HomeMy WebLinkAboutMarcus Jones Pt. 1 & 2 TranscriptionCity of College Station
Heritage Programs Oral History
Interviewee: Marcus Jones
Interviewer: Jared Donnelly, Brooke Linsenbardt
Transcriber: Brooke Linsenbardt
Place: College Station, Texas
Project: Veterans of Aggieland
Jared Donnelly (JD): So today is June 29th, July twenty, see it is, July 29th, 2015. We are with Marcus Jones. This is Jared Donnelly. We are with Brooke Linsenbardt. We are doing an
interview with Marcus Jones at Fire Station One, here in College Station. So, I guess to start off when and where were you born?
00:21: Marcus Jones (MJ): I was born in Tyler, Texas, in 1980 and I grew up in Whitehouse, since I was four. We lived out in the country and then I guess moved into Whitehouse when I
was four years old. Graduated from Whitehouse High School in 1999 and the following fall I enrolled at Texas A&M and I was a member of B Company.
JD: B Company.
00:51: MJ: And the Corps of Cadets and Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band.
JD: Alright! What did your folks do?
00:57: MJ: My dad was in construction. He’s worked as a carpenter, builder, a mostly a field superintendent with commercial and industrial construction. My mom kind of did multiple things.
Mostly office work with a company there in Tyler that ran Mazzio’s and Ken’s Pizza, doing accounts payable and whatever all that incurs I’m not exactly sure.
JD: Right. Did she always work?
01:38: MJ: She always worked. Um. And she’s, she’s worked for different companies. Oil field companies. I can’t even think. Other construction companies, mostly doing office managerial
stuff.
JD: Gotcha. Siblings?
02:00: MJ: So I have one older brother. He’s four years older than me. Also went to Whitehouse, graduated from Whitehouse. He spent a couple of years at Tyler Junior College and he graduated
from Texas Tech in Lubbock. And he actually works for Purvis Industries in Austin right now.
JD: So still spread around the state then. Yeah. So you enrolled in fall of ’99?
02:26: MJ: Yes.
JD: Bonfire then.
02:28: MJ: Yes.
JD: Yeah. I, I guess actually back-up a little bit. Why’d you choose A&M?
02:34: MJ: It. I, I have no family ties or history with Texas A&M. Growing up there were several of our close family friends who were Aggies and that’s kind of just where I fell in.
Growing up, being in, being part of the band program at Whitehouse and the, I don’t want to use the word indoctrination, of A&M former students.
JD: Oh, sure, yeah.
03:10: MJ: But that was just what I wanted to do from probably before I was in high school was come to A&M and be in the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band.
JD: Yup.
03:25: MJ: I suspect that I have little aspirations past that.
JD: [chuckles] Being in the band?
03:40: MJ: So that was where my life planned ended at that stage of my life.
JD: Right.
03:47: MJ: I came to A&M to get my degree in meteorology because I really wanted to be the weather guy on T.V. And perhaps partly because of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. I just thought
that was entirely amusing and I thought that would be the funnest job ever.
JD: Yeah.
04:11: MJ: And while I’m still assured it is, maybe in the top five, that did not work out real well my first semester at A&M between calculus and chemistry and the course load that
I was undertaking, combined with the stress of being a freshman in the Corps and the Aggie Band with football season and the obligations that came with that. The workload proved more
than what I was willing to put forth the effort. And I guess I invested more than fifty percent of my energy in the other education as it’s known at A&M.
JD: [chuckle] Right. What was your instrument?
05:04: MJ: I played the baritone.
JD: Gotcha.
05:06: MJ: In the band.
JD: Now as far as I understand, the band, just being in the Corps in general is difficult to get into. Were you in the Scouts or anything like that?
05:14: MJ: I was, I was in, I’m an Eagle Scout, and did that all growing up. My brother was, was an Eagle Scout. That was a big part of, that was a big part of us growing up. And so.
JD: Right. So, but getting in the band itself is even more difficult, is that correct?
05:35: MJ: Some would say so. Some would disagree.
JD: Okay.
05:40: MJ: While there is. I think A&M is unique because it has no music program. However there are some phenomenal musicians at A&M who participate in the Aggie Band and the orchestra
and the symphonic bands.
[Brief Interruption]
JD: So. Go ahead.
06:08: MJ: Those talented. I mean certainly more than fifty percent and phenomenally talented musicians, often are able to—I don’t know the word I’m looking for—compensate for.
JD: Everybody else.
06:33: MJ: Less talented musicians who.
JD: Shore up the load. Sure.
06:40: MJ: Just plus up the numbers.
JD: I gotcha. Did you come early in the summer to start practicing with the band? Or is, do freshman, do freshman march with the band I guess?
06:48: MJ: Yes, absolutely. Freshman march with the band. As with, and to be in the band, it is mandatory. I had, came up here in the summer and I had to audition, with a musical piece.
JD: Were you recruited at all? Or just say, “Hey I, I want to be in the Corps and I’m good at playing the baritone” and so.
07:10: MJ: There. Well I was semi-recruited. So to speak, there was another, at the time there was, a student who was from Whitehouse who was in the Aggie Band. And so he of course,
we all advocate for it to people that we know. And just knowing him through school. And he was actually my brother’s age and so I knew him more through relation verses a personal relationship.
You know, it was always encouraged. Our, our band director at Whitehouse had. And he supported multiple programs across the state at multiple universities. I think he always had a soft
spot for the Aggie Band, despite him-self not being an Aggie or being in the Aggie Band. Another, I’d say, not necessarily a pivotal point in that was in 1995, my freshman year in
high school, we participated in the National Association of Marching Bands, of Military Marching Bands, Competition at A&M. It was the last year it was held on Kyle Field because that
was the last year they had artificial turf before they changed Kyle Field back to natural grass. And the experience of coming to A&M, and this is pre-zone, and walking through the tunnel
of the horseshoe just up into Kyle Field with the scoreboard on the south end zone and coming through that north side. It just. It was a really, I mean just influential moment.
JD: Sure. I imagine as a freshman yeah.
09:20: MJ: And that compared with the stadiums at Stephen F. Austin where several other band competitions were held and, just other stadiums we had been in. Just the grandiose of Kyle
Field is remarkable.
JD: So you came in the summer before.
09:41: MJ: So I came the summer of ’99 and I auditioned. The, the Corps of Cadets itself begins for freshman and cadre of sophomores, juniors, and seniors, the week before classes start.
It’s known as Freshman Orientation Week. And it’s a week dedicated strictly to, education and assimilation into the Corps lifestyle from getting haircuts, to learning how to march—which
being in the band, we all already knew for the most part. To uniforms, to expectations of how to maintain our rooms, which as a fish it’s known as your hole. And, as far, just housekeeping,
and just the typical Corps standards and routine of that lifestyle in preparation for classes starting and the first day of school.
JD: Right. How much band practice did you have before the first home game though? Or, or, or did you. Just. I guess, my understanding is that the band itself is larger than what actually
goes on the field. Is that correct or is everybody on the field?
11:08: MJ: Typically no.
JD: Really?
11:10: The band marches its full member, sans maybe twelve personnel. Because in block formation, the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band, is, is twelve across. And that’s also, you know, there’s
twelve members of bugle rank, which it’s always the first rank of the Aggie Band in marching formation. I’m sure there’s a tie-over into the twelfth man. But it also is a good size
for the military marching band and the size of the field. Part of F.O.W. is also a lot of band practice and marching. Learning the techniques and just the way things are and perfecting
that so that we’re ready for the first home game.
JD: Yeah, that’s remarkable.
12:17: MJ: And so however many people, times twelve, and you know, you never have an exact number and so there’s usually a handful of alternates. But that also can take into account
people who may be injured or sick. The only time the freshman do not travel with the band is. My freshman year, we went to, the band went to the Nebraska football game in Lincoln. And
the freshman did not travel due to the expense of flying the entire band, to Nebraska and providing housing and meals, of that sort. And there’s typically one game a year that we would
go far off. The four years I was at A&M. My freshman year we went to Nebraska, sans the, myself, which I watched on T.V. My sophomore year we went to South Bend and played Notre Dame.
My junior year we went to Pittsburg. And my senior year I could not tell you. I just, it escapes me at the moment.
JD: Ah, no worries.
13:37: MJ: And typically those games, due to the expense, the freshman don’t travel.
JD: Right. So that’s remarkable. For some reason I thought that the band was larger than what was on there. I assumed there was a J.V. band and then the, wow. So the fact that they have
that level of precision.
13:51: MJ: Absolutely not. And so the, the first home game of the year is all four classe,s in rank and file.
JD: With some of them only having been doing this for three or four weeks.
14:02: MJ: Max.
JD: Wow.
14:04: MJ: And especially, I know the first home game this year is September 5. And so that will be maybe two weeks of school. And last year the first home game was earlier than that
so.
JD: Yeah. Wow. That’s impressive. I hadn’t even thought of that. So that first semester, Bonfire.
14:25: MJ: That, that was quite an experience. Perhaps one of the most. You know, that’s something that’s real special to me to this day. And, it sticks with me and it really, it really
engrained to me the spirit of A&M. Not just in both ways from getting to experience cut and going out to center pole and going out to stack and all the other ancillary activities that
go along with Bonfire. One of them being the, what they call a pot, which is the, the hard hats. It’s the old K-Pot liner from World War II style metal helmets. It was a Kevlar liner
that went inside that everyone utilized as hard hats. Participating in any Bonfire related activities. And of course they’re painted. And, with our outfit, we, we came up with our design
and slogans on the side. And stenciled them and painted them. That’s what, that’s what we wore to all the Bonfire events. I still have mine, along with my gloves. And has been untouched
to the point of even all the scratches and worn-off paint per, in as were condition.
JD: Right. Sixteen years ago.
16:19: MJ: You know and I remember being in, being in the dorms on November 18 and us being woken up at 2:30 in the mornin’. And it was always, it was always interesting once, once the
center pole went up. You know, there were spotlights on the polo fields, twenty-four hours a day, of course they were only lit up at night. But in addition to just the lights around
campus, you know, you have this huge glow of you know, it’s pretty much daylight over there on that side. And with not much between the quad going over to the polo fields we were in
dorm 11, which is the very backside of, the quad, right next to the drill field and you have the south side parking garage. And you almost have a straight line of sight between the
garage and just over, the commons and the south side dorms. And so it was always lit up. And we got woke up, obviously shortly after 2:30 in the morning for them to
do accountability. And at the time it was very surreal, just with all the dust and haze that I suppose had been kicked up. And of course it’s amplified by the lights over at the polo
fields. And it was, it, is a, as a fish in the Corps, you’re perpetually in a state of sleep deprivation. And then on top of that, you have the actual fog of the night created by the
environment. And it was very surreal. To the point I, I honestly didn’t know what was going on. It didn’t kick in. I can remember them pulling us all out and we took accountability
of everybody. And they told us that Bonfire had fell, but nothing really sinks in, nothing really registered. At least not for me at that moment. And then going back to bed. And then
it was extremely surreal after three and a half months of every morning at six a.m. being woken up by yelling and doors being kicked open and doors slamming and the, the hustle of morning
wake-up that occurs in the dorms. I mean it was silent. It was, it was, it was very earie.
JD: Yeah. Did you, were you guys involved in any of the efforts to pull folks out or move timber or anything like that?
19:15: MJ: Absolutely. We. You know they cancelled classes that day. Probably due to the fact that no one was going to come anyway. But we spent, we spent the better part of three days—me
and a good majority of my buddies—over at the, over at stack and helping, watching, waiting. In the, the show of support from eighteen year olds who you didn’t know from Adam. And that
experience just has made a lasting impression. And not just the Bonfire collapse, but the entire Bonfire experience of you know, it seemed like the entire fall was surrounded by Bonfire.
Every weekend you would go to the cut site and, or you would go to center pole or you would go to stack. And you have thousands of people from different walks of life, different areas
of Texas, places across the country. You have different mentalities from the Corps of Cadets and the, kind of the military-esque groups, to the fraternities and sororities, to Walton
and Heart which were very, uh, to not misuse the term subversive or antiestablishment, you know, with one common goal, with one, one ideal. And it was an event that brought the entire
university together. And I don’t know how it was before. I can assume that it was the same. But you felt a part of something. And walking around campus not knowing anyone. And of course,
there’s the tradition of saying “Howdy” to everyone. But it, it was, I think Bonfire amplified that unity and that oneness that everyone felt because we all had this common bond of
Bonfire that brought together all these different people that otherwise wouldn’t interact, that would never see each other, or maybe even talk to each other. People that had no interest
in anything else of similarity. That was the one thing that everyone could relate to. And in the four and a half years that I was at A&M, I feel like that faltered. And I can only attribute
it to the lack of Bonfire.
JD: Yeah. Now, of course they do off-campus student Bonfire. But as far as I understand, it’s nothing compared to what the culture was like when Bonfire was on-campus. It must have felt
like quite the void, the three years after that every fall.
23:17: MJ: It, it was. It was a constant. I’d say the, the one thing that everyone maybe rallied around sans Bonfire was just the reports and the waiting of what was going to happen
with
Bonfire. You know, it was always, we were consumed with that for the next two and a half years.
JD: Yeah. And then lawsuits and everything else, sure. Shifting gears a little bit. When you came to A&M and joined the Corps, did you know that you would commission, that you would
take contract?
23:57: MJ: No. I actually had talked to my friend from Whitehouse, who at the time was, was getting ready to graduate and he was commissioning as an Ar-, Army officer. And my primary
goal was to find the easiest route and, so as far as the Corps of Cadets goes two years of ROTC training is mandatory. And then anything passed that is non-compulsory. And so those
first two years, I mean you have your option of Air Force, Navy, or Army ROTC. And I asked Brian, I was like, “If I have no interest in joining the military whatsoever, what is the
easiest ROTC program to get through my two years of compulsory ROTC?” And the answer was “Army.” And without uh. And throughout the two years of school, comparing the workload and class
requirements, Army ROTC was most definitely the easier of the three. And part of that was because of my background. The first year of Army ROTC was spent with map reading and marksmanship,
which I grew up around firearms and been hunting and I, I knew how to shoot a rifle. And through Boy Scouts I knew how to read a map and use a compass. And so I mean, my first year
of Army ROTC was pretty easy because it was just a review of what I already, already knew and the opportunity to hone those skills further and really develop from a higher baseline
than perhaps the general population.
JD: Yeah. So when did you decide to take the commission?
26:38: MJ: The se, the second year of Army ROTC I suppose is what I like to call the “Big Sell”. And, it’s further training of just Army standards, Army protocol, basic leadership skills.
