The Weight of Artillery: Spencer on Service, Sacrifice, and Legacy

In this episode of Fire Line, we sit down with Spencer - A 13 Bravo artilleryman whose story is shaped by family legacy, grit, and the unforgiving pace of Army life.

Spence talks openly about why he joined, what it meant to serve in artillery, and how the physical and mental demands of the job shaped him.  He shares the pride of becoming an expert gunner, the frustration of being left behind on deployments, and the complicated transition from active duty to reserves.  From the culture shift of "softer" military standards to the deep value he places on punctuality, discipline, and faith, Spencer brings honesty, humor, and hard-earned perspective.

This is a story about identity, legacy, and the realities of service most people never see.

This is Spencer's story.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Fireline, a place where the stories of service are honored with dignity, truth, and the quiet strength they deserve. Here we sit with the people who have lived the soldiers, medics, firefighters, police officers, and families who carry the weight of service in ways most never see. These are their stories, their memories, their lived experiences. This is Fireline.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Before we begin, I want to introduce today's guest, Spencer. Spencer served as a 13 Bravo artillery man in the United States Army, a job defined by precision, pressure, and the kind of responsibility most people never see. His story is one of family legacy, grit, and the complicated realities of service. The pride, the frustration, the physical toll, and the moments that stay with you long after the uniform comes off. Spencer speaks with honesty, humor, and a depth of experience that reminds us why these conversations matter. This is his story.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

What led you to join the military?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

So I have a pretty military-involved family. Nothing where I grew up on an installation, but there's pretty much always one or two in every generation. So, like this current one, I'm one of five. My dad's generation, there was two, and so on and so forth. So it was just something that I always wanted to do, but at the same time, I also wanted to go to college. So in regards to that, I'm the only one in my family who went to college and then the military. Not to say there haven't been officers in the past, but the only one who's done both sides of the coin, if you will, prior to trying to obtain the officerhood, if you will. The one that I'm specifically referring to, he was an officer and patents, little office staff, which back then, you know, different times. If you were even partially educated, elevating you're already but yeah, it was just a family thing. Plus, I was already aware of a decent amount of the VA benefits. There was that aspect, and then the fact that just it's in regards to the job that I'm in now, where it's very safety-oriented, the military is one massive JSA. So I knew that the relevancy skills would transition to anywhere that I chose to go for a career path, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

So like with Cody going into trucking, sure we're driving Humvees, we're driving LMTVs, these multi thousand-pound vehicles, a lot of that transitioned over. So like I knew a lot of these things prior to joining. So like I already knew I wanted to join, even before I hit high school. It was more just along the lines of when do I want to do it? Pre-pre-college, post-college, which in my case I went post-college going to basic, and I'm already four years older than most of the people there. Mainly family, not that anyone pushed me. My parents certainly did not push me. So just more one of those I want to be one of the one in the generation, which like I said, there ain't gonna be five of us.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yeah, obviously, nothing classified, not anything, but you were obviously in the army. What was your MOS and your role?

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Yeah, 13 Bravo, shot howitzers. So if I ask you to repeat something, it's for obvious reasons.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

I understand. I was with the Marines. I was a corpsman with the Marines. Yeah. And what was your rank when you got out?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

E5. Because after yeah, because after active duty, I had transitioned to reserves where I spent the remaining five years of the eight-year obligation. Is the E5, but by that point I was already so denigrated and just stopped caring because of what Alaska had done, but I didn't do anything to pursue any other ranks because I just with the IRR, if I have to get called back in uh and stay in shape, what's I might as well just go once a month with just weekend warriors this sucker and get a couple hundred bucks a pop until I'm done with it. Which I'm glad I didn't because it's five extra years to go into the VA claim process. Well, back up to it. I didn't enjoy it, but right in regards to my benefit, so it was completely worth it.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah. So when and where did you go through training?

SPEAKER_00 5:00

For basic.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Basic school.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Yeah, they put me at Fort Sill, which in tandem with that is where also AIT is because it's almost artillery. So unlike most people, where they go one place or basic and they get bust over. Uh literally, it was one side of the installation to the other side at Fort Sill. But yeah, Fort Sill is where I was for both. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Okay. Where what bases, units, deployments? Did you have any while you were in service?

