From Desert Storm to African Shores: A Michael Scott's Journey Through Combat and Chaos

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today is Wednesday, august 13th 2025.
We're here with Michael Scott,who served the United States
Army.
So good morning, michael.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Good morning.
How are you today?

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Great Yourself.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Well, thank you Good.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
I'm glad you could join me this morning.
It's kind of early 8 o'clock,but military guys don't usually
sleep in anyway, right?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I'd give my right arm , even on a Saturday morning.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah, I'm up at 6 o'clock wandering around the
house.
No one's up until like 9, 10o'clock, certainly All right.
Well, let's start out reallysimple.
When and where were you born?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
So I was born in West Branch, michigan.
It's a couple hours north ofDetroit, oglemaw County, very
small, poor county.
There's probably about 20,000people that live in the entire
county, so very rural NorthernMichigan.
I was born there, raised thereand I was there until the time I

(00:53):
joined the army.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Okay, so you know it's interesting because
sometimes I talk to people whowere like born somewhere and
then it's just they moved 20different places.
So it's kind of interesting totalk to someone who's like
stayed in the same town for allthat time.
Talk to me about what it waslike growing up in a small town.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
I think you know I didn't know any different.
You know that was back in the70s and 80s, so we didn't have
the information we did.
Now I didn't realize how smallmy world was.
Later, after I joined the Army,it opened my eyes to a whole
new world.
But growing up there, my fatherhad been in the Army.

(01:31):
Both of my uncles had been inthe Army as well.
My grandfather had served inthe Army in World War II.
So to me it seemed like Ialways knew I was going in the
army.
I don't know when I made thatdecision, but as early as nine
years old I remember seeing oneof my dad's old CAC uniforms

(01:54):
with the yellow stripes on thesleeve and thinking that was
just the coolest thing in theworld.
My uncle had been in Vietnamand he used to wear his old
field jacket with the first calfpatch on his right shoulder.
And you know, again, it wasjust to me it was just amazing.
I didn't really understand muchabout it, other than I knew

(02:17):
that's something I wanted to do.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Okay, so that's really in your family then.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, I guess you know.
When I think back on it now,it's just what it meant to be a
man to me was.
You know, every man I knew thatI respected had served in the
Army.
So it almost seemed likedestiny to me that I would
eventually join the Army.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Okay, any brothers and sisters.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
I have three brothers .
Two of them served as well.
My older brother actually wentin the air force, so he did nine
years in the air force.
I'm not sure why he chose thatother than the army, but you
know, I think he he knew hewanted to do something in the
military as well.
And then my little brother,half-brother.

(03:05):
He went in the Army and he wasan Apache pilot but just missed
a rock.
So he was a total of six yearsin, I believe.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Okay, all right, and where did you fit the packing
order?

Speaker 2 (03:19):
So my older brother was the one that did the Air
Force.
He was three years older thanme Then I was next.
My stepbrother was a yearyounger.
He did not serve, but myhalf-brother was nine years
younger than me and he's the onethat was the Apache pilot.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Okay, so there wasn't really a point in time where
there were like four little boysrunning around the house then.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
No, it was a very uh.
You know we had the twodifferent families uh, so it was
just uh, mostly my olderbrother and myself with my
mother most of the time okay,well, tell me about your mom uh,
so she, she was just a workingwoman.
Uh, you know, she worked as abank teller for pretty much her

(04:03):
whole life, hard working.
You know, I think she raised usto just be respectful and you
know, I think she was proud ofboth my brother and I that we
joined the military and that wedid the things we did.
So you know, it was tough, Ithink, because she was both mom

(04:25):
and dad at the same time most ofthe time, but you know, she did
the best she could.
She wasn't educated, neitherwas my father.
So, you know, I went to schoollater in life, but again, our
world was just very small.
So that was all we really knewat that time.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, so did your mom remarry at all?
Uh, she never remarried, no,okay all right, and then, uh,
tell me a little bit more aboutyour father, and I know that he
served in the military, but butwhat about him as you were
growing up?

Speaker 2 (04:54):
so he.
He had served uh with the 23rd25th infantry division in uh,
hawaii.
So again to was.
You know I had no concept ofwhat that was, other than I
wanted to do something similarto that.
He was a radio operator in themilitary but after as long as I

(05:14):
remember he worked for ConsumersEnergy.
He was a lineman for years.
You know so, just hardworking,good guy.
He's a very devout Christian,you know so, good, strong morals
.
And you know, again, when Ilooked at his military service I

(05:35):
was just super proud that mydad had served in the military
and I wanted to be a lot likehim.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Okay.
All right Now.
How old were you when yourparents split up then?

Speaker 2 (05:45):
I was just five, okay , so I was pretty young.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, yeah.
How'd that impact, though, therest of your growing up, do you
think?

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Uh, it definitely caused I mean, anytime you have
a broken home, it caused a riftin the family, but uh, I don't
think it ever changed.
You know what I wanted to do?
Um, but it definitely it.
I mean it had a had a strongimpact on, uh, my own
development as a young man.
I think, um, I think I I kindof rebelled against everybody

(06:15):
for the longest time and, um,the army helped me kind of reel
some of that in eventually or atleast refocus it, right yeah.
Well, you don't really have achoice to be a rebel when you're
an enlisted man, you know.
So that's true.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
That's very true.
So, um, you know, I know youwere talking about how, uh, west
branch is kind of a small uhtown, not a lot of money there,
but um, it sounds like both yourparents worked, your dad worked
for consumers energy.
Did that give you a differentlifestyle than some of your
friends?
Or I mean, how did that workout?

Speaker 2 (06:47):
I would say we were very middle of the road up there
.
You know, there were certainlypeople that had a lot less than
we did and there were certainlypeople that had a lot more than
we did, but you know, it isn't aplace where people are known
for having a lot of money.
So even the people that hadmoney, it's not, uh, not the
kind of money you think of, um,but you know, I, I think again,

(07:11):
we, just we didn't know anydifferent.
We, uh, we we'd go hunt rabbitsand you know, uh, play on the
railroad tracks and all the dumbthings kids did back in those
days and, uh, for the most part,life was pretty good okay, well
in.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
In.
Uh, you know newsflash us citykids because I grew up in right
here in lansing.
When you talk about playing onthe railroad tracks and all that
stuff, we, we did all that too.
That's interesting to me yeah,for sure yeah, so tell me about
school, uh.
What do you remember aboutgoing to school and how did you
do Uh?

Speaker 2 (07:43):
so I think with my parents getting divorced, I I
had a period where I was reallya troublemaker at school.
Um, I think as I neared highschool I reeled that in a little
bit and I was doing pretty well.
Uh, I think once I got mydriver's license and I knew I

(08:03):
was joining the army, I startedto not care and my grades really
tanked towards the end, but Idid pretty well.
I knew college wasn't for me.
Again, no one in my family hadgone to college.
They all went in the military.
They were hardworking peopleand that was just the route I
seemed destined for at that time.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
Okay, do you have any good, you know, troublemaking
stories you want to share, maybeone that sticks out in your
mind?

Speaker 2 (08:32):
I can't think of any specifically other than in the
fourth grade I I remember MrsGreen Um, I was singing Popeye
the sailor man lives in a fryingpan.
He turned on the gas, burnedhis ass and I don't remember how
it ends.
But she was not impressed withmy little antics so I ended up

(08:52):
sitting in the corner the restof the day.
But I was never really ahorrible troublemaker, just more
of a smartass, a little bit ofa rebel.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, that was one of my favorite songs when I was in
about fourth or fifth grade.
That's kind of funny.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
I thought that like we were the only school that had
that one, but apparently thatwas universal.
Must have made it up north too.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
I guess so.
So I'm just curious.
Um, you know, coming from adivorced family myself, um you
know, when your parents split,uh, did you see them both on a
regular basis?

Speaker 2 (09:25):
I mean, I know how it was for me, I'm wondering how
it was for you uh, yeah, we, wedid, but uh, my, my brother and
I spent the majority of timewith my mother.
Um, my father kind of had hisnew family and even though he
only lived a block away, uh, wejust didn't spend that much time
together.
Um, I think, you know, with anydivorce, uh, there's uh, my

(09:50):
mother and father loved andhated each other at the same
time you know how that works anduh, I think, uh, neither one of
them ever got over it and uh,you know, uh, they they were
never able to even sit in thesame room together, even as I
was an adult.
But uh, so I think there was aperiod there where it was just

(10:11):
easier if we weren't around mydad's house.
Um, and it just, you know, itcaused some rift between me and
my father for a lot of years,but fortunately we were able to
kind of repair that later on inlife.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
So Well, all right.
Sounds very familiar to me.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah, it's the same old story.
Often you know the patternisn't all that different when
you have a broken home like that.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Right, Right, but when you're the kid it doesn't
matter if it's happening toother people it's happening to
you?
Right, exactly, yeah, so you,uh, sounds like you made it
through high school, possibly bythe skin of your teeth I
graduated with a 2.5 um gradepoint average, so it wasn't
horrible, but it wasn't great,uh, by any means we wouldn't
call it stellar no, it was.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
It was not a not.
And honestly, uh, you know, I,I, I think I was more
intelligent than I realized, soI could skate by pretty easily
With minimal effort.
I could get a C and I waspretty much giving minimal
effort.
You just knew what you had todo, to get it done.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
I used to have a guy that I went to school with when
I was in the Navy and he wouldalways just do whatever it took
just to get by, and he wasalways petty officer, minimum
standard.
So yeah, so you, you graduatehigh school and did you go into
the late entry program?
You just ship out right away.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
I went into late entry program at 17.
I went into late entry programat 17.
So I graduated in December orJanuary, a little bit early.
Knowing that I was going in themilitary.
I decided to take a little bitof time off before I went in.
I had enough credits for highschool and I'd kind of
disengaged already.
So I graduated half year I wasworking in a local sawmill, just

(12:05):
making a little bit extra cashand hanging out and drinking and
doing all the things teenagekids do.
And then August of 1988 is whenI went in, so just about 28
years ago, yes, if my math isworking correctly.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, wow, okay, yeah , for okay, yeah, for me it was
like 40 years ago, but we won'ttalk about that 38 years ago.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
I can't do my math.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
Oh, you're right, it's that carry one that always
gets me.
So you knew you were going togo in the Army then, right.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yes, yeah, I knew I was going in um and I had been
working, uh with a couple otherpeople on farms and construction
.
So I talked to a couple otheruh guys that I knew in the army
as well and I knew I wanted tobe army airborne and, uh, one
guy told me about being anengineer and it just seemed like

(13:03):
something I really wanted to do.
So, you know, I scored reallywell on the ASVAB and all I
wanted to do was jump out ofairplanes and blow things up.
So they gave me my wish.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, yeah, because that's pretty much what you're
going to do, right.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
So you go in, you get all signed up.
How long were you in delayedentry, then total.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Probably eight months .
Okay, yeah, because I think itwas December or January when I I
think it was December when wedid the delayed entry.
I remember sitting around thetable in my house on 4th Street
with my mother and she had tosign as well.
So it was interesting when Ithink back on that.
Yeah, how was?

Speaker 1 (13:47):
was she okay with this.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
I think she was both proud and a little worried, as
mothers are.
You know, I think I was herbaby, you know.
So I was the last one out ofthe house.
I'm sure that had a big impacton her, because she wasn't
married, you know, she didn'thave anyone else in her life at
that time.
So, uh, I think it was.
It was a big step, uh, both forme and her, when I took off and

(14:12):
went to the military.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, so now, where'd you go to basic?

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Uh, so I did one unit training in uh Fort Leonard
wood, missouri.
Uh, so Fort lost in the wood,as often called oh yeah, um it
Lost in the Wood as it's oftencalled.
It's a brutal environment downthere.
I believe it was about 100degrees on the day I arrived and
it was about 10 degrees when wewere doing training in November

(14:37):
.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, it definitely has some mood swings down there,
doesn't it?

Speaker 2 (14:43):
For sure.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Now, what was it like for you, you know, stepping off
the bus into basic training.
Were you prepared for thisbecause your family had told you
, or were you not prepared forthis?

Speaker 2 (14:54):
I don't know if anyone's prepared for it.
I certainly was not.
I had only flown one time priorto hopping on the airplane and
going to St Louis, missouri, andthen they throw you on a bus
and take you down to FortLeonard Wood and you know, as
soon as you hop off, people arescreaming at you and you're

(15:16):
getting your hair all cut offand you know, I had nice long
hair back then and it's justsurreal and I think that's part
of the indoctrination processobviously where they kind of
break you down.
But I don't know that any 18year old boy is is ready for
that.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
A little bit of shock and awe when you get there.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, yeah, we were.
You would like rubbing yourhead for quite a while.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, I'm quite sure I did, and I think they gave you
a choice of eighth inch or nohair and it's like, does it
really matter?
At that point.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, what's the difference between eighth and no
hair at all?
We used to get yelled at inboot camp for rubbing our heads
because apparently it wouldirritate your scalp.
I don't know, Anyway, that'swhy I asked but anything stick
out in your mind about basictraining, Like are there some
things that happened there thatyou're like?
Anytime you think aboutbootcamp, that's what you think
about.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
I don't really think about bootcamp a whole lot.
It was tough.
I think the one unit trainingyou know it was, it was
basically like 13 weeks of basictraining.
So you know, I hear otherpeople go to their AIT and it
got a little easier.
I don't feel like it everhappened that way for us.
The drill sergeants in that oneunit training like that are

(16:33):
just, you know, they're drillsergeants for 13 weeks.
So I think we got a weekend offand then it was right back to
business.
But you know, blending, blendingthe two together, you you'd uh
go on a ruck march all day longand then you'd build a bridge
and you'd ruck back to thebarracks.
Uh and uh, they also found outI was going to airborne school.