But then there’s also static displays and a lot of guest speakers to come in and describe their experiences. And of course this is in 2000 and spring of 2001. And the country had been
at peace for ten years since the Persian Gulf War, or the First Gulf War, which comparatively now, really wasn’t much compared to say the Vietnam War, the Korean War, World War II.
JD: A hundred and four hours or something like that.
27:50: MJ: [chuckle] So walking around on Dunkin Field and getting to see Apache and Blackhawk helicopters. Getting to see M-1 Abrams tanks, up-close, crawling around on them. You know
they had a couple of reserved officers who had been on active duty and were continuing some of their commitment and their reserve in National Guard. And hearing about all of the opportunities
that you have in the military, as well as some of the perks of maybe a peace time army and some of the stereotypical you know barbeques and beach volleyball games and softball tournaments
and that sort of thing. That absolutely went on during my time in the Army, but it was an entirely different, I guess focus. It just seemed like a good idea at the time for me. I was
like “This is great.”
JD: So you’d already, I, I guess what’s the, you signed a contract I guess.
29:04: MJ: So the beginning of my junior year.
JD: Fall of ’01.
29:10:MJ: Which, and it was actually August 27th of 2001, I signed a guaranteed refer, reserved forces duty contract. I was like, “Ah, you know, alright, this Army thing seems pretty
fun. I don’t know if this is what I want to do every day,” you know, “But i-, it seems okay.” I signed my contract to be end of the commissioned, end of the reserves upon graduation.
And then of course two weeks later, the whole paradigm shifted with September 11 and the bombing of the World Trade Centers.
JD: Tell us where you were and what’s your like immediate. Give us sort of your “where I was when Pearl Harbor happened” sort of reaction.
30:02: MJ: Well it’s, it’s probably the worst story ever.
JD: [chuckle] I was asleep. Somebody woke me up.
30:10: MJ: You know, it was after six a.m. so we were of course, all awake already. We had been to, we had been to breakfast and we had already finished drill practice for the day. And,
it makes it easy to remember my buddy’s birthday because he was, it was his birthday that day. And one of the joys of being in the Corps and the comradery that’s built as is some of
the pranks that we partake in. And.
JD: Was this your old lady or is this just a?
30:53: MJ: No, just one of my buddies. You know the, one of the benefits of being an upper classman is that you’re no longer. You know that sophomores train, the freshman. And so they’re
the pseudo-drill sergeants. And they, you don’t have the ability to goof off and have fun because you take on that role as a sophomore. But once you’re a junior and a senior, you know
you’re in a more, you’re in a leadership role of you’re, you’re managing the training that the sophomores are doing. And you’re overseeing that, but you also have the luxury of being
on a real positive relationship of you know being the, being the, the “fun uncle” verses the “mean dad” so to speak with, with the freshman. And so we’d had a big group of the freshman
had gone and, and grabbed him from his room after we got back from drill. And they were carrying him down the hallway and they were taking him into the bathrooms to give him a swirly.
And then we had all the showers on cold to throw him in the shower. And of course me and, and a few others, we were spearheading this whole operation. And I was rounding them up, getting
them into, into the bathrooms, as, as a guy stuck his head out the wi-, out the door saying, “A plane just flew into the World Trade Center.” I’m thinking, “Man, that’s crazy. Get him
in there! Get him in there!” And you know it, it’s just, it’s something that you hear and you’re like, “Wow.” Like, “That’s, that’s really strange.” You know but it, it doesn’t really
register first off just because it’s, it’s so outrageous of. And you know, you hear about a plane crash. “Oh, well plane crash.” You know, “Okay.” It’s not a frequent event, but it
happens. And then once, once we got my
buddy taken care of for his birthday and finished that whole operation, you know it’s like, trying to figure out what’s going on, like what happened. And, and the realization of what
was actually going on, has the opportunity to sink in and really take over. And I think they cancelled classes that day as well. We, I remember spending most of the day just watching,
watching the news. And.
JD: Were you reflecting on your paperwork just a few weeks earlier, thinking “Well, this is getting real?”
33:51: MJ: No that, that really did not come into play at all. I’m not so much of a forward thinker.
JD: [chuckle] Gotcha. All right. So you said you were four and a half years so did you graduate in December?
34:05: MJ: I graduated in December of 2003. I strategically planned I guess later on to go ahead and extend out. Part of that was I found that during, during you know, after a couple
of years in school, you know, I was able to be very successful to a certain point, until I got overwhelmed with course hours. And balancing the obligations with the Corps and the Band,
and, but still wanting to excel in school. I typically took twelve, thirteen, fourteen hours, verses really pushing to finish in four years.
JD: Right. So that last semester, were you still in the Corps then? Or.
35:06: MJ: No. The four, the Corps is a four year institution.
JD: So you became a non-ranked I guess.
35:13: MJ: So I was, I spent. I kind of got the best of both worlds. I got to experience four years in the Corps and the Aggie Band and, and all of the experiences that that afforded.
And then I also got to experience the other half of, the other half of campus.
JD: Did that, I’m sure it did, but it probably gave you a much better appreciation for the fuller picture of, of A&M. Of what student life’s like all around.
35:44: MJ: A little bit. I’d, I’d say that there’s no better place to experience the full, university life than in the Corps of Cadets at A&M. But you know, it, it changes the way you
look at things. It, you know, it really sets you up for success. You know a lot of people come to A&M and they may never have had to study or try or develop strong habits for school,
which I was certainly one of them. You know, and it gave me the discipline that I needed to excel without a regimented lifestyle.
JD: Gotcha. So, so fall of ’03 when you graduated, so the build-up to the war, our involvement in Afghanistan, and the invasion of Iraq—that all happens while you’re still in school.
36:52: MJ: Yes. I, part of, part of signing a reserved forces contract, is once, once you do that you, I don’t know it’s, you go through a formal enlistment process, but you begin participating
with a reserved or National Guard unit, as a cadet. And.
JD: Start training and everything.
37:26: MJ: You, you kind of. It’s, it’s a little bit of on-the-job training similar to what an internship would be with a reserve unit. And I, I, I was part of the 4-20th engineering
brigade here in Bryan. And so one weekend a month I would spend over there at the reserve center. And doing that, while in school, you know, it was, it was nice because all of a sudden
I, I’m, I’m working an actual paying job because being actually enlisted you know, you do receive a paycheck, just as anyone else in the reserves. That was definitely a nice benefit.
But I also saw how that lifestyle would carry over for the next several years in my life as far as my friends would be going to do something and I’m still here because I’ve got drill
weekend. And kind of watching, watching that. And through that experience, I decided that I did not want to participate in the military in the reserves because I felt like it was, it’s,
it’s two-sided. You’re almost living two lives. Of you have this part of you that does this and then you have your regular life, aside from your military life. And that, and I just,
I didn’t really like the way that played out during my junior year. And so the beginning of my senior year I changed my contract to an active duty contract. I discontinued drilling
with the reserved unit. And I had also allowed me to accept an ROTC scholarship to further help pay for A&M. And so I was able to have that scholarship for the next year and a half
while I finished school. And then I was commissioned in December, upon graduation. Or actually the day prior to graduation, but.
JD: Did you already know that you were going to go into ordinance at that point? Or?
40:03: MJ: We have, during your, between your junior and senior year with Army ROTC, you participate in what at the time was called National Advanced Leadership Camp. It was a thirty
day training at Fort Lewis, Washington, where you’re evaluated on basic infantry skills. It’s all designed to evaluate leadership.
JD: This is just for the Corps? Or just for senior military?
40:36: MJ: This is, this is just for Army contract, Army cadets. And it’s comprised of ROTC cadets across the nation who are between their third and fourth year of training. And through
that camp, doin’ land navigation, marksmanship, the Army physical fitness test, leadership evaluations, basic infantry tactics and skills, creates a national ranking list. It’s almost
like the draft. And they create this order of merit list through that. And that becomes the basis for your, whatever your preferences may be. There’s at the time, well I guess there
still is. There’s seventeen branches in the Army. Sixteen if you’re not qualified for aviation, which at the time, I wasn’t. And you rank in, in list order, all sixteen of “I want to
be infantry, armor, combat engineer, military police.” And down through you have the combat arms, the support, and then the service support branches. And there’s different, you have
to select a certain number of combat arms, combat support branches in your top five choices. And then based on your order of merit list, ranking. Whoever, you know the
number one guy in the nation, they’re going to look at his preference list and say, “Oh, he wants infantry. He’s infantry.” And the way that works is they, they had a eighty, twenty
capacity for, they had this many openings in each branch and they would fill every branch based on requests through the O.M.L. to eighty percent full. And then once everybody was eighty
percent full, it started over. And so my, my first choice was armor because I wanted to be in the Cav. And because I, I don’t think there’s any better place to be than the, than the
United States Cavalry. And you get to wear Stetsons. And drive tanks. And, just the, the, the lore and the heraldry along with, with the, with the Cav, is just. It’s an amazing, it’s
amazing organization within the Army. And I knew that was something I wanted to be a part of. I had the opportunity following Advanced Camp to go to Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland
for three weeks, through a program known as Cadet Troop Leadership Training. Where you know, you take these about to be fourth year cadets, and send them to different units to shadow
and mirror lieutenants to get a idea of what daily life is like. It’s, it’s, it’s another version of an internship that the Army provides to give you a more in-depth look and further
train and prepare yourself for you know, the military, once you commission. I went to Aberdeen Proving Grounds which is home of the ordinance corps. And.
JD: Is at Fort, is it at Fort Lee now? Or was it at Fort Lee and now it’s at Aberdeen?
45:04: MJ: No. It’s, it’s, at least I don’t know where it’s always been, but through my tenure it’s, it’s been Aberdeen Proving Grounds. And I was actually. And Aberdeen Proving Grounds
consists of a giant testing facility with, that’s where they have the ordinance officer’s basic course, and they do all the maintenance A.I.T. training for enlisted personnel. So it
was, it was kind of a unique situation because it’s a training base, I wasn’t with a active duty platoon, or an operational platoon. I was paired up with, with the drill sergeants.
And you know, the N.C.O.s in the Army, they’re, they’re the ones that train everybody. They, the, the N.C.O. Corp’s truly the backbone of the Army. And, being with the drill sergeants.
You know, they were the ones that were training me and the, the other eight people that were there as cadets, as well as allowing us to experience and watch them train the soldiers.
And to see, and it was, I think it was really unique because there’s a lot of people that go into the military as officer and through ROTC or going through the Academy that never really
get the experience of what the enlisted personnel go through with basic training and A.I.T. because A.I.T. is, it’s, they’re still very confined.
JD: Advanced Individual Training.
46:55: MJ: Advanced Individual Training. They’re still very confined, similar to basic training, just with slightly a few more perks than you have during that first nine weeks. And so
it, it really gave me the opportunity to witness that first hand of what these brand new privates and specialists go through in their training. How they’re treated. And to see you know
their struggles and being able to talk to them and watch them as they’re developing, you know, through maybe their first time away from home. And it fortunately with A&M having a Corps
of Cadets just verses a standard ROTC program, a lot of that correlates. Being a, being a private in basic training or A.I.T., you know I could relate from my time as a fish in the
Corps with the, the regiment and the, the physical training, and the punishments,
and the, just the lifestyle that goes on in that environment. So it’s, it’s very different than, I guess other training and schools that I’ve been through.
JD: So who were you shadowing at that point? Is that when you were working with ordinance? Or is that when you were still trying to follow.
48:35: MJ: I was, I was, I was with you know, the, the company commander for our training company was the ordinance officer as was the X.O. and so it, it gave me the opportunity to be
exposed to what ordinance really does.
JD: And you had already?
48:57: MJ: And I had not submitted you know, this is, this is pre me really knowing all the opportunities. You know, everybody, you know everybody in the Army, you know, they want to
be infantry, they want to be armor, you know you want to be aviation. And the support roles, and the service support roles really don’t get a lot of exposure, because most people that
want to join the Army, that’s, that’s not their dream. You know, “I, I want to be like, a really great transportation officer, and manage transportation for, the Army.” That’s, that’s
not really what sells with you know the typical type of people that the Army recruits and the, and also the, I feel the typical people that are drawn to military service in general.
And it gave me a really unique experience to spend some time with, with the, with the, company commander to see what all ordinance really was about. Verses somebody just saying, “Oh
this is ordinance. They do this, this, and this.” And it gave me the opportunity to really spend some time with somebody who was in that field. And the great thing about the service
support and the support roles, or the support branches in the military such as ordinance and quartermaster and transportation. All of that is a direct transfer over into the private
sector, for any company that does distribution, manufacturing.
JD: Supply management.
50:56: MJ: Because, supply chain management. You know people go to school for four years now for supply chain management. Whereas, that’s what I did. Sidebar, after my first semester
as a meteorology major, within the first nine weeks of school, I was looking for a new major. And I happened to find Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences.
JD: Oh yeah? RPTS.
51:27: MJ: Which was everything that I liked to do growing up. And I was like, “Well this is great! I can go to college to do things I like to do!” And so, as a, as a, you know a college
graduate with a degree in recreation, going into a field of maintenance and logistics and what turned out to be more responsibility, more everything of somebody in the first four years
of their career. You know it affords an incredible opportunity, as far as resume building. If, if you choose to do four years and get out, and you want to transfer those skills over
to the private sector verses every great company needs leaders and you don’t need, you don’t need to know how the wheel works to be able to use it, or to be able to lead people who
were in charge of that. You know the combat arms fields offer all that
leadership skills, but they don’t offer a lot of the subject matter expertise that transfers over into the corporate world. And so I was really able to get a strong look at that.
53:02: [Interruption: Ambulance Call]
*Start of new recording, but same interview*
JD: All right, we are back with Marcus Jones. This is Jared Donnelly and Brooke Linsenbardt and we’re talking about. Where’d we leave off? You’re figuring out your branch, just about
to go active. Right?
00:00:16: MJ: Yes.
JD: Yeah, okay. So, I think the last bit we were talking about was how you chose to go ordinance and I don’t think you’ve yet gone to your branch school yet though.
00:00:30: MJ: No.
JD: Okay.
00:00:32: MJ: You know through, through being at Aberdeen Proving Grounds you know, I was exposed to some of the opportunities that you have post-military service, just with the subject
matter knowledge that you gain. And the, and the, and the support world and having the opportunity to utilize that later. So I went ahead and when I was filling out my preferences,
ordinance was my second choice, pretty much through process of it’s what I had become slightly more familiar with. You know and I ranked everything else. And when I got to it, you know
I ended up being branched ordinance. And, my initial assignment was to Fort Bragg, was where my initial duty station was supposed to be upon completion of training.
JD: Did you train at Aberdeen?