SPEAKER_00 5:33

So no deployments. I inadvertently dodged four deployments. The first one was back in, I think it was the it was either of the end of 2017 or early 2018. It was back when President Trump's first term, when North Korea was acting out with those nuclear missiles, they put us on a two-week 24-7 standby, which he ended up not ponying up to the plate. So thankfully I didn't have to go on to that. After that, it was the 2019 deployment to the inherent resolve, in which my unit left an entire battery behind, which was like the start of my disdain for active duty because I had just spent over two and a half years repeated field events, training events, just to be told, hey, we don't need you. And they left six guns and an entire battery of guys. The third deployment was JBLM, which I had just picked up the job that I'm at now, which was done in Texas. So I moved down here three or four months before they went to that deployment, so didn't go that one. And then at the unit here, and I live in northeast Texas. The unit was in Shreveport, Louisiana. It was an MP company. I was completing my eight-year obligation and not re-enlisting four months prior to their deployment to I think they went to Koweit. But that unit was like a detention and corrections. So even if I had gone, they probably would have pinched me off at some other artillery unit since I wasn't, I never reclassed to MP. But yeah, I dodged, if you will, four four deployments, not by planning or anything. But yeah, that second one filled them with a lot of disdain, though. And that was like the kick started to like screw you and I'm just done. You're not gonna you're not gonna sit here and tell me that we're doing everything good and then leave me behind on this deployment to Syria. I cannot do it. But in terms of bases that I've been at, if you include basic Fort Sill to Fort, I almost said Fort Anchorage, Fort Wainwright to JBLN, and then Barksdale Air Force Base, which I know it's there, but they have an NP detachment there. So technically Barksdale Air Force Base was the last one.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

So what part of your service are you most proud of?

SPEAKER_00 8:25

That I'm most proud of. I have plenty of moments where I beat myself up. I shouldn't have chosen their job. Why did I choose artillery? But in regards to what we were doing, I knew I wanted to do a combat job, but I didn't want to potentially see the actual death side of it. So I'm like, of the combat jobs, what could I do? And I'm like, oh, artillery. Oh, like I said earlier, post-train gets a cookie. I'm shooting stuff 20, 30 miles away. Assuming subtle if they doesn't come up on the artillery line, I'll be far enough back to where I can still be engaged with the infantry, actually provide tangible immediate result of did I actually save some people? Did I actually cover some people? As opposed to with Cody, where his is HR-oriented. I'm not saying his job's that important. I'm just saying it's for him, it's paperwork that I had to get filed when it gets filed.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Whereas for me, it's I always tell him he's radar O'Reilly.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Oh, 100%. 100% use O'Reilly. 100%. I wonder that's a good one for sure. I love MASH.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Pretty true. I do too.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

But uh I think one of my more prideful moments, I would probably say, was when I was still at Wainwright, actively artillery and not had messing around as a standard excess at the reserve units. When I was leaving Wainwright, I was one of the upper echelon U6 mechanics, which for artillery it's triple A roadside for a how it for a gun. When I say operations, I'm just meaning more senior, not more educated or anything, just one of the more senior guys. I'm sitting there managing the other U6s in terms of the gun itself and operating it. Uh, I was one of the certified gunners, in which I had at that time we were going through our skills testing, which we do with paper test with 75 questions. I had just yeah, I came back from a training, went to go do the testing, first time go 100%. Did the skills testing, which is the exam portion, first time go on everything. I'm getting all of these things properly done on first time go. So I did first class or not for expert gunner, which is 100% first time go everything. And I was like one of three in the battalion, which the other two were one was an ammo team chief and one was a an actual section chief. So technically top gunner, enough to pat my back or anything. And on the transition out when I was telling the unit that I wasn't going to re-enlist, they were still utilizing me to train uh the our battery on all the new privates or the guys trying to transition to the gunner position. They had me training all of them on how to operate how it's in the capacity of a gunner. And in relation to some of the section chiefs who were changing over from light artillery or heavy, so like Paladins, the Old Tigers, and it was their first time certifying on the 777s. They were having me basically give them crash courses on when you pull up to the location to start your placement, what are you doing, how are you doing it? A lot of the more fine-tuned details was left to my golf or just the gunnies within the actual platoons. But that was like a nice little prideful thing for me there because I got an AAM for that. Not that I really cared about the award at that time, just like screw you guys, let me leave. But just knowing that that my leadership at the time legitimately trusted my knowledge and training these guys who wanted to be gunners, or the privates who were trying to be gunners, and then some of the other staff sergeants having that level of uh trusted competency, if you will. That was a pretty nice moment for me. Uh I try not to think about it too much just for the sake of keeping a humble mind of not letting it blast off into oblivion. But yeah, that was a nice moment, a nice little prideful moment. But yeah, I think that might be my most prideful, probably that moment. Yeah. I would probably say that.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Okay. What was the hardest part of serving for you personally?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

And in what regard do you mean? Like mental, like physical?

