COMBAT STORIES FROM OTHER

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Showing : AFGHAN./IRAQ/OTHER Videos

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  Bill Pearson - Army +11 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  Bill Pearson had been to Vietnam twice and returned unscathed, but the Army wasn't done putting him in danger. He was assigned as an aviation consultant to Iran, advising the Shah's air force on it's supply of American aircraft. The day he arrived, martial law was declared and it wasn't long before there were mobs outside trying to burn down the building. The embassy was no help. Escape seemed impossible.

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  Michael Boyce - Marines +3 Total Videos

  USMC, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expedition Brigade, 1st-4th Air Wings

  Mr. Boyce discusses working with many Kurds and Iraqi civilians for about a year following the end of the first Gulf War.

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  Marshall Eubanks - Army +14 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  Marshall Eubanks had two years left to serve when he returned from Vietnam. He stuck around for ten, then he decided to keep going. Instead of flying helicopters, he worked on high level research and simulations, among other things.

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  Norman Kling - Marines +12 Total Videos

  Marine Corps Reserve

  Marine Corps reservist Norman Kling was activated for Korea and there was one thought uppermost in his mind. How long will this delay my college degree?

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  BG Robert L. Stewart - Army +16 Total Videos

  NASA Astronaut

  Bob Stewart was more nervous going to Vietnam than he was going into space the first time. You could get maimed in combat but in space you were either A-OK or completely gone. He made two flights on the space shuttle and, along with Bruce McCandless, made the first EVA with the new MMU, the Manned Maneuvering Unit.

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  Norman Kling - Marines +12 Total Videos

  Marine Corps Reserve

  He repaired radios in the Marines, but Norman Kling was now an electrical engineer working at McDonnell Douglas. When he tried to get his Marine Reserve commander to recommend him for a commission, the answer caused him to leave the Reserve.

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  BG Robert L. Stewart - Army +16 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  After the Challenger tragedy, NASA mission specialist Bob Stewart returned to the Army where they made him a general. He worked at the Strategic Defense Command, a legacy of Ronald Reagan's SDI program. At some point the Army wanted him in Washington DC, at which point he promoted himself to ski bum.

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  Norman Kling - Marines +12 Total Videos

  Marine Corps Reserve

  Returning Marine Norman Kling had his eye on college when he got home from the Pacific. He entered the electrical engineering program at Washington University in his home town of St. Louis. He had a soft spot for the Corps in his heart or maybe it was his head. Either way, he joined the Marine Corps Reserve.

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  BG Robert L. Stewart - Army +16 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  Some of his pilot friends were recruited by the airlines but Bob Stewart had other ideas. He became a test pilot. They got the money but he had the fun. He was instrumental in bringing the Apache and Blackhawk helicopters into the Army's fleet of airships.

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  Geoff Farrell - Army +8 Total Videos

  2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment

  When the cease fire was declared, American units had not yet reached Baghdad. In his command track, Geoff Farrell had the graphics on his screen to guide him right in, but it was decided we would not go. Looking back to that critical moment, he reflects on the decision.

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  BG Robert L. Stewart - Army +16 Total Videos

  NASA Astronaut

  Bob Stewart arrived in Houston as the first active Army officer to become a space shuttle mission specialist. After a year of classes, he was given a technical task, develop the shuttle's entry flight control system. The first flight was scheduled for two years out but he had to give management some bad news.

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  Geoff Farrell - Army +8 Total Videos

  2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment

  After the battle, the men of the 2nd Armored Cavalry did humanitarian work for the Iraqi civilians, then it was time to return to Germany. For Geoff Farrell, a feeling of unreality set in on the flight home. How do you decompress from combat? At least those who fought in this war were not going to experience the humiliation that Vietnam veterans had faced.

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  BG Robert L. Stewart - Army +16 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  Bob Stewart was walking on air. He just got a call from NASA that he was accepted as a mission specialist on the space shuttle program. He was going to be an astronaut, but first he had one more flight in his capacity as an Army test pilot.

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  Geoff Farrell - Army +8 Total Videos

  2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment

  He considered it the finest education available. Geoff Farrell went to West Point, where he soaked up all the history and knowledge available there. He was assigned to Europe, where he patrolled the German border as Soviet Communism was dying. There was a brief period of jubilation when the wall came down, then they heard about Saddam Hussein.

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  Bob Ratonyi +17 Total Videos

  Hungarian Civilian

  His family was not very religious, but they followed all the Jewish traditions and holy days. Bob Ratonyi had barely survived the Holocaust and then he was faced with more oppression of religion when Hungary became a Communist satellite of the USSR.