00:01:39: MJ: Yes. So I graduated in December 2003 and then I did what they refer to just as a delayed entry. So I didn’t actually go on active duty until May of 2004.
JD: So what’d you do?
00:01:59: MJ: I worked for a landscaping company here in town.
JD: Yeah.
00:02:03: MJ: And just enjoyed College Station.
JD: Right, without the stress of
00:02:08: MJ: Post student.
JD: Yeah.
00:02:12: MJ: Through different, just how it played out sort of.
JD: Yeah, sure.
00:02:25: So I went, I went on active duty in May of 2004 and went out to Aberdeen Proving Grounds. And I was there for four and a half months, five months. And during that time frame
because of there were o-, Afghanistan War, and everything is always based on needs of the army. My duty station ended up being changed to Fort Hood.
JD: Oh cool. Back to Texas then.
00:03:03: MJ: So in October I reported to Fort Hood and, serendipitously I was assigned to a cavalry unit so. And I ended up spending the entire, my, my six years in the Army in the
tenth cav.
JD: [chuckle] That worked out.
00:03:27: MJ: So I kind of, I kind of got the best of both worlds.
JD: Yeah, yeah. So what was your job starting out?
00:03:33: MJ: My, my first job was I became the squadron maintenance officer. And.
JD: You on Bradleys?
00:03:43: MJ: Hmm-hmm. We had, I was assigned to second brigade 4-I.D. in the first squadron, tenth cavalry regiment because it’s a mechanized division. It’s a heavy infantry. The, we
had Bradleys and Humvees, and they were changing the concept of forced module, forced modularization. And so every battalion-sized element, had its own support company to include logistics.
A lot of it was already intrinsically in the units previously, but it was restructured to create more, officer leadership roles directly with their, with the units. So instead of having
a armor officer be in charge of maintenance at the staff level, you actually had a ordinance officer who specialized in maintenance, being in charge of the maintenance program. And
it also enabled the units at a smaller level, to have more maintenance capabilities with how they processed things.
JD: Right.
00:05:30: MJ: And the idea was to move more support forward.
JD: Get things fixed faster and supplies faster.
00:05:36: MJ: Exactly.
JD: Gotcha.
00:05:38: MJ: So I really reaped the benefits of that. And it you know, it all just kind of came down to timing.
JD: Right.
00:05:45: MJ: So my first job was the squadron maintenance officer. And I, I was in that position for eighteen months as a second lieutenant. And then you know, once I got
promoted to first lieutenant, I was in charge of the maintenance of everything in the, in the squadron. Twenty-six Bradleys, fifty-one gun truck Humvees, as well as all the.
JD: You say gun truck? Was that the fifty cal turret?
00:06:18: MJ: The, yes. The M-20, N, M-1025, 1026 family of Humvees which is the slant-back or turtle shell Humvees that people. It’s kind of the stereotypical ones when you think of
fighting Humvees.
JD: Right
00:06:40: MJ: Verses just the, the cargo. And then of course we had all the command track vehicles, the medic track vehicles, medic Humvees, and all the other support vehicles. Generators,
weapons. Any, anything that had a motor, or fuel, or moving parts we managed.
JD: That’s a lot.
00:07:08: MJ: When I, when I took over at the unit 1-10 cav or 4-I.D. as a whole, had returned from a deployment in March of 2004. And they were in the middle of a reset process of turning
over all the equipment and due to all the wear and tear from a year in Iraq, everything was being gone through with civilian contractors to really go through and make sure that everything
was back, battle ready. And, and we took a fifty page list of vehicles and equipment down to about five to eight pages is kind of how it typically ran as far as vehicles that were out
of service due to maintenance and stuff like that.
JD: Right, right. To get everything ready to go.
00:08:13: MJ: Hmm-hmm.
JD: Yeah. I imagine that’s a long process.
00:08:17: MJ: So it was, it was a really unique experience also from that aspect, just from the quantity of, of maintenance that was occurring. And then also being managed and oversaw
levels much higher than it is usually at the you know, from the typical squadron or battalion level through brigade and division. And then also the uniqueness of working with civilian
contractors and other agencies to complete that.
JD: So this, you did you make first lieutenant before you deployed?
00:09:07: MJ: Sort of.
JD: Yeah.
00:09:10: MJ: I was, I was once known as, I was frocked to first lieutenant. I was, my promotion date was after my deployment date, but in order to do a promotion ceremony amongst all
my peers and everybody in the unit before we deployed, I got promoted a few weeks early and it was just symbolic more or less. It’s a, it’s a pretty uncommon thing. But at the same
time it’s, I guess it happens more in the war time army verses, with an increase operational tempo. And I was, I was on the advanced party that deployed because I was the
maintenance officer so that when we deployed to set up systems and have things ready in Kuwait, as well as receiving vehicles off the boat and getting them moved from the port up to
Camp Buehring which is where we were for about six weeks prior to actually moving in theatre. I was there about four weeks prior to the main body of the squadron deploying.
JD: So about ten weeks total in Saudi Arabia, or Kuwait?
00:10:48: MJ: Well six weeks, about six weeks total.
JD: Oh for you, okay.
00:10:53: MJ: So I was there for a month and then everyone else arrived.
JD: And they’re there for two weeks and then you all stepped off into country?
00:11:00: MJ: Hmm-hmm
JD: Okay. So you staged in Kuwait and then where were you sent?
00:11:07: MJ: We staged in Kuwait. I got to experience a good little Thanksgiving dinner in Kuwait.
JD: On base I guess?
00:11:13: MJ: On base.
JD: Yeah.
00:11:15: MJ: December 9th we, we moved north into Iraq and our first station we were at Camp Charlie, which was a, multi-national forces base at the time. It was in Alhilla, Iraq. It
was occupied by Mongolians, El Salvador Army, there was a special operation’s team working out of there. Polish, Romanian, Armenian, Armenian, and probably another half dozen other
countries, that all had forces staged out of Camp Charlie. So that was really fun, to get the exposure of all the different militaries. A lot of those countries, forces, they were getting
ready to redeploy. Or not redeploy, but go back to their home countries. We had the opportunity to spend more time with the Mongolians and the El Salvadorians, or El Salvadorans.
JD: I mean, I don’t know.
00:12:42: MJ: Because they were there much longer of the time. Most of the camp was, all the services were provided through K.B.R. and they had civilian contract services there. And
a lot of third country nationals that worked.
JD: I’ve heard these type of bases described, or camps described as a, an international mix, but everybody had their own little area for all, each, each country had its own mess, its
own everything. So you walk from one to another and be kind of like going in all these different countries.
00:13:23: MJ: It was, everyone had their own living space. There was one consolidated dining facility that was managed by K.B.R. that supported the entire base.
JD: So you all had chow with everybody?
00:13:37: MJ: So everybody ate dinner together.
JD: Wow, that’s cool.
00:13:42: MJ: So it was always a unique experience.
JD: Did they try to cater the menu to all these different cultures or?
00:13:48: MJ: Uh. Yes and no. I mean there was a good range of, of food, but it was a smaller base so there wasn’t, there wasn’t uh, it wasn’t like going to the food court necessarily.
There wasn’t, you didn’t have a whole lot of options, but there were a lot of, there was some variety of what you could eat.
JD: Right. Did, did the other folks you interact with, so the Mongolians for example and I imagine this is, as far as I know, they don’t, they don’t go out of country very often so this.
00:14:29: MJ: The Mongolians typically kept to themselves. They had one individual that spoke English and he was kind of our liaison officer that we would go through if we needed anything.
While they were there, part of their duties was force protection of the base and so they manned the entrance gates, as well as all the guard towers around the.
JD: So they did security checks of people coming in?
00:15:00: MJ: Yeah.
JD: [chuckle] And only one of them spoke English? [laughs]
00:15:05: Yeah. But I mean you, you, we all knew you know, all the uniform personnel were very easily identifiable verses just the typical civilian population.
JD: Right. I guess that makes sense. Sure. So how long were you, this is Camp Charlie you said?
00:15:26: MJ: Hmm-hmm.
JD: How long were you at Camp Charlie?
00:15:28: MJ: We were there from December till May of 2006.
JD: Did you operate out on, go on missions or anything out of Camp Charlie?
00:15:39: MJ: Yes. At that point, I spent the first three months in country, I spent as the maintenance officer, and at that point we had a kind of a shift in our leadership because
you’ll typically spend twelve to eighteen months in a position, and then you’ll change positions. And partly is to broaden your experience. It also allows your other peers to do the
same. At that point I became the support platoon leader or distribution platoon leader
and my buddy Mike took over as the maintenance officer. And our other buddy who was the support platoon leader took over as the maintenance platoon leader. And really the different is
is the maintenance platoon leader is more in charge of soldiers and personnel issues and managing, managing the people, verses managing maintenance specific, where the maintenance officer
was more of a staff role, verses a people oriented role.
JD: So what was the day like? Sort of day to day operations stuff?
00:17:10: MJ: Uh.
JD: Was there an average day?
00:17:15: MJ: There, there is no such thing as an average day. But a lot of days are the same, but no day is the same. You know, your, your working personnel is something that gets divided
through different duties and details that have to be accomplished around the base. As these other forces moved out, we picked up more of the force protection role on the, on the base.
You know, having soldiers doing guard duty in the towers, guard duty at the gate. Stuff like that. Cuts out your working force. And we, we took on a lot of that responsibility because
we were in more of a support role with the main, with the maintenance and mechanics. And then the other support personnel. The you know, we have ammunition guys and water guys and fuel
guys and, it kind of gets pared down because K.B.R. managed the fuel. So we didn’t really have as much. We still had our fuel trucks and we maintained those and we utilized those, but
then we just went over to the fuel farm and filled up our trucks. And it wasn’t a, it wasn’t the same as if you were operating in a, like a symmetric warfare operation because we were
in a base-style operation.
JD: What was your regiment’s mission?
00:19:01: Uh. I have no idea.
JD: [laughs]
00:19:07: That was.
JD: Were they out on patrol? Were they?
00:19:09: MJ: We, we did a lot of community involvement stuff. Trying to build community relations, establishing relations with the, with the city leaders, the tribal leaders. Of course
just general security of identifying who’s a good guy, who’s a bad guy. Managing and identifying threats with I guess Al-Qaida later. A.Q.I. There were different terminologies used
throughout the progression of the war.
JD: Right. The groups themselves changed too.
00:19:55: MJ: Exactly.
JD: Yeah.
00:19:57: MJ: You know, what the, what the scout patrol, what the scout platoons did on patrols, I don’t really know. I was very immersed in my piece of the pie. And because you know,
I mean I was a first lieutenant and I didn’t, the big picture wasn’t my picture.
JD: Sure, it didn’t need to be. Right.
00:20:22: MJ: And. So.
JD: Okay.
00:20:28: MJ: We would do different, different, different patrols to other bases. The support battalion was about two hours away and every now and then, we would run down there for parts
or other supplies of. We established a miniature version of a P.X for.
[Brief Interruption]
00:20:53: MJ: For, for. Just general quality of life items, to bring back so that soldiers could read magazines and have bubble gum and anything like that.
JD: Um. I had a thought and I lost it. Oh, in terms of support and in particularly in maintenance, what were some of the biggest challenges you dealt with? I, was it always having trouble
with a certain thing busting down? Could you, you’re always having perhaps difficulty getting things, different things you need?
00:21:28: MJ: There was always, there was always something. Parts acquisitions was always challenging. There was never a isolated part that was you know, “We’re never gonna get this.”
Or we’re waiting on five of these. It’s, it was just a matter of you know, maintenance. There’s a proactive side and a reactive side. One of the challenges that we had partly because
of the environment and the vehicles was air conditioning is such a vital part, with being able to keep the vehicles closed up for the protection measures and being able to keep soldiers
safe and cool without over exposing them to heat. So air conditioning was the biggest thing. As well as you know the vehicles get, get worked hard. They, they got used hard.
JD: Were you guys up armored by that point?
00:22:35: MJ: Yes.
JD: Yeah.
00:22:36: MJ: We had fully up armored Humvees. We had the modular uh trucks, two and a half ton, five ton trucks from Stewart and Stevenson. Up armored wreckers and everything else.
JD: If, if you guys had a vehicle that was, that you know, suffered an I.E.D. strike and it was recovered, was it still support and supply with, was it still maintenance that had, within
your own battalion?
00:23:19: MJ: It, it depended on the severity of the vehicle. And then we, one of the things that we did is we, we, we established a team that would go through those vehicles that, to
determine if it was a catastrophic lose or not. And really uh, really determine where it was. And everything has you know, there were charts that established what our, what our maximum
expenditure limits were as far as where, where does it become a point that it a catastrophic lose.
JD: You draw the line, right. So kind of like an insurance adjustor.
00:24:07: MJ: Exactly. And so you know, that’s all something we did in house. If it exceeded the mel you know, it’s gonna get set aside and we would coordinate transportation to have
it moved to where the support battalion was or just shipped back to Kuwait. We always, you know, everything goes in stages to the next higher level maintenance. So if it was something
that went above us, it would go to the support battalion. For them to, and they have different, they have a different mel for what they can replace. For things before it, before they
move it up and it may just go back to Kuwait and become scrap, where they, you know, you take all the salvageable parts off of it to be used for something else.
JD: Did, how, I guess how effective, or not effective, how well equipped was your shop? Was this like a three bay with lifts or, or was this more of a pretty?
00:25:14: MJ: This was, this was out in the open.
JD: Yeah. Okay.
00:25:21: MJ: You know we.
JD: So the guy working in his driveway kind of.
00:25:23: MJ: Exactly.
JD: Gotcha. 00:24:24: MJ: But a very well equipped guy working in his driveway. You know, we had welders, assigned to us. You know, we had all pneumatic tools. Everything you could ever
want in a professional shop, we had access to. And we actually had every.
JD: Except for like a lift or something.
00:25:47: MJ: Except for a lift. We didn’t have a lift. Or a standard what you would think of a four-post or two-post lift. You know one of the things that we had was we had cranes that
were attached to our Ford repair systems. And so we could lift trucks up, replace suspensions, replace engines, and larger components.
JD: Okay. So you do full engine swap, engine swap.
00:26:19: MJ: Oh yes. That was.
JD: Okay, so it’s a bit more advanced than a guy in a driveway. Well I guess some guys might be able to.
00:26:23: MJ: The, the engine swaps really aren’t a big deal.
JD: Yeah. Probably designed that way.
00:26:30: MJ: Well no, no more so than your typical automobile going up and down the road. The difference was we, we would never go into the internals in, to the engine. You know we
we, we would never do a tear-down and rebuild. It’s just a crate swap.
JD: Crate swap, gotcha. Yeah, okay that.
