From Detroit To The Flight Line (Nick Beller)

A kid from Detroit peers into a recruiter’s window, falls for the shine of tiny tanks, and years later finds himself keeping real helicopters in the fight. That arc frames Nick’s 38-year journey across active duty and the Guard, from Fort Knox to the German border and night missions over Iraq. The details stick: flying low along a line that looked like color on one side and black-and-white on the other, learning to fly from the right seat one control at a time, and the gut-deep thump of a mortar that landed ten feet away and didn’t detonate.

We walk through the messy middle too. Fort Bliss barracks that should have been condemned, aircraft waiting on parts that never came, and the strange whiplash of leaving life-or-death maintenance for civilian jobs that didn’t care if you were there by 8 a.m. The Guard becomes a second home: OH-58s give way to Cobras, then Chinooks, then Lakotas. Along the way, Nick earns his FAA A&P license, survives a gauntlet of exams and factory training, and helps a state fleet meet civilian standards. In Iraq, his unit hauls ice, Powerade, and hope for the 101st around Najaf, dumps flares under fire, and receives a colonel’s handshake and medals that still mean something. Later, a one-star’s handwritten note and ten coins arrive like a promise kept.

The story widens in the final act. On joint staff during COVID, Nick helps stand up command-and-control, sees which systems work and which don’t, and then shifts to remote nights when his daughter’s cancer demands presence. Leaders step up, the Guard community closes ranks, and priorities sharpen. He recognizes the moment to retire—standing in a barracks mirror next to a fresh lieutenant—and returns to Fort Knox to close the loop where it started. What remains are the lessons: readiness lives in logistics and funding; pride lives in doing the job right; meaning lives in people who show up when it gets hard.

If you’re curious about Army aviation, National Guard life, Chinooks and Lakotas, or the quiet decisions that define a career, this conversation delivers clarity and heart. Listen, share it with someone who loves military stories, and leave a review to help others find it.

Chapters

• 0:00 Beginnings In Detroit And Family Roots
• 13:45 Moving To Royal Oak And Early Influences
• 27:40 Choosing The Army And MOS
• 40:00 Basic At Fort Knox And AIT At Rucker
• 55:30 Germany Border Missions And Learning To Fly
• 1:13:30 Stateside: Fort Eustis To Fort Bliss Realities
• 1:30:30 Leaving Active Duty, IRR Recall, And College Pivot
• 1:46:16 Joining The Guard And Aircraft Transitions
• 2:03:46 Deploying With Chinooks: Train-Up And Uncertainty
• 2:16:16 Iraq: Balad Ops, Little Birds, And Near Misses
• 2:35:16 Recognition, Coins, And Coming Home
• 2:47:46 Counterdrug Work And Career Rebuild
• 3:04:46 Certifications: AMP And Lakota Factory School

Transcript

SPEAKER_11: 1:00

Today is Thursday, January 8th, 2026. We're talking with Nick Beller, who served in the United States Army. So good afternoon, Nick. Hello. I'm glad we finally got together.

SPEAKER_16: 1:09

Yeah. A little bit. A bit of journey. Back and forth. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_11: 1:14

So we'll start out with a, I think, an easy question. When and where were you born?

SPEAKER_16: 1:18

I was born uh Detroit, Michigan, at uh Grace Hospital in January 12th, 1968.

SPEAKER_11: 1:25

So you got a birthday coming up.

SPEAKER_16: 1:26

Yeah. And my anniversary is the 12th, too. Oh. Of my uh marriage to my wife, Jennifer. Did you do that on purpose so you wouldn't forget? So we went to Jamaica to get married, right? Uh-huh. So uh we picked a date we wanted to go, and then we're like, well, which day do we want to get married? And um I said, I don't want to get married on the first day, and I don't want to get married on the last day. Let's pick like right in the middle, and it right in the middle fell up fell on the 12th. So my wife's like, You okay with that? I'm like, Yeah, that's that's fine. So that's what we did. And her birthday is the 22nd of January. So it's just you know, it just fit right right good there. You guys can do like birthday, anniversary, everything one and yeah, and our daughter, our daughter was born 010101. Uh, when I say our daughter, it's my bonus child. Um, it's Jen's daughter, but she was born, that was her birthday. And then uh my oldest daughter was born January 30th, and then my mom was January 6th.

SPEAKER_11: 2:26

Well, January's a busy month, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_16: 2:29

A lot of family members born, yeah. So did you so did you grow up in Detroit? So my first um I think my first year of life was in Ham Track, Michigan. Okay, and then uh my family stayed, you know, Ham Tramic's kind of in the Detroit uh city limits, sort of say. So then we uh stayed in Detroit until I was in fifth grade. So what are you then 10, 11, 12, somewhere in there? Yeah. So yeah, I uh where we lived at, I was one of like five white kids in the whole school. So it was getting it was getting, you know, uh um a little rough to be in that school system. And and my dad was uh starting to work out in Royal Oak. Uh he worked for UPS. Okay. So um moved out to Royal Oak in 79, I believe. Uh-huh. And that's where I stayed in Royal Oak and graduated from Royal Oak Kimball High School in 86. Well, what was it?

SPEAKER_11: 3:27

What was it like growing up for you?

SPEAKER_16: 3:29

So in Detroit, um, you know, growing up as a kid there, you know, uh all my friends were non-white kids. And um, you know, we didn't we didn't have much. Um what we did in the neighborhood is we played a lot of basketball because it was, you know, what we could do. We played a lot of four square, we played a lot of, you know, just stuff that kids do, you know, and uh my best friend lived next to me, his name was Anthony, you know, so we hung out. And then um before he um moved in there, my dad's uh friends lived there, and they used to take me to um they had season tickets for Red Wings, just the Red Wings. So a lot of times it'd be a Tuesday night, they couldn't get any of their friends to go, and they're you know, they're 20-year-olds, somewhere in that age.

SPEAKER_18: 4:20

So they'd come next and hey Stan, do you mind if we take Nick to the game today?

SPEAKER_16: 4:24

My dad's like, yeah, go ahead. Well, you know, from where we lived at, it was only like a 15-minute ride to Olympia to watch the Red Wings. So I went to a lot of Red Wings games when I was when I was young, and then my my dad would take us to Tiger Games, but it's only you know, 15 minutes down the road to go to these games. Now I gotta drive like an hour and a half, make a whole plan to go down and watch the games. Back then it was, hey, let's go to the game. Advantage of living there, right? What's that? That's the advantage of living there. That's the advantage of living there, yeah. You know, the disadvantage was you know, the neighborhood was starting to a lot of abandoned houses. We used to play in abandoned houses, and the neighborhood was kind of going down. And so my family's like, we gotta get out of here. So Royal Oak, it was. So we moved to Royal Oak, and that was you know, before Royal Oak is what Royal Oak is now. Yeah, you know, downtown had one bar, one restaurant. I used to ride my bike down there on Saturday afternoon. It had Joe's Army Navy surplus store. So we used to go in there, look around all the Army and Navy stuff, you know, not knowing I was gonna be in the military. Yeah, you know, and that was one of our Saturday trips. We ride our bikes down there. Um, but yeah, not how it is now. Now there's you know, restaurants, bars, and high rises. And so it was just a sleepy little community until uh 696, the freeway went through and they opened up uh Oakland Community College. That's when that town went.

SPEAKER_11: 5:51

Now, did they have the was the bowling alley there when you lived there? I can't remember.

SPEAKER_16: 5:55

It has a funny name. I can't remember. They had a few bowling alleys, a bolero. Is that the one you're thinking of? I was just there like two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_10: 6:02

Yeah, it's still there.

SPEAKER_16: 6:03

Yes. We went, me and my wife went there like two weeks ago. Um, our one of our favorite bands, uh, it's uh Tino G's Dumpster Machine was playing. Okay. Um, so we went there and uh they had like a nice lounge that's like 70s themed. Sweet. So we went there and they play like you know garage rock music on kind of on the bluesy side. Uh huh. So yeah, we went there and watched it. But yeah, that was um my parents got divorced shortly after we moved to Royal Oak, and then um that bowling alley was only like a mile and a half from my second Roal Oak home. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 6:35

Now, did both parents stay in Royal Oak then?

SPEAKER_16: 6:37

Um, yeah, my mom moved to Texas for like a short time for like maybe a year, and she drug me down there for about six months of it. Not a fan of Texas? No, we were in Houston, and I just, you know, I was I was away from all my friends, my dad, everything, you know, all my family, and you know, parents are going through a divorce and they're knocking heads, and yeah, you know, the kids are just collateral damage, you know. So um, yeah. And then when I came back, um, my mom moved back, she moved into Royal Oak, so which was nice because then I could just go visit my dad, and all my family and friends were there. So, but yeah, that was not the greatest of times. No, no. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_11: 7:16

I think it was a popular thing to do in the 70s, I think.

SPEAKER_16: 7:18

Yeah. And then my um, so my dad, when we lived in Detroit, my dad um he worked UPS, that was his Monday to Friday job. Well, he also worked on Saturday at the Shell Station on 12 mile and crooks in Royal Oak. That's how we started going to Royal Oak. So we'd go to Royal Oak. My dad would take me sometimes, and he'd take me to the movie theater in downtown Royal Oak. Well, right next to the movie theater was a recruiting office for the army, which I really didn't know. I just all I remember is little tanks and little army vehicles in the window on Saturdays because they weren't there. Right. So as I was waiting for my dad to come pick me up, I'd be looking in there at all the you know the army stuff. Oh, that stuff's pretty cool. And then uh when I joined the military, that's where I joined. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, that's really cool.

SPEAKER_11: 8:05

Yeah, so all these little hints when you were a kid that maybe maybe this is in your future.

SPEAKER_16: 8:09

You just didn't know it. I just didn't know it. Yeah, and my um, so I had two uncles that were in uh in the army. Um my one uncle, he doesn't talk about it too much because I think he got in trouble and it kind of booted him out. Yeah, and then my other uncle, he um he retired as a I think he was an E7 and he was a cook. But when he was in Germany back in the 50s, he would double date with Elvis Presley.

unknown: 8:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_11: 8:39

Wow. Yes. So your uncle double dated with Elvis Presley. Yeah, and we took a break so you could get this article out.

SPEAKER_16: 8:46

Yeah, so when he died, um, so this is dated uh August 17th, 1977. My uncle lived in uh New Jersey. So they went and interviewed him and he talked about how when he went into the barracks one time where he he was heard somebody singing in the shower. He's like, Who's that singing in the shower? He went in there and it was Elvis singing in the shower, and you know, my uncle, he'll talk to anybody, you know. So we started talking to him, and um Elvis found out he was from Detroit and he went to you know hear about you know the Detroit sound, the Motown sound, and was interested in that, and also interested because um my uncle was from a family, I believe, of nine. Elvis was a family of one, you know. His he had a I think his brother was stillborn, so he was intrigued by a big family, yeah, you know, that he didn't have. So we got talking and they became friends and they would go on double dates because my uncle had a car at first before Elvis like got his stuff there. My uncle had a car, so he'd go on double dates with Elvis in the early times. Yeah, yeah, wow, and then all my aunts would be like, Can you get his autograph? You know, and I think he he got a few things, but he wasn't like pestering them for anything. But for your uncle, it was just his buddy, yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was the early day of Elvis, he wasn't quite as you know, popular as what he is now. He wasn't the king yet, he wasn't the king yet, yeah. So yeah, that was uh, and then you know, every time I talk to my uncle, you know, um, he's still around, he's in his 90s now, and he'll always ask about the military, and you know, so but yeah, that was a story of my uncle.

SPEAKER_11: 10:23

So a cool family story. So talk to me a little bit about high school then.

SPEAKER_16: 10:28

You so high school, I went to um Ronald Kimball, and um I like playing basketball, so I played basketball. I was on a high school basketball team. That was really my focus in high school, was doing that, you know. Um trying to get through school, working. I had a couple different cars, you know, chasing girls like you know, high school kids do. So I was a typical high school kid. I really had a lot of fun, and then you know, we go to a lot of parties around, you know, like high school kids did. Um, so yeah, that was I wasn't very motivated in high school, and my parents weren't very motivated to push me to do better. They were just happy I was passing classes, and sometimes I wish they would have like, hey, you need to do better. Yeah, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 11:16

I kind of feel like that time that at that time, like I it just doesn't seem like education was important to a lot of people.

SPEAKER_16: 11:23

Yeah, yeah. My uh my good friend, him and I talk about it quite a bit. We're like, man, if our parents would have pushed us just a little bit harder, you know, life might have been different. Not that it's bad, but you know, and then I remember some of my other friends that always carried all the books around. What are they carrying all them books for? And I'm like, them parents are pushing them to do better. Oh yeah, you know, but you know, I I I see those people around now, and they're they're living, you know, about the same life I'm living. So I don't know if it was that much better.

SPEAKER_11: 11:49

But I just think the measure is how how you feel about it, right? Like how you feel about your life and how it all turned out.

SPEAKER_16: 11:56

I think I'm accomplished enough, you know. Yeah, I mean a lot of my friends, I'm 50, I'll be 58 here soon, and I retired at 56, and a lot of my friends are like, What do you mean you retired? I got another 10 years ago. I'm like, I guess you didn't plan right.

SPEAKER_11: 12:12

No, no, in in in retirement 56, you don't have to work.

SPEAKER_16: 12:15

No, like a lot of people retire early, but then they've got to go get another job, and you know that's yeah, I was I was fortunate, you know, um that I I didn't picture myself retiring this early, but I just you know doing what I did, staying in the military gave me that advantage, and you know, being in a common drug program I was in gave me that, and then you know, saved a few dollars along the way and got lucky here and there. And yeah, and then here I am. I'm like, people are like, what are you gonna do now? I'm like, whatever I want. Are you gonna get another job? I'm like, for what? Maybe I mean for what am I gonna get another job for? Right. You know, to get more, you know, to get more money to do what? Buy another car or you know retire again? Yeah, no, I'm like, what do you do each time? I go I I find plenty of stuff to fill my time up. You know, there's plenty of, you know, I still have my daughters that need help, and I volunteer at the VFW and the Legion or whatever. So that stuff fills my time up, you know. Plus all the work around here I gotta do. Yeah, yeah. In fact, I know you got some projects when we get done. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_18: 13:21

So and if they don't get done today, they'll get done tomorrow. That's right. That's right. You have till Saturday, I understand.

SPEAKER_16: 13:27

So you so what year did you graduate then? Uh 1986. Okay. All right. So I um as I got close to graduation, I I didn't see college in my future. I just like, what am I gonna do? Go to college and drink and party my whole freshman year away before I wake up and decide this is not the way to go. Yeah, and then I wasted a whole year, and I really didn't have the money because you know, I didn't I didn't put in for any kind of scholarships, and you know, my family didn't plan on me going to college, so there wasn't like money to go to college, and I just didn't want to stick around my hometown and you know work at the gas station, grocery store, you know. So that's I'm like, I think I'll go in the military.

SPEAKER_11: 14:10

Yeah. So you went to that storefront with the little takes and jeeps and photo, and yep.

SPEAKER_16: 14:14

I walked in there and you know, I I talked to the army recruiter and he got me on the track. You know, uh, I do regret that I didn't talk to like the Air Force or the Navy. I wasn't gonna do the Marines, no way. No, I I I wish I would have talked to those guys too. I uh but I had my mind set up back then I was gonna be in the army no matter what. So that's the one you know, I look back and whatever would have been different if I you know did the Air Force and all that. So but what I liked about the army is they had the um college tuition money. Uh-huh. The other ones at the time didn't. So I think that was a selling point. And you got to pick what job you wanted to do. Yeah. Or I don't know if the other ones had that option back then.

SPEAKER_11: 14:55

Yeah, I think some did and some didn't. It just depended. Yeah. So what did you end up uh what MOS did you start?

SPEAKER_16: 15:01

So I I wanted to be air traffic controller. That was my I wanted to do that. Yeah, I'm glad I didn't. But um they're like, we don't have any spots available for that, but we do have um, we need some helicopter mechanics. I'm like, well, that's still in aviation. So they show me a couple movies of different helicopters, like you know, promo promotional things. So I'm looking at I'm like, okay, I'll do that. And it was um 67 Victor was the MOS, and it's uh 15 Victor now, but it was the uh OH-58 uh scout helicopter. So that was the job that I picked to do. So I worked on a helicopter in my life, so I'm like, yeah, this this will be interesting. And I'm I I'm glad I made that choice. You know, I look back and go, that was a smart choice. That was like one of those lucky things that happened. Right. You know, if I would have been an air traffic controller, things would have been way different, you know.

SPEAKER_11: 15:50

Yeah, we don't get the benefit of knowing what would have happened if we'd have chosen a different path, right?

SPEAKER_16: 15:54

Like no, no, just know what happens on the path we're on, and you just don't know um what other jobs are available, right? You know, and and and I sit here and look back and go, if I had to make the choice again, what would I do? And I look at all the jobs in the military and I'd be like, I don't know if I'd do that much different. Yeah, if anything, I think um what wasn't a thing back then with cyber. You know, I would have I would have liked to do that, I think. Because there's cyber offense and defense, and that would have been cool. Oh yeah. And when you get out, they pay, they pay pretty well. Like the the guard can't keep them because the outside pays so well once you get the training.

SPEAKER_11: 16:32

You get a priceless, you know, education in that, definitely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 16:37

So where'd you go to basic? So um I went to basic Fort Knox, Kentucky. Uh-huh. So I um once I graduate, I graduated high school in June. Um, and then I went in the army August 6th of that same year. So I had a very short time between the time I grabbed, and that's what I wanted. I wanted to be like, let's get this thing going. Right. You know, I went out to Vegas for two weeks. Uh my uncle lived out there, spent two weeks out there and kind of got ready, like, okay, this is my last little hurrah before you know I joined the military. So I went out there and it was fantastic, and then um came back and my recruiter came, picked me up. We went down to Detroit maps. Oh boy, I remember that place. Yeah, I think I had already taken my ASF. And I had taken my ASFAB when I was still in high school. Um, and we went down to Leland House in Detroit. Uh-huh. If you ever been there.

SPEAKER_11: 17:28

No, they put us up at the Meritor. I went in in '84 and we went to the Mariner Hotel.

SPEAKER_16: 17:34

Mariner, okay. We were at Leland House, um, not far from the MGM uh casino. So we went there and then um you went there on like a Friday night. So you got there Friday night, and you had to go and take your your um ASFAB test. The thing I remember from that was you all got in a line and then you had to go up to the desk and you had to recite your social security number. I I didn't know what it was until I got in that line.

unknown: 18:02

Oh no.

SPEAKER_16: 18:03

Yeah, so I'm like looking at my, you know, okay, 385. So I had to go up and that was the first thing I had to remember. Like, and you know I look like a fool. I don't know what it is. Right. Yeah. Oh no, took the test, spend a night, and then you get up next morning. I don't know if you did this next morning, then you go get all your physical, right? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 18:22

You get up at like an O'Durk 30.

SPEAKER_16: 18:23

Yep. Go down to because it was in Detroit. I don't know where at somewhere in Detroit. And then take the physical and then go home. And then when I went to basic, they just came, picked me up. You went there, got like your travel paperwork, did your final swearing in and all that. And then I was off to Fort Knox. Got to Fort Knox, land in Louisville, Louisville uh airport. Get off the plane, go find all the you know the army guys. Right, everybody's got the little packets with them. Yep, yeah. So we uh uh the I don't know if they were drill, I don't think they were drill sergeants, I just think they were you know people that came and got you.

SPEAKER_32: 19:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 19:01

So like, all right, come out to this bus. We get on the bus, and like, all right. So I get on the bus, all the seats are filled on the bus. And and they're like, well, just sit in the aisle. I'm like, what? Welcome to the army. Yes. So here we are. I'm sitting in the aisleway of this bus going from Louisville, Kentucky to Fort Knox. It's not a short ride, right? And you're on the floor with someone behind you in front of you, like, oh great. Like, this is gonna be great. So um, I do remember that. And I remember um, have you seen the movie Stripes? Oh, yeah. So, where did you go to training at? So I was in the Navy, so I took my training out in San Diego. Okay, so um you've seen stripes, so everything you see in stripes is where I was at. Oh, okay. So if you watch their progression and everything they did, same exact thing. Wasn't as fun as how they made it. Right. Right. But yeah, the same barracks, like like that same room in the beginning when they're all sitting on the benches and they're like, Oh, this is where you turn in all your contraband. Same thing, same room. I remember all the patches on the walls, you know. I didn't know they were patches. Now I look back, I'm like, oh, there's my unit up there, and when I rewatch it, you know. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 20:15

I'm gonna go and watch it tonight now. Thanks.