(16:55):
So they would run me at nightbecause evidently if you failed
airborne it was a reflection onthem as well.
So, uh, you know, being dumbenough to go in the airborne, I
got to do extra PT.
Um, I was a skinny kid probably135 pounds when I joined the
army.
Uh, so anytime we would line upfor chow.

(17:17):
If there was a bigger guy infront of me, they would take his
dessert and put it on my plate.
So I quickly learned to.
You know, squeeze up next to abigger guy whenever I was in
line, cause I knew I was goingto get double desserts.
Nice, so I guess, that that didstand out to me.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
That's the uh.
Yeah, that's the army's way ofa load leveling right.
That's great.
So, yeah, so you never reallyleft boot camp for AIT then.
It was just all an extension ofall of that.
So you get done with that.
Did you come home after AITthen?

Speaker 2 (17:51):
I went straight to airborne school at Fort Benning,
georgia.
So we hopped on a bus and, youknow, drove throughout the night
.
However many hours it took us,it felt like forever.
You know, we stopped somewhereMemphis, I believe, tennessee
and then continued on down.
We got there in the earlymorning hours and it was

(18:14):
definitely different becausenobody was screaming at you to
get off the bus but they showedus our barracks and where we
would be and report first thingin the morning.
They showed us our barracks andwhere we would be and, you know
, report first thing in themorning.
So it was definitely a weirdtransition for me because you
know I wasn't used to regulararmy and you know I was still

(18:36):
saying, yes, specialist, youknow, to people and it was just
kind of people like, okay, takethat down a notch, would you.
Right, you can always tell thenew guy right yeah, exactly, I
was definitely the fng at thattime.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
So yeah, and if you know, you know with the fng.
We're not going to tell peoplewhat that means.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
But but yeah exactly so.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
you know there's a common theme in the army and
that is like okay, you went fromfort le Leonard Wood to Fort
Benning, but it's like out ofthe frying pan into the fire,
because I know Benning is justhot as heck Almost 10 months out
of the year.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Oh yeah, it was definitely warm there, although
that would have been lateNovember, early December when I
got there, so the days were hotbut it would get a little cooler
at night so you'd get a littlereprieve from some of the heat.
You know there were no airconditioned barracks back then,

(19:32):
so you know you'd at least get alittle cooler in the evening in
the barracks.
But it was just anyone who'sbeen through airborne school,
you know a lot of running, theylove to run.
So we'd get up and run sevenmiles every morning.
I remember I believe it was onthe first day, if I remember and

(19:55):
they'd say look to your left,look to your right, because one
of those guys won't be standingthere when you're done.
I don't remember if I said itout loud, but I certainly was
like it's not going to be me andI knew that.
And you know, whenever anyonetells me they're going airborne
or special forces, just failurecan't be an option.
And for me, airborne school,failing was just never going to

(20:19):
be an option.
So, um, I ended up spraining myankle in week one.
I ended up spraining my anklein week one.
I went to the PX and boughtsome wrap and some aspirin cream
, and every morning I would wrapit as tight as I could and I
would go for a run, because youdidn't want to tell anyone
you're injured or you getrecycled, and I certainly didn't

(20:39):
want to spend any more time atairborne school than I had to,
right.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
Right, and you know, I think people hear like I got
up and I ran seven miles or Irucked 20 miles or whatever it
is you did in the military A lotof us did it that your body
will do what your mind tells itto do.
It's not a matter.
I mean you have to bephysically fit, don't get me
wrong.
But I don't think it's a matterof physical fitness.
It's really a matter of do youhave the tenacity to make it

(21:05):
through?

Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that.
I've.
I'm not a big guy.
I've never been the biggest,strongest guy, um, but in every
school I've done whether it wasairborne, mountain, warfare
school, um, psychologicaloperations, selection, just
quitting was never an option forme.
Um, you know there's alwaysgoing to be someone faster,
stronger, bigger.

(21:26):
But uh, if, if you're not, ifyou don't give up, you don't
quit, I mean your, your bodywill carry you through a lot
more than you realize.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Right.
So you're, you're going throughairborne school, watching the
guy on the left and right fallout, and um, that has a.
Does it have a fairly highfailure rate then?
And um, that has a.
Does it have a fairly highfailure rate then?

Speaker 2 (21:44):
Uh, at that time it was about a one third 25% to 33%
failure rate.
Um, I don't know if it's stillthat difficult these days, but
uh, you know, um, we, we had apretty good uh fail rate and
they would just play mentalgames with you.
I remember, um, one morning, itwas quite warm, they just left

(22:07):
us at attention for an hour, uh,standing in the hot Georgia sun
, and then, uh, the Sergeantairborne came out with a glass
of cold water and it wasdripping sweat off of it and he
said who wants to quit today?
Uh, just come on in, we havecold water, cold ice cream.
And sure enough, some peopledropped out of formation and
walked right up there.
Uh, just come on in, we havecold water, cold ice cream, and
sure enough, some people droppedout of formation and walked

(22:27):
right up there.
And it just, you know, to me,you, you could stand me in the
sun all day.
I'd I'd have to fall out andpass out before I was quitting.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
Right, your drink of water will come from an IV bag
right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
So how long?
How long is airborne school?
Uh, three weeks, uh, threeweeks, uh.
So you know there was a littlelead up.
I think I was there three and ahalf weeks, uh, just because
you're, you're getting into thebarracks and everything, uh.
But you have a ground week, um,where you're learning parachute
landing falls, uh, a tower weekwhere you're jumping out of
towers and falling off the 250foot tower at Benning.
And then final week is jumpweek, where you do your five

(23:09):
jumps out of either a C one 30,or a one 41.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
So I think a lot of civilians listening to this that
kind of blows their mind likethree weeks from I've never even
seen a parachute to I'm jumpingout of a plane now I don't
think they, you know, I don'tthink people realize how
compressed things are.
Like it's very intense.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yeah, uh, any of those schools that you go
through, you know that, you know.
But the army, uh, the military,they, they keep you moving and
there's long days 12, 14 hourdays, however long it takes to
get everybody through.
Uh, uh, that that's what it'sgoing to be.
Uh, so a lot of training in ashort period of time.
I was uh kind of terrified ofheights.

(23:52):
So tower week was like horriblefor me.
I remember I was one of thelast people to actually pass,
because every time I would jumpout of the tower, I just, you
know, and I mean, would I woulddo everything wrong because I
was terrified, yeah, and Iremember, remember the Sergeant
airborne with his clipboard.
He looked down at it.
He looked up at me with his uhcondescending eyes and was get

(24:13):
back up there and do that again.
So I eventually got it right.
But, uh, to your point, youknow, it didn't matter if I was
there for two hours or 12 hours.
We were either going to get itright or I was going to quit,
and I wasn't going to quit, yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, so did they play the game too, Like I
remember a lot of times you'regoing to go on a seven-mile run
and you get done with yourseven-mile run and they wave you
through like, oh, we're doinganother mile.
The.
The idea was that just becauseyou think it's over, it doesn't
mean it's over and you betterhave a little gas left in your
tank.
They do kind of stuff like thatwhen you really they absolutely

(24:51):
did that.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Now that you mentioned that, I remember that
you, you were supposed to hitthe finish line, but they would
continue on up to the hangarsand just run you another half
mile or so just to see who woulddrop out.
Because, uh, you know, again,it's a mental game, they're
they're trying to see who'sstrong enough to stay in.
Uh, I believe you could onlyfall out of two runs and you

(25:13):
would fail the school.
Um, you know.
So, again, if you breakpeople's spirit, they think
they're done and you, you pushthem a little further.
And there were definitelypeople who would fall out
because they, they had alreadyset in their mind that they,
they were going to stop at sevenmiles yeah, you know the other
thing?

Speaker 1 (25:30):
I want to go back to tower week real quick.
Uh, the other thing I think themilitary does is um, makes you
face your fears, right, like youdon't have time to be afraid of
.
You're scared shitless, right,but you have time to be afraid
of heights.
You're scared shitless, right,but you have time to be afraid
of heights.
And how does that shape youlater on, right?

Speaker 2 (25:51):
It definitely had a huge impact on me.
I think even to this day.
If something scares me, I do itjust because I see that as a
weakness and I have to getbetter at that.
I talk about all the time withpeople at work.
I do a lot of presentations now.

(26:13):
I've been in learning anddevelopment for years, but I
ended up getting a D incommunications in high school.
I was terrified of speaking infront of people.
So when I got into theprofessional world, I forced
myself to get up of speaking infront of people.
So when I got into theprofessional world, I forced
myself to get up and speak infront of people.
Just because you know, if it'sa weakness of mine, something
I'm not comfortable with, I'llactually push myself to do that.

(26:35):
I don't love spiders.
I'm not going to go lay in abathtub full of spiders, but you
know anything like that spidersbut you know anything like that
that I find fearful.
I continue to challenge myself.
I go for hikes in the, in themountains, all the time.
So I don't love standing on theedge of a cliff and I won't do

(26:56):
it on purpose, but you know I'mnot gonna miss out on a hike
just because it's it's near acliff.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Right, Right, Well, and isn't there a certain amount
of I don't know like a littlebit of adrenaline rush you get
from doing stuff that justscares the hell out of you.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah, and I think, uh , you know I tell people all the
time the military was the bestand the worst thing that ever
happened to me, cause, uh, fromthe ages of 18 to 21, I just had
this heightened sense ofpurpose and I got to experience
things that were just incredible.
Uh, and you know, I just hadthis heightened sense of purpose
and I got to experience thingsthat were just incredible.
And, you know, I think you haveto find a way later in life to

(27:32):
fuel that adrenaline in apositive way, and it doesn't
always work that well for all ofus.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
Sometimes we find a negative way to do it right
Exactly.
I'm sure we'll talk about that.
So you get through airborneschool.
I wouldn't say get through likeyou got through it.
What happens next?

Speaker 2 (27:54):
So I went home, I did a month of leave at home, I was
home for Christmas, which wasnice, and then I believe it was
around January 9th I don'tremember the exact date that I
ended up, uh, being sent toGermany.
Um, if you recall, they ask youwhere do you want to be

(28:14):
stationed?
I don't remember what I putstateside, but I remember from
my overseas station I put, uh,korea and Hawaii, and they sent
me to Germany.
So you know, they don't reallycare what you want, it's the
Army's needs first.
So I ended up in Germany.
Wasn't my first choice butabsolutely, in hindsight, love
the opportunity that I had to bein Germany for a couple of

(28:37):
years.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah, I think we all have that story about.
This is what we asked for andthis is what we got.
But the great thing is you'reabsolutely right.
Like all those things I gotthat I didn't ask for, they were
great.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
Like I didn't think it was so great at the time, but
they were great Right.
So how long were you in Germany?

Speaker 2 (28:55):
So I arrived in January of 89.
We arrived shortly after theRhein-Main bombings in 88.
So when I first arrived therethey took me to Smith-Kassern in
Aschaffenburg, germany, andthere was a bulldozer and a 113
with a 50 cal mounted on top atthe front gate and I was like,

(29:16):
where the hell did they send me?
This is more like Beirut thanGermany, but it was just a
heightened sense of security atthat time.
Um, so I spent, uh, two yearsin a Schaffenberg, the engineers
.
We had our own concern.
They're not like big militarybases here in the U?
S, they're kind of scatteredthroughout the cities in Germany

(29:36):
.
Uh, at least they were at thattime.
A lot of those have closedsince.
But, um, we had a localtraining area nearby that we
used to go to and uh and do alot of training at.
But at that time 1989, it wasstill East and West Germany.
So later in January there wasReforger 1989, which was a big

(30:02):
show of force against theEastern Bloc Soviet Union
countries.
So we did maneuvers on theCzechoslovakian border, you know
, and again a dumb kid fromnorthern Michigan.
All of a sudden I'm standing onthe Czechoslovakian border
looking through a pair ofbinoculars at a Russian guard

(30:24):
looking back at me a thousandfeet away, a thousand meters
away, and uh, it was justsurreal.
Um, you know, uh, people talkabout the cold war and it was.
It was uh.
It's still hard to explain topeople what that meant, because
there was just this constanttension in Europe, and to to see

(30:46):
this 25 foot tall fence withRussian guards on the other side
was just, it was a lot to takein at 18.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, did you get the sense that, uh, that guy across
the fence maybe felt the sameway you did?

Speaker 2 (31:02):
I don't think so.
Uh, the Russians were reallygood at posturing and I feel
like every soldier they put onthe front was six foot two
blonde, just built like a brickshithouse for lack of a better
term.
And I mean, you know, they werereally good at just being stoic
and looking like they were incontrol.