00:26:58: MJ: And the same thing with, with transfer cases, transmissions. Those large assemblies would go then to like the support battalion. And the support battalion would do tear-down
and rebuilds of damaged assemblies so.
JD: Did you work undercover? Or were you out in the sun?
00:27:20: MJ: We had tarps that we set up. One of the great things about working underneath vehicles is they provide their own shade. One of the biggest challenges that we had with all
the advanced technical stuff in the Bradley fighting vehicles—the M-383s—is all the electronic components. Even with the air conditioners, still subject to a lot of overheating. You
know, we would also, the same thing with those components. We had a Bradley field service representative with us, a civilian contractor assigned to the unit. And he was able to take
what we call a line replaceable unit, which is an assembly, an electronic assembly. And he could go in, because sometimes it would be pins that were damaged in the connector or a circuit
board that was damaged. And he was able to replace those individual pieces, whereas we’re more concerned with just the assembly overall. What we were able to do a lot of times is we
could order a new L.R.U. and just swap a new one in and take our old one and he would be able to diagnose and repair it and then we have a good one on hand. One of the other things
is we maintained a shop stock of frequently replaced parts. So things that typically go out. You know, we had a lot of generators, a lot of alternators.
JD: Belts? hose.
00:29:04: MJ: Filters, all that stuff. We, we maintained on hand. And between, throughout the whole squadron, its, it was about four million dollars’ worth of supply parts.
JD: That’s some serious supply management right there.
00:29:27: MJ: And, and that’s, that was all under my scope as the maintenance officer. I managed and was accountable for that as well as, or I supervised it and we had supply clerks
who managed the individual troops. So every, you know, we had our headquarters and headquarters’ troop, and then three line troops—Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie—and then our support troop.
And each one kind of develops different needs. You know, while the three line troops are essentially identical, our, our tracking system for ordering parts, keeps up with what we order
by the, by these individual troops. And we’re able to see that and on a big, big scale create the trends of you know, we need this, this many alternators. And also, and then it changes
with the headquarters’ troop and the support troop because
we have a much different variety of vehicles and needs. You know they have a much different shop stock of, of parts that we kept on hand.
Brooke Linsenbardt (BL): Did you have a set budget?
00:30:59: MJ: Yes. But, everything is subject to mission critical status. We were getting ready to deploy in 2005 and the fiscal year runs from October to October. We had gone to the
national training center before deployment—Fort Irwin, California. And by the time we returned from N.T.C. in July, the division and more specifically as it amounts to us, is our brigade
had hit our budget allowance for that fiscal year. And so from August, September, and into October we were over budget in preparation for deployment. But you know, you can’t have Bradleys
and Humvees not operational and out of service. All of that stuff has the ability, we have the ability to have it overridden. And of course at that point, you know, still at Fort Hood,
I, I had to do a lot of work and go talk to different, the different budget people and get approval to order parts that were mission critical, even though it was over budget because
that’s, that’s the policy and that’s, that’s how it runs. Sometimes you run in the red and sometimes you run in the black. We all hoped to stay in the black as much as possible, but
sometimes you creep over.
JD: Did you, were there any, any Aggies at all in your regiment or?
00:32:51: MJ: In the, in the squadron, I was the only Aggie. The second brigade commander at the time was an Aggie—Colonel Tulley. And then there was another Aggie in 167 Armor. And
they were, they were over at Scandoria. And there was a guy who was a year younger than me, he was class of ’04, and he was an Ag.
JD: Did you ever go to Muster?
00:33:22: MJ: We, I was actually. We did have, be-because the brigade commander was an Ag, they did get together. I was actually on a mission that day and was unable to, to get over
to where the brigade headquarters was. They were at a different base. And just, you know, the logistics of moving one person, it, it just didn’t fit the, the schedule at that point.
But.
JD: Sure, sure. But they did hold one huh?
00:33:52: MJ: But there definitely was one.
JD: Yeah. Huh. Could you say a little bit about I guess the composition of your unit in terms of men, women, college educated, not. Sort of where they’re from. Just generally I guess.
00:34:08: MJ: Generally you know, the unit was a cavalry unit. You had a bunch of armor officers, bunch of 19-Delta cavalry scouts. At that point combat arms was you know strictly reserved
for men. The 1-10 intrinsically was all male and then however, being in the support company, we were, I don’t know the right word, but we had women in our unit. And I’d say maybe ten
percent or so that was assigned to us. A lot of the, the female soldiers end up staying at higher levels such as in the, in the support battalion or other high, higher levels of maintenance
in the brigade headquarters for instance, other staff positions. One of,
one of, one of my lieutenant buddies. There were three of us. Me and Nancy and Mike. You know, she was, she was a female. She was from Puerto Rico. From Puerto Rico, went to college
in Puerto Rico. All the officers you know, being a college graduate is part of that. There are exceptions. You know, they had the degree completion program for prior enlisted. Two of
the, two of the officers in 1-10 had come over from being enlisted and they were on that degree completion program where you know, they had already had some college and then once after
the you know, initial three years or whatever it is. The stipulations of that program you know, there were, had the opportunity to finish their degrees and then continue in the military,
as an officer. We had several enlisted soldiers who were all college educated, having bachelor’s degrees and other various levels of associate’s degrees and stuff like that. We were
very fortunate. We had a lot of very skilled mechanics, some who had worked as mechanics in the private sector. Some who had gone to technical or trade schools prior to being in the
military. And then one of the other things that we have is different, different fields have warrant officers who serve as subject matter experts. And our maintenance tech, who was a
chief warrant officers, had been doing maintenance. He was a C-W4. He’d been in the Army for twenty five years. You know and that’s, he, he was, he was the subject matter expert. As
a warrant officer you move away from the basic soldiering and basic, basic leadership positions of being a platoon sergeant or a first sergeant and you’re strictly in the maintenance
world. And they become you know, they’re extremely vital to what we do because they are the subject matter expert for maintenance. Any, any maintenance questions that these guys have
you know. He’s the one that either knows the answers or has the resources to find the answers at a higher level. And they, they have a very good community with each other and they share
a lot of their knowledge. And so you have a lot of experience through that.
JD: Warrant officers. Yeah warrant officers are always the, the deal where it’s like “I don’t know how the heck or who the heck they are or what they’re doing.” But it’s sort of this
like ephemeral group of folks and it seems that every different branch has got warrant officers that they’re doing all kinds of different stuff. It’s, I even saw an advertisement for
you know, the military saying, “Hey you should, you know, to be a warrant officer.” And it wasn’t very clear on exactly what it was you were doing, but they needed warrant officers.
00:38:40: MJ: So, and that’s, and that’s what they are. They are the subject matter experts.
JD: But there’s so many different subjects to be experts to be in at this point, I don’t know if.
00:38:47: MJ: And yes. And at the, at the operational level where we were, you know you just have a basic, a general maintenance technician, the support battalion utilizes. They have
warrant officers for ammunition, transportation, electronics, everything as you get, as you get more specialized, there is a field for them.
JD: Right.
00:39:19: MJ: And it’s, it’s a really strong, tight-knit community with the warrant officers. And there’s, there’s very few of them over, compared to 500,000 personnel in the Army. And
they’re, they’re, they have a very strong network with each other.
JD: What did you miss the most while you were deployed?
00:39:44: MJ: I think. I don’t really know what I missed the most. Being at Camp Charlie you know, we were very isolated. It had not been occupied by U.S. forces when we arrived, at
least at that point. It had previously. But at the time we arrived, there wasn’t the U.S. Army or just general U.S. military support structure there. So one of the things that we had
to establish was a, a phone center for people to be able to call.
JD: Right. Call home and stuff.
00:40:29: MJ: You know at that point in the war cell phones were not authorized. Did people have them? Sure, a handful of people did. You know the higher level staff had government cellphones.
You know the squadron commander, squadron sergeant major. They you know, it’s, it was government issued cell phones to help with communications. And of course we had satellite systems
that we used for all of our internet purposes. And we utilized V.O.Y.P. telephones to communicate with other bases, just because easy communications compared to tying up radio traffic
and being able to call and talk to people at other bases. They weren’t you know, it was official use type stuff. It wasn’t call mom situations. We were able to establish a phone bank
and we had four telephones for 521 people. So the, the frequency of being able to use the phone is very diminished at that point. And then also you have the time difference of being
on the other side of the country. You know everybody wants to call their family or call their spouse or call their children or wife or whomever at a typical you know, day time hours
in, in the U.S. And I also saw it as my role. I never wanted to take away from the soldiers being able to do that. Because there, I felt my role was to take care of them. And so priority
for me to be able to call was always very low. And you know, so I relied a lot on email. I was fortunate being a staff officer and we had our own satellite system for the supply system
for maintenance. You know so I had very good internet access in my office. But I think the thing I missed the most was talking to people and just that direct communication that you
can have, that you don’t get in the written word.
JD: So other than the five hundred and some guys you’re there with. Talking to somebody else. Yeah, gotcha. So you were six months at Charlie right?
00:43:11: MJ: Yes.
JD: And then?
00:43:12: MJ: And I went on, we got some additional spots for mid-tour leave. And everybody calls it mid-tour leave. But it essentially runs eight months in the center of the deployment.
So you would have some soldiers, you know we got there in December. And so beginning in February we would start sending soldiers home on R&R leave for fifteen days.
JD: Fifteen days even though they’re only in country for a year?
00:4300:43:49: MJ: Yes.
JD: So and so I guess in terms of.
00:43:51: MJ: You, you, you really kind of diminish it when you say it like that.
JD: [chuckle] As a historian I’m thinking of like World War II and these other things where the guys were there for the, for the whole bit. And, I guess it in that perspective it seems
like “Wow.” They’re.
00:44:07: MJ: But yeah. I mean historically I mean it’s incredible. I’m, I’m completely in awe of World War II veterans who you know, they left in 1941 and they made, they were literally
gone for four years in the European or Asia, or Pacific theatre.
JD: Yeah. I don’t think they went home all that often in Vietnam either. I, I think they did the whole year, but I’m not positive.
00:44:33: MJ: You usually, typically from what I understand most of the tour of duties in Vietnam was one solid year. And then they did have different R&R. They would rotate back through
South Vietnam. But I, I don’t want to speak directly on that just as I understand it. You know and we had some opportunities to do a similar thing where we were able to send soldiers
to Kuwait for a few days, or to Qatar for a few days. You know we had a base in Doha that we were able to send guys just to give them a little bit of break.
JD: Sure, yeah. Go to the swimming pool and.
00:45:25: MJ: But our, our typical R&R period started in February you know and you’ve only been in country for two months and then you go home for fifteen days and then you know, that
turns into a long nine month stretch when you return. I was originally scheduled to go in August because I mean, we start laying this stuff out early.
JD: Was it just randomly or is it?
00:45:50: MJ: Yeah. Some different slots opened up you know, and that’s the only thing you could, you know, you make, you make your overall game plan. And then every now and then we
would lose spots and somebody might get bumped due to priorities elsewhere. You know if you have somebody that’s injured that’s going home, well he may need a seat on that flight or
stuff like that. So every now and then we would have additional spots come up on the list. I was fortunate, I had some issues going on at home and so I ended up taking my R&R in May
and I was home for two weeks with some family stuff and came back. And I actually missed, when I was gone is when our unit moved from Camp Charlie to F.O.B. Falcon on the south side
of Baghdad. And so right there mid-May to June, the squadron moved and moved up into Baghdad to replace a unit up there. And part of that was a transition, working with Iraqi army forces.
They were taking over a larger role and I guess a large part of our role was to work with Iraqi Army doing joint missions. And kind of imparting some of our knowledge and training and
then trying to keep them, up to speed. Let them see how we do things, work with them so that they can further develop what they’re doing.
JD: When you went home, I assume the military flew you back?
00:47:46: MJ: Yes.
JD: Or did they get you to Frankfurt and then you fly from Frankfurt?
00:47:47: MJ: Well it was, it was a, it was essentially a chartered flight. I, I was on military aircraft. You know whether Blackhawk, Chinook, C-130. You know I made my way to Baghdad
to Liberty. And the, the Liberty Base compound incorporated about five or six different actual bases. There was Camp Victory, Camp Liberty, Camp Striker, but it was all there centered
around the airport. And different aircraft to get to Baghdad. And then a, a C-130 from Baghdad. And we actually flew up to Mosul to pick up more people before we flew back to Kuwait.
And then from Kuwait it was a chartered aircraft, out of Kuwait City.
JD: Yup. What was it like being home after being gone in hot country for a while, Texas is pretty hot too so.
00:48:55: MJ: It, it was, it was great. You know, it was nice being home. It was, it was different being home.
JD: Did you have trouble adjusting to not having to deal with?
00:49:07: MJ: At that point, no.
JD: Okay.
00:49:09: MJ: It was you know, it was relatively surreal. You know it was like I had just been on vacation or something and I was coming back to my regular life. And it was like I, I
hadn’t lived at home in so long, being in the Army and being away at college. You know it was kind of like visiting home like when I was in college. But it was very different from that
at the same time. It’s very hard to describe or put into words. And then.
JD: Was it hard to come back? Or to go back?
00:49:55: MJ: Yes and no. You know, I think one of the, the great things about the military and, and all the people that serve is you know, I felt a very strong sense of duty. And a
strong sense of responsibility to the guys. You know, to, to my friends, my soldiers. To come back for them. To be with them.
JD: And you knew the move was happening.
00:50:26: MJ: Yes.
JD: So.
00:50:27: MJ: It was, it was, it was kind of weird because when I left Charlie I mean, that was the last time I was there.
JD: So I imagine you didn’t go home with all your stuff, so you just packed up your stuff and said, “Okay move it with, don’t lose my stuff guys.”
00:50:40: MJ: Yeah I mean it was kind of, I, I had you know, I had my bag of stuff that I was taking home and then everything else I kind of packed up. I was fortunate where we were,
there was a lot of hard structure and infrastructure in place. We were in, stone buildings and I shared a room with my buddy Mike. And so he helped make sure that all my stuff got loaded.
As well as you know, all my, you know, my, the platoon sergeant and we all take care of each other because I wasn’t the only one gone. And it gets packed up and moved and you know it
was, it was all there when I got there you know. So.
JD: So how different was the F.O.B. from Camp Charlie? Forward Operating Base.
00:51:30: MJ: Yes. A lot of that’s just nomenclature. There’s, there wasn’t a lot, there was a lot more infrastructure there. You know we had a weight room at Camp Charlie. The weight,
the weight room or workout room at F.O.B. Falcon was a little bit more elaborate. The dining facility was much more elaborate. When we got to F.O.B. Falcon the, the dining facility
that I knew, was relatively new. Because the old dining facility was at that point, the laundry facility. And they moved the dining facility due to it being rocketed and mortared and
it received a lot of damage. And so there was a lot of unusable space and they had, they had been working on a larger one because F.O.B. Falcon was kind of expanding with personnel.
There was much more selection with food and opportunities. The, they also serviced four meals a day verses three.
JD: So for like the night shift I guess?
00:52:45: MJ: Which was nice. Yeah, they had another, a mid-night meal. Midnight to two or eleven to two, something like that. Because when you’re working twenty-four hour operations
it’s not, you know.
JD: Yeah. You had a dinner to breakfast is a long time to not eat. Yeah. The food overall was, was satisfactory. I mean they say an army you know, lives on its stomach so.
00:53:09: MJ: Oh a-absolutely. There, there was plenty M.R.E.s on hand, plenty of the missions that we did were overnight or extended and, and you’re eating M.R.E.s. And you know, you
may eat M.R.E.s for two days before you come back to the, to the F.O.B.
JD: Okay so the, your mission changed when you were at the F.O.B.
00:53:31: MJ: Yes. My, my specific. When we moved to F.O.B. Falcon I was, I became the route clearance platoon leader. And we formed a route clearance team which is typically a combat
engineer mission, for our area of operations, or A.O. And we went, right when I got back from R&R leave, I had missed the first day, but you know, we were, we had the opportunity to.
Me and my platoon sergeant had talked about it prior to me leaving and we had kind of cherry-picked certain people out of Delta troop to, to form the route clearance platoon. You know,
just guys with different specialties, guys with different mindsets, without taking away from you know, the typical needs. But some of these, some of the low-density M.O.Ss. You know
we had generators, but we were able to use one of the generator mechanics on the route clearance team because while everybody is cross trained, you
know, our generator mechanic worked on just as much stuff as some of the, the track mechanics or the wheel mechanics because we do, I mean it is specialized down to that level.
JD: Right.
00:55:07: MJ: You know we were, we used one of the generator mechanics because the water and fuel was being managed by K.B.R. we were able to use some of our water, like our water guy.
One of the fuel N.C.O.s was on the route clearance team, stuff like that.
JD: What was your equipment?
00:55:31: MJ: For route clearance, we were actually able to get an RG-31. We had three RG-31s, it’s a mine-protected vehicle out of South Africa. And it’s designed with a uni-body construction,
with a V-shape hull like a boat hull. And the design of the vehicle is, is, it’s designed to disperse and spread out the energy of mines or explosives. Whereas with a Bradley or a tank
or a Humvee, it’s a very smooth, flat bottom, so you really capture all that energy. And it also has, you know while all of our vehicles were up armored, probably one of the biggest
flaws with tanks and Bradleys for instance, they’re designed to take direct hits and divert from the front or sides, whereas these are really designed to take impact from below.
JD: Right.
00:56:34: MJ: So we had three RG-31s.
JD: Okay. And those are personnel carrier. Basically yeah.
00:56:40: MJ: Essentially.
JD: To get you guys there and around.
00:56:42: MJ: And, and they’re, they’re set up with all glass window surround you know, so you don’t have the blind spots because I mean that’s, that was our mission was look and see
you know, so it’s all the, the heavy-duty glass. All, all the way around the cab. And we changed the configuration. The config, the original configuration of the vehicles is more of
a troop carrier where you have the typical front, two front seats just like in a car. But then you had bench seats in the back. We reconfigured ‘em to put regular forward facing seats
on each side and then we had to install our, our data chart, similar to the N.D.T.s in the firetrucks, ambulances, police vehicles. We had our F.B.C.B.2 and Blue Force Tracker systems,
which are a lot more, it’s, it’s G.P.S. oriented and it tracks our location as well as the location of other vehicles. Given all of our radios and communications installed in them.
So we reconfigured the inside of them. We had three of those and then we also had a Buffalo, which is, it’s another mine-protective vehicle with different, it, it’s equipped with a,
it’s a much larger vehicle. It’s a three axil vehicle, same V-shape construction. It had a hydraulic arm on it with a big, we called it the claw. And it, it’s like forks and then you
kind of a thumb time on the back and it’s used, you know, we were able to investigate areas on
the side of the road and dig and, you know move things around. Without exposing ourselves. We also had a Husky which was a, it was a one person vehicle. It looked like a little tractor.
And it was nothing more than a fancy metal detector. Had two panels that could drop down. And it had different settings to pick up different metal signatures. Nothing more than being
able to pinpoint where something may be. You know but at the same time, it’s, it’s more of a identification tool as far as we need to look here for something that may be undercover
or under the road or under dirt.
JD: Sure. I don’t know what it’s called, but I saw something that was basically you know, a, a V-hull I.E.D. armored sort of vehicle, but it had a, a forward arm with like a flair on
it that would basically trigger stuff in front of it and let it blow up.
00:59:56: MJ: Yes. A lot of the vehicles, we had different, different mine devices. The engineers. And there were a lot of devices designed on tanks. Kind of like a, you know like you’re
talking about with the flair. Some were, they had wedges. A lot of the I.E.D.s that we were experiencing at that time were set off with like a I.R. sensor, or not a I.R. sensor, but
a heat signature. Kind of like you, you know you walk in the store and you trip the deal and it goes ding. You know these, these explosives were trigged by the heat signature of like
an engine. So we had a device that was set out in front on a long arm that was nothing more than a battery pack to generate heat so that.
JD: It would trigger the.
01:00:51: MJ: That would trigger the blast far enough ahead of the vehicle that the main force would go off either in front or into the engine compartment verses the passenger compartment.
JD: Right. So with those I.R. ones and, and in the way they’re intended to, to work, they would be triggered by the engine block basically passing over it and, and, but the timing was
such that it would trigger and then with the millisecond or two for the vehicle to continue moving, it would explode underneath it.
01:01:21: Yeah. You know and, and then, you know the, it was, they’re designed to you know, hit the heat signature from the engine block and then, of course everything’s based on speed.
If you’re going half a mile an hour, you’re probably still gonna be at the engine block. But going typical road speeds or even twenty-five, you know you’re hitting the, the passenger
area of the vehicle.
JD: What was typical road speed?
01:01:47: MJ: Depending on where we were, we had our kind of self-imposed limits. You know, if we were out on the highway going between bases you know, we, we would sometimes travel
fifty-five miles an hour or sixty miles an hour.
JD: These are paved roads.
01:02:08: MJ: Pav-oh yes. And, and they have great infrastructure over there in the form of roads to an extent. It’s probably like most of the country was back in the fifties. You have
a lot of very well constructed highways and then you have a lot of dirt roads, a lot of gravel roads, a lot of very poorly constructed roads that you would see in rural areas. And even
now out in Brazos County or Grimes Country where you just have the caliche.
JD: Hmm-hmm. So your I.E.D. missions. And so I, you, I guess you were given a I imagine, an area to operate into. Operating.
01:02:48: MJ: Yeah we, our, our platoon was specific support for the squadron.
JD: Okay.
01:02:55: MJ: So the squadron’s area of operations is what we patrolled.
JD: And it was on, on a random or by specific “we need you to do this” or was it “okay we’ve got this schedule.
01:03:05: MJ: It was, it was, it was both. A little bit was you know, maybe route maintenance, route investigation. We you know, we replaced a unit who had been in S.A.O. for six, nine,
twelve months before us. As, and as we come in you know, we, we start to do the handover. And they’ve established just, they had established places where you know, this is where we
patrol. You know these are roads that we don’t travel due to frequency of, of enemy encounter, catastrophic events, you know, kind of like a risk management matrix is established on
everything. You know you have frequency and severity and so some of, some of the routes they determine we just don’t need to get to where we want to go or the risk is, is too high to
utilize that area. And they would, they would, approach it from a different, different spot or something. You know when I got back from leave, we spent a week at Liberty with a combat
engineer unit going through what they call the Iron Claw Academy. And they were, they would train engineer units coming to take on a route clearance mission. You know it was great for
us because we didn’t have that engineer experience and we were getting the, the rundown of a, maintenance of these vehicles because we had not, this is our first introduction to them.
To how to use all the equipment. How to use it effectively. You know because you can give a, you can give a kid a, a digger, but somebody that really knows how to use it to its maximum
effectiveness is going to get a lot more use out of it.
JD: Yeah. Have you ever seen the utility rodeos and things like that?
01:05:25: MJ: Oh yeah.
JD: Oh gosh, the stuff they can do.
01:05:26: MJ: You know it’s, it’s the difference of putting me in a Bobcat and my father-in-law in a Bobcat, to do anything. And so, so we did that. Also a lot of education on I.E.D.s,
I.E.D. types, things to look for, trends that were going on at that time. It’s just a, a one-week crash course on route clearance and I.E.D.s.
JD: So I guess what were, what was the most common I.E.D. and what were the trends you were dealing with?
01:06:02: MJ: You know it, at that point there were still a lot of, the, the heat signature activated were becoming more popular.
JD: It seems pretty sophisticated. That’s the type of equipment that the.
01:06:19: MJ: It is, it’s, it’s interesting because, my view of Iraq, Iraq, sorry, I still say Iraq. It’s, it’s maybe one of the most sophisticated third, third world countries. I mean
the amount of technology that they’re able to engineer with some of their war fighting is, is incredible when you look at some of the infrastructure. And, and the area that we were
in was right on the edge of town so we went from.
JD: From Baghdad right?
01:07:05: MJ: We were on the, on the southeast side, right up and from, from where we were on Route Jackson to the Euphrates River.
JD: Oh, okay. That’s what I was about to ask, how close you were.
01:07:22: MJ: And, or, the Tigris. I forget, one of the rivers. It was either the, I think it was the Tigris. We were right up against the Tigris River.
JD: You were on the south side? I don’t remember well enough of my geography.
01:07:37: MJ: I know there’s two of them and we were up against one. That, that was our, that was our eastern boundary. So you know we had, we had just the very outskirt of town going
into a lot of rural area. You know so one of the challenges we faced is a lot of sandy roads, dirt roads, because it was a rural and farming area. You had a lot of canals that create
barriers, create areas of opportunity for concealment and routes of ingress, egress that aren’t necessarily accessible by vehicle. And you also have the obstacle situation of you know,
you can’t pursue in a vehicle across a canal the way you could if it, if it wasn’t there so. You know those different, the, the terrain really establishes a lot of your conditions and
capabilities, despite what technology you may or may not have. You know, similar probably, similar to Afghanistan, you know, Iraq has been in turmoil and you have a lot of these same
guys that have been fighting foreign forces or fighting each other and for years now. Decades. Even through generations of learning techniques to maximize the effectiveness of terrain
against whomever their enemy may be verses us where we come into it kind of fresh and trying to establish that. And find ways to flip the tables and make it work for us and minimize
its effectiveness against us. The, the heat signature I.E.D.s were really coming on at that point. A lot of the, a lot of the, prior to me being there, a lot of the people that were
in our unit had been deployed with 1-10 cav before or had been on our deployment in a, in a different unit to the point of you know, you would have an I.E.D. go off and you have, you
would literally see within fifty yards, the, the guy that had detonated it. That was no longer the case. Where you had extensive networks of command wire. They had developed methods
of positioning. You know, one of the things that we would look for
is just like if you’re leading, you know if you go bird hunting and you got to lead a bird with your, you know with your rounds. They had developed systems to be able to triangulate
our position on the road based on where the charge was so that they could pinpoint it from a much further distance, from a concealed position. You know, and a lot of these charges like
that would be either command wire detonated where you’re you know, actually clicking a trigger, to a lot of them, we were also seeing a lot of cell phone bases, or portable phone bases
to cell phone activated. Kind of like you see in the movies where somebody calls a phone and it detonates a charge.
JD: How bad was your A.O in terms of I.E.D. saturation I guess.
01:11:43: Uh. I don’t know.
JD: Or did you know compared to others.
01:11:46: MJ: I, I, I never kept up with, with the trends across the country. That was one of those echelons above me situations that I you know, that’s, I, I, I had enough to worry
about with mine.
JD: Let’s put it this way, did you ever have a mission, a route clearing mission, where you didn’t find I.E.D.s?
01:12:14: MJ: Oh absolutely.
JD: Okay.
01:12:15: MJ: Absolutely.
JD: So it was more common to find one? Or more common to not find one?
01:12:20: MJ: We, you know we, we would base incidence based on you know, either a I.E.D. detonation or an I.E.D. found or other forms of contact. And through the six months we were
there, I recorded over 110 patrols, route clearance missions that I conducted. And we averaged every third mission, we would have an incident.
JD: Of finding or.
01:12:58: MJ: Of whether it be an I.E.D. detonation or finding and disposing of an I.E.D. or even just contact with direct or indirect fire. They all kind of got grouped in for my purposes
of reporting.
JD: Right. So in your vehicles, what did you call S.P.R., is that what you called the, the.
01:13:25: MJ: We had a Blue Force Tracker and a F.B.C.B.2.
JD: I’m sorry. No, the vehicle itself.
01:13:30: MJ: Oh the RG-31.
JD: RG-31. Yeah.
01:13:32: MJ: And that was our primary vehicle. And we initially started, running. The RG-31s were designed with a crew weapon system such as a 50-cal machine gun. We actually traded
with one of the scout troops to get some 2-40 Bravos, which is a 72, 762 round machine gun. It’s a, it’s a crew-serve weapon. The Buffalo didn’t have a crew serve weapon. The Husky
was a single operator vehicle so it had no crew-serve weapon system on it. I initially rode in a Humvee with the three RG-31s, the Buffalo, and the Husky. And then later moved to we,
we, pealed it down to just three RG-31s and we left the Humvee once we got some, we, part of it was waiting on the, the technology of gettin’ another Blue Force system in an RG-31 so
that we could maintain that awareness of where we were, as well as command being able to track where we were. So I was in Humvee for a while and I was gonna ride in the Humvee because
it had the command system in there and being the platoon leader and it was probably our least protected vehicle.
JD: So did you follow behind I imagine?
01:15:14: MJ: At that point I was, I wasn’t, I, I was in the middle, of the, of our patrol order. Of how we would order the vehicles. And my platoon sergeant would be at the rear. One
of the other things we had is we had two combat medics in our platoons. They got assigned to us that rode on every mission. Again, risk management matrix of severity and frequency.
JD: So was two fairly high for a patrol?
01:15:47: MJ: Uh, it depends. I’m not, most of the, most of the platoons had a medic each and we, we kept two. And they went on all the missions with us. Every now and then, we might
move with just one to give that guy a break. We were fortunate enough to have the amount of personnel. So just like staffing you know, the fire department. Our minimum staffing is thirty-three,
we’ll, you know, we typically have forty people on a shift. To allow for people to be on sick leave or vacation. You know we try to rotate our, our guys around so that they can get
a day off and get a break because of the intensity and stress levels.