SPEAKER_16: 20:17

Yeah. Yeah, so like the confidence course, we did that. The barracks were the same where they do all their drilling ceremony. That's where we did all our stuff. Uh-huh. Yep. And the unique thing is so that's where I went to uh basic training. My first first day in the army was at Fort Knox. My last day in the army was at Fort Knox. So when I retired, I went there to outprocess. That's great. And when and so I'm like, okay, I gotta go find where I went to basic training. It's all gone. Yeah. All those World War II barracks, they're all flattened, but some of the cement was still there. So I went and, you know, and I went to the gas chamber that I had gone to during basic and took pictures there, walked it, it was open, walked in it.

SPEAKER_11: 21:01

It didn't smell quite the same, did it?

SPEAKER_16: 21:03

You could still smell like not normal air in there. Yeah. You know, it wasn't quite the gas that was in there, but you could tell it was not the normal air. But yeah. And I didn't realize how close it was to where we were actually living. It was only like a couple blocks away.

SPEAKER_11: 21:20

Isn't it funny like how your mind perceives things? And then when you go back. It's like going back to your grade school, right? Because it seems so much bigger when you were there. And it's so tiny. Yeah, right. Oh yeah. Same, same kind of uh same kind of thing. So you uh where'd you take your AIT then?

SPEAKER_16: 21:37

Was that so after basic I went to um Fort Rucker, Alabama. Okay. So uh after I graduated, basically they put us on a bus and uh bust us down uh Fort Rucker. Did you get a seat this time? I got a seat this time, yeah. And then they gave us like a little meal pass, right? Right. So or whatever they gave you. So when the bus stopped, you guys or the soldiers could get off and you know, go to whatever they wanted to eat. And they're like, when you guys stop, there's no smoking, there's no drinking, there's you just get your food. And well, the only one that was there was the bus driver. He didn't work, but we were so indoctrinated already, we already, you know, like, don't mess up. Somebody's watching us, I just know they're right. Yeah, yeah. So we get down to Fort Rolling to Fort Rucker, and it was a Friday. So we offload the bus and get in formation, and uh, drill sergeants come out, and they're like, Okay, we're gonna check you guys in. Um, it's your lucky, lucky weekend because uh it's a holiday on a Monday, so you guys have a four-day pass. You can't go anywhere, right? But you got four days just uh, you know, we're gonna have formation in the morning, afternoon, and night, but there's no training, there's no nothing. So it was like after all that, you know, eight or nine weeks of just being beat to the ground, you're like, I could kind of relax a little bit.

SPEAKER_11: 23:00

So did you find it was tough to relax though? Like, didn't you feel it? Like when I first got into basic, I always felt like you had to be doing something.

SPEAKER_16: 23:07

Um, you know, I really don't recall. Yeah, I don't recall. I just I know I was pretty relaxed there, and then um uh and then we went from you know 20-man barracks rooms to four-man barracks rooms, which was nice. Oh, I have my own bathroom and got to sleep in a little bit, and you know, the food was better, and it was like it wasn't too bad. And then we had like I think we had like a week before we actually had to go into train before we started training. Uh-huh. So you're still doing, you know, kind of a little bit of the basic training mentality, but once you started school, that was their your primary focus. You know, they march you to school, got your your training done, and then you march back, you did PT, but then you were free until the next morning. So whatever you wanted to do, you know, as long as you stayed in in the certain area, yeah, you you were okay. And didn't get in trouble. Yeah, didn't get in trouble. And then on Saturdays they would have um mandatory training. So every Saturday morning they'd have some kind of training. Uh maybe an obstacle course, maybe a 5K uh um navigation course. But some of those weekends would be like, hey, um the local boys' club is running a 5k you know race. If you if you uh buy a uh entry form, you can go do that instead of the training. So we'd look for those because it's 5k three miles, you're you know, half hour, you're done. Or we go all day training in the woods. No, no, no. So we would look for those and do those. Uh-huh. And that got us out of the you know, the smart the training, sort of say. Yeah. And how so how long was training then? So I was there, um got there it was October, end of September, October, and then uh I think all the way into just shy of February. So I think it was like 14, 16 weeks, and that's how we learned how to work on helicopters down there. How was that for you? Because you said you'd never I liked it. It was it was good, yeah. We had like a couple weeks where we were just in classroom, like this is a screwdriver, and these are players, and this is a hammer, and you're like, okay. Oh, please. Yes, and then you know, you go work on all these aircraft every day, and then you know, I had a lot of friends there, so we'd go do stuff, you know. Um, I came home for Christmas vacation because it I was there over Christmas, so I got to come home for Christmas, which was nice. Um but yeah, that was that was good training, I thought. I learned to work on helicopters, so a lot of responsibility for a young guy, too. I mean, you you always had someone over your back looking, making sure you weren't messing things up, right? So that was good, and then from there I um I I got uh stationed in Germany, so yeah. Rough, that's rough, yeah. And I didn't want to go to Germany, really, no, I wanted to be close to home still. I don't know why I want to be close to home. I'm glad I wasn't though. So caught a plane, landed in um Frankfurt, get off the plane, and we were at the 21st replacement center, so you go up there, and we were aviation guys, so we had our uniform on, and then we had wings sewn on, which privates don't, I mean, typically don't have that, but as an aviation guy, you earned your wings through maintenance, so we wore wings around. Everyone thought we were cool.

SPEAKER_19: 26:31

You were you were the stuff, right? These guys are cool.

SPEAKER_16: 26:33

Look at them, they got you know they got wings on their uniforms, so but I think I stayed there a couple days and then they shipped me down to Nuremberg, right outside Nuremberg, Foyt Army Airfield. I was in, it was called two CAS at the time, 2nd Combat Aviation Squadron, which was part of uh 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, and then they changed it to 4th Squadron, still the 2nd uh Armored Cavalry Regiment. So I was a calf guy. Oh, okay. So, but with helicopters, right? So we were a little small airfield in Foyt, and I had uh one roommate at the time, and they were three-man rooms, but it was just me, and then about two weeks later, I got another roommate, uh, Eric. Um, and I knew him from training because he was at Rucker too. Uh huh. I didn't know him too well, but um, I've known him forever. He was just here like a month ago.

SPEAKER_11: 27:30

Funny how you make those uh those friendships and they're just there.

SPEAKER_16: 27:33

Yeah, he was he was here a month ago, and I've been down to his place, he's in South Carolina, uh huh. And uh we were in Albania in September. He went there for vacation. So yeah, yeah, so we you know we became roommates there, but yeah, started working on aircraft there, and we uh back then the the wall was still up. So our mission every day was to fly two aircraft to the uh West Germany, Czechoslovakian border, and then the West Germany, East uh Germany border, and we'd we had a route we'd fly uh looking for the communist. Yeah. Seeing if they were building roads up or massing troops or anything. So yeah, our helicopters went up there every day, and sometimes we'd go, but mostly we were doing maintenance. But the times that I did go up there, it was like when you're flying down a border, like if you look into West Germany, it's like looking at color TV. And then when you look to East Germany, it was like looking at black and white TV. Yeah, really? Yes, yes, really, it was that that's pretty bleak, yeah. And you imagine how those people felt living there, you know. Oh, no kidding. But um, like Czechoslovakia, they had stakes, so they had a white stake with like a red top, and then a white stake with a blue top, and uh Czechoslovakia say, Well, the border's here, and then West Germany would say, Well, the border's here, and then as you go down, then they'd you know, they'd sometimes they'd be right next to each other, sometimes they'd be, you know, far apart, all where they thought their border was. And then when we got in East Germany, it was a fence because we weren't in where they had the wall. Right. It was just, you know, a fence line, big area, and another fence line. They spent a lot of money putting fencing up. It's all gone now, right? Yeah. Which was easy if you were flying helicopters. Um, because the pilots they'd have to know the terrain um by heart um before they could be a pilot in command of flying up there. Because if you make a wrong turn, all of a sudden you're in communist area and they potentially could shoot at you. Right. And it's happen it happened in the past. Cause an international incident. Yes. No one wants that. Yes.

SPEAKER_11: 29:47

That's probably a there's probably a phrase that got tossed around a lot a little bit.

SPEAKER_16: 29:51

Yeah. So yeah, that was that was pretty interesting. Like you actually felt like you had a mission. Yeah. You know, going to the border every day, and you know, we fixed helicopters every day, and that was my job.

SPEAKER_11: 30:02

Um that's probably about as good as a peacetime mission gets, right?

SPEAKER_16: 30:06

Because you're still doing kind of combat stuff, but it's right, and we got funded for it. Yeah. So I'll tell you about Fort Bliss after, but we got funded there. So, like if something broke and we needed a part, we got that part. Um since that was my first duty station, I thought that was normal. I thought that's how it worked, right?

SPEAKER_11: 30:26

So, people understand too. Like, if you don't have the funding, if it breaks, it's just it's broke. It's broke. Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 30:34

So, how long were you in Germany then? I was there um two years, just shy of two years. Um but one thing when I was there is I got to um so uh uh Armor Cavalry, the the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, the 2nd ACR, had different squadrons uh throughout Germany. Well, each squadron, uh one of the one of our units, the four squadrons, had to put a helicopter there for the colonel to fly. So I got to do uh three months of just me and a pilot in a helicopter at one of these tanker places. Really? Yeah, yeah. So I was I'd walk around, I had a flight suit on, you know, I'd I'd have SAR Major saluting me, and you know, people salute me that shouldn't have been saluting me because I was just an E4 then. Right? Yeah, and they'd see me with that flight suit on and thought I was a pilot. So they'd be That's awesome. So if it was somebody like you know, my rank or lower, I'd give them the left-hand salute. Right. But if it was like a SAR major, I'd salute and I'd turn around and walk the other way before they figured it out. I didn't want to embarrass them, right? Right, right. We don't want to do that. So, but yeah, it was and and that's where I learned to fly too. Because uh, we go, we take off, and then the pilot would be like, All right, you want to fly? And I'm like, Really? He goes, Yeah, he goes, I'm gonna teach you how to fly. I said, Really? Yeah, okay. So every time we'd go, he'd give me something new to do. Like first, I'd you know, just the stick in front, you know, which controlled the you know how you go. Then he'd give me the the the collective, which was the power, like the gas pedal. He's like, okay, you got those two. So he'd let me fly. Okay, now you got the pedals. So then I'd have the pedals, which controlled the aircraft from spinning, you know. And then um, okay, no, now watch this gauge. And yeah, every time it got it built, built, built. And before you know it, you know, we take off. I couldn't take off because I didn't have that skill.

SPEAKER_15: 32:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 32:25

But once we took off and got going, he'd give me the controls. He'd be like, All right, take me to Nuremberg. You know the way we've been there a million times. Take me there.

unknown: 32:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_16: 32:35

And he goes, I got all the radio calls. And if I tell you what altitude to go to, just make sure you hit those altitudes. And then he teach me how to uh land, like come in in case he was incapacitated. So he teach me how to do that. Yeah. So yeah, so I learned how to fly. What a great experience. Well, learned how to fly a helicopter there. Yeah. I couldn't couldn't hover and couldn't land. Um, because once you get close to the ground, it's really you gotta have skill. And I just and it's not that I didn't have the skill, I didn't have the practice to, you know, get that skill. And you're not gonna let a private fly around too long, you know. No, no, they're not, they're not dumb. So that was pretty cool. So yeah, I left there and then I went to um Fort Eustace, Virginia. So I got uh um training orders, and knew no one in Germany knew what they were for, which I thought was odd. Uh-huh. You know. So I get to Fort Eustace, and they're like, Oh, you're here for the Army Life Support Equipment class. It's called LC. So the class teaches you how to take care of helmets, pilots' helmets, their their uh flight vests with all the um stuff for survival, right? Radios, uh rafts, oxygen systems, uh anything that helps a pilot survive. So I went to school for that and I was there, I think two months was that course. But when I first got there, um the classes were all full with guard guys. And they're like, oh, you're an army guy, you you know, put you back in a lot. Yeah, the guard's paying us, and these guys can only be here for a short amount. And I didn't understand it. I I learned later how to understand it, but I didn't at that time. I'm like, okay, they're like, ah, you got the week off, just come in the morning, and uh, I was at E4 then. Come in the first time. I said, come in and empty the trash and vacuum and you can go for the day. You're leading a charmed life so far. I'm like, this is great, you know. And then my one of my buddies showed up, he was going through the same course. So he shows up in the first time is like, yeah, just take them under your wing and show them around. I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_11: 34:48

You know, I always wondered what they did at Fort Eustace because I used to live in Virginia Beach when I was in the Navy, and I always saw Fort Eustace, but I had no idea what.

SPEAKER_16: 34:56

Transportation Center. Yeah, I had no idea. So they uh now they teach how to work on Chinooks, uh-huh, um Blackhawks. Uh they did Hueys back. No, they didn't do Hughes back, and they're a big uh boat place too. Okay, teaching boat stuff, and they have a lot of NCO courses because I've been back there a few times since. Uh-huh. So that was their main thing there. Yeah, that's a pretty nice place. I've been there a few times, but um, and yeah, and I lived in one bedroom and I had a maid. And when I mean a maid, she would she would come in uh once a week and change the linen out of bed and bring towels, but still, it was fantastic because I'm used to you know being in the three-man room and polishing floors, and we had a shared bathroom there, but it was and my roommate wasn't in the same predicament. I was, he was doing different training. He had to get up early in the morning and go and here I am sleeping in and living a life. PT was on my own, and which I never did, right? You know, so it was great. So yeah, finished that up, and then um I got stationed Fort Bliss after that.

SPEAKER_26: 36:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_16: 36:03

So I drive down to Fort Bliss, I get to Fort Bliss. We all know how much you like Texas.

unknown: 36:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 36:10

I get to Fort Bliss, and you check in on the main the uh main post there, and they they have you for like a week doing paperwork, processing, giving you some classes, you know, typical army stuff. And then your unit comes, picks you up and brings you. So I go to my new unit and they weren't sure where they were gonna send me yet, because I was in the third ACR now. And um the cavalry regiments, they have um they don't have companies like army units, they have uh troops, they're called. So a company and troop is kind of the same, and a squadron is like a battalion, you know. So that's how they do it in the calf. You know, it goes back hundreds of years, how they used to do it. So the actual yeah, extra cavalry, yes. Cavalry guys. So um I get over so the Biggs Airfield was different than uh Fort Bliss. They're connected now. Back then there was a road through there, and it was Biggs Army Airfield. So I go there and you need to go see the sergeant major. I said, okay. So I go and knock on the door, and Sergeant Major says, Come on in. And I sit down, and uh he's got a desk there, and on his desk, he's got two skull heads and then a nameplate, and it says the skull. And there's this very large uh bald-headed black man sitting there. The skull. You know where he got his name, right? Yes, and I was like, Sarum, special spell. You can I think we'll put you in Quicksilver troop. You go over there and see those guys. Okay, Sarum Major. So that's who I was in a Quicksilver troop then. Um I was only there like a year and a half, but uh the barracks we lived in uh were condemned. They were eight-shaped, H-shaped buildings. Yeah, and the center part was the bathrooms, and you had like, you know, five or six stalls and five or six sinks and like three or four showers. And um I lived in a good one because my walls went all the way up to the ceiling. Uh-huh. My buddies lived in uh different uh eight-shaped buildings where their walls went up about um seven and a half feet, eight feet, and the last last foot was chicken wire. Separating the rooms in the hallways. Yeah. Our motor pool was condemned. Uh-huh. Um, they built a new one there just as I was leaving there, but we still had the this was 1989, beginning 89. We still had the old Willis Jeeps. We hadn't even had uh cut V's yet, where the rest of the army was almost getting home Vs. Right, you know, so we had all this old, old ass equipment, you know, and then um our helicopters hardly flew because of the funding. It was during the um Clinton years, yeah. So there was no funding. So if a helicopter broke and you didn't have a part, it sat. So when I was down there, we hardly flew aircraft at all. We went out to uh the National Training Center once out in California, took all the aircraft out there. Um the cool thing there is when we flew back, I got the fly, I took a bus there, another bus. Of course, but on the way back, we had like 15 Hueys we were flying back, and I was on one of them. And we flew over the original London Bridge in Arizona.

SPEAKER_11: 39:31

Yeah, it uh where's that? Uh Lake Havasu. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, one of the hottest places on Earth, I think.

SPEAKER_16: 39:37

Yeah, so we flew over that, looked down, like, oh, there's the original London Bridge. I'm like, that's pretty cool, you know? Oh yeah. And then we were flying across New Mexico, and then we had to stop for gas at this little pole dunk gas station, you know, airport. And um the guy's on there's like, all right, you guys land, we'll get you fueled up. It's gonna take a while because you got so many aircraft. Well, how many, you know, how many soldiers you got with you? I don't know, a hundred soldiers. Okay. So land. Um, we go up to the you know flight ops building. The owner opens up the soda machine and opens up the candy machine. Whatever you guys want, help yourselves. You know, you guys had a long trip. He goes, I got my uh guy coming back with food. Comes back a whole pickup truck full of McDonald's burgers. How cool is that? Yeah. Oh, he just, you know, he made his his 15 helicopters he filled up with JP, you know, or Jet A. He made his money for the year on probably that trip alone, you know. So yeah, he treated us right. That was pretty cool. Oh, that's great. But yeah, went back to um Fort or stayed at Fort Bliss until ninety August of ninety.

SPEAKER_11: 40:43

So how did you like I I I one I kinda always ask this when it comes to helicopters, how did you like flying in the Huey? 'Cause I've flown in a lot of different helicopters. I really enjoy that one. Um feels like a helicopter.

SPEAKER_16: 40:55

I like flying. Jeez. The Chinook was a lot of fun. That was a Chinook guy, too. Yeah. That was a lot of fun. Because they're the fastest. And they're um they really don't have a torque limit. I mean, they do, you know, how much, but uh I just remember we were landing in the woods one time, and uh we had to go straight down and then straight up. And this is when I first started flying, and I just remember it was like taking the elevator to the top floor, like now. Yeah, it was awesome. Yeah, so yeah, yeah. The Huey was it was fun to fly in, you know. That was the first aircraft I ever flew in when I was at Fort Rucker, and they took us on a familiaration flight. So we got to go. That was the first time. That was pretty cool. Oh, yeah. You know, yeah, that was really cool. Um, what I like about the helicopters is we'd have to do what's called an auto rotation uh to check uh the blades maintenance-wise, and pilots also do for training, right? So you'll go up, you know, three, four thousand feet and then just drop the power. So it's like uh when you go over the hill on a roller coaster, uh-huh, except you know, that's what maybe five seconds, four seconds. You're over and then in a helicopter, you're falling thousands of feet. That's terrifying. It's it's like the first time it happened, I was like, I'm gonna die. And I'm like grabbing, you know, trying to grab, and I'm like, it's going down with me. Right.

SPEAKER_11: 42:21

It might make you feel better, but it's still going down.

SPEAKER_16: 42:23

So yeah, so I got to really uh enjoy that feeling though. Like when I knew it was gonna happen. Oh, yeah, it was awesome. And then uh when I learned to fly airplanes, I hated it even more because now I'm in control of it. Right, you know what's going on with me. I know what's gonna happen. I was I was learning to fly a Cessna, it's an over-wing aircraft, the one I was flying, the little small ones, and they you have to do maneuver, it's called stalling the aircraft. Yeah, uh, you know what that is? That's where you uh drop your airspeed, right? And you don't have lift anymore. Yes, yeah, you're so you're stalling the wings, not the engine. So you just you know you cut the power and you slowly nose it up, and then it will lose lift. Well, on the Cessna, as soon as it lose loses lift, it just nose dives. Yeah, those will fall like a rock, right? Yes, yes. Where if you have a low-wing aircraft, it will start to shutter uh and then you'll be able to go and it'll start and then you pull up. But that that just goes. It freaked me out the first time. Oh, yeah. I was like, holy cow. And the structure's like, okay, now you're gonna do it. Well, no, I'm not. He's like, Yes, you are. Holy smokes.

SPEAKER_18: 43:32

He's like, Okay, as soon as it starts, as soon as you feel it and it dives, get ready to pull in power and pull back on a stick.