(31:23):
I'm sure to them, I was justthis puny little kid on the
other side that they werechuckling at, but it was a very
interesting thing to see.
And then, if we fast forward toNovember of that same year,
that's when we woke up onemorning and we're watching AFN

(31:45):
in the barracks Armed ForcesNetwork the worst television
ever, but it was all we had towatch and we were witnessing
people tearing holes in theBerlin Wall while Russian guards
were watching it, and it wasjust unbelievable because it was
like a week before you had beenshot for doing something like

(32:05):
that.
Uh, so it was actually my buddy, joe jammer, who was, uh, from
ogle ma county as well.
We ended up in the engineer uniton the same day, oddly enough,
so we'll talk more about that.
But, uh, small town, um, weended up in the same unit and he
, he said we need to go toberlin.
So that day we went down to ouroffice and put in for a

(32:30):
three-day leave, and the nextweekend we hopped in a car and
we drove through the russiancorridor into east germany, into
berlin, and we walked throughthe Berlin Wall into East Berlin
, where there were Russianguards standing everywhere, so

(32:52):
we didn't spend much time there.
We turned around and walkedback through the wall, but I
have a picture of me sitting ontop of the Berlin Wall and I
have a big chunk of the BerlinWall that I pulled off myself.
I found a chunk of rebar on thewall and I started working it
until the piece came off andthat that still sits in my
cabinet at home.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
Wow, I mean, I remember watching it on TV.
I can't even imagine beingthere.
Like that's the definition ofsurreal right, it really was.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yeah, and you know it's so hard to explain, like
even driving across East Germany, just the oppression, the lack
of signs.
You know, here you see a gasstation off of the road.
There it was just barren andyou would see a little town off
in the distance.
Of course we weren't allowed togo to any of those, but the

(33:41):
fact that there was noadvertising at all and you'd see
an east german police officerpull up next to you and he'd
just glare at you, and it wasterrifying and people lived this
life every day.
Uh, when we went into eastberlin, we, we stepped in a
little shop and it was.
It looked like it was from the1800s, it was just shelves with

(34:02):
a few cans and and bread.
You know, uh, we said gutenmorgan.
And they looked over at therussian officer, like we don't
even want to talk to theseamericans.
It was pretty obvious we wereamericans, right?
Uh, you know so we, we didn'tfeel welcomed by anybody.
So, again, we didn't spend toomuch time in east berlin.
But uh, it was.

(34:23):
It was just unbelievable andit's hard to explain because
there's nothing like it, savefor maybe North Korea on the
earth today.
That's like that.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yeah, I think people misunderstand the effect of
communism on a country.
I remember going to Romania in87.
And the people there werestarving, but there were fields
just full of produce, right, butit was all going to the
Russians, right, and the peoplethat lived there weren't getting

(34:54):
anything.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah, it's.
Uh, it was definitely strange,and I think in 1990, the two
Germanys reunited and the EastGermans were just so happy to be
out from under the Russiancontrol, to your point.
I think the daily oppressionthat people went through was

(35:20):
just more than most of us couldever imagine yeah, yeah, exactly
so I.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
Were they not like?
So I gotta ask this questionbecause of because the way the
army works right.
Were they not concerned aboutgiving you a pass to go there
like because really all hell wasbreaking loose and it was.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
so there were a lot of protocols we had to file, and
evidently I didn't know it then, but we did have some status of
forces agreement with theRussians.
Okay, and when we went to theRussian corridor there was a US
consulate, I guess, with amilitary attache there, and they

(36:04):
basically told us make sure ourgas tank is full.
We won't be stopping anywherebetween here and East Berlin.
So as we made it through EastGermany, we weren't allowed to
get off the freeway, and if wewere, we were threatened with
arrest and detention until wewould be brought back to the US

(36:24):
military and then we wouldactually be court-martialed by
the US military for notfollowing orders.
So it was very strictguidelines and I think that
status of a forces agreementkind of.
You know, again they call itthe Cold War for a reason,
because we weren't actively atwar, but we weren't going at war
, but we we weren't going totolerate any shenanigans from

(36:45):
either side.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
yeah, yeah, exactly so you, uh, how long?
How long were you then ingermany at the at this point, or
?

Speaker 2 (36:53):
so I was there just shy of two years when, uh, well,
the wall came down.
I'd been there there about, uh,less than a year, okay, and
then about a year and a half iswhen Saddam Hussein invaded
Kuwait and uh, that that kind ofchanged things quite a bit.

(37:13):
Uh, there were maybe six toeight months where it felt like
the world was just at peace.
You know, again, the wall hadcome down.
It was a surreal situation.
They were talking aboutdownsizing our military at that
time, and in August of 1990,saddam Hussein decided to invade

(37:36):
Kuwait, and I didn't know it atthat time, but within a month
our unit was starting to spin upand get ready to deploy there.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Okay, before we get there, I do want to ask one
other question.
So you woke up in the morningand you saw the wall coming down
.
Was there any indication aheadof time that made you think this
was going to happen?

Speaker 2 (37:59):
Not really.
Do you think this is going tohappen?
Not really.
Um, you know, looking back onit you can kind of see a little
bit of uh, when reagan wentthere and and gorbachev and him
were getting along well and it'sa mr gorbachev, tear down this
wall, uh.
But you know, from my point ofview, I arrived in january and

(38:20):
again I'm looking across at aRussian guard and even up until
November I didn't see it as apossibility.
I was just in shock when I sawit on AFN that they weren't
actually shooting people orripping the wall down.
It seemed to change almostovernight.
Actually shooting people orripping the wall down, yeah, it

(38:43):
seemed to change almostovernight.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
Okay, I was just curious if you guys heard
rumbling.
So so you're there, you see thewall come down and you get a
little bit of.
Oh, you know, the olive branchdoves are flying around and all
of a sudden, there's alwaysgoing to be one idiot right, and
this time it's Saddam Hussein.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
Yeah for Saddam Hussein yeah, for sure, yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
So what happens?

Speaker 2 (39:02):
so, uh, he invades, uh, kuwait, obviously, and um,
the whole US military startsspinning up.
I think we sent 82nd Airbornewas one of the first on the
ground there.
A couple ranger battalions uhwent in and then the build-up
just started happening likecrazy.
November we got our orders thatwe were heading to Saudi Arabia

(39:28):
and I believe we left just acouple of days after
Thanksgiving Most of thefamilies were allowed to go home
and spend Thanksgiving withtheir families.
I was alone in Germany, soobviously we had Thanksgiving at
the chow hall A turkey roll,yeah, exactly.
A dry turkey roll.

(39:48):
And then I think I was on oneof the advance planes if I
recall correctly, advance partyand even that was funny, because
at the time I think it wassolid twa, one of those airlines
that no longer exists.

(40:08):
Uh, we get on this big 747 andwe're walking up the stairs onto
the plane with all of ourweapons.
And I remember, uh, we hadchartered it, the us military
had chartered it, but thestewardesses that were on there
were just looking at us likewhat the hell is happening,
because all these guys arecoming on with weapons.
We didn't have ammunition withus, but you're carrying weapons

(40:31):
onto a plane and throwing M60sup into the luggage rack on top.
And it was an interesting timeto be a part of the US military,
for sure.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
I bet they still took your nail clippers though.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Yeah, I don't remember, but they probably did.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yeah, yeah.
So when you headed to Kuwait,where did you actually start out
?

Speaker 2 (40:55):
So we flew in to an airfield outside of Daharan,
saudi Arabia, and then we hoppedon some buses.
We went to the docks in daharan.
We spent a couple of weeksthere waiting for our equipment
to arrive, because it was comingby naval vessel, so all of our
m113s.

(41:16):
We also had a heavy equipmentplatoon that had bulldozers and
other heavy equipment that theengineers use, so we sat on the
docks for about two weeks.
It was hotter than Hades.
Of course it's Saudi Arabia,you know.
You get the humidity off theocean and you're on a blacktop

(41:38):
all day long in the hundreddegree heat.
And it was a, it was a long twoweeks.
Uh, sitting on the dockswaiting for everything to show
up, gotcha Nice and acclimated,didn't it?
Oh yes, right away.
You went from Germany to SaudiArabia and it quickly changed,
uh, from maybe 70 degrees to ahundred and a hundred plus, in

(41:59):
no time.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
Right, and nobody cares because you still have a
job to do, right, I mean?

Speaker 2 (42:03):
And you have to be in full uniform at all times, of
course.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Full, did you guys have to have all your stuff on?
But you're in Bahrain, right?
So it's not really.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
Bahrain was right across from Dahran.
Okay, so we're in the samegeneral area, but the docks are
right there across the causewayis Bahrain.
So, yes, we, you know, in thosedays we were allowed to go down
to t-shirts and the LBE was alot lighter.
We'll talk about my second setof service, but, you know, later

(42:37):
on, when we had plate carriersand everything else, it was a
lot more.
The LBE wasn't horrible to wearback back at that time and we
had summer uniforms that weren't, uh, soaked in permethrin.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
So there were some advantages, even though it was
ungodly hot right, right, yeah,I guess you can take off as much
as you want.
It's not going to change how,how nice and warm it is.
So your equipment finallyarrives.
Uh, what happened?
Where do you head?

Speaker 2 (43:04):
so we, once we get our equipment, uh, we moved up
to, uh, the wadi al-batin, umhafar al-batin is a, a city
north of there, um, when thelocals actually called it hell,
because it's just the middle ofnowhere and it's hot and nothing
grows out there.
If, if you can imagine a gravelroad that just goes on for 100
miles, that's just the middle ofnowhere and it's hot and
nothing grows out there.
If you can imagine a gravelroad that just goes on for 100

(43:26):
miles, that's that's kind ofwhat the terrain is out there.
There's not a bush or a bladeof grass that grows anywhere.
Um, and it it was just, uh, youknow, we set up in the middle of
nowhere.
We hadn't received gps systemsyet, so we were navigation was
like impossible because therewas no, no terrain features.

(43:46):
So at nighttime we would oftentriangulate cities in the
distance because we could seetheir lights, and then that's
how we would kind of guidethroughout the day.
But oftentimes we'd keep trackof our miles as we were moving
and once we hit 10 miles we'dstart doing circles to find out
where we were supposed to be,because, you know, it was easy

(44:08):
if you're off by a degree or two.
There was nothing to navigateby out there.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Wow, no Blue Force track or anything, not in those
days.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
We did eventually get Magellan handheld systems,
which, again, that technologywas new to us at that time, but
it amazed us.
You know, we could get three orfour satellites and all of a
sudden this little arrow wouldpoint us in the right direction.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
So, yeah, I can't even imagine that when I, when I
deployed it was, we had all thecool stuff.
Yeah, you were on the cuttingedge of all of that.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
I would equate it to being in the middle of the ocean
, you know, if you don't haveanything to navigate by.
Really all you have are thestars and the sun, and that's
kind of how we felt when wefirst got there.
Of course, we we weren'tequipped to navigate that way.
We're used to terrain featuresand a grid eight digit grid to
get us where we're going.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
So yeah, yeah, I never really kind of thought
about it, but, yeah, there's nota lot of terrain features and
they and they move in the desert.
So where, where are you, um,actually headed then, and how
long did it take you to getthere?

Speaker 2 (45:15):
so, um, how far over.
Teen had to be at least acouple hours north.
Some of our equipment we couldship with our 920 semi-trucks
but the tracks, the M113s we allhad to drive up there and they

(45:35):
move at about 30 miles an hour.
So it took us it felt like allday to get up to where we were
going.
And then, because we were anengineer unit, we pushed up
berms around our area and thatwas pretty much the only terrain
features in the area at thattime.
By late December the desertjust exploded.

(46:02):
With little concerns like that,units were just showing up
daily.
But when we first got out thereit was just absolutely nothing.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
Right, no neighbors.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Not at all no.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
And so what was your mission then, while you're there
?
Did they really not quite haveone?

Speaker 2 (46:17):
yet.
So when we look back on it, wewere trying to do a show of
force.
So every um, oh, what are, whatare the uh vehicle covers you
put out?

Speaker 1 (46:32):
Oh, the you're talking about, like the camo
radar camo.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
So we set up camo nets everywhere and we we'd put
them over top of anything.
Nets everywhere, and we we'dput them over top of anything.
And it was basically to foolthe Iraqis, to show that we had
more vehicles and more forcethan we actually had.
So we would set up even littlemock concerns and just put up,
uh, put up camo nets, uh.

(46:56):
So we did that for a couple ofmonths, but then, after more
units arrived, it was lessimportant to do that.
But initially we werevulnerable because, you know, we
, we didn't have the full forceon the ground yet.
And then, once first infantrygot set up, we, we ended up
being linked up with the firstinfantry division okay, all

(47:20):
right, and it it sounds like theiraqis didn't have the uh, the
will or the force.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Maybe that we thought that they had originally too?

Speaker 2 (47:28):
no, that is for sure.
Um you know, we were told therepublican guard was just gonna
destroy us right so.
But we were terrified.
But you know we we wereexpecting 20 to to 30% losses
because the Iraqi RepublicanGuard had been at war with Iran
for years.
So they were hardened troopsand they were really supposed to

(47:50):
know what war meant and lookedlike.
And our technology at that timewas untested.
We had been to war for 20-plusyears.
We had been to war for 20 plusyears.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
So I think we didn't even know what our own
capabilities were leading up tothat war.
Yeah, I think we found outreally quickly as a matter of
fact, we did yes.
Yeah, so what was it?
So what was it like?
I don't want to say typical day, because there's no such thing,
but what was a day like.
Once everyone kind of got thereand you're now part of the 1st
Infantry Division.
What were you doing?

