my unit that ended up uh going to the fixed swing course. Which I was pretty envious of that because I I just don't imagine you know their jobs, but Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:02

I want to ask something. So you I mean you talk about flying helicopters, like, oh, it was my job, this is what I did, it was fun. Wasn't it like really cool? Like, was it did you ever like sit in that seat go and go, holy crap, this is really cool.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:17

Well, yeah, yeah. Once you get comfortable with it, I mean when you're uncomfortable in aircraft, it's like uh it's a little bit stressful.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:25

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:26

But you know, they you start out when you're uncomfortable, whatever, and don't have that much training. You have uh either an instructor pilot or a a senior guy, uh, you know, that would keep you from getting in trouble till you get till you got trained up. Yeah. And then you become the senior guy and you're training training the newbies behind you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:45

Yeah, I'm just yeah, I just can't wrap my head around I'm flying this helicopter. That would be so cool. But then again, I got you know, I guess that's uh it's what you trained for, it's what you wanted to do.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:55

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:55

Yeah. And then um, so you stayed at uh Fort Campbell and you said till you till you uh got out um after desert storm. Yeah, so let's talk about that a little bit. Um what was the what was like the lead up for Desert Storm like and then what happens?

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:13

Well they they locked us locked us down, you know. Uh they have this this deal where uh they send out an alert and you're supposed to be ready to go, wheels up 18 within 18 hours. And so that usually means you got like an hour to report to to your unit. Once the alert goes out. I mean, uh for us we had beepers back in the day. So your beeper goes off, and you know, you know that because you you know you know that you were on deck, basically. Right. And if your beeper beeper went off, you you report and whatever. So anyway, they they locked us in for about uh a week to two weeks, something like that. And they knew something was going on, they're not saying what, but and and I'm starting to do all these um loads for aircraft, you know, which I've already had some done. You know, basically this is how we're gonna load out. And they're like, oh, let's take every contingency. This is make hundreds and hundreds of load plans. And I'm I'm going nuts. I don't know, I don't know what it's all about or whatever, but then uh find out that uh, you know, because we're like we're locked in, we're not being able to go home and watch the news, whatever, but come to find out, you know, Kuwait had been invaded by Iraq. Right. So away we go. And I don't know, it's it's kind of weird because they give us sleeping pills when we get on the on the aircraft. Yep. And um at work, I remember going to sleep, but I don't remember how many hours it was, but it was quite a while that we landed in Spain. Then we went from Spain to uh King Fod Airport, which was still under construction then. And I remember getting off the plane, it was like 100 plus degrees, it was like 105, 106 or whatever when we walked off the plane. It was like first thing in the morning, too. It's not gonna get much better than that. Holy crap, it's hot here. I thought they sent me halfway around the world to die from heat exhaustion because I mean when I get up to around, you know, in the high 20s or low 30s, you know, 132 or whatever, it's like I can't deal with this. I don't think people realize how freaking hot it is over there. Oh, it was terrible. And you know, everybody's writing home about this and whatever. And and I think it lasted it lasted a good three months to where the coolest it got was like 104 degrees, and that was you know, at night.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:38

And after you've been there for a little while, that's cold.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:41

Yeah, well maybe not. Yeah. Well, that sweat in 24-7 gets gets really old. Yeah, that's true. And then um they weren't really prepared for you know, the desert. So we I mean, we had to wash our clothes in in in uh like little swimming pools. Um you know, what you've seen in uh Vietnam movies as far as the trains, that's what we had. And this is on an airfield.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:13

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:13

You know, an airport.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:15

Uh I think too, like the during that whole time uh in the you know, the late eighties, the early nineties, we were still training for like a uh a Russian American ground battle in the woods somewhere, right? Not for anything in the desert. Right. Because nothing we had was ready for the desert. No. And I you know, I was always curious, how did the heat impact the helicopter? Like, does that change anything for you when you're flying? Because it's so so hot as opposed to you know the how the air is say in the States?