SPEAKER_11: 43:39

Okay, whatever you say, boss. So so 1990, you leave Fort Bliss then?

SPEAKER_16: 43:46

Yeah, so 1990, I I'm getting out of the army, I'm going to college. Um, so I'm driving away from Fort Bliss and Saddam attacks Kuwait. Nice. Yeah. I'm like, yeah. The Middle Easterns, they're always fighting, you know. Right. That's what I was thinking. Like, so I drive away from Fort Bliss, I'm listening to it on a radio. If I would have been stuck there like another maybe week, I wouldn't have got out of the army. They would have stopped, stopped, lost me, and kept me there. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So I was luckily. I went to Las Vegas, spent two weeks there at my sister, and then drove cross-country, got home, um, back to Rollo. Actually, Madison Heights. My mom was living in Madison Heights, stayed in Madison Heights. I started going to Oakland Community College. I did my first semester, started my second second semester, and then my favorite uncle sent me a telegram to the house. Hey, we need you back. Your favorite uncle Sam. My favorite Uncle Sam, yes. So that's when I used to use telegrams. Wow. So I got a telegram to my house, and they said, You need to report to uh Fort Rucker, Alabama as soon as possible. Well, as soon as possible, my mind was two weeks away. Right, right. And don't ring down. Yes. So I mean I had to go to college, drop out, let them know, show them all the paperwork, and they refunded all my money, no problem. Um, and then you just take the telegram to the nearest airport and they get your ticket. So that's what happened.

SPEAKER_11: 45:19

So back to Fort Rucker, it was back to Fort Rucker.

SPEAKER_16: 45:24

So I get to Fort Rucker, um, check in, stay in the same old barracks I was when I was in AIT. Um did I run any? I think I ran in a couple people from one of my old units there. Uh-huh. So um we'd go in every morning and uh um we were in civilian clothes to start with. So we go in and all right, um, we're gonna get you guys some uniforms and get you ID cards and you know, kind of in process you back into the army. Yeah. I get processed back into the army, and they're like, okay, we're just gonna, you know, we're waiting on orders to send you guys wherever, you know. So every morning we'd go in and the first siren would be like, Yep, no orders yet. Go pick up uh butts and then uh come back at lunch. So we'd do that again. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We'd come back to first siren's office. Got anything? No, okay. And you could go wherever you want, as long as you signed out. So we'd go to the gym or go into town or whatever. And then um the second, I think it was the second week, he's like, Okay, we're gonna um we're gonna send you. You haven't worked on aircraft in like six months, so we're gonna send you for some training, you know, refresher training. Yeah, okay. So I go refresher training and I show up at the hangar, and there's one of my old platoon sirens standing there. What are you doing here, beller? I said, they sent me over for training. He kind of laughs. He's like, You don't need any training. He goes, What do you need? I said, Well, I gotta have this sign. Let me see that. Okay, here you go. You know, don't come back.

unknown: 46:56

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 46:57

You know, you know.

unknown: 46:58

Don't come back.

SPEAKER_11: 46:59

So something that some people might not understand, too, is that when you do that initial enlistment, even though it might be a four or six year enlistment, you're obligated for eight years.

SPEAKER_16: 47:09

Eight years, yes. Right.

SPEAKER_11: 47:10

So there's this individual ready reserve where you don't have to drill, you don't have to have uniforms or anything, but if something happens, they can call you. And so that's what happened, right?

SPEAKER_16: 47:17

Yes, yeah, it was IRR. Yeah. Called me up, said come on back. So yeah. So I went back and then we did that for like a month, and then you know the war stopped because it depleted uranium. Of course, we didn't know that to years later, but that was you heard that, right? Oh, yeah. So the whole battlefield was uh and still is uh depleting uranium, killing everyone. And so anyhow, so they're like, oh, we don't need you guys anymore, we're gonna send you home. So um sent me home and then uh got back into college. And about four months after I was home, they sent me a letter promoting me to E5 sergeant. I'm like, I don't need that, I'm not going back in the military, you know. So I just filed it with the rest of my paperwork. We'll never go back in. Never go back in. Right, right. So fast forward three and a half years later, and I'm like, man, I kind of miss flying helicopters, you know, I kind of miss that. I'm like, I wonder if Michigan has helicopters. So I'm like, oh, there's a unit that has helicopters. So got a hold of a recruiter, and I said, Hey, I'm thinking about, you know, all right, let's get you set up with that. I said, okay, I think I want to do that. So I joined the guard.

SPEAKER_18: 48:28

I'm like, oh yeah, by the way, I'm E5. Here's my paperwork. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_16: 48:33

No problem. No problem. So I got stationed out in Grand Ledge in the guard. Mm-hmm. And I was working on the same helicopters. So I was in that unit. Um, so you were were you working? You had a civilian job at this time? Yeah, I was doing um at that time I was doing CNC work. So I was working for uh automotive. Okay. Uh doing um making molds for prototype cars, right? Fenders and you know, whatever they needed.

SPEAKER_11: 49:05

Yeah. So you're still in the Royal Oak area then?

SPEAKER_16: 49:07

I was living in Waterford at that point.

SPEAKER_11: 49:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_16: 49:09

Yeah, moved out to Waterford. I got married in let me see now, 1992. Oh, all right. Yes, my first wife, uh Renee was her name. And then I had Courtney, my oldest daughter, and Lindsay during that time. Um let's see, when did I so I joined the 94s when I joined the guard? Okay. So I hadn't, you know, I joined 86, I had an eight-year enlistment, and I had to make a decision that that's why when I made that decision, right? You won't have a break in service, right? If you go right to the guard, yes. So that's when I had to make that decision, and that's when I decided to, you know, go into the guard. So how do I feel about that? Hmm, I'm trying to remember. I don't think she was opposed to it. I don't think she was happy about it. I really don't know. I can't remember. Yeah, it was more money coming in. She didn't like I went away for the weekends because she thought I was chasing other girls. Yeah. I'm like, what are you talking about? You know? I'm going to do my army stuff. So work on helicopters, yeah. So I don't know. Um, I guess you have to ask her how she felt about it. I wouldn't know. You know. Yeah. But she never, you know, griped about it or anything. Oh, okay. No, none of that. So um, so yeah, so I was I worked on OH 58s, and they decided they were gonna get rid of them. So they trained us on uh cobras. Uh have you seen those before? Oh, yeah. So I went from 58s to working on cobras now. So by the time I retired, I've worked on every armor helicopter. So that was my first transition was working on those, right?

SPEAKER_11: 50:51

If you think about it though, you were in at a really good time because of all the transitioning that was happening. Like they're getting away from jeeps and going to home vees. Yes, you know, the helicopters were upgrading and changing, so you really got to see that that whole transition.

SPEAKER_16: 51:05

That's kind of cool. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the equipment that the the they were upgrading all the like the uh aviation helmet, all that equipment. Um, yeah, there's a lot of that getting rid of the old stuff, turning it in. I actually um when we got rid of the 58s, I actually took one all the way down to Biloxi, Mississippi. So um, I was working for Counter Drug at the time, and um they were supposed to take one down on a Monday. I wasn't planning to go, but my uh supervisor at the time was supposed to go. We had, I think, a death in the family, so we couldn't go. So they called me up last minute. Hey, we can you go down to Biloxi tomorrow? I'm like, oh yeah. So we flew from Lansing, we overnight in Nashville, Tennessee. So we're flying into Nashville International, right? Yeah, the big planes, right? Right. So the pilot's flying. He's like, okay, here's how we're gonna do it. I'm gonna fly and I'm gonna talk to the tower. You're gonna watch other planes, and then you're gonna direct me to which runways we need to go because there's so many of them. He goes, That's how we're gonna do it. I said, Okay.

SPEAKER_18: 52:17

So who we are in this little bitty helicopter, and there's all these big planes, and you're looking out the window, and there's a big plane this side.

SPEAKER_16: 52:25

So yeah, we we land there, and we just go to like a little FBO and park our helicopter. And you got a rental car? Yeah, you can use this. And we go into Nashville and we're wearing those, you know, flights, wearing those uh flight suits, you know. And um so we go check in one of the hotels, and of course we do the Nashville thing and go probably have one too many drinks. Now I gotta get back in this helicopter in the morning and fly down a Biloxi. Is that a long flight? It was, yeah. So we get down to Biloxi, park the aircraft, and then uh the pilot I was with, he had a flight like the next day. Since I was, you know, last minute and I had to wait another day to fly back. Yeah. So that was pretty cool. That was in their transition to aircraft. And then they decide, okay, we're going to get um Chinooks now and get rid of the Cobras and then get 58s again. Yeah. So they kept the OH 58s for the um the counter drug unit, and then they uh get the Chinooks. So they're like, You're a Chinook guy now. I said, okay.

SPEAKER_11: 53:36

Did they send you to school for that?

SPEAKER_16: 53:38

No, no, they didn't send me to school because they're like, Well, you've worked on you've been you know around for so long, you worked on so many areas. We're just gonna do like on a on a you know job training for yeah for it. So I start working on Chinooks, and then um the Gulf War kicks up again. This was oh four. So um Michigan was partnered with Mississippi um sister units. So they call they call the unit to combat to go to Iraq. We're like, wait a minute, we don't have any training. Our pilots haven't flown these things yet, and the crew chiefs and mechanics have no experience. We don't have helicopters, we don't have equipment, we have nothing. That's okay, you guys are going anyhow. You'll learn fast. So we um we get ready to deploy around Christmas time, and the whole month before it, since I didn't have that MOS, they weren't gonna take me. They didn't have a slot for me. So one week it'd be you're going. Next week would be no, we don't have a slot. So we're going back and forth, so I never knew if I was going or not. Yeah. Until the last moment, they're like the night before, like, okay, you're going now. Okay. So we deploy down to Fort Benning, Georgia, and we get down there, and we meet up with the Mississippi unit that we had trained with the summer before for like two weeks at uh JRTC in uh Louisiana. So, like, okay, we're gonna uh we're gonna get you guys training. So they start sending people to schools, pilots off the school, mechanics off the school. Once again, they're like, Oh, you got enough training, we're just gonna do we're gonna write a letter and we're gonna get you the MOS. And you know, there's like three of us. Yeah, and we're gonna take care of it that way. It never worked out that way. I never got the MOS, even though I worked on them for all this time. And then uh Uncle Sam just starts shitting Chinooks.

SPEAKER_11: 55:33

Amazing how that happens, isn't it?

SPEAKER_16: 55:35

We go to the airfield one day, there's two. We go to the next day, there's four, and then we go out there and there's eight of them. Before you know it, we got 16 Chinooks in our unit that we didn't have a month prior. Like they were multiplying at night or just shitting them at night, yes. So our focus when I was down at Benning, I was then I was a flight engineer. So mine was all related to flight duties. So that's what I was they were training us on, all these flight duty stuff, how to maintain how to maintain the aircraft in the air and all that, hardly any maintenance tasks. We get ready to deploy, and they're like, wait, we gotta open, how's it E5? Then we got to open E6 maintenance slot. Um, and you're like, Well, who's on the list? They're like, no, Sarum Beller. So they put me in a slot, and they're like, Well, you're gonna have to you have to go to maintenance company. So, okay, I can go to maintenance company, right? Yeah, but I still was the LC guy, so I had to do the LC stuff. So I told the commander, I said, listen, I said, I've got all this LSI stuff to do. I can't be a full-time, because I would have had a whole crew. Like, I can't run a whole maintenance crew and also do the LSI job. You either give the LC job to someone else or you give this maintenance position to somebody else, put me back over there. I said, but I'm not losing rank over it, you know. So he goes, all right, so we get to Iraq, and he's like, all right, here's what we're gonna do, because I did maintenance like the first couple weeks. He goes, we're gonna bring you back over, you're gonna do LSI full-time, and then we'll have you fill in as a flight engineer.

SPEAKER_11: 57:06

So we're talking about Iraq, but before we get too deep into it, where where did you deploy to initially?

SPEAKER_16: 57:12

So um we went from Michigan to Fort Benning, and from Fort Benning, we went to Kuwait, and then we bounced around a few of the camps there, uh, getting equipment, ammunition, everything we needed. And then we convoyed our vehicles convoyed up to Balad, Iraq, and then we flew up, took the aircraft, flew up there. Um, us Americans call it Balad, but uh Iraqis called it Balad. Oh I learned that from Iraqi. Yeah, but I was in Balad. He's like, What's Balad? He's like, You mean Ballad?

SPEAKER_11: 57:45

In Balad, now my memory of Balad, it was like a depot, like the it was a parts depot almost like I mean we we needed supplies, that's where we went.

SPEAKER_16: 57:53

Yes, yes. So and you were there in what so 04-05.

SPEAKER_11: 57:58

Okay, yes, just the the basically the year before I got there.

SPEAKER_16: 58:01

Yep. We um so we had um 14 Chinooks in our unit there. Uh two of them were outsourced to the 160th. So um the whole time we were there, we uh supported them, and then we'd rotate crews to go down and work with those guys. They had the little birds down there, which is pretty cool. That's pretty awesome. I only got to fill in like one time and go down there and see them things. They're like little sports cars. Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 58:28

I'll tell you what, when you're in the middle of something in the middle of a town and you need some support, those are the guys you need. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Little birds, big guns.

SPEAKER_16: 58:37

Yeah. So yeah, our mission there, um, so we had two standing missions. The one mission was to transport uh troops from uh Balad to the green zone. I'm sorry, from Balad to the airfield out there, um, Baghdad International for uh leave purposes. And then we had one mission that was standing where we would take supplies to um Taji.

SPEAKER_26: 59:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_16: 59:08

So you ever been to Taji? Yes. So Taji was Saddam's tank center. So as we flew over, you got to see where he had all his tank stuff, but we um that's where we'd we'd go to. That was our claiming. We had a pool in Ballad. Did you? Yes. I only spent a few days in Ballad. Yeah. I didn't like it very much. Yes, we had a pool there, we had a movie theater. Yeah. Um so but that was all Saddam's old stuff. Right. You know, we lived in I lived in a trailer um that housed, I think, four rooms. So I shared a room with one other guy. We had air conditioning, and then we had shared uh shower facilities, bathroom facilities. Yeah. So that's where we lived at. Um our flight ops building, our first arm building, we had to build them. So that's the advantage the guard has over the army is we had carpenters, we had electricians. That was their civilian jobs. Yeah, people's day jobs really helped. So we could build buildings that were legit, you know, pretty close to cold, you know, no one's checking anything over there, right? But structurally sound buildings that weren't going to burn down because you didn't do electrical wire. In fact, uh, my wife's unit, one of the people in the unit rewired the whole base in charge of it. Not like himself running wire. Right. But he was a master electrician, and the whole time he was there, that's all he did was help rewire stuff for the whole base. So there was, you know, that's where, you know, uh, and I used to do it when I was an active duty member. Oh, them guard guys, you know, nothing. Yeah, but they they have all these other skills that that helped out a lot. Yeah, and we when we were there, so the the Chinook units were um us in Mississippi. Combined and then Hawaii and I can't remember who they were with because the Chinook units were two different um states that come together. They can't remember who's Hawaii who their sister unit was. So there was 28 Chinooks in country when we were there. But it was cool when we were first transitioning. There was like 50 of them things all over the place. That's a lot.

SPEAKER_11: 1:01:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 1:01:25

So but we flew pretty big. Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 1:01:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 1:01:29

We flew mostly um the southern section of Iraq, but I've been almost everywhere in Iraq in a helicopter. You know, all the places that you've heard of, I've been to. In fact, we used to go up to up near the Iranian border where the Kurdish people lived. Oh, herbial area? Yeah, I think even further up than that. Yeah. About three miles from the Iranian border. That's how far we would go. And then we would take um, I don't know who they were or what they were doing, but they would pull up in up armored SUVs with no markings on them. And they would pull in and then we'd strap them down in a Chinook and they had the coolest guns. Oh, yeah. So I got to take a few pictures with a few of them, and then we'd fly up there and they'd be in there, and we'd fly up there. We'd have to go over like a four or five thousand-foot mountain. We'd get them there, and then we'd put the ramps down, and then the uh Kurdish soldiers would surround our aircraft for protection to protect us, and then they would take off, and then we'd come back like three days later, pick them up, and bring them back. Don't know what they were doing. Nope. Didn't ask either, did you? There was no battles up there, right? There was no insurgents up there, it was all the Kurdish people. So I think they were going in Iran. Yeah. Doing stuff in Iran, whatever they were doing. I don't know. Um, so that I I almost got blown up there once. I was um I had a mortar land or a rocket about 10 feet from me. I was um, we were getting ready for the daily flights, and I was out working on aircraft, and someone's hey, I need my helmet fixed. I said, Okay, I can fix your helmet. So I grabbed his helmet and uh had one of those little John Deere gators. Yeah, you know. So I jump in that, I got flight pants on, t-shirt, and sunglasses on boots. Drive across the airfield, fix his helmet. I'm coming back across what we called pad two, that's where we staged before we took off, and in comes the freaking rock. I didn't hear it, see it, nothing. All I remember is all this shrapnel, not shrapnel, but uh asphalt. Yeah, like asphalt's raining on me, and I'm like, what the heck? You know, and then I stop, I look, I see a big hole in the and then everyone I was because when they have mortar attacks there, we they sound the alarms, right? Yeah. So everybody would run for the bunkers. Well, us dumb aviation guys, we're like, um, if we run for the bunkers, we're never gonna get a mission done. So we would just continue on. We wouldn't. If I was near one, I'd maybe step in. I'm like, if it's coming, it's coming.

SPEAKER_11: 1:04:09

So it's kind of amazing what you get used to when you're there, don't you think? Yeah. Like if someone was dropping bombs at you, you know, out here in right, it would be different. Like you would go seek shelter, but yeah, there you just gotta do.

SPEAKER_16: 1:04:22

And they always came in like in the morning around mealtime and in the evening. So you knew when they were kind of coming, you know. They had to they had you know, so I'm like, so I go and everyone's watching, you know, and I come back over my aircraft, everyone's running over. Like, how are you are ya? Have you ever seen the movie uh The Jerk with Steve Martin? Yeah, you know how he's at the gas station and all the cans are leaking oil.

SPEAKER_19: 1:04:44

This guy hates oil cans.

SPEAKER_16: 1:04:46

You know what I said?

SPEAKER_19: 1:04:46

They hate pad too. My friends are looking at me like, what? I said, they hate pad too, they're trying to blow it up. They clearly didn't get your reference, did they?

SPEAKER_16: 1:04:58

Oh, some of the guys did. But uh, my saving grace was the warhead didn't go off. Wow. Yeah, it just went in and uh damaged uh put a hole, you know, probably about like that big a hole there, but um just from the impact, but there was the warhead didn't go off. Wow, so I that was I was lucky, super lucky, yes, yes, yes. So um, but yeah, I just got ready and went up and flew off to the next mission.

SPEAKER_11: 1:05:24

Right, right. I find you know I don't really think about that stuff until I got home when I thought about all of it.

SPEAKER_16: 1:05:31

And then we were flying one night, and we always flew at night. Um sometimes we came back as the sun was coming up, sometimes we left just before the sun went down, but we always flew night missions because that's a big helicopter. Yeah, you know, and at night they can't see it because we turn all the lights off. They can't see it. So um we were working for the 101st. They were it was the Jeff Battle. If you heard of the Najf battle, it was the church with the surrounding cemetery that the insurgents were um causing trouble. So it was a big battle there. And 101st was uh they were like the lead people. So we were transporting for like like a week or two everything they needed, uh, equipment for their vehicles. Um, there's times that we just had a schinook full of like uh power aids and energy bars. Uh-huh. One time we just had it full of ice, and we were doing this, you know, for like non-stop. That was one of our main missions. And then we were flying right by Abu Graib, the prison. Well, we were doing it too much, so they kind of figured out they set up an ambush for us, and um we were flying by there, and they were just they were lighting us up. Luckily, none of us got hit during that time. But what I do remember is I was on the um tail of one of the uh Chinooks, I was a door gunner on the tail, and I'm looking out and I'm like, who's following us in that car? I'm like, huh, because that's how your brain thinks. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It was rockets, they look like headlights. Yeah, you know, and then you know, you sh shake your head and go, oh shit, those are rockets. So um we had flares, and you have a button you push and it drops. Well, I didn't have the button with me, so I had to, in a calm voice, tell the other guys, hey, release the flares and uh dive to the right, you know, because I could tell if we dove to the right, hopefully with the flares, and right. So, but I'm here to tell about it, so yeah, yeah, clearly it worked. Clearly it worked, but yeah, we got back and like, oh man, that could have that really could have done us in. But oh yeah. What was cool is about two weeks later, um their colonel shows up. I think it was a colonel, full bird colonel shows up, and he's got the big tall boots on, you know, and the belt, you know. Cool looking. He liked to show that he was the the guy, right? Right. So he shows up and he's like, gets us, he's like, get everybody together. And you know, we're we're guard guys, right? So we're out there and there's probably 30 of us, and we're in 30 different uniforms.