Speaker 2 (48:32):
Most of the days the heavy equipment platoons were
really busy them, because I wascombat engineer as demolition
specialist, but, um, they weregoing to different areas and
helping people set up berms anddig, uh, pit toilets and all
that kind of stuff, uh, but mostof our day was spent on guard

(48:53):
duty.
We we kept like 75 guard at alltime because we thought there
might be preemptive attacks bythe iris.
They didn't happen, except fora few small areas, like Kafji
was one that people have heardabout.
But for the most part theIraqis didn't go on the
offensive, which was probablyvery good for us because we

(49:16):
would have been caught with ourpants down early on.
But most days were just boring,trying to stay out of the sun.
You know we'd play volleyballor you spent your time sitting
on the berm staring out into thedarkness.
I remember at nighttime a lotof times I'd have the starlight

(49:37):
scope mounted on top of my M16and I would just kind of watch
people smoking cigarettes around.
You know it was.
It was really boring, so youjust did what you could to amuse
yourself.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Yeah, I think there's nothing worse than having bored
soldiers, though there's lotsof ways to lots of ways to find
trouble when that happens.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
Absolutely.
Well, the good news is uh, youknow you were.
You were 20 miles from uh anelectric pole, so there wasn't
uh too much you could do to findtrouble out there yeah, well,
that's, that's a good thing.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
You're right now.
How long?
How long were you there doingthis?

Speaker 2 (50:10):
so we probably spent, uh, the better part of a month
up near hafar al-batin.
Uh, then, january 16th I think,is when the bombing started,
and you know, we had someartillery come in a few times,
but for the most part we'd justsit there at night and listen to

(50:32):
the carpet bombing and you'djust feel the whole earth shake.
Two weeks before the invasionso that must have been early
February we moved up to theIraqi berm.
So there was this huge 40 footberm between Iraq and Saudi
Arabia that somebody had pushedup at some point and that was

(50:55):
kind of the border, if you will.
It wasn't heavily guarded, butyou could definitely tell where
it was at.
So we moved up on the border andwe spent a couple of weeks up
there.
And when we moved up there theshelling got a little more
regular for us because we were alot closer.
You'd hear Iraqi drones comeover at night.

(51:15):
We could never spot them in thesky, but you'd hear them and
then the next day we'd get hitby artillery.
So they would, uh, the us movedartillery batteries up, uh
behind us and they, they quicklycountered the iraqi artillery
and and destroyed at least 75 oftheir artillery even before we

(51:36):
went in uh um in february okay,so let's talk about that then.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
What was it like to now finally move into Iraq?
Uh, how was that?

Speaker 2 (51:48):
So I, we were attached to two, three, four
armor um first infantry divisionand as engineers, uh, we, we
cut holes through the berm withexplosives and bulldozers.
Holes through the berm withexplosives and bulldozers, and
we were kind of leading thecharge to mark the lanes,

(52:09):
because the Iraqis had used alot of landmines in those days.
So, engineers, part of our jobis to cut lanes through.
So we came under some prettydirect fire a couple of times
and we got through the first setof minefields and after that
they actually brought M1s upthat had tank plows on them and

(52:31):
they cut through the last fewsections as we got closer to the
actual tanks.
So, battle of 73 Easting Idon't remember if that was the
first day or the second day,memory alludes to me a little
bit, but it might have been thefirst day of the war.
We were part of that initialpunch into the 48th Iraqi

(52:56):
Infantry Division.
I believe is the one we chewedup initially.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
Okay, believe is the one we chewed up initially.
Okay, now something too, uh,that I don't know, that a lot of
people realize, is when you sayengineering, a lot of people
think engineering like I'm goingto design a tower, I'm going to
build a building, and uh, youknow from experience the
engineers, uh, they're out therelooking for ieds and mines and
and uh, clearing all that stuffout of the way, which I don't

(53:21):
think a lot of people know orunderstand.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
No, and it has changed a little bit over the
years.
To your point, modern engineersare more IED and route clearing
.
Back during Desert Storm, therewere a lot more landmines than
there were IEDs.
So that was our major focus wascutting through the landmines.
Once we got beyond that, it wasusing explosives to destroy

(53:51):
bunkers, caches of weapons.
We were used as light infantryseveral times just because of
the speed with which we weremoving.
Just because of the speed withwhich we were moving.
Obviously, with 113s wecouldn't take on a T-72 tank, so

(54:13):
they would have us peel off andgo into the light trench lines
and kind of overwhelm the enemyon that front.
Okay, so you're like right,pretty close combat then uh,
yeah, when, after we cut throughthe berm, uh, it felt like we
drove forever.
I think it was 26 miles untilwe we hit the first iraqi tanks

(54:34):
and there was one m1 in front ofme that was plowing through the
minefield.
We were probably only rollingabout five miles an hour when I
saw the tank rock, and off inthe distance I see this tiny
little puff of smoke and I meanI knew he had hit a tank and I
would later learn it was almostthree miles out that he hit that

(54:55):
first Iraqi tank.
So again, our technology wasuntested.
I think we were saying our maxrange was a mile and a half back
then and we almost doubled thatrange and one shot while
rolling with the tank plow anddirect hit.
It was amazing.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Yeah, that's no small feat.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
No, you know.
So we still had a couple milesto push forward.
By then all the M1s wereopening up.
Iraqi tanks were returning fire, but very minimal, uh, damage
to anybody.
I mean you'd see them hittingthe, hitting the dirt.
But um, they were.
They certainly didn't have thekind of range or technology that

(55:36):
we had.
I remember, as we were goingthrough there, I remember an
Apache helicopter pulling upover to my left and just
watching the hellfires rip offinto the distance.
It was definitely anoverwhelming amount of force

(55:57):
that we brought against theIraqis.
I think there's also amisconception that the Iraqis
never fought back and they allsurrendered, and that certainly
was not the case.
We exchanged fire with themmany times.
We just overwhelmed them to thepoint that we broke their will
to continue to fight.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
Right?
Well, a lot of it wastechnology.
I think you know after my timein service.
A lot of it, too, is just theamerican soldier like I don't
know how to describe that likeeven if they had crappy
technology, they'd find a way tomake it work yeah, I think we,
we have aggressive tactics.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
Uh, you know, if you look at, uh, we were part of
that big Hail Mary, right hookinto Iraq.
Um, you know, schwarzkopf waslike we're, we're just going to
crush him and I mean, that's,that's the I know.
In the army, our doctrine isyou run towards enemy fire, not
away from it.
Uh, you know.
So you hear gunshots, you turnand you face the gunshots and

(57:00):
you start moving towards it.
Right, and that's, you know,effective, because you meet
violence with a greater violence.
And you know, that seems towork for the US military To your
point.
Even when we're at overwhelmingodds, the American soldier
seems to find a way.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
Yeah, close with or destroy the enemy, right.
I mean that's what you kind away yeah, close with and destroy
the enemy, right.
I mean that's that's what youkind of do, yeah and um.
So there was another question Iwas going to ask you as we're
going through this and, uh, Imust be getting old cause I
forgot my.
I forgot my question.
That doesn't happen very often.
But uh, yeah, so you're, you'reum.
I think the other thing toothat's what I was going to this

(57:40):
was going to get at is that wedo have this doctrine and we do
have these, you know, ttps andall these other things that
published in books and here'show you do this and here's how
you do that.
But I think the one thing thatwe don't do is we don't always
follow this.
Like we have a plan right, butwe don't always follow, like
that, that thing that wasprinted in the book, that that's
kind of the foundation, butthat crap never works because

(58:03):
it's that's not how it works inthe field.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
No, uh, we definitely train, and I think that is the
big thing is you?
You train so you know howyou're going to react.
But, uh, you know, combat iscomplete chaos.
Uh, I remember when we werefirst, after the first shots
were fired.
We're getting a little closer.
All of a sudden somebody openedup a machine gun and I'm like

(58:26):
who in the hell is shooting?
I had no idea where it wascoming from.
So, uh, it turns out it was inthe lane next to us.
But, um, and there was anotherpoint, I'm kind of like a
prairie dog.
I have have my head sticking up, kind of looking around, and uh
, some Iraqis sent some a volleyof rounds overhead.
Uh, they were probably 15, 20feet ahead over my head, but you

(58:50):
could hear them zipping by and,uh, you know, you quickly
realize, hey, that's probablynot a smart idea to be sitting
up here like a prairie dog.
So, to your point, you you'renot really prepared for any of
that.
I was 20 years old.
We prepared for a lot of things, but you just don't know until
you're in the middle of it.

(59:14):
And especially with Desert Storm, we were moving so fast and at
one point we'll fast forward acouple of days we got separated
from our unit and we ended upbeing transferred to another
unit just because as we werehitting enemy positions they
were moving on and attacking theIraqis.

(59:35):
At the Battle of Norfolk,another big tank battle that
took place.
So we ended up separated fromour unit and we ended up with
216 task force.
But on that first day, you know, to get back to the chaos of
everything we closed in on thefirst Iraqi tanks.

(59:56):
I remember I'm driving and Ilook to my left and there's this
burning T-52 tank and therewere bodies and body parts
hanging around it.
And I remember, just lookingover to my left and all of a
sudden I just hear this bigthump and I remember dirt
falling on me and theneverything just went black.

(01:00:18):
We had ran over a landmine andI don't think I was out long
minute to.
I can't say for certain, uh,but I mean I I kinda started to
come to and I I'm yelling intomy boom mic, you know, is
everyone okay?
And it was just dead silence.
And I for a minute I was likepanicked right, because I was

(01:00:43):
certain they were dead.
You know um.
I'm also reaching down to seeif my legs yeah, I was gonna say
you're doing the whole.
Yeah, everything's here, nothing, no blood patting everything
down because you, you're, it'slike mike tyson just punched you
in the face, so you're, you're,dazed, you don't really know
what's happening.
Um, so, once sergeant basher,he hits his boom bike and he's

(01:01:06):
like, yeah, yeah, I think we'reokay, you know.
So, um, I roll out of the trackand I'm looking to see if we'd
been hit, because I thought wewere hit by a tank round at that
time, yeah, um, so I'm lookingto see what the damage is and as
I walk towards the back, I seemy trailer and the axles are
blown out from under it and someof our equipment scattered

(01:01:28):
around the desert.
It was six inches narrower thanmy track, so my track missed
the landmine, but my trailer hitit and you could see in the
armor where shrapnel hadembedded into the armor, did a
splash into it.
It was and you know, again I'mjust looking at this like holy
crap, we just ran over alandmine, right, right.

(01:01:50):
So I, I'm crawling up on top ofmy track because at that point
I don't want to walk anywhere,realizing I'm in a landmine, a
minefield I think it was just ananti-personnel mine, but still
didn't want to step on one yeahum and I, I got back in my
vehicle and you know, uh, Ishoved it into drive.

(01:02:13):
My captain's like what are youdoing?
I said we can't sit here, sir,you know we're taking fire.
So, um, we just dragged thattrailer across, uh, uh, the
desert for a couple of miles,with, you know cutting a big
furrow behind us.
Uh, eventually they brought ahem it up to to take it and put
it on that.
But uh, I, I don't remember howlong we dragged that.

(01:02:35):
Things get a little fuzzy, so Itry not to fill in the holes
because I partly I think, uh,just the speed we were moving
and turns out, you know, uh,mild traumatic brain injury
isn't real good for memory.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
So no, that's true, that's true.
The other, you know the otherthing too is you're talking
about you're moving so quickly.
All of these things arehappening Like this isn't slow
motion or like a movie.
I mean, this is just happening,right, so much so that you get
separated from your unit, youget passed to another unit.
You're just moving forwardbecause you can't, you can't not
move forward, right, um, didyou find that like there was no

(01:03:15):
time to react, there was no timeto think about it until it was
done?

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
yeah, um.
So especially those first uhcouple of days, we went 30 hours
straight combat yeah no sleep.
Uh, we were just rolling, moving.
Um, you know, we we had, uh,while I'd ran over a landmine,
we had hit light infantrypositions and we were literally
clearing trenches with a squadat a time.

(01:03:42):
Um, we usually had a bradleysupporting us for heavy bunkers
and stuff.
But, uh, you know, it all justbecomes a blur to your point.
And, um, it was just one battleafter the other, another group
of prisoners we were taking.
You know, it all starts toblend together to some extent.

(01:04:04):
And then, on, I believe, thefourth day of the ground war,
they called the ceasefire.
Not all of us were happy aboutthat choice, but, you know,
nonetheless, to your point, itstarts to give you time to think
about things.
And it starts to give you timeto think about things as we were

(01:04:29):
heading down into Kuwait,because part of that agreement
was we would move out of Iraq,except for a five-mile DMZ that
we established.
We were driving through thenight and one of our units found
this kid's body, so we ended upsitting there with him for a
couple hours until gravesregistration came and picked
them up.
And that's when it, you know,we knew we had taken some losses
, but that was like really realat that moment when you're

(01:04:52):
sitting there looking at a kidthat's about the same age as you
and you know, just dead in thedesert all alone.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
Yeah, so yeah, but for the grace of god, that could
be you, right absolutely yeah,now you didn't, so it doesn't
sound like you didn't take anycasualties, though, in your
direct, not in our company.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Um, so with the first infantry division, I believe
they had a total of 21 combatantdeaths in that those four days.
Um, we would later learn thatour headquarters for 9th
Engineers, we had two guystaking prisoner of war.
They were actually lost forfive days before somebody

(01:05:31):
realized they were gone.
We actually found out from theIraqis that they had been taken
prisoner.
So you know again, logistics inthose days were really bad.
The battlefield was moving soquickly we ended up being
scattered in with other units.
We had other units you know Icould go on and on about the

(01:05:54):
stories but we had another unitthat was trailing us that got
killed by our own people becausethey were where they shouldn't
have been, you know.
So it just it was chaos.
You know, to your point, as wetalked before, we didn't have
blue force tracker.
In those days we didn't knowwho was who.