SPEAKER_01 13:04

All of it. Anything, any of it for you. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yeah, so like the mental piece, artillery is I get it to put artillery in one word, it's very aggressive. Very much so. Hurry the hell up, hurry up, be more quickly, all right? All the little jargons. Because with artillery, when we're actually proceeding to fire, it's not just like we're infantry, we're like, hey, we're on a patrol, we might find some people, we might we're gonna proceed here, we might engage here. With artillery, it's very much so. If all took the time to sit there, do the math and call in a call for fire. Um, that's very purposeful. And so I say all that just because when you actually go to shoot the expectations, you're getting a round out in less than 30 seconds. So you got you want to get that round out with it, 25, 26 seconds, uh, because there's a little saying in artillery if we're slow infantry is dying, right? Hurry up. Um, there's a big physical element to that. Uh, a lot of stress on the body because you're full kit picking up 100-pound rounds off the ground, putting them into the tray, slamming them up, and then you're hand cranking a howitzer up and down left and right. Um, and we've had fire missions where it's you know 10, 15 rounds, which okay, they're only 100 pound rounds, but it's like when you push 1500 pounds in a couple of minutes, because sustained fire, if I recall correctly, is like it's two or three rounds every four minutes, whatever it is. Uh my sorry, my lack of knowledge is the phase because it's been a while. Um but when you're when you're pumping around at every 25 or seconds, you get gassed out pretty quick, especially when you're you think like you're at Fort Hood or Fort Uh Bliss when it's 110 degrees, you're in full kit, you get a 10 round fire nation, you gotta move a thousand pounds in a couple of minutes. Like the physical is like really rough for me alone. In regards to like direct physical uh pain, like my knee is I got like torn tendons in my knee. I have a near complete ACL tear. Um, a lot of guys get back problems because it's you're basically doing constant deadlifts with all this extra weight. Um and then, like I said, the mental piece, it's uh it's very aggressive, it's super fast-paced. Um, I remember this this one time uh we were trying to get our we were setting our guns up, we were in placing, and I wasn't going fast enough to my cheek. And I I rigged aggressive, but it was still pretty funny. He picked up a stick off the ground and was literally hitting the back of my helmet, going, hurry up, Fox, you're going too slow. Hurry up. I'm trying to do my job. Well, someone literally hitting me in the back of the head with a tree branch. So you know it's a lot of it's definitely not for the soft-minded. Yeah. If you can't take getting yelled at Tillery, it's definitely not the job for you. I can't tell you how many times I'm getting screamed at during the placement. And five minutes later, hey, so Fox, what MRE did you get? Well, you did what book you read in when we're on our downtime finally. So it definitely not for a lot of the these younger folks where I scold I scold them for five minutes and now they're shut down for a whole day because oh oh oh, Sergeant Fogg, oh he ringed me out. I didn't smoke you're lucky we're not on the house, like that brings me to a question that's not on my list.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