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:52

Well, we wanted to get off uh as quickly as we could. Um one thing about the Apache that I really, really like is that it's air conditioned. And it's not so much for you know crew comfort. Uh it's because of all the electronics that it has, it has to stay dry and it has to stay cool. So basically the air conditioning it has runs through them first and then comes to you. Yeah. Which didn't matter, I don't mind sharing as long as I get some. Uh I'm trying to remember. I'm I don't really remember if the Blackhawks were air conditioned too, but it seems like maybe they were. But anyway, yeah, it wasn't too bad once you get uh once you got up in the air or once you got running.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:35

Yeah. And so what sort of things did you do while you were there?

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:39

Uh a lot of training at first. And then we had uh one thing that I think was pretty cool, uh we started training for this mission. Uh it was named Normandy. I don't know if you've heard about it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:52

I have not.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:53

Okay, well at the beginning of the war, which I'm thinking was January 17th, if memory serves me right, uh we had uh not sure how many aircraft it was, but I'm gonna say uh two put two uh two companies go out. And what we what they did was take out these two uh radar sites uh on the way to Baghdad. So I I mean I was part of it and not part of it. Uh I trained for it. I was uh backup to the backup. So we all start up for this for the mission with the backup and the backup to the backup, which is me or whatnot. And you know, as long as the the backup and the the other aircraft can make it, backup to the backup falls out, but then uh the backup continues with them to the jump point before they went to the mission. And the mission, like I say, was to take out these radar sites going into Baghdad, and I remember being woke up, it seemed like it was like around one o'clock in the morning, with all these fixed wing aircraft taken off with afterburners on. You cannot sleep through this. It's a little noisy. Yeah. It's like, oh, guess what? I think the war is starting. So anyway, basically we uh my unit was the one that fired first shots first shots of the uh the war. Oh, okay. Took out the radar sites and took out the radar sites, the the Air Force came in through that gaping hole that we left and bombed the heck out of Baghdad.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:33

And so the helicopters kind of have an advantage too, right? Because they can do that low fly kind of under the radar sort of thing and and get stuff done that maybe the Jets can't do.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:43

Exactly. And like I say, we've been training for, we've been uh you know, flying all these missions into Iraq, and uh what I didn't like about it was we have these uh radar detectors let you know when basically when you're being silhouetted by anti-aircraft or whatever. Right. Which I'm guessing uh maybe the Air Force's stuff looking at you would set this off too, because I mean it's just like the whole time we in Iraq, this this thing was going off, and we you know we can't fire back unless we're fired upon, so it almost would have been better for me to have the thing off. Yeah, right. Like, yeah, what's the point? It's like um it's going off the whole time we're in Iraq. But anyway, like I say, we trained for that and uh basically figured out the route that we wanted to use, and these guys actually just recently within this past year, uh, because I mean it was secret and whatnot, uh got a distinguished uh uh flying medal, the distinguished air medal, that's it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:50

Took them a little while, didn't it? It did take them a little while, but that's like, oh good for you. Right, right. Uh this was a pretty as wars go, this was pretty short though, right? So how long were you there?

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:01

Uh actually was there from August uh 19th, 20th. I think we took off the 19th and probably landed uh there in on the 20th. Um and I did not leave to come back until April.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:17

Okay. So you were there for a while then?

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:19

Yeah, I mean a lot of it was standing around waiting while the buildup happened. Yeah. Yep. But they want everybody. And then well, acclimating, then learning to fly in the desert. It's like, here's your map, and they hand you a piece of sandpaper.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:33

Yeah. And it's like to me, uh, Kuwait is like being on the moon. It's that really fine sand that gets into everything.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:43

There towards the end, you know, uh Hussein uh set the oil rigs on fire and whatnot. That was that was weird flying in that. It's like because then it just seemed like everything was on fire. Wow. Did you get any good pictures while you were there? You know, I I don't know that I did. I I I think I have some. I've been meaning to go through them and I haven't. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:09

Yeah, I have a lot of that stuff that's just sitting in a box somewhere that somebody I'll get to it, maybe. That's protected for now. So yeah, exactly. And so uh anything else uh about your deployment there that uh you wanted to share? I mean, that's already pretty big though, what you uh what you guys accomplished just to get into Baghdad.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:31

Yeah, uh I'm gonna go back to when we were at the Apache Training Brigade.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:36