(01:06:14):
All we could tell is there's aheat signature on the horizon.
So if you weren't where youwere supposed to be, you could
easily end up in a friendly fireincident.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
Well, and if you think about it, I think this is
like the first asymmetric, thisis like the beginning of
asymmetric warfare.
Right, there's no front lineanymore, it's kind of everywhere
, and I think we saw a little ofthat during D-Day.
But I mean, eventually you hadfront lines, you know, you had
established, but that justdidn't happen in the desert.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
No, we, and we overwhelmed them, uh, even more
than I think we thought wasgoing to happen.
Our tanks just never stopped.
I mean, they just kept movingand kept attacking.
Um, at one point, we we weretaking prisoners, but, uh, we
were handing them off to cooksand mechanics because the

(01:07:08):
battlefield was just moving soquickly and we were moving
forward to hit the next lightinfantry section.
So the speed and everything wasjust overwhelming.
Um, at one point, uh, the firstinfantry division was chasing
down retreating iraqi tanks andand chewing them up, and that

(01:07:30):
was about the time when theycalled the ceasefire yeah, yeah,
I mean the enemies definitelygot the message.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
Yeah, so you moved on .
So did you guys head down tolike kuwait city then?

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
the message yeah, so you moved down.
So did you guys head down tolike kuwait city then?
So we went, uh, there's aborder crossing called safwan um
and that's, uh, the iraqi side.
I don't remember the citythat's on the kuwaiti side, but
uh, that's where we moved intosafwan airfield and, uh, the
border area, um, after we leftthat kid with somebody from
Graves Registration, we headeddown to Safwan.

(01:08:06):
We set up a hasty perimeteraround the airfield and then we
drove into the little Kuwaiticity and I remember, as we were
driving in there, there wasn't abuilding that wasn't just
riddled with bullet holes andyou started to see the

(01:08:27):
devastation that the Iraqis hadleft on the Kuwaiti people.
So, to your point, I think,when we were fighting the Iraqis
, you didn't really have time tothink about the horrors of war.
I guess You're just, you know.
But then when we started goingthrough Kuwait and you saw the

(01:08:51):
women coming out with thechildren and just the horror and
hollow eyes, you know, I mean,it started to make you really
angry.
The lack of men that werearound the Iraqis had killed so
many of them that it was justcommonplace.
People were starving, hungry.

(01:09:13):
We were throwing MREs out ofour vehicles to locals.
They'd literally fight over anMRE.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
I wouldn't fight for an MRE ever I'd fight you if you
made me eat one.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
Exactly, yeah, you know.
So it was a weird dichotomy forme, because I was angry as hell
at the Iraqis but at the sametime, none of it sat well with
me.
I mean, there's no good way tokill another human being, you
know, and we were tasked to moveinto the highway of death, if

(01:09:49):
you remember that.
There we chewed up the Iraqisas they were retreating out of
retreating out of Kuwait, cutthem off and, uh, and there were
just vehicles and bodies allover the road.
So, because we had a heavyequipment platoon, uh, they took
a bulldozer and kind of openedup the roadway and then we were,

(01:10:11):
uh, taking care of anyexplosives left behind.
Uh, we had sea tractors, uh,they were actually tasked with
picking up bodies of body parts.
Our bull bulldozers madeshallow graves for graves
registration and we spent thebetter part of a day putting
bodies in pits, which I rememberagain, I'm 20 years old,

(01:10:36):
sitting there eating my lunch,trying to be a tough guy because
you don't want to show anyweakness to anybody, but that
really didn't sit well with mefor a lot of years afterwards,
you know.
But uh, it was, it was justapocalyptic, it was hell on
earth and I mean there were justbodies everywhere.

(01:10:58):
At one point I walked away fromthe pit and, uh, I cut across
the highway, walked through sometrucks that were burned out and
again there's body partseverywhere, burned Iraqis.
And I walked through these twovehicles and I feel like I was

(01:11:18):
almost at a breaking point.
I just had to get away fromeverything.
So, around this truck and a dogbarks at me and I'm like Barney
Fife, trying to get my 45 outbecause he scared the hell out
of me, you know.
So I finally get my 45 out andthe I, I start to pull up and
the dog barks again, he runs off.

(01:11:41):
But then I realized he'd beenchewing on a human leg or a
piece of what was a human leg,and I'm like, I remember just
thinking you know, where is Godin all this?
It was too much.
And so I look off into thedesert and maybe 200 meters away
there's just this whiteMercedes Benz with the trunk

(01:12:08):
open.
And so, you know, I'm stilllike I just I'm wanting to get
away from everything.
So I walk towards that Mercedesand the trunk's wide open.
You can see some luggage inthere that's been rifled through
, probably from the Iraqisduring the initial evasion back
in August of 90.
And it's, it's surrealsometimes the things that happen

(01:12:33):
.
And there was this wedding dressin the back of this, this
Mercedes, and I just I don'tknow how to explain it was like
just too much yeah and Iremember hearing my dad's voice
because, uh, he would always belike just pray about it, and I
forgive my language, but Iremember saying I don't feel

(01:12:55):
like fucking praying right now.
Yeah, you know, and I, I wasliterally just like, uh, all the
days prior to that came likeall down at once and you could
see some bones near the driver'sdoor where somebody had been
killed, probably the male driver, bullet holes in the side of it

(01:13:15):
and about 100 meters away,these damn dogs are eating a
dead Iraqi and I just I lost itat that moment.
I also carried an m16 at the 45right um, so I pulled my m16 up
and I popped the first dog.
Um, I, I remember like for aminute, he picked his head up

(01:13:40):
and I could just see the bloodon his muzzle and I just lost it
.
So I dropped him.
Um, I, the dog started toscatter.
I shot another one, I hit himin the ass and he spun around in
circles.
Um, and then I popped off onemore round.
I remember hearing sergeantbasher yelling as I'm shooting
scott, scott, what are you doing?

(01:14:02):
And I popped off a couple morerounds and by then there's just
like tears streaming down myface and, uh, I, I quit shooting
.
But he's he's like making abeeline right towards me,
yelling at me, and I put my handup and he just stopped.
He knew it was like and I'mlike give me a minute.
And there were no, no wordsexchanged, but he just stood

(01:14:24):
there staring at me and I'm like, so I just started walking off
in the desert again, you don'twant to show any weakness, I
don't want to see anybody to seeme crying.
You know what I mean.
So I took a few minutes and,just like, walked off into the
desert and had to compose myself.
But it it, it just got to be.
You know all the death, thekilling.

(01:14:45):
It was just more than anyoneshould have to endure and way
too much for a 20 year old kidlike I.

Speaker 1 (01:14:53):
I just I can't.
It's hard to wrap my headaround like no matter where you
turned at that point, it's justdeath.

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):
Yeah, um, you know part of again that war, it was
just death.
Yeah, you know, part of againthat war for us was we were as
efficient as you could be andobviously that isn't a good
thing when you're talking abouthuman life and the toll it takes
.
So part of that, as good as thewar was in our favor, it was

(01:15:21):
hard to realize you were part of.
Just you know, I think theestimates are 80 to 100,000
Iraqis we killed in those fewdays my unit alone.
We took 2,000 Iraqi prisonersbut we destroyed an entire Iraqi
division.
So that leaves 6,000 to 68,000guys that we buried, you know.

(01:15:44):
So it was the as good as it was.
We didn't take a lot of losses.
That the other part of that is.
I mean, I said it before,there's no good way to kill
another person and it sits withyou, yeah, so yeah, well, I
think the narrative back home isjust just as you said.

Speaker 1 (01:16:02):
You know, they, they all surrendered and they ran
away, but we don't talk aboutthe overwhelming loss of life on
the side of the enemy.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
And at the end of the day I mean, you do what you
have to do it's a lesser of twoevils right, yeah, and I've
written a lot of those shortstories, traumatic things that I
went through, but to your pointit was just death everywhere
and it seemed like you alwaysfound the damn boots.

(01:16:31):
I don't know if you experiencedthat when you were in Iraq, but
for some reason the bootsalways stay intact.
The rest of the body can bescattered all over the place,
but, um, I remember thatdistinctly, just along the
highway of death, uh, around thetanks, you'd always see those
damn boots laying there, andnine times out of ten there was

(01:16:52):
still somebody's foot in it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:54):
So yeah yeah well-made boots.
Yeah, gonna buy stock in thatcompany.

Speaker 2 (01:16:59):
Whatever reason, the leather seems to hold it
together.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.
So how long were you actuallythere then?

Speaker 2 (01:17:07):
I mean, so we stayed till May.
So we stayed in Kuwait for awhile and we were mostly blowing
up Iraqi stuff that was leftbehind.
We were doing missions intoIraq.
We had that five-miledemilitarized zone.

(01:17:28):
Not all of the Iraqi units hadgotten the information, so we
actually had to force a few ofthem out of there.
We never exchanged fire butthere were some tense moments.
But when we'd show up with atow-tube missile launcher and an
Apache they usually got theidea that we meant business.

Speaker 1 (01:17:47):
Yeah, maybe we should go guys, Maybe we should get
out of here.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
Because we showed up at one compound and I remember
the guy was yelling at mycaptain.
You know, this is Iraq, we'renot leaving.
And one guy ran into thisbuilding.
Well, I pulled my .45 up and Ipointed it we're not leaving.
And one guy ran into thisbuilding, Well, I pulled my 45
up and I pointed it right at theguy.
Of course then he settled downa little bit, but there was a

(01:18:12):
tense standoff for about an hour.
But once the Apaches finallyarrived, you know, there was no
more argument, they were leaving.

Speaker 1 (01:18:17):
Right, right, because all Dad has to do is threaten
to spank you, and you know hemeans it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
Absolutely.
But yeah, there were a fewmoments like that, even post-war
, that we were still engagingwith the Iraqis.
They wanted to take theirweapons with them and we're like
, yeah, no, those are allstanding.
We blew up so many tanks andmunition depots, buried a few
chemical weapons that we foundum, and then I remember one time

(01:18:47):
we had the.
We found these surface terrormissiles.
They must have been 10 feetlong.
So we we wired them up with c4and we were, we were just going
to blow the whole lot.
We cooked them off and as we'resitting there, one of these
missiles just comes streakingacross the desert, probably a
few hundred meters to the sidewhere we were at, and we're like

(01:19:07):
, holy shit.
And then, as it's sitting thereburning, another one cooks off
and goes shooting up in the skyand we're like, oh man, we need
to get out of here.
So things don't always work outthe way you think they're going
to To your point you madeearlier, you have doctrine about
how to wire things up, but we'dblow up caches of weapons,

(01:19:31):
especially artillery rounds, andnot everything would cook off,
and then you'd have secondaryexplosions and hot artillery
rounds that come flying out ofthe bunker.
So we quickly learned if wewere going to load anything up.
We went about two to threetimes the amount of demo we
thought we needed.

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
Yeah, good rule of thumb, huh Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
Just double it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
So you know, I'm curious like you know, you're
getting rid of munitions.
You're blowing up whole tanks,that kind of stuff.
Did you find that to be like anice buffer from what you had
experienced in that four days tonow?
You're just kind of getting ridof equipment and there's some,
I don't know.
When we blew up weapons cachesthere was something fun, like it

(01:20:16):
relieved the tension almost.
Did you find that?

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
Yeah, I think you know engineers are a little
nutty to begin with, becauseanyone that's gonna stand, or in
a bunker full of demolitions,and you know, you know, at any
point you could just be a pinkmist if something goes wrong,
right.
So, uh, you know, but therewere there were times, yeah,

(01:20:40):
when the bigger, the boom, Imean it's just exciting.
We blew one bunker and the lidmust have went an eighth of a
mile into the sky and you couldjust see the shockwave coming
across the desert.
You know you could see itpushing the dust, the moon dust
in front of it, and I mean youjust feel it in your chest and
like, oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
Like a little kid right, Like when you're lighting
off firecrackers.
As a kid right, Did you seethat thing fly?

Speaker 2 (01:21:05):
And then there were, you know, most of the time it
was fine.
There were other times, acouple of times, we had to
defuse mines.
That was terrifying.

Speaker 1 (01:21:14):
Oh, but.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
Which an anti-tank mine is pretty stable, but
there's something aboutunscrewing the top and pulling
the fuse out of it that justeverything in you doesn't want
to do that very, uh,counterintuitive to go up and do
that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:29):
But I mean that that comes back to what we talked
about really early on, and thatis that you run to the sound of
the gun, you don't run away fromit and you have to make
yourself do things that yourbody is saying this really isn't
a good idea.
In your brain, every part ofyour body is like this is not a
good idea, but you have to do ityeah, exactly, and you know
it's, it's what you're trainedto do.

