2:55 | Carlene Knoll-Arambula recalls a valuable teamwork lesson learned during Navy bootcamp. Provided by Bob Stevens, the Veterans' Forum.
After two-plus years in Berlin, MP Gary Howard was asked if he wanted to re-enlist and he asked, can I stay here? He decided to get out and joined the sherriff's department when he got home. He fit right in.
The facility at Gitmo was receiving lots of boat people from Haiti and civilians from Cuba as well. Air Force Nurse Danielle Ingram treated them for their ailments and then one day she found a stable on the grounds with some horses that were being ignored.
During the period of Operation Desert Storm and Operation Desert Shield, Kirby was stationed yet again. This time, she was working in Portsmouth, Virginia. She talks about how her children are now in the military themselves, and gives her thoughts about the ending of the Vietnam War.
For Walt Richardson, it was all about the core values of America. As one of the first black airmen to integrate the Air Force, he calls on his unique perspective to explain why America is so much greater than other nations that are so much older.
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.
Milton Kassel was engaged and the wedding was set upon his return from Atlantic exercises. While on watch, he received a message that his ship would be delayed, making him late to his own wedding. He was pretty upset when the ship's doctor said to him, "I can't let them do this to you."
He had been a glider pilot in the war and he was a bona fide power pilot who could fly many smaller planes. George Theis then became a flight engineer in a B-52 unit. He was in the cockpit readying for a flight when the pilot asked if he'd like to try a take-off.
The crash site was at a typical Mogadishu intersection with countless places the enemy could be hiding. Olin Rossman's squad had secured the site and he went to help with body recovery. Only one set of remains had been taken out of the burnt Black Hawk when all hell broke loose. They had been waiting because they knew more Americans would be coming. Part 2 of 2. (Caution: strong language)
The Marines sent him home after he received three Purple Hearts in Vietnam. John Bates then served a few months at Camp Horno before they sent him home. He was not done with the Corps, though, and would return as an officer.
Following his combat experience in Vietnam, Joel Gartenberg had a long and diverse Army career. He retired in 1990 but volunteered to do anything he could during Desert Storm.
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.
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.
Scott Wealing tells why he supports the Warrior Reunion Foundation, a non-profit organization that organizes and facilitates reunions for veterans and their families.
They were supposed to be getting eight bodies but twelve body bags came in. Paul Berry was in the Saudi desert next to the Iraqi border and he was fortunate he didn't have to deal with those extra four bags.
Wounded three times as a PFC in Vietnam, John Bates came back to the Corps as an officer. He briefly talks about his time in Desert Storm, and remembers the chaos of the week following the attacks on 9/11.
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.
C-130 pilot Roland Guidry had flown top secret missions in Vietnam and that was good preparation for his new assignment as commander of the 8th Special Operations Squadron. They flew the special ops version of the C-130, the Combat Talon. He was just settling in at the job when startling news came from Iran.
The post-Vietnam period was not a great time to be a Marine. Jim Teixeira remembers how no money was available for training or much of anything. Then he got a chance to go to Ranger School and he jumped at it. It turned out to be the best training he ever received and it led to the regular commission he wanted.
It was a bad sandstorm. It blew away all the tents and injured one soldier's cornea. For Paul Berry it was just another fact of life in the desert, like scorpions. His ambulance company was the designated "dirty" company that kept going in case of a chemical or nuclear attack and, as the youngest private, he had a special duty that no one would want. (Caution: strong language)
Ken Preston describes how a well functioning armored cavalry unit operates in the field. There are a lot of moving pieces and it requires a platoon leader and a platoon sergeant with skills. After his part in Desert Storm was over, a drawdown began in the Army which stymied his promotion. No big deal. He now had experience.
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.
Tom Pemberton spent the last of his twenty years in the Army in Europe. The transportation officer put his experience to use in one last arena before retiring.
Following his two deployments to Vietnam, Al Stiles first had shore duty in Philadelphia, which didn't go so well, and then duty aboard the USS Talbot, a guided missile frigate, which was a good command.
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.
Early in the planning for the rescue attempt of the hostages in Iran, it was decided that carrier based helicopters would be the key aircraft. They would rendezvous with fixed wing aircraft carrying personnel and fuel in the remote Iranian desert. Pilot Roland Guidry explains why a preliminary clandestine mission was required before planning could continue. Part 2 of 4.
After decades of great effort by the military to keep us safe from the new dangers in the world, long time Air Force officer and pilot Max Della Pia has become very disillusioned with the current leadership in Washington.
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.
Education is something that Paul Berry eagerly embraced in the Army. It got him cushy jobs and kept him out of dirty ones. Especially valuable was the esoteric science known as typing. He also absorbed all the medical knowledge and skills that he could.
When Max Della Pia retired as a full Colonel, the governor of his state gave him a brevet promotion to Brigadier General in the Air National Guard. It didn't mean much but at least it was better than being kicked out! He was very fond of the Air Force Band and he recalls the time they played a request for him.
Navy Corpsman Blair Dell had been a member of some elite special operations teams but he had to take himself off team status for health reasons. He continued for a while working for the Special Operations Command but finally left the service and started his own consulting business, finding a rewarding role training law enforcement personnel.