SPEAKER_18: 1:08:19

Because we're guard guys, you know. Of course. Some got hats, some got boonies, some got nothing, different shirts, you know. We're and it's war, nobody cares.

SPEAKER_16: 1:08:26

Yeah, well, some people care, some people care.

SPEAKER_11: 1:08:29

Some sergeant majors care, actually.

SPEAKER_16: 1:08:30

But no, the the colonel's like, I just want to thank you guys for helping us out. We couldn't have won that battle without your support. And he's like, I brought you some medals, and he just had his cronies there, and they had a big stack of the you know, the things and medals, and he went and pinned them on each one of us. And I was like, that was one of the coolest medals I ever got. Like, like right after it happened. Yeah you know, he like made it happen. That's great. So that was like one of the medals. I'm like, this is so cool. I got this one.

SPEAKER_11: 1:09:03

It's cool to have that medal with a story behind it. Yeah, because a lot of them just seem anonymous, like right.

SPEAKER_16: 1:09:08

Yeah. Oh, here's for great service during this period of this period. This was like, no, this is a battle that you guys helped, right? So that was cool, and then the other cool thing I got there, well, well, I got a lot of cool stuff there, but we were transporting a general, he's a one-star, he's a reserve guy. So we pick him up at uh Baghdad International, load him up on a ship, and he was an old Chinook guy. So we put him up in like the commander's seat. So he's up there and he's just having a great time, you know, bringing back memories, and all his captains are there like tripping over themselves, trying to help him, you know. Oh, yeah. So we land in a green zone, and um he gets out and all his you know cronies or you know, his captains and that are tripping over each other, trying to grab his luggage and that, and I get one of them. I'm like, I said, Hey, you you think the uh the general would you know want to give us any of his coins? You know? He's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes, Let me go check. I got I got a bunch of them because I'll get back with you. So we're you know, off low and stuff. It's dark, it's the green zone, we're not gonna be there long. He comes back over, he goes, Man, I can't find them. I don't know where they're at. I said, that's cool, you know, don't worry about it. Yeah, he goes, no, no, no. He says, give me your address. And I'm like, give me my address in freaking Iraq.

SPEAKER_19: 1:10:23

Right?

SPEAKER_16: 1:10:24

Address 123 Main Street. No. He goes, Well, where are you at? I said, Well, we're in Ballad. We're, you know, this is our unit. Okay. He goes, I'll make sure you get them there. And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, okay, whatever. Whatever. You know, whatever. So a couple weeks later, the guy from Flight Ops comes over. He's like, Hey, you got a package? Like a package, usually goes to a mail room, right? Uh-huh. He's got something here. I was like, it's a little box with 10 coins in it and a handwritten letter from the general. Wow. Hey, thanks for picking me up. It was awesome flying with you guys, and here pass these out to your guys. I gotta find that letter. It was so cool, you know, like that he remembered and actually pinned the letter.

SPEAKER_11: 1:11:09

Yeah, actually did what he actually the captain did what he said he was gonna do.

SPEAKER_16: 1:11:13

Yep. So yeah, that would that was pretty cool. So yeah, we were uh my unit was pretty lucky. We didn't lose anybody, didn't lose any aircraft, all made it home safe.

SPEAKER_11: 1:11:25

Um how long were you was that a 12-month deployment?

SPEAKER_16: 1:11:28

A little over 12 months, yeah. And then my last month, my wife shows up there. Not my wife, my girlfriend at the time. Uh-huh. Her unit got deployed. So I actually picked her up. So she flew in our uh Kuwait like I did, and then she flew into Balad at the passenger turmo on the other side. So I went and picked her up in a I had a what did I have? Oh, I had a uh up armored um Hum V. Yeah, Hum V. Can I safely assume you're divorced at this time? No, this is my new wife. Oh, yes, yes, I was yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 1:12:02

Because she's your girlfriend.

SPEAKER_16: 1:12:03

Yes. So I just yeah, yes, I always have to ask the question. Yes, I got divorced in 01. Okay. So, and then I married, you know, my my current wife in 06. So Okay. So we were dating at that point.

SPEAKER_07: 1:12:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 1:12:19

Dating. So she flew in, and then um I picked her up and they flew in at night. And I had, you know, the chemsticks, and I had made a sign with her name on it because it was dark out, so I was holding up this she got off the plane. So yeah. So I got to uh spend two weeks with her there, and then then um then I came home. Came home in 05. Yeah. Yep, and waited for her to come home. I got home in March, February, March. She got home in I think September. Okay. Yeah. When I got home, I it was I don't think I drove for two weeks. I got home and my neighbor's like, hey, how you doing?

SPEAKER_07: 1:13:00

I said, I think I'm doing all right. He goes, um, he goes, You need a new phone?

unknown: 1:13:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_17: 1:13:06

He goes, let's go get one. I said, okay. I said you drive, yeah, I'll drive.

SPEAKER_16: 1:13:11

So I first week or two, I didn't want to drive. You know, I was just trying to get used to being home again.

SPEAKER_11: 1:13:17

I think that's the hard thing about being in the guard, right? I mean, when you're an active duty military and you come back from anything, deployment or training or whatever, you're still at like you have that support system, you're still part of the military, right? When you when you get back from deployment in the guard, you maybe have that two weeks of transition where they do all do all the stuff or whatever when you're uh redeploying, uh, but then you just go home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 1:13:42

Yep. Yeah, we redeployed to Camp Shelby, Mississippi. Oh, Shelby, yuck. So since we were part of the Mississippi, you know, Mississippi has a lot of pool with their guard. Uh-huh. So we land at um, was it Atlanta? No, I think it was Biloxi. We landed at Biloxi. So all the Mississippi boys got to go home for two weeks that day. Yeah. Not us. We had to go to Camp Shelby, demob, then go home. Then they came there and demolbed and got to go home every night. I was like, gotta hate them. I was like, you gotta be kidding me. You know, we all just want to get home, you know. But we had a police escort from um Biloxy all the way to um Camp Shelby. And then when we got to Camp Shelby, the family readiness group was sitting there with stacks of pizza and beer. Nothing wrong with that. We were like, this is amazing. They don't do that now because you know, it's nicer, you know, gentler touch, gentle touch army now. We don't want to, you know, right. Don't want to get our guys drinking and that. So yeah, I remember we were eating, drinking. I get up the next morning and I see a couple of my friends still drinking, not still drinking, drinking. And I'm like, boy, you guys are getting started early. And they're like, we ain't never stopped.

SPEAKER_19: 1:15:05

Oh man, like we got to outprocess today. Like, yeah, okay, whatever. Good luck. Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 1:15:11

But it is like that. I got I got back and I went back to my normal job, and it was just not like here. I am in Iraq, like people depending on me, like lives depend on me. If I don't do my job, you know, people could die or helicopters could crash. I go back to my job, it's like I could care less I was there. Yeah, you know, so that was an ordinary dude. It was, you know, getting used to that was you know, like, okay, they don't even care if I'm here or not. Right. You didn't have you have a loss, you know. It's not the same mission at all. Yeah. Trying to get used to, okay, this is how my life's gonna be now. Right.

SPEAKER_11: 1:15:50

So you're still in Waterford at this time?

SPEAKER_16: 1:15:52

Still in Waterford. Okay. Still in Waterford. Um, I can't, my house uh got flooded while I was gone. Uh a pipe broke, my neighbors were able to get the house shut off, water shut off, and then my dad um was getting all the drywall redone. So I get home to my house, and um, there's no carpeting in it, dust everywhere, the walls are all finished, yeah. But it's just a mess, and I'm just like, so I get the number to contract. I'm like, listen, I said, I'm gonna get somebody over here, clean this place right now. So I just got back from Iraq and I walk into this. He's like, all right, we'll send somebody over right now. I said, also tomorrow I'll come over with carpet samples. Well, I don't want to get this carpet.

SPEAKER_15: 1:16:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_16: 1:16:41

I said, and then I'm going to Florida for two weeks. And when I come back, I want my carpeting done. I want this house finished. He's like, all right. So I was able to get that, you know, done. And then um, and then uh my girlfriend came back. Um and then I asked her to marry me shortly after that. Yeah, yeah, oh five, yeah. Yeah. So and then we got married in Jamaica in um January of 06, which makes January 026, our 20-year anniversary.

SPEAKER_11: 1:17:16

Yeah, yeah. This is a big one, better get it right.

SPEAKER_16: 1:17:19

Yeah, yeah, I got her a nice ring in a safe, she doesn't know it yet. Oh, very nice.

SPEAKER_17: 1:17:23

So um um what was gonna say?

SPEAKER_16: 1:17:27

We were we were supposed to go to Jamaica, but it got wiped out by the hurricane. Right so we're going to Mexico Sunday or Saturday, Mexico. So so yeah, so from there, let me see. Well, from there. And I was just a guard guy then. Yeah, back to being a guard guy. So when did you leave uh Waterford? So um 09. Okay.

SPEAKER_11: 1:17:52

So you didn't retire from the job that you had then at the CNC?

SPEAKER_16: 1:17:55

No, I kept no, I kept doing my job, yeah, um, my CNC job. Yeah, and then the company went out of business. Okay. It went out of business, and I couldn't find a job, so I was a stay-at-home um bonus dad for a while. Yeah. So I uh Jen was working um as a federal employee uh for the uh National Guard. So I was taking care of uh her daughter, and then I was putting in for jobs everywhere. And then I finally got a job at the um uh CSMS as a wheeled vehicle mechanic. So I'm like, I can you know I can fix helicopters, I can fix trucks, no problem. So I I go in for the interview, and then um before I go in the interview, I I see one of my old uh Colonel Colonel Myers then? Major Myers? Maybe Captain Myers. No, he's a major at that time. Major Myers.

SPEAKER_11: 1:18:52

General Myers now, isn't it? Yes, yes, I can serve with him as well.

SPEAKER_16: 1:18:55

Yeah, I went to his uh funny story to tell you about that. Um I went to his promotion when he got promoted to general.

SPEAKER_31: 1:19:01

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_16: 1:19:01

But when I first came in the guard in um '94, we were up in Kinross training, and um, he was in my unit. He was at E5. Really? Yep. Mm-hmm. So we hung out a lot and got in a lot of trouble.

SPEAKER_11: 1:19:18

He is he is uh a great guy. Like he just and he can say things that I know no one else would get away with saying, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 1:19:28

And his dad was a colonel. Uh-huh. Yeah. So he's general now, General Myers. Yeah. So he was in that office, and I'm like, hey, what's going on? So I go in there, and uh, you know, he got injured in Iraq too. And I was chatting with him and talking and then um at the time it was Captain Shram was in the office, and he sticks his head in there. He's like, Um, you want to do this interview now?

SPEAKER_19: 1:19:51

Oh, yeah, I forgot. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 1:19:54

I think that pretty much sealed the fate I was getting that job. Right, right. So I go and I talk to him and I get the job doing uh working on vehicles at CSMS and the reset program, it was called. Yeah. So I started doing that. Well, Jen and I were um commuting from Waterford to Lansing every day. I was getting a B Much. It's a bit of a drive. It was a bit of a drive, yes. So then um the counter drug job. I was doing part-time work with the counter drug years up to that. Like they need someone to come fill in for a flight, or they need some maintenance, and I'd go in and you know, they had these things called AFTPs, additional flight training periods. So um, you could come in and work on aircraft and get paid like a you know a drill check. Right. So I would do that, you know. They need help. Hey, can you come in this day? Yeah, I can do that. And so then one of their mechanics uh moved on, so they had a position open. So they asked me, they're like, Do you want to put in for this position? You know, it's coming up. I said, Yeah, I'm gonna put in for it. Okay. So I'm like, Okay, if I get that job, then we can start looking for a house because it's you know more of a permanent job so um i put in my i take my packet i get it all built and i deliver it downtown uh to you know h hro here's my packet can you look it make sure i got everything yeah yeah yeah yeah everything looks good put it right there in the pile you know okay so um interview day comes up and he calls me uh and you know my future boss calls me he's like um i thought you were putting in for that job he goes we got the packets right now i don't see your packet he goes i'm not supposed to be calling you but we kind of wanted you for that job uh huh and i'm like um i hand delivered it to hro he's like okay let me let me go down and and check i said okay i'm gonna call so i called the lady i said hey remember i was in there yeah yeah yeah i said i turned in that packet she goes yeah i said they don't have it up there she goes uh huh oh yes here it's still still on my desk i said can you take it up to the interview please maybe get that where it needs to go now now i'm like how many times have they done this in the past and cost people jobs right right how many people never got a call yeah right so thank goodness i i i got that job and that's that was oh six uh huh so from oh six to twenty four I worked counter drug okay that whole time so um I got laid off once because uh funding issues but and and and uh counter drug was always uh it's based on a congressional budget right so it's a yearly budget so you're not always sure how much money you're gonna get along the way um they're they're a lot better at it now than they were when I first started and that's what people always say well you why are you gonna take a job when you're only guaranteed a year am I guaranteed a job anywhere? Right you know right I mean you've your experience right your company went out of business yep so besides that counter drugs is a lot of fun to work anyway yeah so I started working counter drug and I worked on what was I working um 58s I was back working on 58s again and then my guard unit the Chinooks um they were doing when we got back from Iraq they were doing another changeover yeah they were realigning everything and they said hey um do you want this job working over uh in this one unit as their um TI technical inspector I said yeah I'll take that job because I didn't have the Chinook MOS they're like well you're not really qualified there anymore so we got this position I was like fantastic I'll take that job and that's where all the counter drug guys were working too it's called the SNS squadron S so I go over there I'm there like a year and they're like um yeah you got to find a new MOS I'm like what do you mean well we had to move an AGR in your slot and um so you're you you don't have a job right now wow what are you talking about you know a guard job right I was what are you talking about you put me in that position yeah we we needed that for AGR I'm like who's in it all a supply guy I'm like they're like you have two choices you can go um go back to school and be an avionics technician or a sheet metal technician this is all nine I'm like I don't want to do either right I said okay I'll go to I'll go to power plant back down to Fort Eustace and now I got to go through um since the 58 wasn't considered a um next generation aircraft and I didn't have the training they were like you got to go through the whole 10 level course so back here's a screwdriver and here's this brother I'm like are you kidding me like no so I get down to Fort Eustace I go check in they're like we don't have any barracks room for you so you got to go live out in hotel like hotel that's a 16 week course yeah you're gonna live in a hotel that's a long time in a hotel okay so I said you're gonna go stay at this place I said okay so I drive over it's in um it's by the mall there in Newport News whenever the big mall is there I can't remember so I go in there and I check in and there's Plexaglass window when I'm checking in and I'm like Plexiglass window that's a good neighborhood so I get in the elevator and it's rackety and I get up in the room I open up the room it's like stepping into a 1970s room I open it up I look around I'm like nope shut the door and I go back so give me my paperwork drive back to Fort Eustace I said I'm not staying in that room I said how dare you send soldiers over there that is not sustainable for anyone to any length of time to be sending there oh that's where you're gonna stay I said I'm not staying there I'm telling you right now I'll sit in this office till you get me all right it's time for less he won't see okay here go stay over here it was the Marriott just built I said fantastic it was a residence in just built I go over there I stayed that's where I stayed for the 16 weeks I was there but yeah it was I was going to night school like I'd go in at like it was like five six in the evening and there's only like five or six of us you know and it was all prior service guys you know but it was just you know I already knew most of the stuff they were teaching me I already knew all the basics I knew how to do right you know right they had to check a box and then you know then we there's only six of us so we get through the training so quick you know we'd you know eight hours of training we'd have done in half the time but the instructors couldn't let you go because SAR Major would come check on them and make sure we were there. Oh yeah so so that was my second trip down to Fort Eustace and then I went down there for NCO course ALC ALC so I went down there for that course another couple weeks down there but at least we stayed at the uh General Smalls I think it was called hotel there right on base. Okay. So and that was just you know it was you know uh your SLC for uh aviation so it was all all aviation related right so I went back to the same place that I had gone to school in 09. Uh-huh and uh all right we're gonna take apart this engine and put it back together okay you guys are good for the day it was kind of a waste it really was right you know but checking the box you know that's all that was and they didn't even let us graduate a bunch of guard guys guard guys you guys need a graduation ceremony nah you're signing paper certificates get out of here on our way but it was almost like wait we did all this and you don't respect us enough to even have a ceremony it almost felt like right you know almost like you guys are nothing yeah it kind of did feel like that even though you you know it would have been a pain to do you still like right on the one hand you don't really want to have to go through it on the other hand it would have nice them to offer it exactly like hey if you guys want to do this we can do it but no they were saying you guys are gonna do that so yeah so I had to go there and get which ended up working out for me in the long run because when I was down there um I was able to get that license to work on aircraft engines I had that whole schooling so when it came time for me to get uh what's called an AMP license for aviation airframe and power plant I was able to use that to put on my documentation for that um to show that I worked on engines because I'm not working out that's perfect yeah because when I came back um we were transitioning again this was 13 we were getting lakotas have you seen those I have not so um the lakotas are off the shelf uh aircraft that they put US Army on the side of it oh so they're basically a lot of the um um hospitals use them so uh I think U of M has them too like the life flight helicopter yes yeah with the clamshell doors on the back so the army bought those painted them green painted them green put US Army you know changed a few things right um but only the guard has them okay so we were talking about you uh are in Grand Ledge yeah Grand Ledge it's 2013 now 2012 2013 right around there I'm in uh Delta Company now a maintenance company so I've always been in flight units flight companies the whole time yeah so it's the first time I go to a maintenance company and I'm like I didn't really want to be there you know but I'm still doing counter drug stuff on the weekend so I mean during the week so my Monday through Friday was uh counter drug fixing OH-58s and then one month I was doing you know Delta Company uh power plant uh mechanic which we never really worked on aircraft because you're there for the weekend and there's really not a lot of power plant stuff that goes on yeah in weekends so it was I was the master driver so I was teaching people how to drive trucks and you know doing all the other army stuff that you do on on drill weekends so and then um 2013 comes around they're due to transition to Lakotas so um we get four Lakotas and then we get uh training allotments so they have to send people to AP school and they have to send people to the factory course so they have to make a list of who they're gonna send so you got to send some federal technicians you got to send some um guard guys you got to send some counter drug guys and supervisors whatever so they figure all that out so I was lucky enough to since I worked in counterdrug they were gonna send me right which is really cool so first they send us to the AP course which was really cool so they send us down to Nashville Tennessee so I get to go to Nashville spend two weeks there um not as much fun as it sounds so we get to Nashville and um so the school's paid for um the housing's paid for food and I'm getting paid right most people that go to these AP schools that's not the case they have to pay their own way everything so here's all this army guys going to school and here's you know average Joe down there having to flip the bill for all that so we're very fortunate um for that that the army paid for that but um we went to help and you were talking about Baker School of Aeronautics their football team's unfeated oh yeah of course they don't have one but of course read they're on scholarship yeah so the school was very demanding so they teach you there so they don't teach you how to work on aircraft there they teach you how to pass the course okay so you have um you have uh three written you have a general written you have a power plant written you have airframe written and then you have an oral and then you have a practical so you got to pass all five these so they um each one of those sections has a book and each book has about a thousand questions in it so you go through the book at least three different times and you read the question and then you highlight the answer. So you just keep reading this book and what they do is they teach recognition not how to remember how to recognize you know uh when when sewing a fabric wing what kind of thread do you use you know and you'll just look at you know the the selections but you're only going to remember one right recognize one so that's how they teach you down there. Uh so yeah so I had to take um each one of them is a hundred questions so they stick you in a basically a glass room you know there's one side is a wall but the rest is glass and you go in there and they have a computer and you just question pops up give the answer question. But a lot of it is if you did enough studying as soon as you see the question I there's some I'd read half the question I already knew the answer. I just hit the button um but we would go to we'd go to class and you know they teach us some stuff you know but then the rest of it was just reading so you go back to your hotel room and you'd sit and read and then I go to the gym and I'd get on the bike and I'd read and I go to restaurant eat. That was the only thing I didn't do. I I always when I went to eat I would just eat right I take a half hour shut my brain off but you wake up in the morning that's a lot of reading. Yes and it's just you know questions and answers. Right and then you have to then you have to do um so if you get through all three I I failed the power plant the first time um so I had to do retraining so it's like a whole nother day right you know so you come back and you uh take the test again and I passed it and then one of the tests I took um the computer shut down it totally shut down and they said they've never seen that happen. Oh no yes only to you and and I passed that one and then you have to do so when you do your your practical and your oral you actually go to what they call a DME. So it it's some guy like out here at the airport um here in Charlotte there's a guy that does the testing out there. So it's a place like that you actually leave the school and you go there and he has all your projects set up for you. So the first thing he does he does is sit about how far we are apart and then opens up his book and says okay on a when servicing the 747 air conditioning system how much how many PSI much uh must you be aware of if you're over and then you have to answer it. That's crazy. So there was there there's 10 sections and you have to get 70% in each section. So basically three questions. Yeah so but then yeah he'll they'll you know he'll do that and then uh if if you're struggling on one he's like okay uh on a 747 what is the middle number of the designator you know so he'll throw you a softball one if he knows you're struggling you know but yeah if I was struggling I'd be like uh electrical pneumatic but there was a few times I got he's like all right if you miss this one you're gonna fail this and so then you you do that yeah um so my buddy was in there we went as two of us went and um he had me doing something else looking up parts while he was doing this with my buddy my buddy was failing terrible I felt so bad for him he was so confused and couldn't answer him then you do uh practical so I take you out on a hangar floor and they had uh helicopters and airplanes in there and he's like okay I want you to go over that Cessna and uh uh I want you to inspect the interior and tell me you know what deficiencies you find if we go in there find out and then um he's like all right hands me this tool he's like here he goes I want you to go in there and tell me how much tension is on the uh rudder wire I've never seen this tool in my life and I'm looking at it and I'm like okay there's oh no okay I know what the rudder wire is because it's going to the rud so I climb back in a Cessna right and I'm in the tail boom and I got this thing and I'm like trying to figure out how it goes on the wire I finally figure it out you know it took me probably five minutes uh if you knew what you were doing it'd take you a minute yeah so he already knew I didn't know what I was doing but then I come out and I'm like oh you know 22 pounds that's close enough yeah wow and then I had he had uh he had me work on the engine he goes I want you to uh uh check out the spark igniter and the fuel nozzle on this engine here and I'm like oh that's a 58 engine I know that so he's sitting there with me and I'm talking to him as I'm doing the maintenance on it you know he's like okay that's good that's good that's good so if you didn't know so the um on that engine the the spark igniter and the uh fuel nozzle are in the same area and if you pull both of them out you there's a piece inside the engine that will drop out and you have to pull the whole engine apart to put it back so you have to take one out at a time. Oh okay if you didn't know that it's a kind of a trick question yeah yeah so uh luckily I passed all that and uh I got my uh AMP license down there in Nashville and um we were able to you find out um that day like when I went through with that guy found out that day so now I gotta drive back with my buddy that failed oh jeez you know and here I am like super excited that I just passed this awesome course and but I can't like be like woohoo no I can't be too excited because my buddy failed you know so um he ended up passing uh he had to stay a couple more days but so yeah then they had to send us to the factory school so we get to go down to um it's between Dallas and Fort Worth um I'm trying to think of the name of the city anyhow I'll think of it soon enough right but so we go down uh Arlington Arlington okay uh so we go down to Arlington and um we get to go to factory course which was awesome so um that's their business right they teach mechanics how to work on their uh helicopters and it was a two-week course two and a half weeks and I learned how to work on that helicopter in two and a half weeks where the army took me 14 weeks to learn how to work on a less complicated you know aircraft actually it's Grand Prairie okay Grand Prairie Arlington's right next to it but Grand Prairie is where the school's at so yeah so we'd go in the morning and they teach us about the aircraft and then um at break time the hotels would bring us uh food and nice breakfast food because they were trying to get us to transfer to their hotel uh huh because they knew they had a you know payday right yeah it was pretty cool it was pretty cool and then uh we'd go back to our hotel and they had the uh beer and snacks for us right so yeah it was uh it was pretty cool going through that course um which gave me the opportunity to work on the Lakotas you know you had to have that license um the rest of the army aircraft you don't have to but the way the contract read when the army bought that aircraft is you have to have licensed AMP mechanics yeah which means you had to have already three three years of airframe experience and three years of engine experience before you could even take the test yeah were they kind of hoping that the military was going to hire their mechanics then I don't know what I don't know what it was I don't know what was what I think it was is so the army bought these aircraft right and they're FAA designated aircraft um if you have an FAA person work on it the whole time that's licensed at the end of it they can sell it with FAA records oh yeah to an outside agency yeah and only the guard has them army doesn't have them yeah So um went to those courses, then I get back and they're like, hey, you're gonna deploy again. Yeah. Because I'm in that Delta Company now. Yeah. You know, maintenance. So we go, we deploy um to Fort Fort Hood, Texas, for like 90 days of training. Yeah. Horrible. You've been there? I have. Horrible. They treat you like a child. Yeah. Whether you're a private or a general. Well, maybe not a general, but they're not nice. That's sure. It's ridiculous. Yeah. Like why we why do we put up with that as soldiers?