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
It's uh, and in those instances, uh, most of the time
we just blow things in place ifwe could, right.
But the one I'm talking aboutwhere we had to diffuse these
minds is because they were rightout front of this guy's house
and when we showed up there,it's just a rock hut, you know,
with the blankets and thewindows, and he had these kids

(01:22:15):
running around and I remember hewaved us down.
We didn't speak any Arabic, youknow and he goes over and he
picks up a damn pot and there'sa landmine under it.
We're like, oh, whoa, what thehell, you know, and it's right
out front of his house.
We went in his house and theIraqis had stored some munitions
in there.
We were able to move that stuffout, but the landmines we

(01:22:37):
didn't want to take the chanceof moving because it was so
close to the house.
So we ended up diffusing thosebefore we removed them.
But anything that was a littlefurther out we just blew in
place.

Speaker 1 (01:22:48):
Yeah, the safest way to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:22:50):
So this continued on for how long, then, before you
left Kuwait?

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
So we were in Kuwait in March.
We must have been at least two,two and a half months in Kuwait
.
Engineers were the busiest inKuwait because there's so much
demolitions that were leftbehind, unexploded ordnance I
mean there were cluster bombs inand day out, either blowing up

(01:23:22):
caches, a weapon, getting rid ofany things that were left in
Kuwait, or any unexplodedordinance that was discovered.
So we were never at a lack ofthings to do and we were also at
Safwan.
There we were part of the Shoahforce.
When they did the surrender,schwarzkopf came in.

(01:23:44):
We always had something to do.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
Tell me a little about what it was like to leave
and come back.
Did you go home afterwards?

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
I went back to Germany.
Initially, we went down to KingFod Airport and we were there
just a week or so, uh, it was.
That was kind of surreal too,because a USO band came in and
you know we'd been living in thedesert for months at that point
and, um, all, all men at thatpoint, you know it would combat

(01:24:18):
arms was strictly men back inthose days.
So you know, we we had seen awoman or a chow hall in three
months.
So I know, when we showed up atthis air base we must have
looked like animals.
You know we're dirty, we haveloaded weapons, grenades hanging
off of us, and we walk intothis chow hall and I just

(01:24:39):
remember these Air Force guyslooking at us like what the hell
just walked through the frontdoor.
Um, you know, I I think that'skind of like an analogy for
later on.
You just you don't come homethe same and it takes a while to
get back to normal.
But, um, getting back toGermany was, was nice, you know,
it felt kind of normal, uh.

(01:25:01):
But I think you don't evenrealize it at first, but you
start to get little glimpses oflike, maybe I'm not quite as
normal as I was before I beforeI left, uh, but I was only in
germany for a couple of monthsand then I ets'd out of the army
okay and um, you said somethingabout uh not being the same and

(01:25:26):
in um, you know, I I've oftenheard people say, like the
people that go to war aren't thepeople that come home?

Speaker 1 (01:25:32):
right, and you just can't.
That's just not how it works.
And so you ets'd out of thearmy fairly soon after getting
back from combat and what so totalk.

Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
Walk me through that that was probably the worst
thing that could have happenedto me.
Um, because you know, I talkabout how I was down in a trench
with a hand grenade and a 45and four months later I'm, I'm
back in Michigan, um, andthere's nobody was talking about

(01:26:08):
PTSD or anything back in thosedays, um, and it was just.
You know, you go back to normallife, but there's nothing
normal about anything you justwent through.
Uh, I remember, like the firsttime I heard fireworks, I was
practically under the counter,you know, yeah, um, and I, I

(01:26:29):
just remember I don't thinkanyone knew how to help me with
what I was going through.
I certainly wasn't at a pointwhere I was 21.
At that time, you know, Ididn't know how to deal with any
, uh any of this stuff.
I'd I'd gone.

Speaker 1 (01:26:45):
You're 21.
Um, you're in that uniquesituation where you uh left
combat and then ETS prettyquickly.
You come back home likebattlefield to home and I'm I'm
assuming you went back to Westbranch then when you got back, I
did, uh, I.

Speaker 2 (01:27:03):
I spent a little bit of time in the Detroit area, but
eventually um went uh back toWest Branch.
Um, after a couple of months,um started working in a factory.
Uh hated everything about it,you know.
So I, I, I joke around all thetime that uh, in the army I had
this heightened sense of purpose.

(01:27:24):
I was part of something biggerthan myself.
I came home I don't think Icould articulate it at that time
, but I'm pressing out parts ina factory and I'm thinking is
this really my life?
Now?
There has to be more than justthis life now.

(01:27:46):
You know, uh, there has to bemore than just this Uh.
So at first, uh, the firstcouple of years were probably
the worst.
I don't know how I didn't endup in jail or dead, to be honest
, cause I was just living alittle crazy Uh, but I would say
the first five years when Icame home, I it just.
It took me a while to get backto normal.
The second factory I worked inI met a Vietnam veteran and he

(01:28:12):
could just like listen and notsay much and nod his head and we
could talk about things likeyep, you know, you didn't have
to articulate it, but you knewthe other guy had seen some shit
, so that that started to makeme feel a little normal again,
helped a little bit.
But when I was 26, my daughterwas born and I think that was

(01:28:35):
the moment I realized I need tofix myself.
I can't keep living like I am.
So probably the best thing thatever happened to me was having
a daughter, because I think Iwould have been way too hard on
a boy.
It softened me up a little bitand it kind of forced me to

(01:28:57):
figure out how do I, how do Ifix myself?
Cause I knew I wasn't, I wasn'tokay.
Time to get your shit in onesock basically Exactly yeah, so
you uh, so were you married atthis time I was, uh, we.
I got married a couple of yearsafter I came back, so uh, 93,
and then in 96, we had ourdaughter.

(01:29:17):
Okay, how'd you meet your wife?
So I actually met her when Iwas home on leave.
Uh well, that's when we starteddating.
I had known her for years.
I knew her family, um, again,oklahoma County, west branch,
small small town.
So she was a freshman in highschool when I was a senior.
But we started dating when Iwas home on leave, before Desert

(01:29:40):
Storm.

Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
Okay, so, local gal, get married, have a daughter.
Now, was your wife working atthe time too?

Speaker 2 (01:29:49):
Yeah, so it's funny because we look back at all the
chapters of our lives.
I was working at a factory andshe was the head cashier at
Kmart.
So you know our lives have comea long way since then.
But you know, to your point Ithink she would definitely tell

(01:30:09):
you I was not the same guy.
She met a year prior to that.
You know, I definitely camehome different.
I think it definitely causedsome issues for us early on in
our marriage.
But again having a daughter, Ithink, is the best thing that
happened to me and it definitelyhelped straighten me out.

(01:30:34):
It wasn't just overnight,obviously A long journey to find
your way back to whatevernormal looks like, uh, but one
of the things, uh, I didn'tmention.
Oddly enough, we had anotherguy from Ogamaw County get
transferred into our unit rightbefore we left for desert storm.
So three guys from Ogle MawCounty in the same company.

(01:30:56):
I don't know if it's divineintervention or just random, but
the odds are astronomicallyslim that that could happen.
He came back to Ogle Maw Countyabout five years later and the
two of us could talk aboutthings that I couldn't talk

(01:31:17):
about with anybody else, and itwasn't just and it was different
than even talking with thevietnam veteran, because we
literally chewed the same dirt,we experienced the same things.
I mean, uh, we would both sitand talk about.
Uh.
One of the short stories I Iwrote is he didn't make it One
of the guys that we popped in.

(01:31:39):
I mean, he's sitting there juststaring at us and then he ended
up eventually dying.
But you know, we both werethere for that event, so it was.
You know, you had a sharedexperience.
That is just different thananything anybody else could even
talk about with.

Speaker 1 (01:31:56):
Yeah, there's power in that in talking with other
veterans is just different thananything anybody else could even
talk about with.
So there's there's power inthat in talking with other
veterans.
In fact, that's why we're doingwhat we do.
Right Is, other veterans willhear this and be oh well, maybe
I'm not as unique as I thought Iwas, cause I think I think we
all kind of think to some extentnobody else could possibly be
going through this.

Speaker 2 (01:32:15):
Yeah, no, and I worked in veterans' mental
health for a while and I thinkthat's one of the things is
traumas all look different, butat the end of it there's not.
The war may be different, thesetting may be different, but
the way we internalize it and,you know, carry that with us

(01:32:36):
looks the same.
Um, and it's, I think.
You know.
You come back to to the U?
S and, uh, you go to work in afactory and you know maybe one
or two other veterans and uh,you, you feel very alone, you
know, and uh, everything,everything about war is not what

(01:32:57):
we're taught to.
You know, we're taught torespect life, we're taught to
treat people with kindness, andthen you, just you, become an
animal, you become a savage, andit's like your identity isn't
what it used to be.

Speaker 1 (01:33:11):
Right, well then you have to reconcile that at some
point.
Some people just never do, butI think you have to.
Right, well then, you have toreconcile that at some point.
Some people just never do, butI think you have to.
So clearly, you no longer stampparts at a factory and Kmart
doesn't exist, so your wife'snot a cashier there anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:33:28):
Walk me through.
So after your daughter's born,kind of walk me through what
happens.
So I eventually started ahardwood flooring company.
I did that successfully forabout 12 years.
Um, my wife had went back toschool when my daughter was
young, probably five or sixyears old uh, to become an
attorney, uh.
So after 2009, she passed thebar exam and got a job down here

(01:33:56):
in Lansing.
So I started shutting down mywood flooring business and sold
the house up north.
We were kind of in transitionfor about a year or so, but at
that same time I decided to goback in the Army a second time
and join the Army Reserve whilegoing back to school to get my

(01:34:18):
degree.

Speaker 1 (01:34:21):
All right, so let's talk about that decision First
of all.
How'd your wife take that?

Speaker 2 (01:34:29):
So one of the I don't think she was thrilled about it
, but one of the things she saidis that when she came home and
told me she wanted to be anattorney, I said let's get you
signed up for classes.
And she said you know, I wasalways her biggest cheerleader
and supporter, so when I decidedI wanted to go back in the army
, she felt she had no choice butto support me in my decision

(01:34:53):
and I think for me there'salways a part of me that'll be a
soldier and you know, um theearly two thousands, I felt like
I was sitting on the sidelineswatching Iraq and Afghanistan
and, um, I wanted to work withveterans.

(01:35:13):
As I said, I worked in mentalhealth for a little while, uh,
and I thought some more modern,relevant experience would help
me connect with some of thoseveterans and in helping them
through some of the issues.
Uh, part of that was I wastalking to a couple of rock
veterans and it's like I sawmyself, you know, 20 years later

(01:35:34):
.
So I just felt like I hadsomething to offer, I could see
what they'd gone through and,you know, I just felt like I had
to do something.

Speaker 1 (01:35:47):
Yeah, so you joined the Army Reserve.
Are you in engineering again?

Speaker 2 (01:35:52):
No, I went back in as psychological operations.
So our unit was in Grand Rapids, 321st Psyop Company.

Speaker 1 (01:35:59):
Okay, and how was that?
Because you'd been out ofuniform for a couple of years.

Speaker 2 (01:36:07):
Yeah, I had a 19-year break in service before I went
back in, so I went back in atthe age of 40.
Back in, um, so I went back inat the age of 40, uh, you know,
at that time they were desperatefor people.
So, 40, 40 was uh stillacceptable to come back in if
you're a prior service, uh, butas you know, at 40, you're the
old man in the army.

Speaker 1 (01:36:28):
Oh yeah, and guess what?
You don't bounce anymore, bythe way, you crack and splat and
everything else.

Speaker 2 (01:36:33):
Yeah.
So it was definitely uh oddcoming back in, you know, I made
Sergeant pretty quickly butbecause of my old, uh, all my
old history in the military, butuh, you know, coming back in as
a, an enlisted person, e4, andthen becoming a Sergeant at 40
years old, you're you'redefinitely the old man in that

(01:36:55):
category.

Speaker 1 (01:36:56):
So there's two camps on this right.
There's the one camp that'slike God dang, that guy's old,
and then there's the other campthat's going boy.
He really must have screwed upif he's 40 years old and he's
just now making sergeant.
I wonder what he did.

Speaker 2 (01:37:09):
Yeah, so it was funny .
But I, uh, I always, I'vealways led by example, you know.
So, um, even at 40, I wouldchallenge myself to make sure I
pass the 18 to 21 physicalfitness standards.
So I, I, I never allowedsomebody to make the excuse Well
, I can, I can pass your yourphysical fitness.

(01:37:29):
Old man, Right?
No, I pass yours, so keep upyeah.

Speaker 1 (01:37:34):
Yeah, Bring on buddy.

Speaker 2 (01:37:35):
Yeah.
So, uh, you know, leading byexample and I think with a
little bit of age, uh, I was alittle more relaxed in my
leadership style than a lot ofthe military is.
Uh.
So I think, uh, my genuineconcern for other soldiers

(01:37:56):
showed through.
I could still be a hardsergeant at times, but uh, you
know, I think it didn't take melong to really build rapport
with the guys, even thoughthey're 20 years younger than I
was oh yeah, absolutely so.

Speaker 1 (01:38:09):
You um, so you uh crossed over at a different rate
, so you had to go to school forthat, correct.