JD: Yeah, you’re driving around looking for bombs. [chuckle] Sheesh. Must have been crazy.
01:16:43: MJ: So we usually had one or two guys stay on base to give them a break and let them relax.
[Brief interruption-alarm].
01:17:17: MJ: So every now and then we would give the medics a break as well. And rotate them and we would just have one medic on our patrols.
JD: Did you get breaks?
01:17:26: MJ: I, I took a break once.
JD: Once out of the 111?
01:17:31: MJ: Yes.
JD: Wow.
01:17:34: MJ: I, I, I stayed back after one of my direct contact incidence.
JD: Hmm. Sure.
01:17:47: MJ: So.
JD: Did. Who was your assist, I mean is it, who was your backup in terms of leadership? Your, your?
01:17:53: JD: My platoon sergeant.
JD: Your, your N.C.O. Okay.
01:17:56: MJ: He, he was, he was my number two. And.
JD: Did he go on all the missions as well I guess?
01:18:00: MJ: No. He, he. We had a personnel situation where it required it him to be. It didn’t really require him, but I forced him to take a day off. To.
[Brief Interruption]
01:18:31: JD: Partly out of pride and partly out of, you know, I, I felt that obligation that between the two of us, I was gonna be the one that went on patrol. So.
JD: How often did you interact with the, the locals in, in your A.O. Did you ever have anybody give you tips like, “Hey, somebody just put something there” or.
01:18:58: MJ: Not really. We, we interacted with the locals I mean on a regular basis. But it wasn’t the type of contact that the other scout platoons. You know, our mission set was
very much internal. However, and because we were designed to be, what’s referred to as mounted. You know, we weren’t, we had the specialized vehicles, to stay in the vehicles and approach,
the routes and the threats from that aspect, verses getting out on foot. And our mission set was such that we weren’t focused on community relations to really build relationships and,
and that’s what the scout platoons did. Obviously these vehicles were excessively different. And everybody knew what we did. And everybody could identify where we were, when we were
there, and they all knew what we were doing. You know stuff like that exceeds any sort of language barrier. And it was also, it was a different target for the insurgents. You know.
JD: Were you guys s-, specifically targeted because you were route clearance?
01:20:32: MJ: I absolutely feel that we were. But that’s shear speculation you know. I, I can’t imagine us not being a higher target, but at the same time, it was also, we were a little
bit more protected. Which also kind of changed the game because they knew it took a higher level to cause the, to cause the damage or inflict the sort of catastrophic incident, but
at the same time, because we were a, a low-density, you know, we only had three RG-31s, a Buffalo, and a Husky with no weapon system. You know, if, if the Buffalo got damaged, we got
to take it to the shop and we can’t return to mission until it’s repaired. Because of the
specialized nature of the vehicle, there wasn’t conventional Army support for them, all our maintenance was maintained, or all our maintenance was managed by ManTech, which is a contractor,
out of Camp Liberty. So whenever we had incidents that had damage or failures you know, that took us off the roads and we would take a vehicle either with a wrecker or if it could still
drive under its own power up to Liberty. And we would be there until we could get it repaired.
JD: That’s sort of astounding though. I mean, it takes on, you, you did 111 patrols. And that’s even with dealing with the fact that if one thing went down, you were off, off the road
until it was fixed. So either it was fixed really quickly or you just did a ton of patrols. Probably both.
01:22:35: JD: Well both. And then there were day, you know, there were a couple times we spent overnight at Liberty just because of the, the amount of time it took to make some of the
repairs or having to wait for parts. You know, we lost, we lost the Husky capability at one point, due to an incident and then in the course of recovering it, a lot of the, a lot of
the uh, the hull was damaged. And so it had to go and it was actually taken out of service for two months waiting on repair, you know structural repair to the body of it.
JD: That was the one man?
01:23:28: MJ: Yes. And then when my RG-31 was hit, the amount of damage it received, it was off the road for about a month and a half.
JD: Was it an I.E.D. or?
01:23:49: MJ: Yeah.
JD: Okay, yeah.
01:23:51: MJ: It was an I.E.D.
JD: So it was just undetected?
01:23:53: MJ: Yes.
JD: Yup. Did you determine what kind? Was, was it one of the heat sensors or?
01:23:57: MJ: No, it was, we suspect it was command detonated based on the evidence we were available to find. You know the great thing about I guess bombs is that they destroy a lot
of the, anything that’s right there around them. But you know, everything leaves tracers. We suspect it was command detonated through a, you know, a direct wire. It was, it was in the
center of a asphalt road. Under you know, underneath the asphalt. And it, it exploded right underneath the front axil and engine compartment of the vehicle.
JD: Is that a Ford engine? Or a?
01:24:47: MJ: Yeah, it was a Ford engine vehicle. So.
JD: So they were a little, I guess a little slow. How did they get it underneath the pavement? Were they dig a hole and patched it or burrow from the side or something?
01:24:59: MJ: Typically a lot of times I suspect that they’re burrowed from the side. I don’t want to say one of the great things but maybe one of the tactful advantages is because of
the heat, with asphalt, you know, you can, you can really make it seamless. You know verses maybe some of the infrastructure, how we repair our infrastructure here. You don’t have some
of the, you know you may not see a patch because it’s all gonna smooth out together evenly. Because of the heat’s gonna change that and homogenize it much differently.
JD: Yeah sure, sure. Seem it yeah. I guess that was my other question was I, I’m sorry I’m thinking RG-?
01:25:50: MJ: 31.
JD: 30, RG-31s. I want to say RG-2, RG-3 that is. What, being it was, it was such an armored vehicle and so well protected because of what, what you did. Small arms fire couldn’t do
anything to it really right?
01:26:04: MJ: No, not really.
JD: Yeah, so RPGs I guess? And then.
01:26:07: MJ: RPGs, the Buffalo had an RPG cage around it. I mean it’s kind of like a, a chain-link fence. A much more elaborate version and much more heavy-duty. But essentially a chain-link
fence that ran around it so that any sort of RPG, the detonation is gonna be away from the actual structure of the vehicle. And then we also had like the Bradleys were equipped with
a similar protection. That it was actually comprised of small charges and it you know, they looked like a bunch of little box that, boxes that you stack on the outside. And the design
of those is that if something hits it, it’s gonna create a charge to push back and kind, it’s kind of like a countercharge to direct the energy away.
JD: Right.
01:27:10: MJ: And the same thing with the RPG cages.
JD: Right.
01:27:13: MJ: The Buffalo had it, the RG-31s, and the Husky did not.
JD: So in the RG-31, the Husky you had to worry about RPG.
01:27:22: MJ: Oh absolutely.
JD: And I.E.D.s I guess.
01:27:24: MJ: And, you know, the RPG cages, the RPG cages just covers the sides. We had multiple indirect fire incidence with mortars. And so our, we have our crew-serve weapon systems.
You know, we have an open turret. And, I mean, we’re protected from the side also
with the turret armor. But then you still have the straight down which you know, creates a susceptible point entry, or a less protected area.
JD: Back to the repair part. So since you were such a vital, you had such a vital mission to keep these roads as clear as possible, if something went down like the Husky or the Buffalo
or something like that, and you took it in. I imagine you’re a priority.
01:28:08: MJ: Oh it’s very high priority.
JD: Yeah.
01:28:10: The, the group there at ManTech, that’s their, their shop. All they did was work on route clearance vehicles. And of course, there were, there were a lot of engineer units
running patrols in and around Baghdad. You know, and we’d run into them sometimes at ManTech and but, we never really had, there, there, there really wasn’t a situation where we had
to wait in line. And those guys knew it. And these civilian contractors have the same dedication to keeping us out on the roads.
JD: Did you ever feel, because you, since you had the same A.O., did you ever feel like you were out on routine? Like “Oh, here we go again. Same roads.”
01:29:00: MJ: Ab-, Absolutely.
JD: Yeah.
01:29:02: MJ: Absolutely. I mean, it’s, it’s all routine, but it’s, it’s not. Every day’s the same, but every day is different.
JD: Right, right. So I imagine there wasn’t that much monotony considering the stress of the fact that just about anything could go crazy.
01:29:14: MJ: It, it still gets monotony, or monotonous. You know one of the things that you, that we all had fight was complacency. You know, I don’t know if it’s a benefit, but one
of the effects of being in that combat situation and my outlook on life changes. You know, I went from paying bills and getting upset because I missed the football on T.V. to my biggest
concern in a day is, “Am I gonna go home tonight?” You know and it, and it. I guess everybody deals with it or adjusts to it in different ways. Myself personally, and most of my soldiers
and a lot of my other buddies, you know in the unit, it’s, you know, you get to a point where, “Hey,” you know, “when it’s your time, it’s your time.” And there’s nothing you can really
do to change it. It, it’s also a situation where you know, your faith can either be much more developed, or to the opposite side, be destroyed, depending on how you choose to look at
things.
JD: If I can ask, how did it work out for you?
01:31:06: MJ: Good, good and bad. You know, just with anything, I mean it was, it was a year long deployment. It was six months doing route clearance. There were ebbs and flows of, of
both ways. I at this point, have no doubt in my mind, amongst my year in Iraq, and all
my other experiences in life, that I have a purpose. [tears up] I feel that I am meant for something and that I am here for a reason.
JD: Right. You, I, I’ve talked to a number of people in this project and one of the biggest takeaways I think, is the amount of clarity folks have had after their experiences, after
their deployments and things like, talking about my life now, “I have directions and this is what I know, what I want to do.” One of the guys we talked to, Will Zoeller I was talking
about. One of the first guys I did for this project, his whole, I guess, outlook or perspective, changed drastically from when he enlisted to when he got out. And not just like, “Now
I know what I want to do with my life. But now I, I know how I, I’m going to approach my life, how I’m gonna see things day to day.” And he, he was in Walter Reed for a while right
at the end of the war, and even that experience, of, of being with so many people that were getting themselves quite literally, put back together. And, and just the, just the day-to-day
being around folks like that, shifted him to where he, he’s an incredibly positive individual now. But it, it, it’s stunning on how, how much, I guess clarity can come out of a situation
like that. It’s, yeah, impressive. [phone vibrates] I hope that’s not my wife calling.
01:33:07: You might ought to check it.
JD: Yeah.
01:33:09: MJ: I was, the couple of weeks I was, I was, you know, every time my phone went off.
JD: Right, right. Yeah. I, this is our number two so it’s, it feels different than, than the first time around where I was, I was, I was jumping at it every time and really, really anxious.
I don’t feel nearly as anxious, but there’s still. We’re getting at the point now where it’s got to happen at any point. Question I had earlier though, when you, when you, talking about
monotony and how to battle monotony. As, as platoon leader, so just not yourself, but you have to keep your soldiers sharp, how, how did you approach that?
01:33:46: MJ: Uh. It, it was you know, it’s a team effort.
JD: Yeah.
01:33:52: MJ: One of the things that the military really pushes on people is routine. You know, you develop, you develop these routines, you develop this physical fitness, because that’s
what you rely on. That’s what you, keeping that routine helps keep things moving.
JD: So when you don’t know what to do, you still know what you’re going to do.
01:34:23: MJ: Exactly. That’s a big builder. The, you know, letting guys get breaks when they need breaks. Being able to rotate our guys out. You know, and then, of course, the biggest
I guess, deterrent to complacency is when we have incidents that remind us, “Hey this isn’t, we’re not just Sunday driving.”
JD: Right, right. I guess if it happens every third trip. It’ll keep you on your toes. Did you ever get to the point where, where there was so much chaos or so much danger that you became
numb to it? Or, or where you felt that like, I don’t know, you mean, you, you see or hear stories about people that, that, that are in high stress situations like that, or combat where
you know, something goes off and they don’t even flinch. And are analyzing it immediately, and everybody else are like, “Ahh.”
01:35:22: MJ: Oh, oh yeah, absolutely. You know, you know, really, you, you, you become, you gain the ability to, to know maybe immediate or near-threats verses far threats. You know
they, I wanna say it was, there’s a movie that I watched at some point. And they were talking about gunfire and it’s like, “if you hear, if you hear a you know, when you hear it go
bang, it’s a long way. It’s when you hear whizz by.”
JD: Right, right. Generation Kill?
01:36:04: MJ: Maybe.
JD: Yeah, I remember, I think I remember talking about it there. Because they’re saying that the fire was coming from a certain direction and the corporal was like “How do you know that?”
“Well you hear that? [chuckle] That’s what that is.”
01:36:12: MJ: When you hear a pop, it’s, it’s somewhere else. When you hear it zing it’s.
JD: The whizz, yeah sure. So you, I guess you got to that prob, point probably with, with I.E.D. explosions you know.
01:36:22: MJ: Oh yeah, absolutely.
JD: It’s, it’s ten yards out and we’ve, we’ve successfully whatever.
01:36:27: MJ: You know, the mortar attacks and stuff like that, you know we would be on, we would, we would be out for you know, maybe eighteen hours sometimes and being in these vehicles.
And you know, I talked about dealing with air conditioner maintenance before, every now and then our air conditioners would go down. You know, and there were several times that we just,
we pushed through it because of what we were doing. And you know, we would maybe rotate guys out of that vehicle into a different vehicle during the course of the patrols. So that somebody
wasn’t in that hotbox for eighteen hours. You know and being very cautious of water intake and, and stuff like that to prevent heat exposure and heat exhaustion.
JD: How much gear did you wear inside the trucks?
01:37:28: MJ: Uh. I mean.
JD: Like play carriers and stuff?
01:37:32: MJ: Oh yeah. I mean we had our, our regular vests. You know and everybody has their, you kind of have your basic load of what you carry with your kit. You know, but you also
have a little bit of freedom to carry different things. Or more of other things. And then
the biggest maybe weight down, on that is our ammunition loads. And then of course, being in theatre, we had the enhanced sapi plates, which were an inch and a half thick. And those
were pretty weighty. My full-on kit, if it you know, you know, my vest with, with everything was probably around eighty pounds. And it’s, it’s ironic, you know, you really just kind
of develop a immunity to it. There was, I got to a point where I only carried one extra magazine round, or one extra magazine on my vest with you know, one loaded in the weapon and
one spared. Compared to you know, we have, we’re designed to have seven total. You know, one loaded, six spare. Because if I was going to dismount, you know, I really wasn’t going that
far from the vehicles and my personal outlook is, “If I need more than the two I have, I’ve made really poor choices. And I have a much bigger problem than needing a hundred and eighty
more rounds of 556.” Because, but you know, because we had the crew-serve weapon systems and, and a lot other measures that helped keep that force protection established.
JD: It almost sounds like two different tours. Two completely separate tours.