SPEAKER_11: 1:42:15

I mean, I did my train up at Fort Dix, same thing. They they treated you like you were an idiot the whole time.

SPEAKER_16: 1:42:21

Yeah. I I saw them yell at this guy who printed off one too many pages out of their learning center. Yeah. Like just gave it to them. And I was gonna say something, but I'm like, I ain't saying nothing. I won't be able to come in here. I'm just gonna walk away from this mess. Yeah. We were they had so we couldn't go anywhere.

SPEAKER_38: 1:42:41

Right.

SPEAKER_16: 1:42:41

So they had uh they had the USO, I think there. So they were they were showing like uh it was the Michigan game. We were down there doing like a bowl game or something. Well, it started late. Well, they closed early. Oh 10 o'clock, TV's off. See you guys. See you tomorrow.

SPEAKER_28: 1:42:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 1:42:58

Luckily, um, that happened one time, but the next time they're like, all right, close all the lights, pull all the shades, we'll let you guys stay in here if you keep quiet. Don't let anybody know. Well, it was just ridiculous, you know, and they treat you the so awful, awful like why would you treat soldiers like that?

SPEAKER_11: 1:43:15

Uh we we uh so we came up with a theory on that, and that is they treat you so terrible that you look forward to going wherever it is you're going. I really believe that. Like, this place sucks so bad, I can't wait to get to a room.

SPEAKER_16: 1:43:30

It was yeah, it was it was horrible. Like our time in Fort Benning when we deployed out of there was nothing like that. Yeah, nothing like that. No. Heck, we went to New Orleans on a weekend. So, yeah. So they deploy us to this is um 13. This is what time? What was uh Fort or um Kuwait. We got to um Udari Airfield. Now they call it what do they call it? It was it used to be Camp Udari, now they changed it to something else. I can't remember. So we're there for like seven, eight months just doing nothing. Yeah. Doing nothing. We got you know black hawks out there. I end up um there wasn't much engine work there, so I ended up um one of the um one of the uh production control guys uh got demoted because he just wasn't doing a job and he was holding the position I needed to go in. Oh, there you go. But they wouldn't demote him or because he was a federal tech. Yeah, we can't get rid of him or demote him. So you're just stuck at your E6, right? You know. So I I end up doing his job there, production control, uh um, deciding which aircraft gets maintenance first and who's gonna work on it. That's what I that was my job there. Um, but yeah, just sitting there for seven months out in the freaking desert, yeah, you know, doing nothing, and our commander was not great, you know. Like he was making room assignments six months out, a captain. Who's gonna stay with who? What? What why why are we yeah, why are we doing this? That's the kind of guy he was, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 1:45:20

So he was very uh your deployment was only eight months then to Kuwait.

SPEAKER_16: 1:45:25

Yeah, it was very short, yeah. Um we were there when ISIS was kicking up, when the first ISIS was started kicking up, because one day I'm like uh out and I'm like, oh I've never seen any of these vehicles before. And they were all special ops vehicles all over the place. And then you see the guys running around with the little ranger short panty things, you know, oh yeah, the shorts and no shirts on and headphones, which we couldn't do any of that, you know, and they're all over the place.

SPEAKER_11: 1:45:58

And they're all carrying custom-made Kimber 45s, yeah. Yes, and then uh two days later, they're all gone.

SPEAKER_16: 1:46:04

Yeah. Like that. Um, so yeah, but I that's um that was 13. I um I picked up running then. Uh-huh. Before I always ran for my job, like it's the two-mile run to keep my job. Exactly. That's exactly it. Yeah, and when I got there, I started running for fun. Maybe it took me to be the 43 to do that. So, but yeah, I was running a lot because there was nothing else to do. I mean, I mean, you could just sit and watch TV, but or videos or whatever. But yeah, so I picked up running when I was there. And then um, so well, yeah, it was just a boring time there. Yeah, there's just nothing going on. You know, I think we went to the Kuwaiti Mall twice. That was our trip. Their commander took us on.

SPEAKER_17: 1:46:53

Oh, how fun.

SPEAKER_16: 1:46:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_17: 1:46:55

He's like, All right, well, we're gonna load up in the morning, we'll go to the mall, we're gonna be there all day, and then we'll come back, and you guys spend the whole day there.

SPEAKER_16: 1:47:01

So we get there, and he's like, Okay, how's about two hours? What? That's not the whole day. His mind it was oh geez, yeah. Like, you kidding? Oh, like why did I even come for this? Right. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 1:47:17

Um so you finish that up and you uh get back home.

SPEAKER_16: 1:47:20

13, we come back. Um, we go to Ford Hood, so we get to Ford Hood. Oh nice, right? Um, our commanders had it by then. Like all his micromanaging it, he was done. He gets there, he goes, listen, he goes, we're gonna start out pro we out processing on this day. I think we had like a day or two to he goes, I don't care what you do. I don't care if you get rental cars, I don't care if you go get a hotel. Don't get in trouble. He goes, I don't care. I've just if I had enough of it. If you don't want to close, that's fine. Because you weren't supposed to, you know. He didn't so yeah, like that was like don't tell everyone off they went, you know. We get done, and then it's the day I gotta fly out of there. Um so I'm waiting for the bus to pick us up at North Ford Hood, and I'm wearing it's all it's what was it, August then? August September. So I got shorts on and shirt, and Sergeant Major comes out. Sorry, Peller, what are you doing? You're supposed to be in uniform. Everyone else is in uniform. You're supposed to be in uniform. I said, Listen, I said, our captain said we can wear whatever we want home. I think Captain Outrakes you, Sar Major. He was a friend of mine too. Yeah, you know, yeah, he's like just shaking his head. We I get to the airport, running late. My first siren's got my ticket. He's like, hey, I got your ticket.

SPEAKER_18: 1:49:04

Grab your bags and get up. The gate's load right now. Okay.

SPEAKER_16: 1:49:08

Get up there, hands me my ticket, get on the plane and that we land in Dallas. And of course, we go right to the bar. So we're drinking at the bar. He's like, All right, we gotta go to get close to the gate. So we go to the gate and they're loading now. There's a bar right there. He's like, All right, we got time for one more. He goes, hold on, he sends one to the private center. Tell them don't lock that door, we'll be there in a minute. I'll drink another one. I come back and go to scan my ticket. Beep, but not a good beep. Right. Beep. She goes, she goes, let me look at your ticket. She goes, This isn't the right ticket. I said, I said, I'm with all these guys, you know. She goes, No, no, no. It's you're going to Minnesota, but yours is on a different gate. Like, yeah. It was a totally different gate. And she's like, Um, yeah, you're not gonna make it. She goes, That plane leaves in in 20 minutes, and you gotta catch a bus to this gate. Oh my gosh. I'm like, oh, you gotta be kidding me. She's like, no. So I, you know, have to get on the phone, make all these calls. I end up getting on the flight, and I get to Minnesota, and there's everybody still sitting there. Right now, they're hammered and cut off at the bar. Yeah, they got them cut off. So, yeah, laying back in Lansing, and that was the end. That was my last deployment. Uh-huh. Yeah, I never deployed after that. Wow. No, mm-mm. I came back and um stayed in Delta Company and then kept doing my counter drug job. And then around 2017, I couldn't get promoted because the two guys in front of me, the positions I could hold, were both federal technicians. Right. And they held the only two E7 slots I could go into. So I'm like, I can't wait anymore. So I just started putting in for jobs wherever, wherever I could do a job. You know, in the military that was E7 rank. So there was one at JFHQ for the joint staff. They needed um E7s. So I put in for the job. And right before I get the job, Delta Company decides to get rid of my E6 slot. So now I don't have a slot. They put me in the E5 slot. I'm like, oh, this is great. And don't even tell me. Just not take rank from me. Right. But you're in that slot. I'm in that slot, you know. And then I get a call, and uh uh Colonel Bennett was her name. Hello, Colonel Bennett. Colonel Bennett. She goes, hey, she goes, you want this job? I said, yes. She goes, okay, I'll get the paperwork going. I'll have my people get your paperwork going. You come over here. I said, okay. So I get over there, and there's like three or four counter drug guys in joint staff, including my senior advisor. I'm like, perfect. This is gonna be great, right? Right. So I get in there and um they got me in uh E6 slot. And I'm like, the posting was for E7 position, it was a double double F position. Um they didn't go by the list, you had to apply for it. But if you got it, you know. So eventually I had to go to Colonel Tarot at the time. And I said, Hey, Colonel Tarot. I said, listen, I said, here's what's going on. I said, they just transferred a guy in into a seventh slot that's supposed to be mine that I put in for, you know, I got to talking to him. He's like, Yeah, Cyberbelly, you're right. He goes, I'll see what I can do, you know. So he uh by then he had got promoted to general and he uh they got it figured out and they they promoted me and he promoted me, which was cool because he got promoted by a general, yeah. That was really cool. So and we used to have joint staff meeting, and I'd be sitting there waiting, you know, in the room, and I'd look behind me and he'd be standing behind me.

SPEAKER_17: 1:53:07

Hey sir, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_16: 1:53:08

He goes, I'm trying to hide behind you. I said, I said, I don't know, so you're kind of the guy. He goes, Yeah, I know. I said, I think they want you up there. He's like, Okay.

SPEAKER_11: 1:53:20

He was a good he's a good guy.

SPEAKER_16: 1:53:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 1:53:23

Is he over at Selfridge now?

SPEAKER_16: 1:53:25

I'm not sure because he I can't remember what position he was when I left, but he was in charge, he was in charge of joint staff, and he is a he's a dual, he's a dual status commander.

unknown: 1:53:39

Right.

SPEAKER_16: 1:53:39

So he can command, you know what that means, right? Yeah, yeah. Um, so yeah. And joint staff was uh it was working really well up until COVID. Right. At least I thought it was. Yeah, you know, uh, it seemed like we did a lot of training scenarios, um, seemed like it was a true joint staff type of event. And then, you know, COVID hit. Screwed everything up. I was I was working out the airfield, and um they called me up. They're like, hey, you need to get to joint forces headquarters, we gotta start setting up uh what we call jock in the box. Yeah, we gotta start setting that up. I'm like, so I get there, we get it all set up, and then someone from the military police comes in there and starts telling us how to do stuff.

SPEAKER_17: 1:54:32

This is wrong. You need these, and and you gotta do this, and I'm gonna take this over. I can't remember what that colonel's name was.

SPEAKER_16: 1:54:39

Anyhow, so we've got that set up in one room, and they didn't like it there. Then we move it to another room. So they have the jock in a box with the joint staff in one room, and then they got the actual jock up at you know, JFHQ there. So they're running two of them, which doesn't make any sense, right? At all. So they finally figured out like, because they're like, well, we can't give them information, we can't give them information finally, like we just need to combine this, you know. It needs to be one entity.

SPEAKER_07: 1:55:08

That's when uh hickem, hickleby, hippico, hippica.

SPEAKER_16: 1:55:16

That guy comes in. You know what that guy's about, right?

SPEAKER_11: 1:55:20

I yeah, Hippico was my uh he was my battalion S3 for quite a while, and uh our careers followed each other, so I definitely know Scott Hippica.

SPEAKER_16: 1:55:29

Oh my gosh, so he comes. I saw him freaking undress a lieutenant colonel because the color purple on a slide was wrong. Yeah, it wasn't the right shade in front of everybody.

SPEAKER_10: 1:55:43

You know the crazy thing about that guy?

SPEAKER_11: 1:55:45

I was just like he's a great guy when it when it's not in that role, right? He's a really I like him, he's a really good guy, but he was tough to work for, I'll just say that.

SPEAKER_16: 1:55:56

I remember when I first met him, he pulled the the the other uh joint staff NCOs out and just talked like we're talking, yeah, like normal, nice guy. But then I saw him and I was like, oh my god, this poor freaking colonel there, I forget his name at the time, but I was like, wow, just because the color purple was off. So yeah, I was working there for first two, three months of COVID. I was the night guy, so I'd come in and I was the night guy because of some of my other uh NCOs had families and I didn't want them to be there at night. I said, I'll take the night shift. I said, you guys can be with your families, and I'll work the night shift. I was working the night shift, and that's when I found out my daughter had cancer. So I come in and I was talking to one of the other NCOs about my daughter and that, and then um Major Zeller. You know Major Zeller? I do. So Major Zeller's like, hey, what's going on? And I knew him as a E4, and my wife deployed with him as an E4. So and he was he worked for counter drug for a while too. That's why I think that's why I know the name, but he wasn't a major when I was counterdrug years ago. Yeah. Um he worked with counter drugs. So he um he's like, what's going on with your daughter? I said I told him, he's like, Why are you here? I said, because it's my job. He goes, he goes, I want you to go home right now. He goes, I'm gonna uh talk to the colonel and see what we can do about this. So I go home and um he says, All right, he calls me like the next day. He goes, here's what we're gonna do. He goes, we're gonna have you work remotely. He says, you come in, grab all your stuff, he says, and you set up your because I had three screens and laptops and he goes, you take all that stuff home and then and then you uh you work nights and then we'll have you do stuff because I could, you know. Right. He goes, okay. So that's how the rest of my uh COVID stuff went. And at first they'd have me do stuff, and then they just kind of forget about me. Right. You know, and I'd get on the, you know, they'd have briefings the first the start of the shift, end of the shift, and and they always just hey Siren Baller, you got anything? Nope, you need me to do anything? Uh nope, not right now. We'll get back with it. And they just eventually just forgot. I what I think is they just kind of like they took care of me. They kind of forgot about it, but it is also wasn't much, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:58:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 1:58:30

They and they didn't run it how they were supposed to. Because the joint staff and the guard, you know, the guard as a whole is a support in when an emergency happens. You know, the EOC was supposed to run it, asking, but the guard was trying to run it. Right, which is how the guard operates. Uh General Rogers trying to run it. Yeah. He uh his the first thing that they did, um, which was funny, is uh our first mission was to take a hand washing station up to some VA uh retirement home in a UP so that people could wash their hands before they they went in. That came from um Rogers.

SPEAKER_17: 1:59:15

Was it Rogers?

SPEAKER_16: 1:59:17

He would have been the tag at the time. Yeah, it was Rogers. Yeah, because he's still the tag. Yeah, so somebody called and said, Hey, instead of going through you know the ELC emergency operations center and saying, Hey, we need this at our place, okay, let's just get a local place. No, no, no. They had the guard bring one of those hand washing stations from grailing. So you got to get a bunch of guys, right?

SPEAKER_11: 1:59:39

This is a very expensive hand washing station, right?

SPEAKER_16: 1:59:41

Right? By the time you're done. Yes. So so after that happened, they're kind of like, wait a minute. This is not how this is gonna go. Right. You know, you've got to put your request in. It's gotta go ELC. ELC looks at, okay, who can we have do this and who's the most expensive? Because that was, you know, all part of that stuff. Oh, yeah. You know, because I went when I was in the jock, we went through all those um classes um for emergency response. Right. And that's not how it's done. Well, yeah, I mean, that's how it works, though, right? It was all those FEMA classes we went through.