How has the military changed since you went in to this softer kind, these softer people? Because I know it's changed a lot since I went in back in the 80s.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Yeah, so just from just from active duty to reserves, I I hated the reserves. I actually hated it. The soldiers there were absolute scumbags. So, like an active duty, you would have if a soldier messed up, you'd smoke um, you'd give them a counseling. Oh, nine yards, right? Should back in early 2000s and 90s, you just go, hey, let's go around back the battery. We need to have a conversation. We all know it's not really a conversation, it's a physical talk, if you will. Which when Cody and I were in, that pretty much wasn't a thing anymore unless you were legitimately close with your leadership and they had an understanding. But even in active duty, if you could smoke somebody, you could counsel them. No one's gonna bad an eye. The second I transferred to reserves, the second I couldn't smoke people, they wouldn't let me smoke anyone. It was paperwork. I'm like, dude, I can give someone fine counselings before anything legitimately starts to happen. And I'd have people say, that's just because you didn't do the counseling properly. I wouldn't say that's true because what if the leadership likes that soldier and they're just disregarding me as a disrunkled guy who has it out for whoever. But I remember this one instance at JBLM and then another instance at the Barksdale, but the JBLM one, I have this soldier, fresh at AT, like hadn't even been six months post-AIT. And I'm very big on punctuality, like every other active duty guy. And I'm like, hey, I just want you guys in the office 15 minutes prior to everything. If you're gonna be late, at least tell me so I can at least explain where you are. 15 minutes, please. Just 15 minutes. If we do that, we're not gonna have any problems. I will let you do whatever you want as long as you're not being stupid, we'll be fine. And I had this soldier, he's in the parking lot, not in the office, in the parking lot, and it's five minutes till, and I'm like, hey, where are you at? Oh, I'm in the parking lot. And I'm just saying, I'm like, I know I might be a little anal here, but I'm just saying, I'm like, did I I said be in the office 15 minutes prior? Like, how do I know you're in the parking lot? How do I know where you are? You could be off with a part of my you might be off with a prostitute for all I freaking know. Like, how am I supposed to know where you are if I told you to be in the office 15 minutes prior to being in the office? So he comes in and he's I close, we have a little cave, if you will, and I shut the door with the other soldiers there, it doesn't matter, just use it as an example for everybody else to understand that I punctuality is just one of my little kicks, right? And I stole him for barely five minutes on the importance of punctuality. It's not just a military thing, like this is a legitimate life skill. If you cannot be on time, because I'm not asking you to get here 15 minutes prior and then start doing tasks because you're assigned like I no, get here 15 minutes prior. I don't care if you sit in a room, have a phone call FaceTime, look on Instagram, Facebook, I don't care. Just be here, just be present. And because if you apply that 15 minutes to a real life career, it's my my perfect example is I used to be oil field roused about, and I'd get there 30 minutes early, and I don't think it was until my ship paycheck, month two or three, whatever it was, when I was realizing there was an extra 30 minutes on my check every single time. And I'm like, hey soup, what's this extra 30 minutes? Oh, I see you're on the camera. You get here 30 minutes early every day, open up our little gated area, and you start watering the plants, get the stuff ready. I put that on as time. I'm like, shit, I'm not gonna complain. I was doing that on just trying to be a good worker. That was their little piece of reward, right? And with this kid, it was a car salesman, so you know I understand there's a little bit of leeway there. They're probably not super strict on to be here 10, 15 minutes prior. But if you're early, sure you don't know when them customers are gonna stop, man. If you're the first one there every day, yeah, you're getting first dibs on Lottie Dottie everybody. And when I was finally done, like, mind you, there wasn't even five minutes of me sassing this kid. He quite literally was sitting in this chair and he's slouched back, hold down, hands in between his legs, like near near his groin. Complete shutdown for the rest of the day, complete shutdown. Like I just told him, like, hey, soldier, your mom. Mom and your dad just passed away. I'm so sorry. We're working on getting paperwork. So Red Cross, you say you go home. Literally, what you would have thought. Completely completely just mentally shut down. And after I was done with that, my my look, my PL and my smoke pulled me out. They called me, hey Fox, come into the office real quick. I'm thinking, yeah, yeah, what's that? A little operations discussion, whatever. And I got a little bit of sass. Like they didn't punish me, but they were sassed me for a few minutes. Like, Sergeant Fox, you can't talk to these soldiers that way. I'm like, wait, he was late. Of course I can. No, you can't, you gotta counsel that. I'm like, I'm not gonna counsel people. It's not gonna do anything. I'm gonna hand them a piece of paper, they're gonna read it and go, oh, it's not that serious. Unless I'm slapping Article 15 in their face, which unless it's repeated legal lack of proper punch audio, I'm not getting away with an article 15 submission. But literally, they saf me up saying that you can't do that. You have to do everything by counseling. And that just drove me insane. Especially with not being able to smoke them, because I'm a big fan of ABC push-ups where I spell a word out, right? Couldn't do that, right? And then at my other unit at Barchdale, for them, it was uh blatant disrespect of leadership to talking like a PV2 and one having a screaming match with a SARM first class, and I'm sitting here just going in front of the company, just having a yelling match, and I'm just like, what the hell am I watching right now? And the soldiers not getting article 15, like nothing is happening to the salt post incident, like so NCO says, Hey, go do this. I'm not doing that, and it's just the hell you mean you're not gonna go do that. No, you're gonna do that. This is what this job is. Yeah, the bar still you I hated that unit, I couldn't stand that unit. There was literally probably five soldiers that I actually ascertained as solid, decent soldiers. Because even in active duty, I would have moments where they're like, oh Sergeant Fox, and I if we deploy a hobo with you, and I ran out of, I hope you're not with me. Why? Because of these qualities that you have. I don't trust you. Like when if we go downrange, I don't want you anywhere near my gut. I can't trust you. You're not punctual, you're on your phone all the time. When we're trying to get stuff done, if we're trying to get stuff done, you're trying to get out of it. You got a bit of an attitude. You're proficient at your job, but it's like all these other elements. I'm not putting any, I want to trust you to freaking give me a cup of gossip. I don't want you anywhere near my gun. Both of those units. Granted, the Jibbial N unit was a civil affairs. So, you know, they're never seeing combat ever, even if they go to deploy. And the Shreveport unit was a military police detention and correction. So pre-they're never gonna see combat unless someone breaches a fob. The both of them, I loathe both of those units, I couldn't stand them because of how terrible the soldiers were. Just nothing happens to them. It was ridiculous. Just it was just ridiculous. I hated it. I freaking hated it.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

So, what values or habits from the military have stayed with you?