Speaker 2 (01:38:14):
Yeah, so we did travel training.
The 100th Training Brigade metus in Fort Dix and we did the
SIOP selection course there.

Speaker 1 (01:38:26):
Okay, lovely, fort Dix, new Jersey.

Speaker 2 (01:38:28):
Oh, I hate that place .
I spent way too many hoursthere.

Speaker 1 (01:38:32):
That's where we did our train up for deployment.
Yeah, us as well.
Oh my God.

Speaker 2 (01:38:35):
The second our um train up for deployment yeah, is
that a four Us as well?
Oh my God.
The second one, which we'll getto here in a minute Frickin
horror story.

Speaker 1 (01:38:40):
So yeah, so you, uh, you're, you're chugging along,
you're you.

Speaker 2 (01:38:45):
Now are you in school too, as well as going to
Michigan state uh to get myundergraduate in psychology uh
at the same time, I was workingin a veterans treatment court,
so deeply involved in thecommunity and veterans affairs
just because, again, I kind ofhad a passion for it Finished my
degree in 2014 and immediatelyfound out I was going to be

(01:39:13):
deployed to Africa.

Speaker 1 (01:39:15):
Nice.
So before we get there, I wantto ask though this is kind of a
side note when you went to MSU,did you take the veteran's
certificate course that theyoffer?

Speaker 2 (01:39:24):
I did not.
Okay, I did not.

Speaker 1 (01:39:25):
Their social work department offers this really
great certificate course.
I didn't know if you werefamiliar with that.

Speaker 2 (01:39:32):
I am familiar with that, but I think that came
about shortly after I had uhfinished my master's in human
resources okay, that makes sense, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:39:44):
So so it's.
You say it's 2015 yes, got yourdegree and they're like oh,
guess what?

Speaker 2 (01:39:49):
you're going to africa yeah, so, uh, 20 2014, I
got my degree uh, that was inaug, August, because I had been
taking summer classes and we gottasked to send a psychological
operations detachment to supporta joint task force in Horn of

(01:40:11):
Africa.
So I was selected for thatAfrica Uh.
So I was selected for that Uhand um, I ran our product
development attachment portionof that uh as the NCOIC.
But, um, you know, we gettasked to go where we're putting
together.
This ragtag group of people Ioften say the, the PSYOP uh

(01:40:34):
group, is the misfits of theArmy.
They're intelligent enough tobe dangerous, but too smart to
be infantry, but not refinedenough to be an officer.

Speaker 1 (01:40:50):
What do they say?
I need a guy that's smartenough to do the job and dumb
enough to take it.

Speaker 2 (01:40:54):
Yes, I feel like psychological operations is
exactly that.
Uh, it's definitely a eclecticgroup of people that end up in
that.
Uh, but, but we want people whothink outside the box.
Uh, so, um, but that doesn'talways work with the typical
army hierarchy where you do whatyou're told yeah, yeah, there's

(01:41:15):
I.

Speaker 1 (01:41:15):
So I was in the national guard, so I yeah,
there's always like it seemslike there's always a little bit
of friction.
You gotta like almost proveyourself and then, once you do,
everything's fine.

Speaker 2 (01:41:24):
But regular army looks at you a little bit
differently oh, absolutely, andyou know I did as well when I
came out of active duty.
Um, I would look down my noseat the guard reserve guys and um
, but I think when you're prioractive and you go into the
reserve regard, you bring someof that with you, um, but yeah,

(01:41:47):
it's definitely a different.
And then when you're attachedto a regular unit, to your point
, I feel like you have to.
You have to prove your worth,because they're still just
looking at you like you're areserve guy who's just here for
a deployment.

Speaker 1 (01:42:00):
But your advantage, I think, is that you have to your
point an eclectic group ofpeople with all of this civilian
experience that they bring intothe military, which I think is
really helpful when you'retrying to get stuff done.

Speaker 2 (01:42:13):
Yeah, I agree, our deployment to Africa.
We were able to get a lot ofstuff done while we were there.
Um, it was I called a combatlight deployment, cause we
weren't actively engaged.
Uh, we were doing kind of someproxy war stuff with with uh
African nations.
But, um, you know that group ofguys and a couple of women that

(01:42:39):
uh deployed over to Africa, we,we were able to put out more
series of uh psychologicaloperations product in that year
than than they had seen for adecade prior to that.
So, um, to your point, peoplecame in with all kinds of
different skills and uh, you,you want those people that think
outside the box, cause they,they find a way to get things

(01:43:02):
done that uh, you know,sometimes the bureaucracy, the
army, you have to get creativeto find a way around that.

Speaker 1 (01:43:09):
Oh yeah, yes, you do, and that's the, that's the
advantage of that civilianbackground, cause you know how
to get around things.
Absolutely.
The army guys don't Right.
They're more worried abouttheir evaluations.
Yep for sure, yeah, exactly.
So walk me through thisdeployment because it sounds I
don't know, sounds kind of cool.
Psyops Africa.

Speaker 2 (01:43:28):
It was interesting.
It was difficult for me becausewe were big on force protection
there, me, because, um, we werebig on force protection there,
uh, and I think that's just a.
You know, I think thingschanged because Iraq and
Afghanistan, we'd gone to thisBob mindset and that was hard
for me to wrap my head aroundbecause, um, as a former

(01:43:52):
engineer, you know, my job isoutside the wire, not in the
wire.
Uh and same with psychologicaloperations.
I can't be effective sittingbehind a wall, uh, so I I did
struggle with that a little bit.
Um, you know, you need tounleash me a little bit so I can
do my job, uh, so we eventuallyfound a way to get that done,

(01:44:13):
but, um, the whole deploymentwas just different for me.
You know, there's a lot ofsimilarities, but every war,
every, every deployment isdifferent and unique in its own
way.
Um, but, uh, camp Leminijiboutiis just, it's horrible.

(01:44:37):
Uh, but it was a greatdeployment.
Uh, we, again, we accomplishedsome really cool things while we
were there.
We, we were working down inkenya for a while, uh, working
with, um, somali dissidents,because we would develop
products and run it by Somaliswho had left Somalia recently,

(01:44:59):
before we would put our radio orprint products.
We made a comic book while wewere there that we gave to
school children because they hadjust recently established a
federal government and Somaliahad been 29 years without a
government, so people didn'teven have an idea of what a

(01:45:20):
federal government was.
So we were trying to, at theyouth level, at every age group
we had different products thatwe were trying to instill this
idea of.
We are Somali, we're one nation, not just the tribe Somali, but
the nation of Somalia.

Speaker 1 (01:45:38):
And so when you talk about products for anyone
listening, that's not military,you're talking about like
literal products, like leafletsand booklets and things like
that, and then also um radioshows, I guess that kind of
thing.
Um, you know, I, I rememberpsyops in Iraq.
They were handing out, uh,soccer balls and things like
that as well.

Speaker 2 (01:45:58):
Yeah, it really depends on the priorities of the
deployment.
So for us, we were again tryingto support the Somali police,
support the idea of a Somaligovernment and degrade
al-Shabaab, who is the bad actorin that area.
So all of our products wererevolving around that.

(01:46:21):
We had radio stations wherethey would talk about issues in
Somalia.
A couple of our radioannouncers actually were shot
and killed for speaking outagainst al-Shabaab.
So there was a real threatthere.
But it was just different forme because, having gone through
Desert Storm, I was probably alittle too lax.

(01:46:47):
You know, I'm like this isnothing.
But it wasn't nothing.
I mean there was a real threat,real danger there, but it all
depends on what you already know, wasn't nothing?
I mean there was a, there was areal threat, real danger there,
um, but it's all depends onwhat you already know.
You know so, um, but we did, uh, we did get quite a bit done
while we were there working with, uh, the somali government.
Um, everything had to gothrough them, uh, for approval,

(01:47:11):
so we had to work with our legalteam at Camp Lemonnier.
Again, I have a copy of thiscomic book at home that went out
to Somali kids.
It was kind of like anArchie-type comic book.
It would present you with amoral issue, which is funny.
I showed this to other peopleand they're like well, we've

(01:47:32):
never had to worry about findinga crate of hand grenades.
So the moral issues were alittle different in some of
these stories.
And then they would call thelocal police for resolution
because that was new to themBefore.
It was just tribal and warlordsand you solve things by

(01:47:55):
contacting the guy with theak-47.
So right it was.
It was definitely a unique setof things we were working on.
We also helped set up a schoolhouse in uganda for
psychological operations.
Ugandans were interested inhaving their own psychological

(01:48:15):
operations group, so weestablished a schoolhouse in
Jinja at their war college, wentdown there and trained them on
our tactics for a couple ofmonths we met them there again
and trained them again, so gotto go to Uganda a couple of

(01:48:37):
times and train in their theirwar college, which was really
unique.
You don't think that you'll beteaching classes on the
deployment, but that was a partof what I ended up doing while I
was there as well.

Speaker 1 (01:48:50):
So I want to.
You know, that kind of bringsup a point that I think
sometimes, when people talkabout going to places that are
tribal, whether it's, you know,Iraq or, uh, Africa, when they
think tribal, um, I thinkthere's this tendency to really
think that you're dealing withsome people who aren't very
intelligent.
Um, you know, like you, youhave to respect the people that

(01:49:17):
you're with, but when you talkabout teaching them psyops in
their war college, I don't thinkpeople think about it in those
terms.
When they think about Uganda orsome other areas, but they are.
These are well-developedsocieties and areas and, whether
they're tribal or not, they'revery intelligent people who, uh,
you can't discount.

Speaker 2 (01:49:39):
Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that.
I think, uh, you know, from ourAmerican lens and what we see
on the television, we have ahard time understanding, uh,
other cultures and, um, some ofthe kindest people I've ever met
were, you know, in Somalia.
Not everyone there is lookingto kill you, you know.

(01:50:01):
Some of them are just fantasticpeople who are just trying to
get by.
I think one thing I learned onthat deployment is there's
certainly bad actors out there,but I think there's more good in
most people than there is bad.
I think most people just wantto live their life, you know,

(01:50:23):
and live in relative peace, butthere's certain parts of the
world where that isn't.
They don't have the rule of lawthat we have here in America.

Speaker 1 (01:50:35):
Right, I think we came up with a uh, a phrase
called iraqi.
Good enough, right?
Like they're never going to be,they're going to meet the
american yardstick of of success, but they're going to meet the
iraqi yardstick of success,which is just as important yeah,
and I think that's part of itis.

Speaker 2 (01:50:53):
uh, you know, you have to stabilize the nation
first, and that was a big thing.
That we were trying to do inSomalia is just get some sense
of normalcy, some sense ofnational pride, and then you
build from there.
You know, we take it forgranted that most people behave
the way they're supposed to herein the United States, but we

(01:51:14):
have police forces, we have ruleof law.
That's established.
There's parts of the worldwhere that's just not the norm.

Speaker 1 (01:51:23):
Right, right, and you kind of have to accept what
their normal is and work fromthat point forward, absolutely
so how long were you in Africathen?

Speaker 2 (01:51:32):
So that was a year deployment uh, 10 months in
country, um, but we, we arrivedthere in january.
I believe we left the firstpart of november, so it might
have been a little over, itmight have been closer to 11
months, but that we were incountry okay, and how was that

(01:51:53):
for your wife and your, yourdaughter?
I think it was difficult forthem.
My daughter was in college atthe time, um, but I think my
wife it was probably moredifficult, for for one her
daughter was gone and then allof a sudden I'm gone and, uh,
she's kind of on her own forthat year.
Uh, the differences, I think,was that, you know, I could use

(01:52:17):
Skype, uh, which was new to me.
My first deployment, we livedin a GP medium in the desert, uh
, and now I lived in a Connexthat was air conditioned and I
had internet and I could Skypemy family.
So, uh, it's not the same asbeing home, but it certainly
wasn't three weeks to get aletter, like it was during

(01:52:37):
Desert Storm.
So, uh, 24 years between my twocombat deployments, and it was.
It was just funny to me howsome of it was the same but some
of it was so incrediblydifferent oh yeah, I can only
imagine.

Speaker 1 (01:52:54):
So you, uh, you finish your deployment and then
you come home.
Now Typically, um, you know,coming back from deployment on
active duty is a lot differentthan coming back from deployment
, uh, in the reserves.
But this is almost the same foryou, right?
Because you came back fromdeployment in ETS and now you're

(01:53:16):
coming back.
What was it like to come backfrom Africa?

Speaker 2 (01:53:20):
So I, I think you know, we, we had the yellow
ribbon ceremony when we comeback, and that was new to me.
We didn't have anything likethat the first time.
And I remember people sittingaround talking about deployment
and I, I remember almostscoffing at it a little bit like

(01:53:42):
this was easy, man, this wasnothing, you know.
And it wasn't until later thatI realized it wasn't, it wasn't
nothing, it and again, you know,you only compare it to what you
know and compared to DesertStorm, it felt like nothing at
the time.
Um, but we did.
We lost a kid while we werethere.
Swaggart, um, I mean, thatstruck everybody hard.

(01:54:03):
I didn't really think about ituntil about a year later, all of
a sudden, I was thinking aboutSwaggart, you know, and you, you
realize the.
It impacted you a lot more thanyou realize.
And you're a year away fromfamily.
Um, you know, because you havethe, the pre-deployment,
post-deployment, we weredefinitely well over a year
total.