They have like an aircraft there that you're supposed to trade one of your new aircraft for for this aircraft to kind of help you with your maintenance flow. And we ended up getting us I don't know if you understand the term, hangar queen. I think it had been there one of the first aircrafts ever to go to Fort Hood for the you know Apache Training Brigade. But uh I'll explain a little bit about hangar queen. That's where this aircraft gets grounded. You order parts for it, and it's sitting in the hangar waiting for these parts. In the meantime, two or three other aircraft go down, and they're like, oh well, we can get these two or three aircraft up if we just take the parts off of this one we've got waiting for this other part. So they take the parts off of it, and you know, they're on order to so anyway. This gets done over and over until this bird gets so picked apart and stuck in the hangar and gets known as a hanger queen. And anyway, so we got stuck with this aircraft, and um I remember the last three numbers was 383. Well, that's the aircraft I was training on to go onto this Normandy mission.

unknown: 1:16:44

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:45

And while we were training, uh, we were gonna fire a Hellfire missile, and it's the first time for me we were firing a Hellfire missile. I was like, oh man, this is cool. I've seen it, but I've not done it. So we go out there and we're gonna fire this Hellfire missile. It I I don't know what was wrong, but it would not launch. So we land, give it to another aircraft, they launch it or whatever. Well, when we get done with that mission, we come back, and then uh an armament officer and a maintenance officer go try to diagnose why this thing isn't firing missiles. Right. And anyway, so they're they're sitting on the airfield, and I don't know why, but uh we had armed aircraft pointed at each other. Oh no. Well, they're working on this aircraft trying to figure this out. It's armed, and this hellfire just launches from the rail. And we're, you know, towards the the building, the airport side, you know, and you so you got the the ramp to go through, you all these other aircraft parked out there of all different sorts and whatever. Then on the edge before the runway are these Chinooks. This missile takes off and kind of weaves its way through everybody, misses everything. Uh these crew chiefs were working on this uh Chinook just for the runway, working on the engine, so they were on the on the back of the aircraft. Missile just misses them. You know, it goes underneath the rotor blades, right beside them, and anyway, so it gets to the runway and does what's called a G Blias climb. It goes up in the air, it's looking for a laser signal to home in onto. Right. Well, it can't find one, but it comes down and slams into the Air Force's ammo depot on the other side of the runway. Oh no. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, I didn't see any of this. I'm in uh we're in uh basically a parking garage where we were living at the time, but I heard it take off. I'm like, oh shit, that's not uh a rocket, that's a hellfire. And you know, it you hear it for a while, and then you hear this kaboom. It's like, oh, this is not good. And then a louder, kaboom boom, boom, kaboom, kaboom, it's other stuff going off. It's like, you know, I mean, I was a safety officer, so I just started putting my stuff on. It's like I don't know what happened, but I'm thinking they want a safety officer down there, so I'm gonna go. Yeah, probably. Well, come to find out, you know, on this Air Force ammo depot, they have two guards on it. And of course, you can't smoke inside an ammo depot. So one of them smoked, one of them didn't. But the one that smoked says, I'm gonna go outside and have a cigarette. The other guy says, Oh, walk them out there and talk to you or whatever while you're smoking. So they're not actually in the ammo depot when that thing hit. Thank God. The two luckiest guys on the planet, right? Oh man. Yeah, the Air Force wanted to know what we had against them. It's like, well, you you were too close.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:49

Yeah, somehow it's their fault.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:51

Right, right. But anyway, it's like, oh, that's just you. Life is just crazier than anything you can make up. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:00

Yeah, I can't even imagine that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:02

That's like Well, you got all this open desert on the other side of the runway. Right. You got one little ammo depot there. That's how that's and that's how the missile goes. It wasn't it wasn't designated, you know, it didn't have a laser to track on it. Why it went to that place, I have no idea.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:17

Right. It just somehow knew.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:20

But anyways, like I say, that was that was my aircraft that I was training on.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:24

And of course, they wanted to severely burn this maintenance officer and armament officer. Like, oh, you guys should have known better, blah, blah, blah, whatever. I was like, no, wait a minute. You know, I mean, we had some IPs and some safety officers stick up for them. I was like, look, wait a minute. McDonnell Douglas, which is who owned the aircraft at the time, it's uh Boeing now, but McDonnell Douglas swore to us, and for those of us who've been to the Army Corps, you cannot launch a hellfire from the ground. I mean, you can trick it to think it's in the air, but it still will not launch a hellfire from the ground.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:59