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Well, habits, obviously, timeliness is a big one. So, my current job, I am a regional compliance and loss control manager for an insurance company. So, a lot of my job deals with talking about a company, giving a detailed breakdown of everything. And Army always teaches short, brief, concise. And so I'll I'll write stuff out, and it's easily could be three or four paragraphs, but I'll shrink it down to four or five sentences just for the sake of being clear, precise, and short. And I kind of a little bit for that because you need to be more detailed. Gotta be more detailed in these reports. Probably some of the I know, but in regards to the mental discipline, a lot of the corporate semantics that I have to deal with. Yeah, I'll get pissed off and annoyed with them, but it's like at the end of the day, you know what? If I just knock this out, it's not gonna be a deal because a lot of stuff I deal with my job, because I have another veteran buddy there. You know, I talk about it all the time. It's just army all over again, except instead of it being physical, physical ailment from bull crap, it's it's just corporate semantics, stupidity. But yeah, a lot of mentality pieces. I mean, civilians are just so stupid. I just can't stand them because even still, like I still have very few civilian friends, even still. I know I have to try, but most of them it's just like their mentality is just so slow. Hey, we're gonna get up and go at 9 a.m. Let's go do this. Yeah, I'll be there at nine. It's 9 15, 9 20. Like where you at? I'm on the way. I'm like, what do you freaking mean on the way? I thought we were gonna start at 9. And there's no urgency whatsoever. And and when there is urgency, it's because their lack of planning, their lack of planning is now by emergency. But and then in regards to just like a simple planning like a vacation. Like there are so many not like people who've never been to the military where they're just they just free wing it up. I'm just like, brother, you're going to another country and you have no track plan whatsoever. That is crazy. Like, I know you just want to go sightseeing, but it's like you just have you were there for five days and you have four of the days is just sightseeing. Are you just gonna be standing next to the road? Are you going to a hiking trail with the freaking duty? Golly, it's not like I'm asking you to like tell me like army, tell me exactly where you're gonna be. Keep your phone on and you check it with me. I just want to know what we're gonna do. Outside of Google and sightseeing. Aren't we going to the Disney World? But yeah, the big one is like the punctuality. I hate late, I can't stand it. Getting stuff done prior to deadlines. That that is one thing that my current job does very much appreciate, is they they always they don't have to worry about me getting stuff turned in late unless it's like a last-minute deal and I've already have other things going on for work, in which case they're malleable, they understand. But yeah, just understanding Taiwan and being timely. That's what they just want, which I feel is most of the arms anyway.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

So now the fun stuff. So, how does an artillery person and a human resource person, radar O'Reilly, meet?

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Yeah, so he was uh so Cody was obviously at battalion all the time, and I'm not a battalion at the battery. It would just be from going in to go get paperwork submitted or updating paperwork literally just from paperwork. And then at one at one point, somewhere in there, because I don't remember at all, I don't remember. He and I just hit it off. And gosh, it'll probably tell you about it. I I would dog it, like give it says, but yeah, it was just from having a go-to battalion to go do paperwork for whatever reason. Just like I said, somewhere in there, we just connected. My wife refers to me as a social butterfly, so I don't know if that's an insult or a complex somewhere in there, just on paperwork, right? Literally, just paperwork, but some kind.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

So, did you guys have any kind of inside jokes, habits, rituals with each other?

SPEAKER_00 30:10

I don't know about rituals. I'm sure there's probably some inside jokes there somewhere. But it's just been so long I don't remember. I'm sure there was a couple. They'll probably tell you one of my habits just calling everyone chuckle nut. I said it's so much that the Anchorage Unit sent me a plaque that had chuckle nuts as part of the engraving on there. So that'll just say how much I said it. But I sure I babysit your grandkids. I'm hung out with him and the one him and his wife. We're pretty tight. So I'm sure, like I said, I'm sure there's some inside joints there. I just don't remember.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Okay, and this is not just about Cody, it's you too, but legacy. What what kind of thing do you want your your I don't know if you have kids, but your kids, yeah, your generations, Cody's kids, what kind of legacy do you guys want to leave? What kind of legacy would be that you want them to know about him or your kids to know about you?