(01:54:24):
But I think, um, I started torealize, you know, even a easy
deployment isn't easy.
So I think that's the one thingI I had to like remind myself
as I was working with veterans.

(01:54:44):
We're very good at trying toout trauma one another.
You know, oh, you didn't seeany real action.
You know, um, but the the factof the matter is, you know
there's there's days, even inAfrica, that were very tense.
Matter is, you know, there'sdays, even in Africa, that were
very tense.
You know, we got in the middleof a political situation where
they were shooting rubberbullets into the crowd.

(01:55:05):
I mean that's traumatic.
To me it didn't seem like much,but again, it's not a small
situation.
When you're three white guys ina crowd of Africans and bullets
are flying, I mean it's nosmall thing.
No, it's not a small thing.
So you know, I think it took mea while to realize, as I joke,

(01:55:30):
and I call it a combat lightdeployment, but it had a bigger
impact on me than I realized.
Call it a combat lightdeployment, but it it had a
bigger impact on me than Irealized and I think, I think I
had to take a little time tothink it through and realize
that it was, it was bigger thanI, than I thought, yeah, yeah,
and I feel like too.

Speaker 1 (01:55:46):
It's perspective that , um, I remember coming back
from deployment and going rightback to work and the problems
that people had at work justseems so tiny like are you
kidding me?
That's a problem, uh, and thenhaving to go back and realize
that, yes, people's problems aretheir problems and you can't do
that.
That comparison, right?

Speaker 2 (01:56:06):
the combat shaming yeah, uh, no, and I think we're
veterans sometimes we're our ownworst enemy because, again, you
know we look at everybody'smedals and where they've been
and you know what's your resumecompared to mine and you know
really we should be supportingeach other.
I mean, if you signed up andserved, then you know you might

(01:56:31):
not have had the sameopportunities I did or other
people did, but you know we allat some point decided we were
going to raise their hand and bepart of something bigger.

Speaker 1 (01:56:41):
Right.
Well, in, in even non-combatroles, support what we do, uh,
in combat roles.
So it's all I think there's.
I don't think anything's moreimportant than the other, right
Cause without one you don't getthe other.
So your time in the reserves,you were working then.

Speaker 2 (01:56:59):
I was working part-time, I was working in the
Veterans Treatment Court in EastLansing and going to school,
and then, because I waspsychological operations, I
actually spent anywhere from 90to 120 days per year in uniform,
so it was a little more thanyour average reserve or National

(01:57:23):
Guard commitment.
I did a lot of schools ArmyBasic Instructor School, army
Warfare School, just to name acouple and then we just had more
training opportunities becausewe were a special operations
group.

Speaker 1 (01:57:39):
Right, probably training was just not open to
just anybody, right, right.
And how long did you serve inthe reserves then?

Speaker 2 (01:57:46):
So I did a six-year stint on that one, from 2010 to
2016.
I got out in September of 2016.
I have a picture I'm wearing myuniform on September September
of 2016.
I have a picture I'm wearing myuniform on September 11, 2016,
the last time I wore my dressblues.
I still love that picture andtake a look at it every now and

(01:58:08):
then.
One of the things we'll talk alittle bit more, but there's
five, six combat veterans inthat photo and two of them have
taken their lives since thatphoto was taken, and it's just.
You know, I think when we talkabout combat deployments or even

(01:58:34):
just being in the military,people experience things that
are just difficult to digest andI think you said it before not
everyone gets back to normal.

Speaker 1 (01:58:45):
Yeah, well, you know, for me and for a lot of people
that I talk to, you know, Ithink this goes back to what we
were talking about way earlieris that when you're in it,
you're just pushing through,you're getting it done, you're
getting it done, you're notthinking about it.
It's when you come home, andit's late at night and you have
time to process it.
And that's to me, that was thehardest part.

(01:59:07):
I mean, I deployed with 217soldiers and I didn't lose one
of them until I got home, youknow, and I think it is.
And it's not always the combat,like you saw in Iraq or in
Kuwait and those other areas.

(01:59:31):
Sometimes it's that deploymentto Africa that really impact
people as well.
I mean, everyone processesthings differently, but yeah,
and it's years later.
It's not like right.
When you get back, it can hityou at any time.

Speaker 2 (01:59:48):
One of the guys in that photo that I referred to.
He was in Kosovo, so mostpeople don't think of Kosovo as
a combat deployment, but he wasthere early on on the ground and
he saw the atrocities thathappened there.
So he wasn't directly involvedin combat, but I mean that stuck
with him and he never seemed toget over it and you know,

(02:00:12):
obviously he ended up ended hislife just two years ago.

Speaker 1 (02:00:16):
Yeah, and that's hard too for the people who are
still around, because I think,as veterans especially, we
always think of what could wehave done, but also as veterans,
we need to understand that ifsomeone's going to do something,
they're going to do it, likeall those signs that they tell
you about in school that theydon't exist no, um, usually in

(02:00:40):
my experience, uh, you know I'velost three guys from my unit,
uh, in the last few years and,um, they're, they're some of the
toughest guys you'll ever meetand they're not asking for help,
they're not showing the signsyou think you would normally see
.

Speaker 2 (02:00:59):
So it's a lot to take in as a soldier, as a NCO.
Those were my guys and I feltresponsible and that's hard to
separate yourself from that.
But at the end of the day, allwe can do is try to find our own
team.
I tell veterans that all thetime when you get out, find some

(02:01:22):
fellow veterans and, you know,surround yourself At least make
some connections, go out andhave a beer, go for hikes, like
I do once every year with acouple of old veterans, and that
way you can feel some sense ofnormalcy, because you joined a

(02:01:43):
group that is different and youwere made differently, so you're
never going to fit back incompletely and that's just a
reality and I think people tryto fight that and I think you
almost just need to embrace that.
You were made differently andyou know you're not going to be

(02:02:03):
normal anymore and no one'sgoing to think some of those
jokes are funny.
No, and that's I think that'sthe hardest part is knowing.
That's why you need thoseveterans, because you can do
some of that dark humor that youcan't when you go to work in
human resources, like I do now.
You know.
So knowing when to, when to letstaff sergeants got out of the

(02:02:25):
box and when to keep them in thebox is something you have to.
You have to learn yourselfabsolutely so.

Speaker 1 (02:02:31):
You, uh, you do your time in the reserves.
You, you get out where.
Where are you working at thispoint?
So?

Speaker 2 (02:02:38):
as soon as I got out of the reserves, I started doing
my master's program in humanresources at Michigan state Um,
so I wasn't working at all.
I went full time in my master'sprogram, finished that in a
year and a half Uh.
And then I went to work, uh inveterans and mental health with
um mid-state health network Um,mostly they work in the Medicaid

(02:03:01):
system, uh, but I was workingto help veterans uh get
connected with their benefits umand get mental health treatment
wherever possible.

Speaker 1 (02:03:11):
Okay, and um, what, what else?
What from there, Cause I?
I know where you're at now, I'mjust trying to figure out how
you got up.

Speaker 2 (02:03:18):
So, uh, you know, I actually loved working in that
area Um the veterans mentalhealth, but I won't lie, um
losing two guys back to back forsuicide, um took a toll on me
and at the same time COVID hitand I I was like I, just I, I

(02:03:39):
can't sit at home while veteransare popping themselves.
Uh, you know, and um, I decidedto get out of, uh that area just
because I think it was weighingtoo much on me.
Um, so I ended up, uh becominga leadership training specialist
at a Glambia nutritionals uh,building on my HR background, my

(02:04:02):
training background that I hadin the military as well, uh, and
then I quickly realized Ididn't love working in the
factory, even on the uh, even onthe salary side of things, uh,
so I only worked there for twoyears.
Now I work at Greenstone farmcredit system.
Uh, I think the cultures thereis a fantastic and um, I think

(02:04:26):
I've definitely found my homethere.

Speaker 1 (02:04:28):
Yeah, you know.
Interesting statistic, HR guyUm, did you know that 50% of
veterans who get out of themilitary leave their first job
in the first year?

Speaker 2 (02:04:39):
I have heard that before, because I used to work
with a guy named Mike Poima inInvestVets and we talked about
the difficulty transition thatveterans have.
And you know, when I go back to, I came home and I was stamping
out parts.
I was not out parts, I was notqualified for anything.

(02:04:59):
I had done some of the coolestthings on earth I jumped out
airplanes, I blew things up, Ifought in a war.
I've been awarded a Bronze Starmedal.
I mean to me I was like I hadgone from the top of the world
to now the only thing I amqualified for is pressing parts
in a factory and I hated everyminute of it.

(02:05:21):
So it doesn't surprise me thatother veterans have the same
kind of experience.
You know, whatever they did inthe military is better than
pressing parts pressing parts.

Speaker 1 (02:05:38):
So somebody said somebody, there's a cartoon
somewhere that uh, it's got aguy and it says you know, ptsd
is knowing that you're nevergoing to be as badass as you
once were.
Yeah, because when you're incombat and you're doing those
things and you're I mean whenyou're in in that whole arena,
you're it's I.
I liken it to being a rock staroh yeah and then you come home
and you're like from hero tozero, cause no one gives a shit,
like they're nice, they thankyou for your service, but nobody

(02:06:02):
cares about all that stuff thatyou did.
No, to a certain extent.

Speaker 2 (02:06:05):
And I think you're.
You're spot on there and evenif you didn't serve in combat,
you can again.
You know, just being in Germany, the training we did, the
things we experienced, evenbefore I went to combat.
You've done something so muchmore than other people will ever
experience.
And then you come back and it'slike this is my life, seriously

(02:06:26):
Well yeah, that's true, andthink about how young a lot of
our veterans are.

Speaker 1 (02:06:32):
Like you said, you came home at 21.

Speaker 2 (02:06:34):
You had already lived a whole life experience, really
yeah, and you know you're,you're indoctrined into this
whole new culture.
I mean, the military is builton indoctrining you into into
its culture.
And 18 to 21, you're soimpressionable, you know.
So I still to this day saythere's always a piece of me
that's a soldier.

(02:06:55):
You know and you said beforeyou do so many cool things at a
young age and you're almost atlike the apex of what you're
ever going to do at a youngyoung age.
It's kind of like you got theopportunity to play in the NFL,

(02:07:15):
then you got injured and youcan't play football anymore.
So who am I now?
right you know what do I do?
And I feel like, whether you'rea soldier, marine, air force,
uh, navy, uh sailor, you know.
I mean, who are you once youleave the military?
And I think there's almost likea little identity crisis there,
because you know you're, you'renot Sergeant Scott anymore.

(02:07:37):
You have to.
You have to find out whoMichael Scott is and how is he
going to survive in this world.
That doesn't make sense.

Speaker 1 (02:07:43):
Right, right and and find people who understand your
experience too.
That's, I think that's key.
So you're working at Greenstonenow.
Um, how's the family?
What's going on with, uh, withall of these folks?

Speaker 2 (02:07:56):
Oh, the family's good .
Uh, you know, um, I've, I'vebeen blessed, I think over the
years.
Uh, seeking education and andtrying to figure out my own
stuff has been good for me.
But, um, my, my wife has growna lot as well.
I said she's an attorney.
She now is a in-house counselat MSUFCU.
My daughter finished her degreeas a physician assistant just a

(02:08:21):
few years ago, so she's out inCalifornia fluent in Spanish,
which she didn't get from me,but she's just doing fantastic.
So when I look back at all therough times, when I first came
home from Desert Storm, I feelcompletely blessed about where
me and my family are now.

Speaker 1 (02:08:43):
Yeah, and rightly so.
So we've covered a lot ofground in the last two and a
half or so hours.
Is there anything we haven'ttalked about that you wanted to
cover?

Speaker 2 (02:09:00):
you wanted to cover.
No, um, I think you know,mostly when I'm talking to other
veterans, uh, I reallyencouraged them to define their
team, whether it's a former guysyou were in the military with
or just some old Vietnam veteranyou met at the lunch table, you
know, find somebody that uhgets you and understands you.
Uh, because, to your point, youcan't talk about certain things
in the workplace.
Nobody wants to hear about thereal things that happened in the

(02:09:28):
war.
When you start talking aboutdogs eating dead bodies, it
doesn't sit well with people,right, and I laugh about that a
little bit, but it's it's, it'sjust the reality of it.
Nobody wants to hear it.
Um, so it shouldn't be a normalconversation, but you know you,

(02:09:50):
you also shouldn't bury itinside and just pretend it never
happened, because I don't know,I carried it for years and I
never spoke about it and it justuh, you know it'll eat you up
inside.
So you got to find your teamthat you can have a little dark
humor with, that you can uh go,disconnect and just have some
fun and uh be as normal as youcan, because uh, every day in HR

(02:10:13):
I can't, I can't talk aboutthose things.

Speaker 1 (02:10:16):
No, that's frowned on .

Speaker 2 (02:10:17):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:10:19):
I think that's some great advice for folks out there
, so I appreciate you taking thetime out to sit down and share
your story with us, and justthanks for being here, michael.

Speaker 2 (02:10:30):
Yeah, thank you.
No-transcript.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}From Desert Storm to African Shores: A Michael Scott's Journey Through Combat and Chaos

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.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

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From Desert Storm to African Shores: A Michael Scott's Journey Through Combat and Chaos

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal