Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans

SEARCH RESULTS

my selections

10,852
Videos
49
Photos
148
Docs

Search Again

advanced search

Mike Burke

Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) | 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment

Montana boy Mike Burke stepped off the plane in Georgia and thought he was going to die. The heat and humidity were unbelievable. He was bound for basic training at Fort Benning, where he had a contract for basic and Airborne school. But his sight was set beyond that. (5:49)
When you get to the Ranger Regiment, you have to prove yourself as a private before you can progress to Ranger School. Mike Burke just happened to catch the eye of the platoon sergeant and was catapulted ahead of others to go for it. (Caution: strong language) (7:46)
In Ranger School, you can get peer reviewed out by vote of the others in your training unit. In Mike Burke's unit, all the other guys were officers who all knew each other. He was about to get the shaft. (5:12)
Mike Burke made it through Ranger School and became a member of the Ranger Regiment. His battalion was on a training exercise in Germany when the startling news of the 9/11 attacks reached them. They were ready to ditch the training and go to war but that's not how it went. (8:23)
When Mike Burke heard about another Ranger unit jumping into Afghanistan in 2002, they figured that was it. They'd missed the war. That proved to be very wrong and, later that year, they were there as well. (6:25)
It was a great homecoming for Mike Burke after his Afghanistan tour. He went right back to hard training and, he didn't know it yet, but the next deployment would be to Iraq. The weeks before Saddam was deposed were chaotic but then the victors basked in the appreciation of the Iraqis, at least for a while. (Caution: strong language) (7:15)
It was chaos. There was no standardization of equipment between the Army, the Marines and Special Ops as Operation Iraqi Freedom unfolded. The outcome was inevitable, though, and Saddam was toppled. Mike Burke recalls his unit's involvement in the Jessica Lynch rescue, and "capturing" a high ranking Ba'ath official only to get a big surprise. (5:43)
We gave them a taste of freedom. Mike Burke wants all veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq to be proud they had a hand in that. Now it's up to those folks to decide if they want freedom bad enough to fight for it. (6:35)
Mike Carey

Vietnam | 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

His father was a Navy lifer but the Navy wanted a four year enlistment so Mike Carey went with the Marines. It would be the best training for Vietnam and he knew that's where he would be going. He had a specialist MOS but when he got there, he was just another grunt. (6:57)
After a short survival and orientation course, Mike Carey was on his way to Vietnam. All his romantic notions about war from all those war movies were immediately gone when he found out what his first assignment was. Eventually he made it to the field where he wasted no time in becoming a target. (6:11)