SPEAKER_09: 2:00:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 2:00:20

We'd go through weekend FEMA training where you know we'd actually run events and you know, here's how it goes, and you know, Michigan, like every state runs it differently. You know, some are the same, some are, but Michigan runs it off of the ELC runs it. Right. And some states, the guard runs it, but not here. No, no, so yeah, that was interesting. They they they rented out the whole quality in, not the quality in the Crown Plaza.

SPEAKER_37: 2:00:47

Oh, yeah, right off of Kratz Road, right?

SPEAKER_16: 2:00:49

I had a room there, never stepped foot in it. Yep. For like a couple weeks, they're like, Do you even use that room? I'm like, no, you gave it to me, but I didn't need it. Okay, you turn in your key. Okay.

SPEAKER_11: 2:01:00

And you're living in your current home. So I moved here in 09.

SPEAKER_16: 2:01:04

Okay, yeah, okay. Yeah, so this is around 1718. Right, right.

SPEAKER_11: 2:01:09

So, yeah, so So your daughter had cancer for a long time. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 2:01:14

She fought it for six years. Yeah. On and off. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_11: 2:01:19

Yeah, long time. I didn't I didn't realize that until just now, like right to the timeline. Yeah, that's that was a long time.

SPEAKER_16: 2:01:27

Um, she was living with her mom part of the time down in uh Heartland. Okay. And then she was living with her uncle for part of the time, uh, falling out. Out. So I would go down there, I'd pick her up and take her to St. Joe's Hospital in Pontiac for treatment. So I'd take her there like 6-7 in the morning and I'd sit with her till 6-7 at night. And then I'd take her back. And then sometimes I'd stay down there. Uh, sometimes I'd drive back because when they give chemo medicine, it's a time thing. Okay, this medicine's got to be given, you know, for an hour and a half, and then we need a two-hour break before we can give this medicine, and then we need a, you know, this. And so I would just sit there with her. You know, uh, she got her infusions, and then um, she had two bone marrow transplants. Both at U of M. One of her donors was from Poland.

SPEAKER_39: 2:02:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_16: 2:02:23

So she had four donors in Poland. Um, one of them stepped up and said, I'll do it. So I don't know if you know anything about bone marrow transplants. I know that that there's like a bank where they where you can get tested so you know that if you're if you max someone, but yeah, it's um I heard everyone I talked to said, Well, I heard it's really painful. Not really.

unknown: 2:02:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 2:02:50

What they do is um, so first they use her white blood cells because uh her cancer was in her white blood cells, fights off diseases and infections. So um they harvested her white blood cells. Uh what they do is they stick line in this arm, line in this arm, suck blood out, put in the spinny thing, pull white blood cells out, push it back in this arm, yeah. And then save the white blood cells. Um so that's what they had to do with this gentleman in Poland. Um they got all his white blood cells, they shipped them over, and then um what they do is they take those, they kill all her white blood cells with intense chemo, kill them all, so she has no white blood cells. They take the white blood cells, they're frozen, and they put them in a warm bath, hot water, warm them up, and they take a syringe and they suck them up, and then they have a line going in her, a little valve, and then they have a homing device that goes to her large bones. So all those cells go to her large bones and create more white blood cells, except her bones would turn them into cancerous white blood cells.

SPEAKER_39: 2:03:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 2:04:01

In the end, so but yeah. So she did that, you know, like I said, and uh I remember taking her to uh Sparrow in Lansing on 4th of July to have infusion.

SPEAKER_46: 2:04:14

Oh sad.

SPEAKER_16: 2:04:15

That's she uh had her in a wheelchair, she's crying. I don't want to do this, I'm so tired of this. So we gotta do it, Courtney. It was just her, me, and a technician in there. Yeah, and she it was just a short one in like a couple hours, infused her.

SPEAKER_07: 2:04:30

Okay, we'll go back home.

SPEAKER_16: 2:04:33

So yeah, so we got to 17, 18. Yeah, 18. COVID happens, still doing counter drug stuff. Um, and then uh my commander for counter drug for aviation, uh Mark Sanako. Um, when I was going through all this stuff with my daughter, he's like, uh, whatever time you need, just let me know. And he goes, and if you don't, I know what you're doing. Right. So I was I was very fortunate because a lot of that stuff was during the week, and uh, and and my ex-wife uh couldn't take her. You know, she and then she eventually moved in here, and then it was easier to you know take care of her, and um, I'd have to give her IVs and stuff in here. So yeah, I was pretty lucky to have a good commander over there. Uh, and then Colonel Cooper, do you know Colonel Cooper? Colonel Cooper. So he was our uh colonel over there that ran uh common drug, and then that it's uh Major Price now is running it now. It was Colonel Francisco when I was. Oh yeah, Francisco, yeah. Yeah, you remember Lloyd Sutton? Yeah. Sutton, and then um who was the other guy we had?

SPEAKER_11: 2:05:45

There's an Air Force guy that worked with Colonel Francisco. I can never remember his name. He's a great guy. I don't know if he's still in or not. Anyway, I digress. But you know, the good I think the guard, the guard really has a way of taking care of people. My you know, we talked outside of this that uh, you know, I lost my stepbrother to cancer. Um, he was in uh the first of the 119th field artillery advancing, and uh he couldn't work anymore, but they kept him on the books and let him come in when he could. Right, and they took care of him and his family during that whole thing. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_14: 2:06:22

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_11: 2:06:23

And that's the kind of stuff I feel like for all the stuff we talk about with the guard, that's the stuff I remember. Yeah, because if when it comes down to it, we really take care of people, yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 2:06:33

Yeah, you're right about that. Yeah, fortunate. I got I met you know, way more you know, positive and good people than you know, people that were just being jerks.

SPEAKER_13: 2:06:43

Those people don't seem to last long.

SPEAKER_11: 2:06:45

The jackasses do stick out in my mind, but it but those aren't the people that I really remember. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. A lot of good people, a lot of good friends from from Time of the Guard.

SPEAKER_16: 2:06:55

Yeah, I yeah, I said I still have friends from the army. Yeah. Like I said, my one friend that came up here. So you did how many years? 30 so um 38 total, because I joined when I was 18. Yeah. Um and then um up until 56. And I had well, four years was IR. Yeah, but I mean it counts. Right, right. I've never not been, you know, having a uniform here or there.

SPEAKER_11: 2:07:27

So is there anything in the guard we haven't covered prior to retirement? I mean, we talked about that. We've done a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_16: 2:07:34

I mean, there's a lot of stuff that I'm trying to remember stuff. Um you remember a bunch of stuff after I leave. Oh, of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah, because let me see. Um, we're at yeah, JFHQ was my last duty assignment. I did a couple Northern Strikes, which were um kind of kind of like being in a jock, you know. Um I'd work in what they call the high con. So I I um my job was um I was a last my last position, I was the battle captain NCO, battle NCO. Sounds really professional, right? Like something something special, right? But it was basically taking down uh information from units that didn't want to give information. Right.

unknown: 2:08:28

Right.

SPEAKER_16: 2:08:29

And fake units, you know, oh this unit's here. I'm like, no, they're not really there, you know, and and then you know, having a board and and putting all this stuff on it and writing numbers and calling people, hey, where's your status reports? And oh you know, and then telling people, and you know, and then I'd come in and then I'd be sitting down and Tara would be over my shoulder, say pull up the duty log. I want to see what happened at this time. All right, sir, pull it up. We'd look at oh, okay. And next thing I look, and it was freaking Whitmer over my shoulder too. Hey, what's going on with that? Oh, that's this and that, whatever. So that was kind of neat, you know, uh in that uh being in that room with all those people, but um it it never um pertained like the ATs we did for that didn't actually pertain to the jobs that we actually did during the weekend. Oh, no, absolutely not. No, no, that's a whole different thing. It was just who we could get to do this job, right? You know who could do it well, yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 2:09:25

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_11: 2:09:26

So well let me ask you this. So, you know, I know how it was for me, but I'm always curious like what was it like for you the last time you put that uniform on? And you knew this gonna be the last time you're gonna put that uniform on because you're gonna retire.

SPEAKER_16: 2:09:41

Um yeah, I don't remember. I just remember I'd put it on because I'm I I I do remember, I will just say this about putting on a uniform and taking off a uniform, is when I knew it was time. Uh-huh. Because I always said when it wasn't fun anymore, and I didn't like doing it, because I could still be doing it right now, actually, if I wanted to.

SPEAKER_43: 2:10:04

Right.

SPEAKER_16: 2:10:04

I could still do it. But I was it was the last, I had made my decision already that, but the final straw was I was uh up at Northern Strike. Um, it was my last one, and I was getting ready in the the barracks, because we were living in the barracks, you know, and I'm standing, and there's this young lieutenant next to me, you know, and I'm standing in the mirror and I'm I'm shaving, and I I all I'm looking at is this old ass soldier in the mirror looking back at me like, and then I see this young guy that's you know, like ready to and I'm like, woo-hoo! Yeah, and I'm just like, yeah, this is the right decision. This was I felt good with the decision. Like, I'm yeah, he looks like a soldier. I look like an old guy on Halloween, you know, with a uniform on. I'm like, you know, I just I didn't feel like a soldier. I didn't, you know, I was gaining weight and looking like I'm like, this is we eventually turn into that guy we used to laugh about.

SPEAKER_11: 2:11:05

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_16: 2:11:06

Exactly. We all eventually turn into that guy. Yeah, but the last last day I put him on uniform was at Fort Knox because I had to outprocess Fort Knox because I was an active duty soldier. Right. So I drive down to Fort Knox, and I will tell you this though, I I drive down there and I I I check in into my room, um, and then I uh I left my room and I just walked around Fort Knox till like 2-3 in the morning because that's where I went to basic training, right? Right, it's all come full circle. Yep. So I I I walked around and uh I walked some around some of the barracks. I'd never seen these barracks, but it was just army stuff, and I walked through the PX and then you know I walked where they have like this big parade field in the middle of Fort Knox that I've never seen before, and they had you know memorials for different things and recognition of this and you know army equipment. So I walked around that, I walked around like their officers club, and you know, um walked out seen somebody like on CQ duty, just kind of remembering stuff. And I actually went, um, like I guess I went over by my old area that's not there anymore. Um, so yeah, kind of you know, thinking back about all my time as I was walking around, and then I got up that morning, went and I was checking my hotel and had my name tag switched, and the lady had to say something.

SPEAKER_36: 2:12:27

Oh no.

SPEAKER_19: 2:12:29

Like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 2:12:31

Oops. I I go, I I I outprocess at their outprocessing center. I'm wearing my uniform last time. They take pictures, you know, I got a flag, take pictures, and and when you finally outprocess, they say, We have another retiree, and everyone claps, and you know, and which is fantastic, right? Like, and then um I go back and um I already checked out at a hotel, so I'm changing out of my uniform in the parking lot, which I've done a million times, yeah, and and then I I put on my civilian clothes and I put a shirt on and said grumpy old vets. Grumpy old vet, I do what I want. Yeah, I went in the Burger King because every post has a Burger King and got a Burger King met meal, which was probably the last one I've actually I haven't bought one since then. It's just not what I eat, right? You know, and then and and I I I left. So, and then um a month later I went to get my new ID card, my retiree ID card, because they don't give me one yet because it has to process, and I had to go down uh Battle Creek to the old sanitarium, the ID department there. So I'm like, sweet, I'll go get my ID card, get enrolled in deers. I get my you know like looking, oh you got oh, look at this. Your 214's uh the date is wrong on it. Like, what? Yeah, your date is wrong. Your orders say that you got out of the army July 31, but your orders say that you got out August 30. I'm like, what? It was wrong. It was wrong. I put the wrong date. And I looked at it, and three other people looked at it. You signed it, everybody signed it, right? So I had to get a 215 made addendum. I was able to get that done while I was there, and then I was able to get my ID car and get run, but then I had to fight, not fight, but go through the process of getting my pay adjusted for the month. Yeah. So that was my final straw. That's right. It's like I made the right decision. It was my own fault. I should have looked. I mean, I did look. I just you're looking at so much paperwork, you know, at that time, because it's all your whole career, you know. And the lady that was there um was there when I um joined the military.

SPEAKER_34: 2:14:50

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_16: 2:14:51

I I actually I took my Fort Knox basic training book with me into that place and I showed it to her. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_11: 2:14:57

And she was like, Oh, I remember this.

SPEAKER_16: 2:15:00

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 2:15:01

People stick around in those in those jobs sometimes. Yeah, that's really cool though.

SPEAKER_16: 2:15:06

Yeah, so that was it. And I drove home and and then uh once I got my paperwork straight, I was getting my um retirement check. Yeah. Like right on time. So I would collect it from them, and then I went through the uh disability process, and uh shortly after that, starting guess uh disability checks, and I just you know I just followed the process. Go do this, take care of that, look at that. And I know I have I I hear a lot of people have a lot of issues with you know things that went on and fighting this and fighting that, but I just here's what you need to do. I started doing all that and go see this person, see that person, and okay. Yeah. So, but yeah, I've been to see what have I done since I've been retired. Uh it's been so long. It's been so long since you retired. I was working uh my first, so before I got out of the army, I was working at the golf course because I had so much leave time, so I was still technically on army status. Right. Because I went to Fort Knox in May. Um, but my out process, my actual um getting out of the army was uh July 31st. Yeah. So I was still collecting, uh still on you know army pay, but I was working at the golf course here in town, and after my first year there, I was like, it's like a job now, right? I'm not enjoying this anymore. It was fun at first, but I'm like, no.

SPEAKER_11: 2:16:38

So you've been doing some traveling and things like that, right, though, since uh retired.

SPEAKER_16: 2:16:42

I have, yeah. I've been to Albania, um, Jamaica. I'm going to Mexico Saturday. I'm going to Las Vegas in February. So Love Vegas.

SPEAKER_11: 2:16:55

One of my favorite places.

SPEAKER_16: 2:16:57

Um, yeah, I spent a lot of time there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 2:16:59

Where would you like to go there? You know, um so when we go, we stay at the Cosmopolitan. It's our favorite hotel. Oh, yeah, this place is nice. It's amazing. And uh we just love to hit just we don't really gamble. We just like to go to dinner. There's a really nice Greek restaurant there at uh at the Venetian. Um and then there's uh in the uh on the old part, there's a I can never remember the name of it, it's a steakhouse, but it's like stepping back into the 50s. They all wear like bow ties and really yeah, and they they make like your salad table side and um I cannot it's like in the basement of um I can't remember the casino, uh, but it's in that old part of town. Um, so yeah, my wife and I just love it's just being in Vegas, you know? It's just amazing. So yeah, we just we like that. We we do a lot of traveling too, because uh as you know, I'm retired, but um, yeah, so we've covered a lot of stuff over the last three hours or so. Has it been that long? Um, yeah, well, almost. I've been here for almost three hours. You got here at one, right? Yeah, it's four, almost four.

SPEAKER_45: 2:18:05

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_11: 2:18:06

But uh yeah. Yeah, drapes and wait till tomorrow.

SPEAKER_18: 2:18:09

Yeah. So life will be home in a half hour. There you go.

SPEAKER_11: 2:18:13

So we so we've covered a lot, we've talked about a lot of things. Um, you know, you've had a very interesting life, and I guarantee you I'm gonna get halfway home and you're gonna think of some other things you wish you to talk about, and that's fine. Um, but really, I I always ask like one last question um as we kind of wrap up our discussion, and that is you know, someone's listening to this story a hundred years from now, and neither one of us are here anymore. What what would you like people to take away from this conversation and from your life?

SPEAKER_16: 2:18:45

Oh wow, that's a lot to think about. Yeah. Um let me think about that for a minute. I hope if they listen to these stories, they can, you know, think about how a helicopter guy uh made it through the military working on a lot of different helicopters. Um and n never did I think I was ever gonna do that for that long. I never thought I'd be in the military for that long. It just kind of happened that way, I guess. I never thought I'd be uh retiring as young as I did. I never thought um I would say I never had a horrible experience in the military. I've had some bad I and I can look back and and and um I guess be happy and proud of what what what I did. Um and maybe see how um life was um back in the 80s, 90s, the 2000s, and and then how the guard ran maybe a little bit off of some of my stories, maybe. Yeah. Um and then how uh how we both knew people because the community's kind of small in the guard.

SPEAKER_11: 2:20:12

It's huge, but it's small. Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_16: 2:20:14

Yeah, yeah. I I guess that would be it, you know.

SPEAKER_11: 2:20:19

Well, you know, also uh just listening to your story, right? You never know what the you never know what the end is gonna be. Like, right? Like I don't think either one of us are joined the military. I think we'd spend a career doing it.

SPEAKER_03: 2:20:31

No, right?

SPEAKER_11: 2:20:32

I think somebody once told me that if you want to make God laugh, just tell him what your plans are.

unknown: 2:20:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09: 2:20:40

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, you know, Nick. I was just sneezing at it. That's all right. That's all right. I'll let you catch your breath.

SPEAKER_16: 2:20:50

Yeah, I think um, yeah, you're right. There's so many things that happened. Um, and then I'm a very visual person, so a lot of my stories have you know, if I look at pictures, I'll be like, oh, I remember when this happened.

SPEAKER_18: 2:21:05

I remember what that happened, you know.

SPEAKER_16: 2:21:07

And I I take a lot of pictures and show a lot of pictures because it it helps me remember, you know, remember things. Well, you can't have 38 years and and remember everything. No, that's a lot. No, mm-mm. There's you know, there's a lot of I I always just tried to have fun. That's what I tried. Like, I remember me, my friend, you said we'd always try and drive a vehicle that we never drove. We ever drive that? Let's go drive that. And always, like, for instance, going to Iraq, everyone's like, You're gonna go to Iraq? Aren't you gonna be scared? I'm like, you You know, I've never been there, so I want to see what it's about. I'm not that excited to go there, but I'm like, I haven't been there. I want to go see what it's about. Yeah. You know, and that's how I always felt when I was going someplace. Like, what's this gonna be about? You know, like when I went to Albania, I've never been there. Let's go see, let's see what's about. Then I can go back and go, yeah, I never want to go to that shithole again. Right.

SPEAKER_11: 2:22:01

You know, we're going again next year.

SPEAKER_16: 2:22:03

Or feel how, you know, feel how lucky I am that I'm not living like how those people are. And you know, I watch the news and I see these people down downing America, and I'm like, have you been anywhere? Have you seen how the rest of the world lives? You know? Have you seen no, you haven't? You live good for all of our faults. This is the best country in the world. People live good here, and they want to talk crap about you know our living situation and our yeah, everything can be better, no doubt about it. But there's people that just don't have what we have, yeah. They don't, not at all. And we've seen it with our own two eyes. Yeah, yeah. And I I never thought, you know, I I never thought I'd be living in a house like this with you know, getting paid by the army, you know. Even even my uh father-in-law is like, why are you in a guard? That doesn't pay. I'm like, I'm not here for the pay. You know, when I was first in a guard, I wasn't in there for the pay. You know, I just want to do it. If you're there for the pay, find another career. Exactly.

SPEAKER_11: 2:23:06

Yeah, yeah. Well, hey, Nick, thanks for spending the afternoon with me. I'm glad I am glad that we finally connected. This has been amazing.

SPEAKER_09: 2:23:14

Thanks for coming out, yeah. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_35: 2:23:23

All right.

SPEAKER_11: 2:23:24

I don't know what happened. Okay. For some reason I kicked off. So sorry. So you know, so I got you up to uh you are there and everything's paid for. And you were talking about Baker School of Aeronautics.

SPEAKER_16: 2:23:40

Their football team's undefeated. Oh, yeah. Of course they don't have one, but of course. Yeah. So the school was very demanding. So they teach you there, so they don't teach you how to work on aircraft there, they teach you how to pass the course. Okay. So you have um you have uh three written. You have a general written, you have a power plant written, you have airframe written, and then you have an oral, and then you have a practical. So you got to pass all five of these. So they um each one of those sections has a book, and each book has about a thousand questions in it. So you go through the book at least three different times, and you read the question, and then you highlight the answer. So you just keep reading this book, and what they do is they teach recognition, not how to remember, how to recognize, you know. Uh when when sewing a fabric wing, what kind of thread do you use? You know, and you'll just look at you know the the selections, but you're only going to remember one, right? Recognize one. So that's how they teach you down there. Uh so yeah, so I had to take um each one of them is a hundred questions. So they stick you in a basically a glass room. You know, there's one side is a wall, but the rest is glass, and you go in there and they have a computer, uh-huh, and you just question pops up, you give the answer question. But a lot of it is if you did enough studying, as soon as you see the question, I there's some, I'd read half the question, I already knew the answer. I just hit the button. Um, but we would go to we'd go to class and you know, they teach us some stuff, you know, but then the rest of it was just reading. So you go back to your hotel room and you'd sit and read. And then I go to the gym and I'd get on the bike and I'd read. And I go to restaurant and eat. That was the only thing I didn't do. I I always, when I went to eat, I would just eat. Right. I take a half hour, shut my brain off, but you wake up in the morning.