01:39:40: MJ: It. It was.
JD: Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned when you were on your R&R that, that you specially said at that time, it didn’t feel like a big deal coming home or going back. It wasn’t, there wasn’t
that much transition. So I [phone rings] I guess, do you need to take that?
[Brief Interruption]
JD: I, I guess to back up a little bit. So you had six months of this. One hundred and eleven trips. Clearly lots of danger and chaos and problems and I imagine you lost a number of
guys or you said a number of guys hurt. By the time you get, or did you get to where you were counting days? Like a short timer like a?
01:40:42: MJ: Yes and no. I mean there were, there were guys that were counting days from the day we got there. I never really you know, people around me were doing that. I didn’t do
it until after my last mission. Because to me, it didn’t matter if I had a hundred and eighty days or one day left because.
JD: Anything could happen.
01:41:20: MJ: That’s not the situation. You know, everything can change. And it doesn’t take a second.
JD: Right. So what was the time frame from, from your last mission until you left country.
01:41:34: MJ: Uh.
JD: And you knew it was your last mission.
01:41:45: MJ: I think my last mission was on the 6th of November. And then on the 7th, I left F.O.B. Falcon and went to Bagdad. From Bagdad to Kuwait. I spent the 8th in Kuwait, in
customs. And I don’t know, I can’t remember, there’s a hold in customs. And then I returned home on the 9th.
JD: Did your whole unit go back? Or was it piecemeal.
01:42:25: MJ: It was piecemeal. You know, we deploy in waves and we redeploy in waves. I was on the advanced party, coming into country. And I redeployed with the, just with the regular
main body flights. You know, after my last mission, we do, we have a transition period with all units. You know and do kind of a right seat, left seat ride situation where the unit
that was replacing us and the platoon that was replacing me. You know, their, the new route clearance platoon leader, he rode with me in my truck you know, with my crew for a patrol
or two and then, you know they rotated a couple of different guys through. And that transitions to the other side where we have one guy in maybe each truck, riding with their platoon.
You know, with them in the lead.
JD: So some sort of continuity.
01:43:42: MJ: Yeah.
JD: That’s impressive.
01:43:43: MJ: And that’s you know, and that’s, that’s how it’s designed. Because after doing it for months and months, regardless of training, doing it real life is different than. You
know, ideal you can train to a, as, as real point as you want. But it’s, you’re never gonna reach that same intensity. And to also have the time to be able to discuss the different,
the different areas and be able to cover a lot of the area and try and pass that information on of you know, “This is a really bad spot” or “Be on the lookout for you know, these indicators.”
And the, the, the A.O. knowledge that we developed through the course of the period.
JD: Sure. Continue to keep the learning, going rather than start from scratch.
01:44:54: MJ: And, and trying to hand over as much of that information as possible.
JD: Hmm. What were your feelings after that last one? And leaving country with those, was there just intense relief and that’s it? Or was there melancholy did I mean?
01:45:11: MJ: Uh. There were, I was, it’s, I was excited for myself because I was ready. I, I was ready for that break. You know, I’d been round tight for so long that you know, it was,
it was time. But at the same time, it was very uh, it wasn’t easy because I was kind of in the middle. There were patrols after my last patrol that my soldiers were on. And no matter
how capable your successor may be, there’s, you still maintain that responsibility for that individual’s well-being. And feeling that and knowing that there was nothing I could directly
do. I mean, it, it’s almost, it’s heartbreaking.
JD: Right. How long was it from when you left till your last.
01:46:23: MJ: I, I think it was one or two more days.
JD: Oh, okay.
02:46:26: MJ: But.
JD: You weren’t state-side hoping not to get a call.
01:46:28: MJ: No. No, not. I mean, I was still in country when my last guys did their last mission. But at the same time, it only takes one.
JD: Did they get out all right, the last ones I guess?
01:46:40: MJ: Yeah, yeah. All my guys you know, ended up being fine. You know but there’s, the sense of relief from there was different than the personal sense of relief for my own well-being.
JD: Do you think your approach to leadership and your, your, your, the steps you took to, and, and I guess the level of responsibility you took for your soldiers, is that part of your
experience in the Corps? The leadership and the comradery developed there? Or you think that’s simply personal thing? Or maybe just what did the Army develop?
01:47:16: MJ: I, I think it’s a little bit of everything. You know different people are going to have different mentalities. Regardless. You know, you can put ten people through the
same training and you’re gonna get ten different outcomes. You know I think a lot of it’s personal. I know that I burdened a lot on my shoulders that I probably shouldn’t have. As far
as things I could or could not control. And that, I don’t feel like that was a result of any training, or experience. I think it’s just the relationship that you develop. And just my
general mentality towards leadership.
JD: Is that something that you would have expected, you know your high school self would have expected of you down the road? Or I mean? I guess was it, did, was it a surprise? Not a
surprise I guess. But was that something you thought? That you expected out of yourself. Or is it something that sort of, as time went on you were kind of like “Wow I didn’t know I
had that in me.”
01:48:36: Uh. Every day I surprise myself. To this day, I surprise myself. I guess one of the, one of the benefits of the experiences that I’ve had is, it’s hard to imagine worse scenarios.
You know, once you lose a leg, is losing a toe a big deal? You know, I’d love to lose a toe if I kept my leg. You know, but it’s not really something. I’m sure there’s people that can
look forward to those situations. You know, I think it’s easier to look back on that experience.
JD: So you got back November of ’06. But you were in till ’09.
01:49:44: MJ: Uh. 2010.
JD: Oh 2010.
01:49:46: MJ: May of 2010.
JD: Right. So three and a half more years. What was the transition coming back? How, how was the, I guess, you had a question about this. What was, what was the?
BL: Oh yeah. The response coming back from the community.
[MJ tears up]
01:50:14: MJ: Everybody that I saw (long pause) seemed to be so grateful and so appreciative. Even without you know, you know everybody’s got a lot of internal competition of you know.
And, and the Army’s, Army’s a good example of you know, you may have somebody who you know, slept in the dirt and ate at R.E.s and took four showers all year. Compared to somebody who
ate four meals a day in a dining facility and their biggest concern was whether they had cable. But they got looked at the same. You know, and just that level of appreciation, I think
it’s, it’s hard to put into words. It’s very overwhelming.
JD: Negatively? Or?
01:51:46: MJ: No.
JD: Positively. Okay, I gotcha. Did you get, so, so you rotate back and you’ve got all your equipment you have to take care of I imagine. You got, put everything away and start the process
of getting every, everything ready for the next round. Or whoever takes the stuff the next round.
01:52:01: MJ: Well it was, it was a slightly different situation. Most of the, the, the Humvees that we had were up armor, specialty up armored Humvees. You know, factory designed that
way. Compared to you know, when the, when the war started, you know, they were in just fiberglass shell standard Humvees. And then you know, I mean, it went from guys driving around
with no doors, to guys putting just steel plates hodgmod, you know, hodgepodge, to create up armored Humvees. To having, you know, the, the 10-51 series Humvee that’s an up armored
Humvees.
JD: Like three hundred pound door and everything.
01:52:55: MJ: Yeah. All those vehicles stayed in country. You know, those, those don’t come back. Or at least not with the individual units.
JD: Did your Bradleys come back?
01:53:10: MJ: The Bradleys came back. But we didn’t actually get them back. They had changed the way they were doing some of the reset process. And so we never even saw them. And they
had, they were almost creating a, like a training set for home station. So when we came back, we just got Bradleys that were left at Fort Hood from the previous unit who was deploying,
or already deployed, that were operational and ready. Almost turning into kind of two fleets of vehicles. Where you have the, the war set and the training set.
JD: Gotcha. When was your contract up?
01:54:03: MJ: My, initial commitment was, till May of 2008. You know the, the standard active duty contract I had. It was a eight-year commitment, four years on active duty. Four
years reserve guard, inactive reserve. And we got back to Fort Hood and we also, we came back at a time of transition. Fourth infantry division was in the process of moving to Fort Carson
in Colorado Springs, Colorado. And you know, there’s a lot of opportunities for everybody returning from deployment. Because typically that kind of ends a training cy, not necessarily
a training cycle, but maybe a mission cycle. You know because you may have twelve, eighteen, twenty-four months of train-up. One year deployment, and then you know, they, you, you shift.
You know, that’s, that’s where the point where if guys that promoted, or guys that need to go to schools for you know, professional development. You know, that’s when they’re going
to make that transition. We were, our brigade and division was transitioning to Fort Carson.
JD: I grew up about forty-five minutes from there. Were you, were you in Fort Carson as well?
01:55:39: MJ: Yeah. I, I spent three years in the Springs.
JD: All right. My folks have a postcard view of Pikes Peak off the back deck.
01:55:44: MJ: Nice.
JD: You know where Castle Rock?
01:55:47: MJ: Oh yeah.
JD: Due south Elizabeth, Kiowa. I grew outside of Kiowa in Elbert County.
01:55:52: MJ: Nice.
JD: When, when family would come visit, we’d take them to the Air Force Academy because that’s the biggest tourist spot right there.
01:55:56: MJ: Oh yeah.
JD: But good, there you go.
01:56:00: MJ: You know, I interviewed for a aid position when I got back. And one of the things that I had considered was I, I almost applied. I had my application ready for the Ranger
regiment. The 75th Ranger regiment was moving to this forced modularization concept and having you know, true logisticians internally imbedded into the Ranger battalions. My company
commander, is, he was previously an infantry officer and worked in the Special Forces community prior to taking company command with us. And had a lot of connections with some of the
guys. And I had really considered going to the Ranger regiment after I got back.
JD: Would you have to gone to Ra-, Ranger school or?
01:57:08: MJ: Yes.
JD: Oh yeah.
01:57:08: MJ: I mean at, at some point I would have. You know, they accept guys that aren’t Ranger qualified and they send them through Ranger school. And that was one the options that
I considered. I looked really hard at it. I, I didn’t. I wasn’t selected for the aid position. I really wasn’t, I was really in a different place by that point in time, you know is,
from when I got back in November to where we were. And I decided to make the move to Fort Carson and stay in the unit. And I moved to Fort Carson with the, with the brigade. And. So.
I was, I was fortunate as a, as a, because I had developed such a good relationship with. In Iraq, our squadron S-3, or our operation’s officer, was also moving to Fort Carson and he
was staying in, in 1-10 cav. You know once we moved up there, he was able to work a deal to keep me in 1-10 cav. And so I was able to stay in the squadron.
JD: In what capacity?
01:58:38: MJ: I became the S-4. Or the squadron logistics officer.
JD: Right.
01:58:44: MJ: Typically that’s a position that in, in the squadron, would be held by an armor captain. It just, they worked it out so that I got to stay.
JD: Did you, had you made captain?
01:59:01: MJ: I made captain after I was at Fort Carson. When I, when we, when we, when I P.C.S.’d, I was still a first lieutenant. But promoted shortly thereafter. So.
JD: You, you mentioned you were stop-lost. At what point? And what did you think about that?
01:59:29: MJ: Yes. So. That was. I don’t know. I mean it’s, it’s. I, I still have mixed emotions. Not towards the policy by any means. But how I feel uh it was, I, I feel that there
was some deception that went on.
JD: Broadly or specifically in your case?
01:59:55: MJ: Broadly. And, I made the move up to Fort Carson with a little over a year left on my commitment because I moved in April of 2007. And I was kind of, I didn’t, at that point,
I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. Whether I was gonna stay in or get out. And, but I, I was able to stay in 1-10 cav. By the time, the time had come around through the end of
that next year, I decided to separate from the Army. Submitted my paperwork. And you know, I had talked to, I had talked to the squadron commander. Talked to the squadron operations
officer, he had become the executive officer. Which as the being on staff, he was my direct supervisor. And it was great, because I worked with him for a long time between Iraq and
there at Fort Carson. And you know, they were real supportive of me leaving the Army. You know, I had, there was you know, the rumor mill exists in, I suppose every industry. I know
it is here in the City. You know about deployment timeline and. Because the timelines of deployment is really what keyed in on the stop-loss timeframe. I’d had orders to separate and
pretty much just got told that “Hey, those are going to be rescinded
because of the deployment date that’s upcoming.” You know, and, I had, based on a lot of the factors of why I was separating from the Army, and because the upcoming deployment, the X.O.
and the squadron commander had asked me, “Okay,” you know, “we know you’ve got your separation orders. You know they’re going to be rescinded. You know, instead of going on this deployment
with us, would you be open to being the rear-detachment commander.” And every, every unit that deploys has a rear-detachment. And it’s essentially a company-size element with very minimal
staff to manage personnel that are non-deployable due to injury, due to separation, due to U.C.M.J. punishment. You know, required training needs. At the time, there was also you know,
if you deployed, they had a minimum timeframe of twelve months that you had to be at home stationed before you could be deployed back to theatre. And so those guys. And so I, you know,
I accepted that position. And I said you know, “If this is, this is the case” you know “Let’s just lean into it.” And I told them that I would be the rear-detachment commander. And,
we had progressed on this course of action. Well a, a day or two after my separation date, I got a phone call from H.R. asking why I was still in the Army. Or if I had separated because
I’d had separation orders. And, you know, and this is all those echelons above. And I was like, “Uh, yeah. I’m still here.” I was like, “I got stop-lost.” And they’re like, “No you
didn’t.” So you know it, I really felt like I was in a interesting position.
JD: Yeah.
02:04:25: But I guess, kind of to the same mindset, I had made a commitment to my boss.
JD: Who also thought you were stop-lost?
02:04:35: MJ: Yes.
JD: Okay. So he didn’t try to trick you.
02:04:37: MJ: No.
JD: I gotcha.
02:04:39: MJ: Uh. You know, I told him, “Hey, they just called me about this.” And you know, we talked about it. And I you know, I guess kind of the same way I look at leadership roles
and my responsibility. He had asked me if I would do something, and I had told that I would do that job for him. And I felt an obligation, regardless of what circumstances precipitated
it, I had a further obligation, whether it to be that one man or to the United States Army as a whole. That was just important to me. And so I called and got, they rescinded the orders
and you know, we did some other work so that I could stay in the Army. Because I, I was, for all practical purposes, I was out. You know, I didn’t receive a paycheck for about a month.
JD: [chuckle] Awesome.
02:05:44: MJ: And of course you know, everything catches up, you know. It’s never worried about not being paid enough, only be worried if you get paid too much.
JD: [chuckle] They’ll come for it.
02:05:57: MJ: Because, because at some point, they’ll figure it out and you’ll get the money you’re owed, or they’ll get their money back.
JD: Yeah, yeah.
