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Brig Gen Tom Fleming

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He got shot at a lot. On night missions the tracers revealed what weapons were targeting FAC Tom Fleming. He was based in Thailand and his missions were over Laos, where the objective was to disrupt traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The anti-aircraft fire wasn't his greatest fear. It was friendly fire and collisions with other US aircraft. (4:42)

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Forward Air Controller Tom Fleming had a very unusual mission which convinced him we had nuked Laos. He was paired with a C-130 but the pilot in the other plane would not divulge what was going on. Then he saw a large object with a parachute being pushed out the back of the big plane. (4:45)

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From the beginning, Tom Fleming wanted to be a fighter pilot. He settled for a tour as a forward air controller in Vietnam and, after that, his quest for fighters continued as he embarked on a lengthy Air Force career. That career took him to Turkey, Germany, many stateside bases and the Pentagon, but it was Hawaii that was most satisfactory. (9:24)

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As Operation Desert Shield gave way to Operation Desert Storm, the Pentagon needed someone like a fighter pilot to brief the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense on biological and chemical warfare in language they could understand. So, Tom Fleming became the "bugs and gas guy." (3:46)

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Was the war in Vietnam a mistake? Tom Fleming was there and he believes it was important to show the large communist powers that we would not let their efforts around the world go unchecked. There were massive problems with the management of that war, for sure, but we needed to be there and could have easily had a different outcome. (4:12)

Britney Alexander

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Britney Alexander was born and raised in Louisiana and had a dad who was an Army figure. Because of her great love for her dad, she wanted to enlist in the Army just like him. She talks about where she was on 9/11, her basic training at Fort Jackson, and Fort Lee where she had her training to be a cook. (5:24)

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In contrast to Fort Lee, at Fort Hood Alexander found that she did little to no cooking whatsoever so she could prepare to go to Afghanistan. Once she had flown overseas, she was stationed at Shindand Air Base and was tasked with all of the mundane jobs no one else wanted to do, in addition to cooking the food, such as being put on Quick Reaction Force duty. (6:23)

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Alexander remembers being put on Quick Reaction Force duty, which essentially meant that she aided in one of the first lines of defense of the Shindand Air Base. When she first got there it was in the middle of the Islamic month of Ramadan, a very peaceful time in which there was little to no fighting from the enemy. Once that time ended, however, she was surprised to see that violent mortar attacks started up again. (7:47)

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Unlike wars of the past, Alexander actually had a way to talk to her family back home while she was away at war. She would use Skype and a phone line to talk to her family every so often. During her downtime, she would interact with the Italian Army soldiers, go to the gym, and try to enjoy herself with the people around her. There was one mortar attack in particular that she remembers being really close to their base. (6:09)

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At long last, Britney Alexander was allowed to fly back home to American soil. When they finally landed in the US, they were met with all kinds of cheering and applause from the people waiting for them. Instead of getting deployed to Afghanistan a second time, she was forced to step down after discovering the effects of a hip injury she had gotten. Soon after, she took a job as a truck driver and decided to go to business school, with plans to start up her own truck company later on down the line. (6:13)