SPEAKER_41: 2:25:42

That's a lot of reading.

SPEAKER_16: 2:25:43

Yes, and it's just, you know, questions and answers. Right. And then you have to, then you have to do um, so if you get through all three, I I failed the power plant the first time. Um, so I had to do retraining, so it's like a whole nother day. Right. You know. So you come back and you uh take the test again, and I passed it. And then one of the tests I took, um the computer shut down. It totally shut down, and they said they've never seen that happen. Oh no, yes, only to you. And and I passed that one. And then you have to do so. When you do your your practical and your oral, you actually go to what they call a DME. So it's some guy like out here at the airport, um, here in Charlotte, there's a guy that does the testing out there. So it's a place like that. You actually leave the school and you go there and he has all your projects set up for you. So the first thing he does, first thing he does is sit about how far we are apart, and then opens up his book and says, Okay, on uh when servicing the 747 air conditioning system, how much how many PSI much uh must you be aware of if you're over? And then you have to answer it. That's crazy. So there is there's 10 sections and you have to get 70% in each section. So basically three questions. Yeah, so but then yeah, he'll they'll you know, he'll do that, and then uh if if you're struggling on one, he's like, okay, uh, on a 747, what is the middle number of the designator? You know, so he'll throw you a softball one if he knows you're struggling, you know. But yeah, if I was struggling, I'd be like, uh, electrical, pneumatic. But there was a few times I got he's like, All right, if you miss this one, you're gonna fail this. And so then you you do that. Yeah. Um, so my buddy was in there. We went as two of us went, and um, he had me doing something else, looking up parts while he was doing this with my buddy. My buddy was failing terrible. I felt so bad for him. He was so confused and couldn't answer him. Uh then you do uh practical. So I take you out on a hangar floor, and they had uh helicopters and airplanes in there. He's like, Okay, I want you to go over that Cessna and uh uh I want you to inspect the interior and tell me, you know, what deficiencies you find. If you go in there and find out, and then um he's like, All right, he hands me this tool. He's like, here. He goes, I want you to go in there and tell me how much tension is on the uh rudder wire. I've never seen this tool in my life, and I'm looking at it and I'm like, okay, there's oh okay, I know what the rudder wire is because it's going to the rudder. So I climb back into Cessna, right? And I'm in the tail boom and I got this thing and I'm like trying to figure out how it goes on the wire. I finally figure it out, you know. It took me probably five minutes. Uh-huh. If you knew what you were doing, it'd take you a minute. Yeah. So he already knew I didn't know what I was doing.

SPEAKER_02: 2:28:55

But then I come out and I'm like, oh, you know, 22 pounds. Ah, it's close enough.

SPEAKER_16: 2:29:01

Yeah.

unknown: 2:29:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_16: 2:29:02

And then I had he had uh he had me work on the engine. He goes, I want you to uh uh check out the spark igniter and the fuel nozzle on this engine here. And I'm like, oh, that's a 58 engine, I know that. So he's sitting there with me and I'm talking to him as I'm doing the maintenance on it, you know.

SPEAKER_05: 2:29:19

He's like, okay, that's good, that's good, that's good.

SPEAKER_16: 2:29:21

So if you didn't know, so the um on that engine, the the spark igniter and the uh fuel nozzle are in the same area, and if you pull both of them out, you there's a piece inside the engine that will drop out, and you have to pull the whole engine apart to put it back. So you have to take one out at a time.

SPEAKER_32: 2:29:37

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_16: 2:29:38

If you didn't know that, that's a kind of a trick question, yeah. Yeah, so uh luckily I passed all that and uh I got my uh AMP license down there in Nashville, and um we were able to you find out um that day, like when I went through with that guy, found out that day. So now I gotta drive back with my buddy that failed. Oh, geez, you know, and here I am like super excited that I just passed this awesome course, and but I can't like be like woohoo! No, I can't be too excited because my buddy failed, you know. So um he ended up passing. Uh he had to stay a couple more days, but so yeah, then they had to send us to the factory school. So we get to go down to um it's between Dallas and Fort Worth. Um I'm trying to think of the name of the city. Anyhow, I'll think of it soon enough. Right. But so we go down uh Arl Arlington. Arlington. Okay. Uh so we go down to Arlington and um we get to go to the factory course, which was awesome. So um that's their business, right? They teach mechanics how to work on their uh helicopters, and it was a two-week course, two and a half weeks, and I learned how to work on that helicopter in two and a half weeks, where the army took me 14 weeks to learn how to work on a less complicated, you know, aircraft. Actually, it's Grand Prairie. Okay, Grand Prairie. Arlington's right next to it, but Grand Prairie is where the school's at. So yeah, so we'd go in the morning and they teach us about the aircraft, and then um at break time the hotels would bring us uh food and nice breakfast food because they were trying to get us to transfer to their hotel uh because they knew they had a you know payday, right? Yeah, it was pretty cool, it was pretty cool, and then uh we'd go back to our hotel and they had the uh beer and snacks for us, right? So yeah, it was uh it was pretty cool going through that course, um, which gave me the opportunity to work on the Lakotas. You know, you had to have that license. Um, the rest of the Army aircraft you don't have to, but the way the contract read when the Army bought that aircraft is you have to have licensed AMP mechanics, yeah. Which means you had to have already three three years of airframe experience and three years of engine experience before you can even take the test.

SPEAKER_11: 2:32:11

Yeah. Were they kind of hoping that the military was going to hire their mechanics then?

SPEAKER_16: 2:32:16

I don't know what's I don't know what it was. I don't know what was what I think it was is so the army bought these aircraft, right? And they're FAA designated aircraft. Um, if you have an FAA person work on it the whole time that's licensed, at the end of it, they can sell it with FAA records to an outside agency. Yeah. And only the guard has them. Army doesn't have them. Yeah. So um went to those courses, then I get back and I'm like, hey, you're gonna deploy again. Yeah. Because I'm in that Delta Company now. Yeah. You know, maintenance. So we go, we deploy um to Fort Fort Hood, Texas, for like 90 days of training. Yeah. Horrible. You've been there? I have. Horrible. They treat you like a child, yeah, whether you're a private or a general. Well, maybe not a general, but they're not nice. That's sure. It's ridiculous. Yeah. Like, why we why do we put up with that as soldiers?

SPEAKER_11: 2:33:18

I mean, I did my train up at Fort Dicks, same thing. Uh they they treated you like you were an idiot the whole time.

SPEAKER_16: 2:33:24

Yeah. I I saw them yell at this guy who printed off one too many pages out of their learning center. Yeah. Like just gave it to them. And I was gonna say something, but I'm like, I ain't saying nothing, I won't be able to come in here. I'm just gonna walk away from this mess. Yeah. We were they had so we couldn't go anywhere.

SPEAKER_38: 2:33:43

Right.

SPEAKER_16: 2:33:44

So they had uh they had the USO, I think, there. So they were they were showing like uh it was the Michigan game. We were down there doing like a bowl game or something. Well, it started late. Well, they closed early. Oh, 10 o'clock, TV's off. See you guys. See you tomorrow. Yeah. Luckily, um, that happened one time, but the next time they're like, all right, close all the lights, pull all the shades, we'll let you guys stay in here if you keep quiet. Don't let anybody know. Well, it was just ridiculous, you know, and they treat you the so awful, awful like why would you treat soldiers like that?

SPEAKER_11: 2:34:17

Uh we we uh so we came up with a theory on that, and that is they treat you so terrible that you look forward to going wherever it is you're going. I really believe that. Like, this place sucks so bad, I can't wait to get to where it yeah, it was it was horrible.

SPEAKER_16: 2:34:34

Like our time in Fort Benning when we deployed out of there was nothing like that. Yeah, nothing like that. No. Heck, we went to New Orleans on a weekend. So, yeah. So they deploy us to this is um 13. This is what time? What was uh Fort or um Kuwait. We got to um Udari Airfield. Now they call it what do they call it? It was it used to be Camp Udari. Now they changed it to something else. I can't remember. So we're there for like seven, eight months just doing nothing. Yeah. Doing nothing. We got you know black hawks out there. I end up um there wasn't much engine work there, so I ended up um one of the um one of the uh production control guys uh got demoted because he just wasn't doing a job and he was holding a position I needed to go in. Oh, there you go. But they wouldn't demote him or because he was a federal tech. Yeah, we can't get rid of him or demote him, so you're just stuck at your E6, right? You know. So I I end up doing his job there, production control, uh um deciding which aircraft gets maintenance first and who's gonna work on it. That's what that was my job there. Um, but yeah, just sitting there for seven months out in the freaking desert. Yeah, you know, doing nothing. And our commander was not great, you know. Like he was making room assignments six months out, a captain. Who's gonna stay with who? What? What? Why why are we yeah, why are we doing this? That's the kind of guy he was. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 2:36:23

So he was very uh your deployment was only eight months then to Kuwait. Yeah, it was very short, yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 2:36:31

Um we were there when ISIS was kicking up, when the first ISIS was started kicking up, because one day I'm like uh out and I'm like, oh, I've never seen any of these vehicles before. And they were all special ops vehicles all over the place. And then you see the guys running around with the little ranger short panty things, you know, oh yeah, the shorts. And no shirts on and headphones, which we couldn't do any of that, you know, and they're all over the place.

SPEAKER_11: 2:37:01

And they're all carrying custom-made Kimber 45s, yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 2:37:04

Yes, and then uh two days later, they're all gone. Yeah, like that. Um, so yeah, but I that's uh that was 13. I um I picked up running then. Uh-huh. Before I always ran for my job, like it's the two-mile run to keep my job. Exactly. That's exactly it. Yeah, and when I got there, I started running for fun. Maybe it took me to be to 43 to do that. So, but yeah, I was running a lot because there was nothing else to do. I mean, I mean, you could just sit and watch TV, but or videos or whatever. But yeah, so I picked up running when I was there, and then um, so well, yeah, it was just a boring time there. Yeah, there's just nothing going on. You know, I think we went to the Kuwaiti Mall twice. That was our trip. Their commander took us on.

SPEAKER_17: 2:37:56

Oh, how fun. Yeah. He's like, All right, we're gonna load up in the morning, we're gonna go to the mall, we're gonna be there all day, and then we'll come back, and you guys spend the whole day there. So we get there and he's like, Okay, how's about two hours?

SPEAKER_16: 2:38:07

What? That's not the whole day. His mind it was Oh geez. Yeah. Like, you kidding? Oh, like why did I even come for this? Right. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 2:38:19

Um, so you finish that up and you uh get back home.

SPEAKER_16: 2:38:23

13, we come back. Um, we go to Ford Hood. So we get to Ford Hood. Oh nice, right? Um, our commanders had it by then. Like all his micromanaging it, he was done. He gets there, he goes, listen, he goes, we're gonna start out pro we out processing on this day. I think we had like a day or two to he goes, I don't care what you do. I don't care if you get rental cars, I don't care if you go get a hotel. Don't get in trouble. He goes, I don't care. I've just had enough of it. If you don't want to swing clothes, that's fine. Because you weren't supposed to, you know. He didn't. So yeah, like that was like don't we ever want off they went, you know. We get done, and then it's the day I gotta fly out of there. Um so I'm waiting for the bus to pick us up at North Ford Hood, and I'm wearing it's all it's what was it, August then? August, September. So I got shorts on and shirt, and Sergeant Major comes out. Sorry, what are you doing? You're supposed to be in uniform. Everyone else is in uniform. You're supposed to be in uniform. I said, Listen, I said, our captain said we can wear whatever we want home. I think Captain Outrakes you, Sir Major. He was a friend of mine too. Yeah, you know, yeah, he's like just shaking his head. We I get to the airport, running late. My first siren's got my ticket. He's like, hey, I got your ticket.

SPEAKER_18: 2:40:07

Grab your bags and get up. The gate's loading right now. Okay.

SPEAKER_16: 2:40:10

Get up there, hands me my ticket, get on the plane and that we land in Dallas. And of course, we go right to the bar. So we're drinking at the bar. He's like, All right, we gotta go to get close to the gate. So we go to the gate and they're loading now. There's a bar right there. He's like, all right, we got time for one more. He goes, hold on, he sends one to the private center. Tell them don't lock that door, we'll be there in a minute. We'll drink another one and come back and go to scan my ticket. Beep, but not a good beep. Right. Beep. She goes, she goes, let me look at your ticket. She goes, This isn't the right ticket. I said, I said, I'm with all these guys, you know. She goes, No, no, no. It's you're going to Minnesota, but yours is on a different gate. Like, yeah. It was a totally different gate. And she's like, um, yeah, you're not gonna make it. She goes, That plane leaves in in 20 minutes, and you gotta catch a bus to this gate. Oh my gosh. I'm like, oh, you gotta be kidding me. She's like, no. So I, you know, have to get on the phone, make all these calls. I end up getting on the flight, and I get to Minnesota, and there's everybody still sitting there. By now, they're hammered and cut off at the bar. Yeah. They cut them cut off. So yeah, laying back and lancing, and that was the end. That was my last deployment. Uh huh. Yeah, I never deployed after that. Wow. No. Came back and um Stayed in Delta Company and then kept doing my counter drug job. And then around 2017, I couldn't get promoted because the two guys in front of me, the positions I could hold, were both federal technicians. Right. And they held the only two E7 slots I could go into. So I'm like, I can't wait anymore. So I just started putting in for jobs wherever. Wherever I could do a job. You know, in the military that was E7 rank. So there was one at JFHQ for the joint staff. They needed um E7s. So I put in for the job. And right before I get the job, Delta Company decides to get rid of my E6 slot. So now I don't have a slot. They put me in E5 slot. I'm like, oh, this is great. And don't even tell me. Just not take rank from me. Right. But you're in that slot. I'm in that slot. You know. And then I get a call, and uh uh Colonel Bennett was her name. I don't know, Colonel Bennett. Kenner Colonel Bennett. She goes, hey, she goes, You want this job? I said, yes. She goes, okay, I'll get the paperwork going. I'll have my people get your paperwork going. You come over here. I said, okay. So I get over there, and there's like three or four counter drug guys in joint staff, including my senior advisor. I'm like, perfect. This is gonna be great, right? Right. So I get in there and um they got me in uh E6 slot. And I'm like, the posting was for E7 position. It was a double double F position. Um they didn't go by the list, you had to apply for it. But if you got it, you know. So eventually I had to go to Colonel Tarot at the time. And I said, Hey, Colonel Tarot. I said, listen, I said, here's what's going on. I said, they just transferred a guy in into a seventh slot that's supposed to be mine that I put in for, you know, I got to talking to him. He's like, Yeah, Sir Belly, you're right. He goes, I'll see what I can do, you know. So he uh by then he had got promoted to general and he uh they got it figured out and they they promoted me and he promoted me, which was cool. That's because he got promoted by a general, yeah. That was really cool. So and we used to have joint staff meeting, and I'd be sitting there waiting, you know, in the room, and I'd look behind me and he'd be standing behind me.

SPEAKER_17: 2:44:09

Hey sir, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_16: 2:44:11

He goes, I'm trying to hide behind you. I said, I said, I don't know, so you're kind of the guy. He goes, Yeah, I know. I said, I think they want you up there. He's like, Okay.

SPEAKER_11: 2:44:22

He was a good he's a good guy. Yeah, yeah. He's over is he over at Selfridge now?

SPEAKER_16: 2:44:27

I'm not sure because he I can't remember what position he was when I left, but he was in charge, he was in charge of joint staff, and he is a he's a dual, he's a dual status commander.

unknown: 2:44:42

Right.

SPEAKER_16: 2:44:42

So he can command, you know what that means, right? Yeah, yeah. Um, so yeah. And joint staff was um it was working really well up until COVID. Right. At least I thought it was.

SPEAKER_28: 2:44:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 2:44:56

You know, uh, it seemed like we did a lot of training scenarios, um, seemed like it was a true joint staff type of event. And then, you know, COVID hit. Screwed everything up. I was I was working out the airfield, and uh they called me up, they're like, hey, you need to get to joint forces headquarters, we gotta start setting up uh what we call jock in a box. Yeah, we gotta start setting that up. I'm like, so I get there, we get it all set up, and then someone from the military police comes in there and starts telling us how to do stuff.

SPEAKER_17: 2:45:34

This is wrong. You need these, and and you gotta do this, and I'm gonna take this over. I can't remember what that colonel's name was.

SPEAKER_16: 2:45:42

Anyhow, so we've got that set up in one room, and they didn't like it there. Then we move it to another room. So they have the jock in a box with the joint staff in one room, and then they got the actual jock up at you know, JFHQ then. So they're running two of them, which doesn't make any sense, right? At all. So they finally figured out like, because they're like, well, we can't give them information, we can't give them information. Finally, like we just need to combine this, you know. It needs to be one entity.

SPEAKER_07: 2:46:10

That's when uh hickum, hickleby, hicco, hippico, hippica.

SPEAKER_16: 2:46:18

That guy comes in. You know what that guy's about, right?

SPEAKER_11: 2:46:23

I yeah, Hippico was my uh he was my battalion S3 for quite a while, and uh our careers followed each other, so I definitely know Scott Hippica.

SPEAKER_16: 2:46:32

Oh my gosh, so he comes. I saw him freaking undress a lieutenant colonel because the color purple on a slide was wrong. Yeah, it wasn't the right shade in front of everybody.

SPEAKER_10: 2:46:45

You know the crazy thing about that guy?

SPEAKER_11: 2:46:47

I was just like he's a great guy when it when it's not in that role, right? He's a really I like him, he's a really good guy, but he was tough to work for, I'll just say that.

SPEAKER_16: 2:46:59

I remember when I first met him, he pulled the the the all the uh joint staff NCOs out and just talked like we're talking, yeah, like normal, nice guy. But then I saw him and I was like, oh my god, this poor freaking colonel there, I forget his name at the time, but I was like, wow, just because the color purple was off. So yeah, I was working there for first two, three months of COVID. I was the night guy, so I'd come in and I was the night guy because of some of my other uh NCOs had families and I didn't want them to be there at night. I said, I'll take the night shift. I said, you guys can be with your families, and I'll work the night shift. I was working the night shift, and that's when I found out my daughter had cancer. So I come in and I was talking to one of the other NCOs about my daughter and that, and then um Major Zeller. You know Major Zeller? I do. So Major Zeller's like, hey, what's going on? And I knew him as a E4, and my wife deployed with him as an E4. So and he was he worked for counter drug for a while too.

SPEAKER_11: 2:48:12

That's why I think that's why I know the name, but he wasn't a major when I was teaching counter drug years ago.

SPEAKER_16: 2:48:17

Yeah. Um he worked with counter drugs. So he um he's like, What's going on with your daughter? I said I told him, he's like, Why are you here? I said, because it's my job. He goes, he goes, I want you to go home right now. He goes, I'm gonna uh talk to the colonel and see what we can do about this. So I go home and um he says, All right, he calls me like the next day. He goes, here's what we're gonna do. He goes, we're gonna have you work remotely. He says, you come in, grab all your stuff, he says, and you set up your because I had three screens and laptops and he goes, you take all that stuff home and and then you uh you work nights and then we'll have you do stuff because I could, you know. Right.

SPEAKER_14: 2:49:01

He goes, okay.

SPEAKER_16: 2:49:02

So that's how the rest of my uh COVID stuff went. And at first they'd have me do stuff, and then they just kind of forget about me. Right. You know, and I'd get on the, you know, they'd have briefings the fur the start of the shift, end of the shift, and and they always just, hey Sergeant Baller, you got anything? Nope, you need me to do anything? Uh nope, not right now. We'll get back with it. And they just eventually just forgot. I what I think is they just kind of like they took care of me. They kind of forgot about it, but it is also wasn't much, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 2:49:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 2:49:32

They were and they didn't run it how they were supposed to. Because the joint staff and the guard, you know, the guard as a whole is uh support in when an emergency happens. You know, the EOC was supposed to run it asking, but the guard was trying to run it. Right, which is how the guard operates. Uh General Rogers trying to run it. Yeah. He uh his the first thing that they did, um, which was funny, is uh our first mission was to take a hand washing station up to some VA uh retirement home in a UP so that people could wash their hands before they they went in. That came from um Rogers.