02:06:06: So. But I, I, I feel like, that I made the right choice. You know, I have zero regret for staying in longer. I feel that me telling my boss that I’m gonna do this was just
as valid or obligatory as when I raised my right hand and swore my oath when I got commissioned. So that, that kept me in a while longer. I served as the rear-detachment commander through
the next deployment. They deployed in August of 2008 and they got back in August of 2009. And throughout that timeframe and then further on, I had started a medical separation process,
with the Army. And then I was, post their deployment back to Fort Carson, I ended up being in until May of 2010. And I was medically retired.
JD: From Fort Carson? Is that where. That was your last?
02:07:39: MJ: Yes. That was my last duty station.
JD: Duty station, right. And you came back to Texas.
02:07:44: MJ: And then I kind of, I went on a, you know, when we got back from Iraq, we had thirty days of, of leave following our reintegration training and stuff from redeployment.
JD: Reintegration training?
02:08:02: MJ: So when we return from deployment. You know, the, the Army had a lot of systems set up as far as health screenings, mental health screenings. A lot of basic health class
courses. You know, anger management, stuff like that. Because there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of. It’s a big transition going from theatre operations back to you know.
JD: Home front.
02:08:38: MJ: Yeah. And so there’s a mandatory. It’s about three to four weeks of reintegration training and so you know pretty much the entire month of December through, past the week
after New Year’s. You know, after we had gotten back you know, we all went on block leave. And I had drove around through the Southwest, out to San Diego. And took a, took a road trip.
And saw a bunch of friends along the way, saw a bunch of sights. You know, when I separated from the Army in May of 2010, I kind of did the same thing. And I spent a month and I went
north through the Midwest. And you know, up through New York and Massachusetts and down the east coast of Florida and you know, and a similar road trip
JD: Sounds like a cool trip. Was it, was it cathartic? I mean was it did you do what you wanted to do?
02:09:44: MJ: Yeah. Yeah. You know part of it was just to be able to see things that you know, everybody wants to go here or go there. You know, through about a thirty day trip, I only
stayed by myself for four nights. You know, I was with friends or staying at, staying with friends, seeing old friends.
JD: All the stuff you couldn’t catch up on for all the time you were in the service, you were able to go to do it. That’s cool.
02:10:13: MJ: Yeah. You know, the great thing about the military is you meet people from all parts of the country and at some point you know you move. You know, I went from Fort Hood
to Fort Carson. You know I had, I had buddies and. At Fort Leavenworth, at West Point, at D.C., and you know, and all these other instillations that I was able to catch back up with
and, and other things. And then just other friends of mine from, from you know, buddies from the Corps.
JD: And then you ended up back in Texas?
02:10:51: MJ: And then I kind of, I, I moved back to Texas. My. At the time I thought I really wanted to be a teacher. And I wanted to be able to try and give back and you know, do something
to maybe help, help people develop themselves. I went back and to do the post-baccalaureate program at A&M. And it, it just became a little overwhelming for me. And I did odd jobs work,
did some construction and stuff like that. And, kind of fell into this [firefighter].
JD: Yeah.
02:11:42: MJ: And.
JD: You, you had some medical training because I know everybody that goes into combat theatre’s got to do basic.
02:11:46: MJ: Well we had combat life savior training. You know, very, it’s, it’s very trauma-centered, and stuff like that. But, and of course basic wilderness first-aid stuff and all
that experience growing up but. It just, you know. I guess. I kind of, my decision making paradigm has been based on “That looks like fun.” You know, I wanted to be in the Aggie Band
because it really looked like fun. I got my degree in RPTS because it really seemed like fun. I joined the Army because it really seemed like fun. I was trying to figure out what it
was I was gonna do. You know, cause like I said before, I knew I was here for a reason. I still don’t know what that reason is.
JD: Yeah. I think you got a three-week old reason right now.
02:12:56: MJ: Oh yeah. For sure. But I thought you know like, “I wonder if I could be a fireman?”
JD: Yeah.
02:13:06: MJ: I was like, “That really looks like fun.” You know.
JD: Do you think you’re a thrill seeker? Or an adrenaline junky to any degree?
02:13:15: MJ: Absolutely. Not, you know, I, I’ve been bungee jumping, in Thailand where the guy that’s in charge of this whole operation doesn’t speak English. You know and you’re really.
JD: [chuckle] Putting a lot in his hands.
02:13:36: MJ: You know that, that’s, you know, I, not to say that somebody that goes bungee jumping here in the U.S. is any less at-risk. But I think it kind of adds an element of.
JD: He said to do what? [chuckle]
02:13:54: MJ: You know. It, it adds a little extra something there when he’s like, he just gives you the thumbs-up and you’re like, “Sure hope I don’t die.”
JD & BL: [chuckle]
02:14:08: MJ: Uh. I, one of the things that, that I always thought of, you know after coming back from deployment is you know, I really just wanted to find a comfortable rocking chair
and just sit down and relax. You know one of the things I was never able to do is really sit down and relax. I think after you’re exposed to so much intensity, you know, your, I think
adrenaline, is maybe one of the most powerful drugs that there is. I think that you know, it, I found myself bored you know. I really missed that amped-up feeling you know. Of, of everything
just firing, firing, firing, firing, firing, firing. And, you know, I, I did miss that. And you do get a little bit of that here.
JD: Right.
02:15:21: MJ: You know. Maybe you don’t get the frequency. But every time that, the light goes off, you don’t know what you’re about to get into.
JD: Right. Sure.
02:15:33: MJ: You know. And, and one of the things that I also enjoy you know, about the fire service. You know I really missed the, the comradery I really miss the relationships. I
think that there’s a different level of relationship that you develop when you knowingly, on a daily basis, put your life in someone else’s hands. And the responsibility and the, the
value that you know, you may feel knowing that they’re giving you that same thing.
JD: Right.
02:16:23: MJ: Uh. You know and just you know, there, there, there’s a lot of fun stuff that goes around here. You know, it’s you spending twenty-four hours a day, eating dinner with
people. It’s you know, it’s not something that I had experienced. You know, I mean, it really I guess started with the Corps of Cadets and the Aggie Band and, and that lifestyle of
living in the dorms for four years to being in the Army. And everybody’s going through the same thing. You all have the same.
JD: Challenges and.
02:17:01: MJ: Challenges and struggles and you can all relate to each other. And then the same thing here. You know, there’s good days and there’s bad days. But you know, it’s definitely
a group that you know, you can have shared experiences with.
JD: Right. When did you meet your wife?
02:17:22: MJ: I actually met my wife in 2008, when I was at Fort Carson. Up. One of my good friends had been set up with her on a date and they had kind of, they were kind of hanging
out for a few weeks. And you know, neither of them were really looking to get into a relationship. Because he was getting ready to deploy in 2008. And she had been in a long term relationship
and wasn’t really looking to be in a relationship. And we had a big going away barbeque you know, a week or so before people were deploying. But we had a big party, at my buddy’s house.
And so he had invited her and she came and you know, we met at his house, at a barbeque. We just, we really got along. You know, she was from a small town in Colorado. You know, and
with me growing up in Whitehouse you know we, we could relate to a lot of the same things as far as driving into town and you know, stuff like that.
JD: Yeah, sure.
02:18:35: MJ: And we, we kind of stayed in touch. At the time she was working for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. And Enterprise had an office on Fort Carson and so their office was in the mini-mall
where they had clothing and sales and some restaurants and other stuff. But that, the mini-mall also had a barbeque restaurant which was one of the like three places in Colorado Springs
to get sweet tea. So I would go to the barbeque restaurant periodically just sometimes to get barbeque, which it was pretty good. But more often than not, just to go get some sweet
tea, during the day. And then kind of became an added bonus you know, one, you know, once I met her. You know, she, she had been working there. And you know, I had the opportunity to
stop and talk to her and we just kind of became friends and you know, we kept in touch a little bit. And not so much. And, the, the same time I was getting ready to get out of the Army,
she had some real good friends who had moved down to New Braunfels. He had been transferred with his job. And so she had came to visit them over Spring Break because she was teaching
fifth grade at the time. And she had come to visit them for Spring Break and their, their girls because she had babysat their girls for them a lot. And she had called me and was like,
“Hey I’m in Texas.” You know because I was from Texas. And you know we kind of, kind of reconnected. And then after that, after her visit down here, she knew she wanted to be a teacher.
But she had gotten her degree in mass communications. And the alternative certification programs in Colorado were much different than in Texas. And she decided she wanted to move down
to Texas for the warmer weather and to get her alternative certification here and move down here. And it was you know, coincidentally the same timeframe that I was getting out of the
Army in May. And you know, gonna move back to Texas. And we kind of started reconnecting and I became her, kind of Texas tour guide—assimilation export. Between traumatic experiences
she had
at Rudy’s with you know, because in Colorado you have a barbeque and you have hot dogs and hamburgers. And you know, if you go to a barbeque restaurant, your choice is a pulled pork
sandwich. You know, compared to the stereotypical Texas barbeque you can get at Rudy’s with the variety and.
JD: Yeah, gotcha.
02:21:35: MJ: So we just, we really started to get to know each other a lot more that summer and started dating and the rest they say, is history.
JD: Sure. When did you join C.S.F.D. Was it, what?
02:21:53: MJ: I was hired in, on March 24th of last year.
JD: Okay.
02:21:57: MJ: So I’ve been working here for about fifteen, sixteen months now.
JD: Did you go. Did you do fire school here in Brayton?
02:22:04: MJ: Yes. I, you know once I decided that I think it’d be fun to be a fireman, I went over to Blinn because they, they strategically developed a Fire Science program over there.
And took some classes, took some fire science classes and, you know I don’t need any core classes because I’ve already got my degree from A&M. But I took some fire science classes and
did my E.M.T. basic through Blinn. Did some summer classes and then went to fire training school in the fall of, 2012. And then I finished that and I got hired by a small department
in Harris County. And I worked there for about fifteen months. While I was working there, I enrolled in paramedic class at Blinn. Because my intention was to stay in the Bryan/College
Station area and work for Bryan or College Station Fire.
JD: Was it easier to get on as an E.M.T.? Or a paramedic I guess?
02:23:10: MJ: I, you know, at the time I was a certified fire fighter/E.M.T. I feel that because both departments, they require you to become a paramedic, or already be a paramedic.
I feel that it benefited me that I was enrolled in paramedic school at the time that I applied and interviewed. Without soundin’ cocky, I feel like I’m a very strong candidate for any
position that I apply to because of my experience in the Corps, in the Army. You know, there’s a lot of intangibles that you know, I can bring to the table. You know, and I mean, anybody
with prior service in the military has a lot. And I think that you know the, the military regiment and routine and lifestyle really transitions well into something like the fire service
where you have a very similar. Uh.
JD: Culture.
02:24:26: MJ: Culture. Thank you.
JD: I had another, one other question I guess that, that was kind of sticking at me. The V.A.’s all over the news for how things are being handled in the Veteran’s services medical stuff.
How, what’s your experience been from when you transitioned back in, at the end of your deployment till, till now. Have, has, has things improved? I feel like.
02:24:58: MJ: I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know I feel like we’re very fortunate in this community to have a V.A. outpatient clinic here. Once I moved back here and, and got settled you
know because of, I was retired from the Army, I’m you know, military medical treatment facilities would be my prime go-to. But seeing as I chose to live not near one. You know, it really
falls under the V.A. You know, I feel very fortunate to have that accessibility here locally. A lot of the services that I’ve utilized have been more through the hospital in Temple.
A lot of that you know, it’s been, I’ve had very mixed experiences with not being able to get appointment, or not being able to get back in a program or you know, some of the, some
of the things that they offer. Even havin’ phone calls returned.
JD: Really?
02:26:23: MJ: But at the same time, I’ve been able to access similar resources locally through the clinic. Different resources. You know, I was able to access some through A&M while
I was enrolled at A&M.
JD: Right.
02:26:43: MJ: Which was great.
JD: Yeah. Given the, the, the background of our community, I think that there’s a, a lot of awareness of, of veterans and the military in general. I, I imagine you feel the same. College
Station in particular, is very, I don’t know if this is even a term we can use, but a pro-veteran or, or.
02:27:03: MJ: Oh I think it absolutely is. I think a large part of that is A&M’s military history. And then we’re also fortunate to have several, several A&M administrators who are military,
due to the, due to the Corps of Cadets, with the commandant. You know since I’ve been back, I was able to meet with General Van Alstyne who was retired at the time, but he was the commandant
of the Corps my senior year. And, I also had the opportunity to, to meet and talk with John Kimbroe while he was still working for the systems. And of course, being a Marine Corps veteran
from Vietnam, he’s very pro-veteran. And was, was very willing to you know, to really take on an activist role for veterans who brought things to him. And they’re also in a position
to actually make changes verses getting bogged down in you know, Nobody CaresVille.
JD: Sure, yeah. We have a, in the history department, we’ve got a Vietnam vet—a marine—who teaches veteran only history classes. It’s ridiculously popular. He does a great job with it.
He did his Ph.D. here and stayed on to teach that class. And the ability to, I mean it’s just history, just like anybody else would teach and we’re all trained to teach the same stuff.
But he can just, at a different level because he share, he has those shared experiences. And, and I think there’s a comfort level as well that comes from that. Of, of, for the students
that are there and the veterans that are in the class. And I, I talked with them because I, I came
telling him about this program and the oral history stuff. And we had guys from, we had some people who were still active, or I guess reserve. People who were long done, people that
were grayed-hair to guys that just got back or just got out and all the branches. And it was really impressive at how much comradery there was in the room itself. I mean this is just
as a, somebody who stepped in for twenty minutes kind of thing. But you could feel it. And I thought that was, it’s a really, really awesome program and then just super progressive
in terms of how A&M and then more broadly, higher education, deals with veterans. And I, I, I was really impressed with that. Have you got any questions?
BL: I think I’m good.
JD: I, we [chuckle] have really gone after it. I, but I guess if there’s no call, you’re in good shape.
02:30:01: MJ: Yeah. I’m, I’m here till seven in the morning.
JD: [chuckle] I don’t know if we’re staying that long.
02:30:04: MJ: So I know y’all have different hours than we do.
JD: Yeah, yeah. I’m sure I’ll think of something here. You have a lot of notes. She’s going to be transcribing this.
BL: Yeah. [chuckle]
JD: Do you have pictures?
02:30:24: MJ: Yes, but I forgot to bring them. I got, very little sleep last night and.
JD: I can sympathize.
02:30:33: MJ: Did not get everything out the door that I had originally intended to.
JD: Yeah. I guess just let me know and I’ll, I can swing by. Or if you’re ever our way. I think we’re good. Thanks a bunch for your time.
02:30:52: MJ: No worries.
JD: I really appreciate it. Good stuff.