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  BG Robert L. Stewart - Army +16 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  Somewhere along the line, Army test pilot Bob Stewart had filled out an application to NASA and they called him. He went to Houston for a week of testing and an interview as a mission specialist.

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  Geoff Farrell - Army +8 Total Videos

  2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment

  Lt. Geoff Farrell was sleeping in the command track when he heard it on the radio. We were at war with Iraq. His armored cavalry unit crossed from Saudi Arabia into Iraq where they were greeted by friendly children in the middle of nowhere.

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  Kyle Wise - Marines +20 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  His father had told him the Air Force or the Navy would give him the best chance to see the world, but when Kyle Wise saw the poster in front of the Marine recruiter's office, he walked right in.

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  LTG (Ret) John Le Moyne - Army +15 Total Videos

  Ranger School

  It was lessons learned in Vietnam that John Le Moyne tried to pass on as an instructor in Ranger school. The candidates would soon have the awesome burden of being responsible for the lives of others.

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  Geoff Farrell - Army +8 Total Videos

  2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment

  In his business career, Geoff Farrell applied a lot of things he learned from the military and from his combat experience. Develop and nurture your people and always expect the unexpected.

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  LTG (Ret) John Le Moyne - Army +15 Total Videos

  Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC)

  During Operation Just Cause, John Le Moyne was assigned to the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) as a liaison officer to other agencies. In this capacity, he was able to observe some high level command operations that were very impressive. It was only a short while after this brief conflict that Saddam Hussein began to make noise in the Middle East.

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  Geoff Farrell - Army +8 Total Videos

  2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment

  They had prepared for the wrong war. Geoff Farrell's armored cavalry unit was going to the desert to confront Saddam Hussein, but their vehicles and uniforms were green and all their training was for fighting in European forests. Once they got to the staging area in Saudi Arabia, they adapted well.

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  LTG (Ret) John Le Moyne - Army +15 Total Videos

  24th Infantry Division

  John Le Moyne had come in to Saudi Arabia leading an advance team. Starting from scratch in the desert, in the summer, huge operating bases were established. The locals were amazed at the way the Americans adapted to the environment. It was during this conflict that many innovations in troop care and comfort were devised.

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  Bob Ratonyi +17 Total Videos

  Hungarian Civilian

  It was near anarchy in Budapest following the fall of the Nazis. Many were starving surrounded by rubble. Bob Ratonyi was overjoyed when his mother returned from a labor camp but then he watched as communists turned Hungary into a Stalinist dictatorship.

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  Geoff Farrell - Army +8 Total Videos

  2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment

  Thermal imaging had been around for a while and Geoff Farrell was very familiar with it. GPS, however, was new and expensive, and no one was familiar with it. Both were integral to the swift victory in Desert Storm. Before his deployment he declined a dose of an experimental drug that was supposed to protect against chemical weapons and he wonders if that drug contributed to Gulf War Syndrome.

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  Bob Ratonyi +17 Total Videos

  Hungarian Civilian

  It was all propaganda, everything on the radio and in the newspapers. That was life in communist Hungary as Bob Ratonyi was coming of age. He urged his mother to take an offered post as the party representative at her factory so she could take advantage of it.

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  LTG (Ret) John Le Moyne - Army +15 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  John Le Moyne never had a bad assignment. That's the way he looked at it, anyway, and it had a lot to do with the excellent leaders he encountered throughout his career. They helped him crack the code on how to win the trust of soldiers.

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  Bob Ratonyi +17 Total Videos

  Hungarian Civilian

  He was free. Bob Ratonyi had made it out of communist Hungary into Austria. His first stop was a refugee camp, which was overcrowded. He made it to Vienna with the help of a Catholic charity and, once there, he made straight for the American embassy. Unfortunately, the quota for refugees had been met. He had three choices, Australia, Sweden and Canada.

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  Geoff Farrell - Army +8 Total Videos

  2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment

  For Geoff Farrell, who fought in Desert Storm with the armored cavalry, it was obvious. It was technology and training that ensured victory. We had a lot of it and the Iraqis had very little. Our weapons had a longer range and, when a sandstorm came up in the middle of a battle, we had GPS and thermal imaging.

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  Bob Ratonyi +17 Total Videos

  Hungarian Civilian

  For Bob Ratonyi, living in communist Hungary meant only one inevitable outcome, moral decay. When you have to lie, cheat and steal, just to have a decent life, it begins to affect your soul. Still, there were true believers in the utopian fantasy.