But yeah, we did. Somebody was wrong.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:02

Yeah. It's like, you know, I mean, so anyway, uh, that aircraft disappeared within about a week. Yeah. I mean, it was no good to us. Well, I'm sure McDonnell Douglas didn't want to hang it out there anyway. Right. That's why I'm thinking disappeared. Yep. Although I don't remember getting a replacement for it either.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:21

But well, that's how that works, too.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:23

Yeah, that was that's this was this hanger queen that they forced on us. Like, you have to take this. No if, ands, or buts about it. And then, you know, we end up attacking the Air Force with it. The Air Force paid for it. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:36

That's too bad. But an interesting story. Yeah, yeah. So it talked to me about redeployment. What was that like coming back then from uh from there? Unless there's something else you wanted to talk about redeployment.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:49

Uh coming back, they were gonna pretty much send everything back by ship. Uh so we had to, you know, prepare vehicles and aircraft and whatnot, and uh had to have like a uh a person from the unit travel with it. I don't know if it's gonna all be on one ship or separate ships or whatever, but anyway, so I'm in the middle of planning that. And uh my platoon leader, for whatever reason, he uh volunteered to be one of the guys to go with this stuff. But I had uh a family emergency at home. My stepfather was having uh like a quadruple bypass surgery, so I didn't have to stick around for that. So you got to hop on a plane and yeah, I got to hop on a plane and come back, but uh it took it took him a while to get that stuff to I think it went to Florida. Uh-huh. And then, you know, once we were all back at Fort Canva or whatever, we had to fly down there, pick up our aircraft and fly it back.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:52

And then so this is 91. Yeah. Yep. So this is right around the time you're getting out of the military then?

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:00

Right. Uh you know, the war was pretty quick. I think it only lasted four, maybe five days, if that. And uh it's like we sat in Iraq for maybe another week or two after that just to make sure, I guess, that it was really over. Um, you know, and we went back to uh King Fod Airport, and then it seemed like we was waiting forever. Everybody wanted out at once.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:23

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:25

Anyway, we got back, and one thing I remember about that war is they didn't take King Fod, or not King Fod, they did not take uh Hussein out of power.

unknown: 1:23:35

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:35

It's like this guy is a looney tune. I said, you know, I mean, I understand it's all political and whatnot with all these other uh Arab countries, but I have a feeling he's gonna rear his ugly head again and we're gonna end up having to go back. And that was my biggest fear, you know. I I really hated being in Iraq. The weather, I mean, there was just nothing good about it. Yeah. Um so when we got back and they offered this uh kind of like after Vietnam reduction enforced type deal, we're gonna, we're gonna we're gonna let you get out. Not only that, but we're gonna pay you to get out. Really? Well, I I had 12 years at the time. And it's like, do I want to stay in? Because I was I got orders, you know, I put in for this, but I got orders for Germany at the same time. And I'm really wrestling with it. It's like, I I do not want to go back to Iraq. And I'm thinking my thought is we're gonna be back in there within five years. Of course, this is uh 92 by then or whatever, but yeah, uh, I think it ended up being what, 2003 or was it 2001, somewhere right, somewhere in there, but I mean I could have retired in 1999, you know, done my other eight years.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:50

But I didn't. Well, I don't blame you. I mean, everybody's got their their reasons for doing what they do, right? I mean, you went, you served, and uh, you knew it was time to kind of pack up. So you now was your family at Campbell with you then at this time?

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:07

Uh actually I got divorced paperwork while I was over there. Oh uh final divorce paperwork. Oh. So that was sad, but Yeah. Yeah, not an unclean story, but it sucks. I had been gone a long time, so she was pretty much living single anyway. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:25

So she came back to Michigan then? Yes. Okay, and then you got out and you came back to Michigan. Uh did you go someplace else after that?

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:33

Yeah, I came back to Michigan and then it wasn't it's it was still hard to get a good paying job here. Uh I think I had a job driving a truck for a little while, and that wasn't paying like I thought it would. So I ended up moving down to uh St. Louis area, Illino Illinois side where I'm from, Wood River area.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:55

And uh ended up getting a job down there working for uh on the Red Hostess, and I was also in uh uh the Army Reserves flying Blackhawks at uh Scott Air Force Base there and which was about forty miles or so from St. Louis.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:15

Okay. How long were you in the reserves for?