SPEAKER_00 31:09

The legacy piece for me kind of is a hit or miss almost. Because I not that I'm not not that I don't stumble or anything, but I I believe in Jesus and everything. So trying to focus on that. Because back in my younger years, man, I don't want to be forgotten. I want to be this, I want to be that. And then after a while, I just turned into I don't even know why I want these things. Who cares if people know who I am? I don't care. I don't even care about my next door. So my next door neighbors, what do I care if people remember me and what I really got legitimately serious with my faith? A lot of that was just like, oh, that's just an easy question. Now it's all of Jesus now. Who cares if you remember me? As long as if they think of me and think of Jesus, oh that's why I probably am. That's all I care about. In terms of my past as someone who's still alive, obviously I want to know. I want them I have two sons. Excuse me. I should have clarified that. But I want my two sons to understand what type of family he's in. There's always some sort of a military individual every generation. I probably won't I probably won't push them either unless they're lost. I don't know what I want to do for a career. I don't know if I want to do college, or if they want to do college, but they don't want they don't know what to do post-college, or if they don't want to do a trade, whatever. I probably won't push them towards military unless they start getting a little aimless, or just the questions just start coming. Hey, what was the army like? What did you do? All of those questions were pretty obvious what they're fishing for. But with both my sons, I would probably tell them not to join the army, join a different branch just for the sake of not having to deal with the biggest branch, with all of that money being diluted across the hunt. Such a massive saturation. Go join the Marines, go join Space Force and Air Force where the it's a smaller branch where the money is consolidated, you'll get better living conditions, so you'll get all these better side perks because you're you won't be in a diluted pool. Because an army branch, it's just it's just so big that even with all the money that we get, it's just completely diluted. Completely diluted. But my son, my oldest one at least, he's already met a few of my army buddies. So he's already around those guys anyway. And like I said, it'll probably just be more along the lines of like understanding the type of family he's a part of, understanding the benefits, the potential ramifications of being in the service. Like I said, I I lucked out, and there's four deployments that just have panned out across eight years. And I know kinds of our re buddies who were in for 10 years and they've deployed six times. I'm sure you've got a couple of those friends too. So it's just how my cards got dealt on deployment reputations. But yeah, I think just more along the lines of if they ask, I'll tell them everything they want, they want to know. But I don't think directly pushed them towards it. But I definitely won't push them away from it. That that's for sure. There's too many benefits from the military to completely disregard my singular bad experience. It is too bad. Because I have, like I said, the other four, three of them were infantry, one's a Cab Scout. All of them are doing very well. And unlike me, they were willing to deal with their certain bad scenario where for me it just completely set me off and annoyed me and completely put a bad taste in my bowel.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

So is there anything I didn't ask to wish I had that you'd like to talk about? Or a story that you've never told anyone that you'd like to share?

