COMBAT STORIES FROM OTHER

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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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  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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  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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  Geoff Farrell - Army +8 Total Videos

  2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment

  The rumor was that the Iraqi's Soviet made tanks were superior to ours. Geoff Farrell had this on his mind while rolling across the desert to engage them. Just as they got near, a sandstorm came up. Then the Iraqi artillery began to fall. Then the first Iraqi tank was destroyed, shattering the myth.

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  Jim Bolan - Army +13 Total Videos

  1st Special Forces Group

  After his last tour in Korea, Jim Bolan was assigned to Special Forces. No volunteering needed. Everything was highly classified and they began training with no real system in place. Different units were then combined to form the 1st Special Forces Group, based on Okinawa.

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  Jake Jacobson - Army +8 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  After his Vietnam tours, Jake Jacobson served in Thailand and the Philippines, among other places, with different Special Forces teams. After almost thirty years of service, he retired, but was soon in Saudi Arabia training Bedouins. He didn't care for that job. (Caution: coarse language.)

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  Jim Bolan - Army +13 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  It was a lousy assignment. Jim Bolan was one of the first Special Forces officers and, after Vietnam, he wound up in a training unit with no jump slot. Prodded by his wife, he went to Washington to dust off his most valuable inside contact, who was now the Army's Chief of Staff.

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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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  Jake Jacobson - Army +8 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  Retired Green Beret Jake Jacobson tells how he came to boycott San Francisco and then acknowledges a couple of inspiring leaders he had in the Army. He also encountered what he considered very bad leadership.

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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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  Jim Bolan - Army +13 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  Jim Bolan's father was a tool and die man who was so good, he quit several jobs during the Depression. The younger Bolan was allowed a great deal of independence and enjoyed a summer job on a farm and living with a rich aunt on the Jersey shore.

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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

  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

  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

  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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  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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  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

  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

  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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  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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  Jake Jacobson - Army +8 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  Jake Jacobson had been to Korea three times and then spent a year in Japan with his airborne Pathfinder unit. After that tour and a short stint at the 82nd Airborne, he transferred to Special Forces. He was made a communications chief and assigned to Okinawa.

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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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  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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  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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  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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  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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  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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  Bob Ratonyi +17 Total Videos

  Hungarian Civilian

  It was a shakedown. Bob Ratonyi saw that he had to go off the trail and around the soldier collecting the money. Along with six others, he was making an attempt to escape communist Hungary after the brutal putdown of the Hungarian Uprising. He stumbled through the dark and found a group of peasants, but they were part of the operation, too. Part 4 of 4