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:18

I was in uh about three years. Okay, that's going back to the beginning where I say you don't end up flying other aircraft. I was in the Apache and then but then uh this unit was nothing but Blackhawks. It was uh you know troop mover, so you had your sent me down for a qualification, I got it, and I was flying for them.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:44

You had your fair share of uh flying different aircraft though.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:47

I did. Uh you know, I mean between uh the black hawk and the Apache, I mean there's goods and good things and bad things about about both of them. Uh the Black Hawk ended up getting grounded a lot there at first, too. Had a problem with the the stable later in the rear. If it's scheduled down, you couldn't you couldn't pull back on the the cyclic far enough to keep it from nose planting. Oh and they they didn't know why it was doing that. Flying along and all of a sudden you're uh a lawn dart.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:19

Yeah, no good. That goes back to the to the games we played in the early 16th.

SPEAKER_03: 1:27:23

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:23

So yeah. So you did that for about three years, and then um did you stay in the St. Louis area then when you got out of the reserves?

SPEAKER_03: 1:27:32

I yeah, I did. Uh, you know, like I say I was working for Wonderbed Hostess, and they ended up going like bankrupt twice uh within four years of each other. And I was just about ready to get a retirement from them when they closed the doors. Oh, jeez. Yeah. So it's like, okay, I'm done with this, and then left there and moved back up to Michigan. My parents were getting older. I kind of wanted to see them in their golden years and be around for them. I mean, my dad wasn't doing too good at that time, and my mother wasn't getting any younger.

SPEAKER_02: 1:28:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:09

Yeah, that's that's the interesting thing. Like, I don't I feel like I remember my parents being young. Right. And now they're old and I don't know what happened in between. And then my kids are seeing the same thing, right?

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:21

Oh, right. Yeah, I mean, I was gone a lot, been in service, so I mean they had a whole lot of life that uh that they did that I wasn't part of. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:29

That's you know, that's interesting though, because like when you go into the military, um you know, whether it's on a deployment or whether you're just in the military for a number of years, because I was I was out of state for almost 10 years, um, life goes on. Like it doesn't stop and wait for you to come back. Right, right. Um so did you come you come back and you just did you go back to work or what did you do when you got the got back to Michigan?

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:57

Okay, so uh yeah, when I came back to Michigan, uh it was hard finding a job. I mean, I uh eventually I think ended up working for Walmart. It's like uh they'll hire old people, which I was old at the time, so I wasn't uh wasn't social security age yet, but I definitely think there's uh an age discrimination to uh to getting hired.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:23

Well, think I mean if you think about look at your career, you flew these I mean flying a helicopter is no small thing, right?

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:31

All right, but I didn't I wasn't broadcasting this to everybody when you know when I was looking for a job or whatever. Yeah. That's kind of something I kept close to the vest.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:40

Okay. Yeah. So you didn't really talk about it then.

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:56

No, I I I haven't. I'm I I guess I could be classified as an introvert, and yeah, you know, once I let something out, you know, it's it's like okay, well, we're gonna talk about that, and I really don't like talking a whole lot. So I don't know if you can tell or not.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:12

Well, actually, no, because you we've been talking for almost uh uh hour and a half here. Oh so yeah. I got a lot out of you, and you didn't even know it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:21

Well, yeah, he's bringing stories out of me that I hadn't prepared to share. I mean, I've got something written down here.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:26

Yeah. Was there anything we haven't talked about that you want to talk about? Um I mean, this is your story.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:32

Well, one was uh it was kind of sad when we were doing that uh XM training, XM1 training. Uh they had us drive all around Fort Hood, which is 364 square miles, I think. But so we're driving around on these tank trails for like 18 to 24 hours. You know, we'd stop and refuel and whatever when we needed to, and driving through the night. Anyway, we we were coming up onto this uh I don't know exactly what it was, but the the trail went straight and they wanted us to go up onto the this road and take this bridge and cross and then go uh you know cross the bridge to the other side or whatever. Well, this whole crew, I guess, fell asleep, but the uh the tank was still going full speed or whatever, and then it just barreled into a granite cliff.