SPEAKER_17: 2:50:18

Was it Rogers?

SPEAKER_16: 2:50:19

He would have been the tag at the time. Yeah, it was Rogers. Yeah, because he's still the tag. Yeah, so somebody called and said, Hey, instead of going through you know the ELC emergency operations center and saying, Hey, we need this at our place, okay, let's just get a local place. No, no, no. They had the guard bring one of those hand washing stations from grailing. So you've got to get a bunch of guys, right?

SPEAKER_11: 2:50:41

This is a very expensive hand washing station, right?

SPEAKER_16: 2:50:44

Right? By the time you're done. Yes. So so after that happened, they're kind of like, wait a minute. This is not how this is gonna go. Right. You know, you've got to put your request in, it's gotta go ELC. ELC looks at, okay, who can we have do this and who's the most expensive? Because that was, you know, all part of that stuff. Oh, yeah. You know, because I went when I was in the jock, we went through all those um classes um for emergency response. Right. And that's not how it's done. Well, yeah, I mean, that's how it works though, right? It was all those FEMA classes we went through. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'd go through weekend FEMA training where you know we'd actually run events and you know, here's how it goes, and you know, Michigan, like every state runs it different. You know, some are the same, some are, but Michigan runs it off of the EOC runs it. Right. And some states, the guard runs it, but not here. No, no, so yeah, it was interesting. They they they rented out the whole quality inn, not the quality in the Crown Plaza.

SPEAKER_37: 2:51:50

Oh, yeah, right off of Kratz Road, right?

SPEAKER_16: 2:51:52

I had a room there, never stepped foot in it. Yep. For like a couple weeks, they're like, Do you even use that room? I'm like, no, you gave it to me, but I didn't need it. Okay, you turn in your key. Okay.

SPEAKER_11: 2:52:03

And you're living in the in your current home.

SPEAKER_16: 2:52:05

So I moved here in 09.

SPEAKER_11: 2:52:07

Okay, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_16: 2:52:09

Yeah, so it's around 1718. Right, right. So, yeah, so so your daughter had cancer for a long time.

SPEAKER_11: 2:52:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 2:52:16

Yeah. She fought it for six years. Yeah. On and off. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, long time.

SPEAKER_11: 2:52:23

I didn't I didn't realize that until just now, like to the timeline. Yeah, that's that was a long time.

SPEAKER_16: 2:52:29

Um, she was living with her mom part of the time down in uh Heartland. Okay. And then she was living with her uncle for part of the time, uh falling out. So I would go down there, I'd pick her up, and take her to St. Joel's Hospital in Pontiac for treatment. So I'd take her there at like 6-7 in the morning and I'd sit with her till six, seven at night, and then I'd take her back. And then sometimes I'd stay down there, uh, sometimes I'd drive back because when they give chemo medicine, it's a time thing. Okay, this medicine's got to be given, you know, for an hour and a half, and then we need a two-hour break before we can give this medicine, and then we need a, you know, this. And so I would just sit there with her, you know. Uh she got her infusions, and then um, she had two bone marrow transplants. Both at U of M. One of her donors was from Poland. Wow. So she had four donors in Poland. Um, one of them stepped up and said, I'll do it. So I don't know if you know anything about bone marrow transplants.

SPEAKER_11: 2:53:36

I know that that there's like a bank where they where you can get tested so you know that if you're if you match someone, yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 2:53:45

But yeah, it's um I heard everyone I talked to says, Well, I heard it's really painful. Not really.

unknown: 2:53:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 2:53:53

What they do is um so first they use her white blood cells because uh her cancer was in her white blood cells, fights off diseases and infections. So um they harvested her white blood cells. Uh what they do is they stick line in this arm, line in this arm, suck blood out, put in a spinny thing, pull white blood cells out, push it back in this arm. Yeah. And then save the white blood cells. Um so that's what they had to do with this gentleman in Poland. Um, they got all his white blood cells, they shipped them over, and then um what they do is they take those, they kill all her white blood cells with intense chemo, kill them all, so she has no white blood cells. They take the white blood cells, they're frozen, and they put them in a warm bath of hot water, warm them up, and they take a syringe and they suck them up, and then they have a line going in her, a little valve, and then they have a homing device that goes to her large bones. So all those cells go to her large bones and create more white blood cells, except her bones would turn them into cancerous white blood cells.

SPEAKER_39: 2:55:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 2:55:03

In the end, so but yeah. So she did that, you know, like I said, in uh I remember taking her to uh Sparrow in Lansing on 4th of July to have infusion.

SPEAKER_46: 2:55:17

Oh sad.

SPEAKER_16: 2:55:18

That's she uh had her in a wheelchair, she's crying. I don't want to do this, I'm so tired of this. So we gotta do it, Courtney. It was just her, me, and a technician in there. Yeah, and she it was just a short one in a couple hours and fused her. Okay, we'll go back home. So so yeah, so we'll be up to 17, 18. Yeah, 18 COVID happens, still doing counter drug stuff. Um, and then uh my commander for counter drug for aviation, uh Mark Sanako. Um, when I was going through all this stuff with my daughter, he's like, uh, whatever time you need, just let me know. He goes, and if you don't, I know what you're doing. Right. So I was I was very fortunate because a lot of that stuff was during the week, and uh, and and my ex-wife uh couldn't take her. You know, she and then she eventually moved in here, and then it was easier to you know take care of her, and um, I'd have to give her IVs and stuff in here. So yeah, I was pretty lucky to have a good commander over there. Uh, and then Colonel Cooper. Do you know Colonel Cooper? Colonel Cooper. So he was our uh colonel over there that ran uh counter drug, and then uh it's uh major price now is running it now. It was Colonel Francisco when I was. Oh, yeah, Francisco, yeah. Yeah, you remember Lloyd Sutton? Yeah. Sutton, and then um who was the other guy we had?

SPEAKER_11: 2:56:47

There's an Air Force guy that worked with Colonel Francisco. I can never remember his name. He's a great guy. I don't know if he's still in or not. Anyway, I digress. But you know, the good I think the guard, the guard really has a way of taking care of people. My you know, we talked outside of this that uh, you know, I lost my stepbrother to cancer. Um, he was in uh the first of the 19th field artillery advancing, and uh he couldn't work anymore, but they kept him on the books and let him come in when he could. Right. And they took care of him and his family during that whole thing. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_14: 2:57:25

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_11: 2:57:25

And that's the kind of stuff I feel like for all the stuff we talk about with the guard, that's the stuff I remember. Yeah, because it when it comes down to it, we really take care of people.

SPEAKER_16: 2:57:34

Yeah, yeah, you're right about that. Yeah, fortunate. I got I met you know way more you know, positive and good people than you know, people that were just being jerks.

SPEAKER_13: 2:57:46

Those people don't seem to last long.

SPEAKER_11: 2:57:48

The jackasses do stick out in my mind, but it but those aren't the people that I really report. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, a lot of good people, a lot of good friends from from time of the guard.

SPEAKER_16: 2:57:58

Yeah, yeah, like I said, I still have friends from the army. Yeah. Like said my one friend that came up here. So you did how many years? 30 so um 38 total, because I joined when I was 18. Yeah. Um, and then um up until 56. And I had well, four years was IR. Yeah, but I mean it counts. Right, right. I've never not been, you know, having a uniform here or there.

SPEAKER_11: 2:58:30

So is there anything in the guard we haven't covered prior to retirement? I mean, we talked about that. We've done a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_16: 2:58:36

I mean, there's a lot of stuff that I'm trying to remember stuff. Um you remember a bunch of stuff after I leave. Oh, of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah, because let me see. Um, we're at yeah, JFHQ was my last duty assignment. I did a couple Northern Strikes, which were um kind of kind of like being in the jock, you know. Um I'd work in what they call the high con. So I I um my job was um I was a last my last position, I was the battle captain NCO, battle NCO. Sounds really professional, right? Like something something special, right? But it was basically taking down uh information from units that didn't want to give information. Right.

unknown: 2:59:31

Right.

SPEAKER_16: 2:59:32

And fake units, you know, oh this unit's here. I'm like, oh they're not really there, you know, and and then you know, having a board and and putting all this stuff on it and writing numbers and calling people, hey, where's your status reports? And oh you know, and then telling people, and you know, and then I'd come in and then I'd be sitting down, and Tara would be over my shoulder, say pull up the duty log. I want to see what happened at this time. All right, sir, pull it up. You'd look at oh, okay. And next thing I look, and it was freaking whitmer over my shoulder too. Hey, what's going on with that? Oh, that's this and that, whatever. So that was kind of neat, you know, uh in that uh being in that room with all those people, but um it it never um pertained like the ATs we did for that didn't actually pertain to the jobs that we actually did during the weekend. Oh, no, absolutely not. No, no, that's a whole different thing. It was just who we could get to do this job. Right.

SPEAKER_11: 3:00:26

You know who could do it well, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So well, let me ask you this. So, you know, I know how it was for me, but I'm always curious, like, what was it like for you the last time you put that uniform on? And you knew this is gonna be the last time you're gonna put that uniform on because you're gonna retire.

SPEAKER_16: 3:00:44

Um yeah, I don't remember. I just weren't gonna put it on because I I I I do remember, I will just say this about putting on a uniform and taking off a uniform, is when I knew it was time. Uh-huh. Because I always said when it wasn't fun anymore, and I didn't like doing it. Because I could still be doing it right now, actually, if I wanted to.

SPEAKER_43: 3:01:07

Right.

SPEAKER_16: 3:01:07

I could still do it. But I was, it was the last, I had made my decision already that, but the final straw was I was uh up at Northern Strike. Um, it was my last one, and I was getting ready in the the barracks, because we were living in the barracks, you know, and I'm standing, and there's this young lieutenant next to me, you know, and I'm standing in the mirror and I'm I'm shaving, and I I I all I'm looking at is this old ass soldier in the mirror looking back at me like. And then I see this young guy that's, you know, like ready to and I'm like, woo-hoo. Yeah, and I'm just like, yeah, this is the right decision. This is I felt good with the decision. Like, I'm yeah, he looks like a soldier. I look like an old guy on Halloween, you know, with a uniform on. I'm like, you know, I just I didn't feel like a soldier. I didn't, you know, I was gaining weight and looking like I'm like, this is we eventually turn into that guy we used to laugh about.

SPEAKER_11: 3:02:07

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_16: 3:02:08

Exactly. We all eventually turn into that guy. Yeah. Well, the last last day I put him on uniform was at Fort Knox because I had to outprocess Fort Knox because I was an active duty soldier. Right. So I drive down to Fort Knox and I will tell you this though, I I drive down there and I I I check in into my room. Um and then I uh I left my room and I just walked around Fort Knox till like 2-3 in the morning because that's where I went to basic training, right? Right.

SPEAKER_44: 3:02:38

This all comes full circle.

SPEAKER_16: 3:02:39

Yep. So I I walked around and uh I walked some around some of the barracks. I'd never seen these barracks, but it was just army stuff. And I walked through the PX and then you know I walked where they have like this big parade field in the middle of Fort Knox that I've never seen before, and they had you know memorials for different things and recognition of this and you know army equipment. So I walked around that. I walked around like their officers club and you know, um walked out seen somebody like on CQ duty, just kind of remembering stuff. And I actually went, um, I guess I went over by my old area that's not there anymore. Um, so yeah, kind of you know, thinking back about all my time as I was walking around, and then I got up that morning, went and I was checking my hotel and had my name tag switched, and the lady had to say something. Oh no. Like, oh yeah. Oops. I I go, I I I outprocess at their outprocessing center. I'm wearing my uniform last time. They take pictures, you know, I got a flag, take pictures, and and when you finally outprocess, they say, We have another retiree, and everyone claps, and you know, and which is fantastic, right? Like, and then um I go back and um I already checked out at a hotel, so I'm changing out of my uniform in the parking lot, which I've done many times a million times, yeah, and and then I I put on my civilian clothes and I put a shirt on and said grumpy old vets. Grumpy old vet, I do what I want. Yeah, I went in the Burger King because every post has a Burger King and got a Burger King met meal, which was probably the last one I've actually I haven't bought one since then. It's just not what I eat, right? You know, and then and and I I I left. So, and then um a month later I went to get my new ID card, my retiree ID card, because they don't give me one yet because it has to process, and I had to go down uh Battle Creek to the old sanitarium, the ID department there. So I'm like, sweet, I'll go get my ID card, get enrolled in deers, I'll get my you know, like look at oh you got oh look at this, your 214s. Uh the date is wrong on it. Like, what? Yeah, your date that's wrong. Your orders say that you got out of the army July 31, but your orders say that you got out August 30. I'm like, what? It was wrong. It was wrong. I put the wrong date. And I looked at it, and three other people looked at it. You signed it, everybody signed it, right? So I had to get a 215 made addendum. I was able to get that done while I was there, and then I was able to get my ID car and get run, but then I had to fight, not fight, but go through the process of getting my pay adjusted for the month. Yeah. So that was my final straw. That's right. It's like I made the right decision. It was my own fault. I should have looked. I mean, I did look. I just you're looking at so much paperwork, you know, at that time, because it's all your whole career, you know. And the lady that was there um was there when I um joined the military.

SPEAKER_34: 3:05:53

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_16: 3:05:54

I I actually I took my Fort Knox basic training book with me into that place and I showed it to her. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_11: 3:05:59

And she was like, Oh, I remember this.

SPEAKER_16: 3:06:03

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 3:06:04

People stick around in those in those jobs sometimes. Yeah, that's really cool though.

SPEAKER_16: 3:06:08

Yeah, so that was it. And I drove home and and then uh once I got my paperwork straight, I was getting my um retirement check. Yeah. Like right on time. So I collected from them, and then I went through the uh disability process, and uh shortly after that, starting guess uh disability checks. And I just, you know, I just followed the process. Go do this, take care of that, look at that. And I know I have I I hear a lot of people have a lot of issues with you know things that went on and fighting this and fighting that, but I just here's what you need to do. I started doing all that and go see this person, see that person, and okay. Yeah. So, but yeah, I've been to let's see, what have I done since I've been retired? Uh it's been so long. It's been so long since you retired. I was working uh my first so before I got out of the army, I was working at the golf course because I had so much leave time, so I was still technically on army status. Right. Because I went to Fort Knox in May. Um, but my out process, my actual um getting out of the army was uh July 31st. Yeah. So I was still collecting, uh still on you know army pay, but I was working at the golf course here in town, and after my first year there, I was like, that's like a job now. Right, I'm not enjoying this anymore. It was fun at first, but I'm like, no.

SPEAKER_11: 3:07:41

So you've been doing some traveling things like that, right, though, since uh retired.

SPEAKER_16: 3:07:44

I have, yeah. I've been Albania, um, Jamaica. I'm going to Mexico Saturday. I'm going to Las Vegas in February. So Love Vegas. One of my favorite places. Um yeah, I spend a lot of time there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 3:08:02

Or would you like to go there? You know, um so when we go, we stay at the Cosmopolitan. It's our favorite hotel. That place is nice. It's amazing. And uh we just love to hit just we don't really gamble. We just like to go to dinner. There's a really nice Greek restaurant there at uh at the Venetian. Um and then there's uh in the uh on the old part, there's a I can never remember the name of the steakhouse, but it's like stepping back into the 50s. They all wear like bow ties and yeah, and they they make like your salad table side, and um I cannot, it's it's like in the basement of um, I can't remember the casino, uh, but it's in that old part part of town. Um, so yeah, my wife and I just love it's just being in Vegas, you know? It's just amazing. So yeah, we just we like that. We we do a lot of traveling too, because uh as you know, I'm retired, but um, yeah, so we've covered a lot of stuff over the last three hours or so. Has it been that long? Um, yeah, well, almost. I've been here for almost three hours. You got here at one, right? Yeah, it's four, almost four. Oh, wow. But uh yeah. Yeah, drapes and wait till tomorrow.

SPEAKER_19: 3:09:11

Yeah. So life will be home in a half hour.

SPEAKER_11: 3:09:15

There you go. So we so we've covered a lot, we talked about a lot of things. Um, you know, you've had a very interesting life, and I guarantee you I'm gonna get halfway home and you're gonna think of some other things you wish you to talk about, and that's fine. Um, but really, I I always ask like one last question um as we kind of wrap up our discussion, and that is you know, someone's listening to this story a hundred years from now, and neither one of us are here anymore. What what would you like people to take away from this conversation and from your life?

SPEAKER_16: 3:09:47

Oh wow, that's a lot to think about. Yeah. Um let me think about that for a minute. I hope if they listen to these stories, they can, you know, think about how a helicopter guy uh made it through the military working on a lot of different helicopters. Um and never did I think I was ever gonna do that for that long. I never thought I'd be in the military for that long. It just kind of happened that way, I guess. I never thought I'd be uh retiring as young as I did. I never thought um I would say never had a horrible experience in the military. I've had some bad I and I can look back and and and um I guess be happy and proud of what what what I did. Um and maybe see how um life was um back in the 80s, 90s, the 2000s, and and then how the guard ran maybe a little bit off of some of my stories, maybe. Yeah. Um and then how uh how we both knew people because the community's kind of small in the guard.

SPEAKER_11: 3:11:14

It's huge, but it's small. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, uh yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 3:11:18

I I guess that would be it, you know.

SPEAKER_11: 3:11:21

Well, you know, also uh just listening to your story, right? You never know what the you never know what the end is gonna be. Like, right? Like I don't think either one of us are joined the military. I think we'd spend a career doing it.

SPEAKER_03: 3:11:34

No, right?

SPEAKER_11: 3:11:35

I think somebody once told me that if you want to make God laugh, just tell him what your plans are.

SPEAKER_09: 3:11:42

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, you know, Nick, excuse me. I wasn't sneezing at it. That's all right. That's all right. I'll let you catch your breath.

SPEAKER_16: 3:11:53

Yeah, I I think um, yeah, you're right. There's so many things that happened. Um and then I'm a very visual person, so a lot of my stories have you know, if I look at pictures, I'll be like, oh, I remember when this happened. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_18: 3:12:07

I remember what that happened, you know.

SPEAKER_16: 3:12:09

And I I take a lot of pictures and show a lot of pictures because it it helps me remember, you know, remember things. Well, you can't have 38 years and and remember everything. No, that's all. No. There's a lot. I I always just tried to have fun. That's what I tried. Like, I remember me, my friend, you said, we'd always try and drive a vehicle that we never drove. Never drive that. Let's go drive that. And always, like, for instance, going to Iraq, everyone's like, You're gonna go to Iraq? Aren't you gonna be scared? I'm like, you know, I've never been there, so I want to see what it's about. I'm not that excited to go there, but I'm like, I haven't been there. I want to go see what it's about. Yeah, you know, and that's how I always felt when I was going someplace. Like, what's this gonna be about? You know, like when I went to Albania, I've never been there. Let's go see, let's see what's about. Then I can go back and go, yeah, I never want to go to that shithole again. Right.

SPEAKER_11: 3:13:03

You know, or we're going again next year.

SPEAKER_16: 3:13:06

Or feel how, you know, feel how lucky I am that I'm not living like how those people are. And you know, I watch the news and I see these people downing America, and I'm like, have you been anywhere? Have you seen how the rest of the world lives? You know? Have you seen no, you haven't? You live good for all of our faults. This is the best country in the world. People live good here and they want to talk crap about you know our living situation and our yeah, everything can be better, no doubt about it. But there's people that just don't have what we have, yeah. They don't, not at all.

SPEAKER_11: 3:13:41

And we've seen it with our own two eyes. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 3:13:44

And I I never thought, you know, I never thought I'd be living in a house like this with you know, getting paid by the army, you know. Even even my uh father-in-law is like, why are you in a guard? That doesn't pay. I'm like, I'm not here for the pay. Right. You know, when I was first in a guard, I wasn't in there for the pay. You know, I just want to do it.

SPEAKER_11: 3:14:05

If you're there for the pay, find another career. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Well, hey, Nick, thanks for spending the afternoon with me. I'm glad I am glad that we finally connected. This has been amazing.

SPEAKER_16: 3:14:16

Thanks for coming out. Yeah, you're welcome.