SPEAKER_00 35:10

It's not really a story I haven't told. Uh I have one instance that 100% would have put me in Livingworth. And I have one instance that's just really funny. So just for the sake of but uh a potential hazard with artillery that's like very serious. But when we went to NTC back in 2018, whatever it was, we were on it, we were finally getting to our live shoot. We were doing a live shoot with I I believe it was the Japanese, we were doing like a little combo deal training there. And as we were shooting, what when you're shooting artillery, you have to make sure your air, just like on the gun range, make sure there's no animals, make sure there's no aircraft, right? And if there is a ceasefire screaming on the radio, ceasefire, right? Because they're like machine guns, M2s, you're shooting a hundred and fifty-five millimeter bullet, but the thing we gotta do is emit. But we weren't starting our live fire, and as we were shooting, I'm on the gun, in order of operation, it's technically chief, ammo team chief gunner. A lot of units for whatever reason just go chief gunner, ammo team chief. And so, yeah, I'm sitting there, I'm doing all the stuff. I'm sitting there like, why don't I feel like I hear a helicopter, but I don't see a helicopter, whatever. We keep shooting, right? And then the helicopter sounded like getting louder. And at that time, my my section chief had stepped away to go do something, and he's like, I'm gonna, I think it was man the radio or for whatever reason, just handle the gut, just handle the chief element of it, because I was trained to do it, so I could. I was sitting there, deflection, quadrant set, ready, stand by, and as I'm saying fire, helicopter comes across the fire line, like in the dead zone. So, like I'm saying fire, and I'm like, and I'm like starting to look up, but I see it. I'm like, I'm going to jail. The first thing I thought, I'm going to jail. Thankfully, if it missed, thankfully. But that helicopter that was flying through, what if I recall, it was either the NTC post commander or it was it was just an upper echelon officer who wanted to see the impact site, and for whatever reason, his warrant officer drove uh drove him right through an active firing line. To which I obviously, when I said it, I started screaming ceasefire. And I will admit I lost a little bit of my military bearing because I started screaming on the radio. Part of my language, who the hell is this retard? There's more on this fleet, almost got him so blown up by TNT because we were shooting the TNT rounds. Like this idiot, like he almost died. Like I almost blew him out of the sky. This moron that if he was literally 40 feet over, I would have put a big bat hole straight through that helicopter. Wow. And I was ironic. The other story, which is super, super funny, we're posting up our howitzers next to basically it was like an like an aqueduct, but no concrete dirt. And on the other side of one of our trucks, we put a little wag bag station, a little empty ammo crate, but the wag bags to go do our number two business, right? And so we're on cold guns, so we're not on duty, just chilling. And there's guys in front of me, so I'm waiting my turn. I'm prairie dog with my book, ready to go get my turn. Finally, it's my turn. I get, I sit down, I start doing business. I'm reading my book. I'm just I'm chilling, reading my book, and I start hearing engines. Like I yell back, I'm like, hey, is there like a convoy coming up behind us? No, Fox. There's not no one's behind us. What are you talking about? I swear I hear engines. I know like you might be hearing something. I might be hearing stuff. I don't know. I'm reading this book. My pants are down up by hate coal spikes. I'm like four exposed. And as I'm reading my book, just relaxing in that aqueduct ravine. And granted, it's 15 feet down, so it's pretty deep. From where I'm sitting to where they would be dry, center of the aqueduct would be striping. It's not even 40 meters, it's 30, 40 meters. And they can see everything, they see everything. And so I'm just sitting there, like, I'm not standing up because if I stand up, I'm gonna flash everybody. And so the whole convoy is just smiling wave, like, stop looking at me, please. And off to my left, I have all my soldiers. They got their little phones that are recording me, like, oh, look at you. That's so that's I bet it that's probably one of the funniest moments in my army time. Just because it was so random. The whole convoy, as I'm out in the middle of freaking nowhere, trying to do my business. I'm just this is a freaking bull. I have my cleaning nerve legs and go to the bathroom. Uh yeah, like I said, that first one is definitely quite the scariest moment because I would have got had we hit that guy, I would have gone to jail. 100%. But then that other one, complete, just random, funny moment. I don't think I'll ever forget that because how funny it was.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

So, what is the one thing you wish people understood about the army, the military, and those who serve?

SPEAKER_00 41:06

Oh, but the one thing that always hurts is that you put all this, you make the decision to join, you go through basic, you go through AIT, you get to your unit, you do all this camaraderie stuff, and then you still have these soldiers that act like they're still on the block, there's they're still the coolest things in sliced bread, like that. They just act so outrageously pompous. And I'm like, dude. Some of the guys were they'll still pull like the racist card, and it's like, brother, we're all freaking green. Shut up. Nobody cares. Like it's oh, first, first black soldier, first Indian soldier. How about just female soldier, male soldier, and then whatever amazing accolade they did? It's oh wow, soldier saying all these people, you know, black soldier. I'm like, how about just soldiers? US how about just U.S. infantrymen? Cody Newby saved three people from a fire on an interstate as he was in the car. Why can't it just be that? Like, I don't care about all this civilian semantic bull crap that is just completely irrelevant. And but you'll have these soldiers that'll go through, they'll make the decision, they'll put their hand up, they'll say the oak, they'll go to basic, they'll go to AT, and then they still act like a stupid civilian in regards to all this unnecessary nonsense that just makes life so stinking hard. And I I don't know how you feel about it. I'm not saying this type, but like with the transgender stuff. So if you want to edit this part out too, like that's fine by the way.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