unknown: 1:31:27

Oh no.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:28

Yeah, and no one survived. I mean it was just it was it was pretty sad, but I I don't know exactly how they did it because I was that tired myself, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 1:31:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:39

You get driving on those trails and you just hear this this kind of like roar with uh with a rhythmic beating of the pads hitting the hitting the pavement, you know. And they fell asleep. Yeah, it's nothing to just close your eyes for half a second and then another interesting thing was you know, like we were testing this to find faults and things to I I wish I could remember the exact number of modifications they made from us braking stuff. Right. But um, you know, it was a turbine engine. So when you would you would park, and these these brakes could stop that turbine engine. I mean, I I don't I don't know how they worked, but they were awesome. So anyway, you you you take and break and then you uh set the parking brake and then you shut the shut the tank down. Right. Well, sometimes you'd have to paint our park on an incline, and what we found out was uh, you know, you hit this button to start the uh the turbine, you know, sometimes it sounded like it was starting, but then it would uh abort, you know, it'd have an abort light come on and it'd wind down, you'd have to try it two or three times to get it going. Well, because you were thinking that it was starting, you don't have the green light yet, and you don't have the abort light, you undo the parking brake. Well, but before this thing is spooled up, you don't have any brakes when you undo the parking brake. There's nothing there. So if you're on a on a hill and we had this uh this how we found out about it, we had this one tank go barreling down into the uh battalion commander's tank, and he was hot about it. Okay, well, we're gonna investigate this. Like, okay, so do not release the parking brake until you get the green light that says you're started.

SPEAKER_02: 1:33:31

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:31

And I remember it it's really hot inside the driver's compartment, especially when you have the hatch closed. And we're sitting up on this overlook uh on this mountain with about it's about a 300-foot drop, I'd say. And my loader wanted to wanted to switch places with me. Like, oh yeah, I'll switch places with you. I can get some air, you know. So anyway, uh we get this this order to move or whatnot, and he he hits the start button. And I forget his name. I'll just call him Fred. Fred, do not release that click parking break.

unknown: 1:34:10

No.

SPEAKER_03: 1:34:11

I'm like, oh, did you release a parking brake? Yeah, I released it. Creep, creep, creep. We start creeping towards this this edge, and I I I forget how close we were, but we're creeping towards this edge. It's a 300-foot drop. I'm not going with this thing. Yeah. I start climbing out. I got the, you know, uh, I'm wired in with this helmet, but I got the wire stretch as far as it goes, and I got the tank coming here, you know. Let me get back in there, get back in this tank. I'm like, ass, I am not going over that cliff. And it it really took a long time for it to start. I thought it was gonna abort. Yeah. But still yet, I wasn't going over the a cliff in a tank, but uh it started and he stopped, and we're like on the edge, and it's like I knew better, but I didn't tell him in time. I tried to tell him like sudden and then he released it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:02

It's like, oh that's gonna be an awful feeling.

SPEAKER_03: 1:35:05

Right. Like I said, I was I was I was not going over with that tank though.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:10

Yeah, you don't need to do that. Well, we have talked about a lot of things here today, Jerry. And for a guy who doesn't talk, we talked, like I said, for we're we're over an hour and a half now.

SPEAKER_03: 1:35:22

Oh, well, I I've got so many stories in me, and that's why I said uh, you know, once I get started.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:27

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm I'm glad to hear all of them. Um, you know, as we as we kind of get ready to wrap up, unless there's something, anything else that you want to share, um the only other question I have for you is, you know, people will be listening to this soon and you know, years down the road, maybe even after you and I are both not here anymore. So the the kind of final question is, you know, what message would you like to leave for people um about how you lived your life and and you know, just uh, you know, some advice for them in the future.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:01

I would just like to tell some of these young people uh uh you know the the services need good, smart people that that uh that can handle handle the challenge. Uh don't expect it to be easy, they're not gonna give it to you. But uh I think you'll uh get a lot of self confidence out of it. You'll get a lot of training, and uh for the most part you will be a way better person on the other side of it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36:35

So all right. Well, thanks for sharing that. Thanks for spending the afternoon with me. I appreciate it, Jerry.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:40

Hey, no problem. Thanks for having me. You're welcome.