I don't unless you want it edited, I won't edit it because it's your story. So I don't believe like I I try not, I fell at it daily, and I have to ask for forgiveness, but I try not to cuss. But I do, but so I know that's that's part of the military, and when I was in, I did too all the time. So I don't I I made the decision I'm not gonna edit the stories out because it's got your story.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Yeah, uh so that yeah, so in regards to transgenders, just like what Jesus tells us, I don't hate you because transgender I love you're my neighbor. I love I hate your sin, and I think you should stop. And by the way, I see the plank in my own eye too. So I'm just don't call me perfect. I've done plenty of my own sin, don't get me wrong, but it's like when you're in a military scenario, you want me to call you by a different gym, or you want me to you want me to do all these jump through all these hoops. But if we're in active combat zone and you're a POW, guess what? They're just gonna kill you because they're gonna you're gay. In most cases, they're gonna kill you because they kill those types of people in their area. Of the world. And two, they're going to laugh in your face and not care. And then three, it's you have I'm not going to say all of all transgenders are doing like the hormone treatment, but you're doing this hormone treatment that's costing taxpayer money and is completely unnecessary. And in my mind, like the transgender thing, it's a mental thing. And we won't even let people join the military think, why do you want to join? Oh man, I want to kill people. It's like you'll deny that person who potentially could be an amazing soldier. But because he's joining, because he wants to get the itch done, but you're not going to hold that similar standard to someone who, for whatever reason, believes that God created them in a false pretense. Like you have a penis and balls, and you think, oh, I'm a female. I'm sorry, dude. I don't know what to tell you. You've got as much testosterone in your body as me, and neither of us are taking these shots. So, because with those people, I see them strictly as a liability. I don't trust them to perform in a high intense scenario because you can't even you can't even monitor or monitor, you can't even handle normal living without lying to yourself that you're something else. And it's always bothered me. And I had a couple soldiers, great soldiers. One of them was at JBLM, great soldier. Always did her job properly. I didn't have to ever tell her to be on time. Literally, like I had a tasks one, two, and three, and she would get them done, no complaints, no issues. And halfway through my time there, she had transitioned to a man. And I had a I had a PO where I would I'd be referring to that soldier as feast. I'm like, yes, she's got this. And that P.O. was just cut me off. He I'm like, and the first time she ever did it to me, I looked at him, I'm like, what did you say, ma'am? He. That soldier is a he. And I'm sitting here going, we're discussing an op order. What the hell does that have to do with anything? What does that have to do with anything? I don't care. Cry about it. And they made me go through EO training to sit down and listen to a transgender training, like a whatever it was, training specifically. And I'm just sitting here going, excuse me, uh, as a Christian, this directly goes against my religion, which, if I recall, the military cannot discriminate by religion, sex, or all these other things. But you're telling me to break my faith. If that's the case, Sergeant Fox, refer to them as rank and name. You know, out of what do you mean? Like, how about we just don't be complicit with the nonsense? It was like I had the same complaint with like female medics that were on our line. Not trying to down the female medics, amazing women and phenomenal women. But when you're on an artillery line, when each guy's got a full kit, and it's the same with infantry count scouts, every other combat MOS, where the average guy is five foot eight to six, whatever. For me, I'm six foot two, and at the time, full kit, I'm pushing 240, 250. You would expect me to rely on the five foot threes female who weighs 110 pounds to drag me off. No, it's gonna be my guys dragging me off because you're afraid to do it, and there's only one of her to the I would rely. Like, how am I supposed to trust this soldier? Uh and then and I feel the same way in regards to most of the combat MOSs, which don't get me wrong. Like in artillery, there are hundreds of female artillery, artillery. But when I went through AIT, I only out of an entire platoon, I had three that actually passed the physical demand test. All the rest failed. But Army pushed them through because diversity members, and it's always annoyed thing because it's like one of the tests for artillery is you have 15 rounds on the ground, you put them in a ready rack, and then you pull them back out and in a controlled manner, meaning you can't just drop it, you put it down gently and methodically, right? Like I said, there were three females that were actually able to do it because you have to do that in 15 minutes. So you're getting one minute per round. Uh at the time, I think I got I think I finished in 12 minutes. Like I struggled. Like I said, I'm fat now. But at the time I was 180, lifting these hundred-pound rounds, where I'm just I'm a cardio person, not a big bulky guy. I'm sitting here struggling, trying to get these 12 rounds in. And like I said, all these women, like they they wouldn't pass, they couldn't pass it, but they're still passing and getting getting passing AIT. And I've it's always annoyed the hell out of me. Just oh, it's annoyed the hell out of me. I can't stand it. Because it's there should be no difference in standard, like it's combat MOS. If you can't perform at the male standard, you do not belong. That's all there is to it.

unknown 49:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 49:34

Um, and like I said, there's nothing against those women. You guys raised your hand, took the same oath as me. I'm so proud that you had the courage to stand there up, stand up there in the military and join your brothers, essentially, countrymen brothers, to fight the good fight. But if you can't perform that job, you need to go to a different job. I that's all there's too. Like, I because it's like with artillery. If I see you in artillery, I like you you just need to be FTC because the FTC, they just sit the back of a L doing all the data crunching, and it's like you're not actually on the gun, you don't have all the heavy skills test. It's FTC, you're a data cruncher. But yeah, it's a lot of army semantics, if you will, as opposed to corporate semantics.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

Thank you for spending time with us. If this story resonated with you, share it with someone who understands the quiet cost of service. And remember, service is a lineage, a legacy, and a thread that connects us more than we realize. Until next time, stay safe, stay human, and keep the stories alive.