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HomeMy WebLinkAboutJames Giles TranscriptionCity of College Station Heritage Programs Oral History Interviewee: James Giles Interviewer: Jared Donnelly Place: College Station, Texas Project: Veterans of Aggieland Transcriber: Brooke Linsenbardt 00:00:01: Jared Donnelly (JD): Alright, think we’re in business. So this is Jared Donnelly. It’s January si-, or it’s not January, July 16th, 2014. I’m here with Jim Giles, am I saying the last name right? 00:00:09: James Giles (JG): Yeah. JD: Giles. 00:00:10: JG: It’s Giles. But yeah. JD: Giles, Jim Giles. So Jim tell us. Where and when were you born, get an idea of sort of biographic data there. 00:00:19: JG: Cleveland, Ohio in 1955. JD: How did you get into the, wanting to go into the military? 00:00:30: JG: My father died when I was like eight and two or three years later my aunt who lived in Utah got sick so my mother flew out to be with her. And my uncle, there you know, her husband, was in the Air Force. Well my mother met one of his Air Force buddies and again, two or three years later they got married. So we traveled around for years as a Air Force family. And. JD: In the states primarily? 00:01:08: JG: Yeah. We, we did all the states. All state-side duties. We did, most of the Texas or Oklahoma, but we did California and Hawaii. And while we were in Oklahoma I was going to school and a bunch of the guys in my class. This is still during Vietnam ‘cause this is early seventies. The, the class before us had primarily been drafter in the Marine Corps. And a bunch of us and got together and decided, “Nah.” [chuckle] JD: Yeah. 00:01:46: JG: So we, in December of ’72, we enlisted in the Army. JD: Had you graduated high school yet? 00:01:56: JG: No. JD: This is senior year? 00:01:58: JG: This is senior year. JD: Gotcha. 00:01:59: JG: It-, over the Christmas vacation of our senior year. JD: Where were you living at this point? 00:02:03: JG: Altus, Oklahoma. Altus Air Force. We were actually living on the Air Force base. JD: Yeah. 00:02:08: JG: So we graduated in May and started boot camp the, early June. I don’t remember. I know my birthday’s the nineteenth of June and I was in basic training. JD: For your birthday? 00:02:22: JG: Yeah. JD: Did someone have to sign for you since you were seventeen? Or were you seventeen? 00:02:27: JG: No. Yes, I was seventeen. But yeah, my mom signed. In fact years later when I got married, I was still too young and my mom had to sign for me to get married. JD: [laughs] 00:02:38: Yeah, I mean things have changed. But, but anyway so we went to, there was four of us. And we went to boot camp at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. From there we went to M.P. school in Fort Gordon, Georgia. JD: So that was your M.O.S.? 00:02:54: JG: Yes. And then we all went to Fort Hood. JD: In Texas. 00:02:59: JG: In Texas. And what was funny is our enlistment papers, of supposedly the sheets that could not be broken unless you know, we flunked out or screwed up or something, had us going to one unit at Fort Hood in a different division than the unit was assigned to. JD: Hmm. 00:03:24: JG: So if, if you’re familiar with the military, I don’t know if you’re. JD: A little bit. 00:03:27: JG: A little bit. Okay. So you got, I was assigned to 4-11th M.P. company. JD: Right. 00:03:33: JG: Which was at that time, under fifth Army. JD: So that’s. 00:03:38: JG: Uh. A bigger. JD: Ri-ri-right so, the, the four stands for, which one? 00:03:44: JG: 4-11th M.P. Company is, is, it’s just a numerical designation of our M.P. company. JD: And and one’s a regiment and one’s a, a, rank? 00:03:51: JG: One. Think of one as a division. JD: So the four is the division of the eleven’s the division? 00:03:57: JG: No. No, no. JD: [laughs] 00:03:58: JG: No you’re, you’re. The 4-11th is just a number. JD: Okay, all right. I’ll get away from that. 00:04:01: JG: Okay. We’re. We’re, alright, we’re A M.P. Company under fifth Army, the division headquarters okay. Well when we got to Fort Hood. No, we were under, we were supposed to go 4-11th M.P. Company under First Cavalry Division okay. And it comes out 4-11th M.P. Company was under Fifth Army. A different division but you know. So anyway. So we ended up at the 4-11th M.P. Company Fifth Army. That later became 4-11 Company Three Corps. Which is headquarters in Fort Hood, Three Corps because Fifth Army was dissolved a couple years later, ’74, ’75. JD: A corps’ above the army, in, in like bigger than the army right? Or is an army bigger than a corps? 00:04:53: JG: I’m gonna say they’re equal. JD: Okay. 00:04:55: JG: At, you know when you, talk-talking that many people, I don’t know. And my wife-to-be, graduated in 1974 in Gary, Indiana. She went to school with several of the Jackson Five. JD: Oh yeah? 00:05:13: JG: Actually in, in, in Gary, Indiana. Anyway, she was assigned to, 256 M.P. Company, Second Armored Division. And she ended up in my unit. So we got screwed to-, sc-, the Army screwed up and we got engaged on our third date so. JD: There you go. 00:05:36: JG: It was, it was. I mean yeah, sometime later. But anyway, we went, we were at Fort Hood. We did. You know, a lot of M.P. training and stuff. I went to Germany. I went to investigation school. So I became a plain-clothes criminal investigator. And it was really nice. JD: Yeah, I bet. Could you back up and tell me a little bit about boot camp. So this is, Vietnam’s wrapping up by this point when you’re. 00:06:06: JG: Not, not in ’72. JD: Okay. 00:06:07: JG: ’73. JD: Seventy, alright so just before it wraps up. 00:06:09: JG: Yeah because, yeah, we went to, Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. Wh-, after the, right, right while the fall of Saigon’s going on to take care of all the Vietnamese refugees that were coming back. JD: Hmm. Gotcha. 00:06:26: JG: Now when I got into the 4-11th M.P. Company, the, the unit was Charlie Company 518th M.P. Brigade. They had come back as a unit from outside Saigon. They were in (Bien Hao?), Vietnam. I was the first one that had not been Vietnam to go into the unit. So I’d rather talk about the shit they did to me than boot camp ‘cause boot camp. JD: Sure. 00:06:53: JG: But boot camp is pretty much boot camp. You drill, you march. You get very little sleep. At that time, the drill sergeants couldn’t hit you, but, they would take you behind a closed door. And you’d be short of breath or have a black eye or bloody nose or something and you know, they, they got their points across. And we had several people in our boot camp unit that had been in the military before and had gotten out for whatever reason. Some of them got out to use the G.I. Bill. It ran out so they came back in to get it renewed. I’m not, I’m not sure exactly how all that worked but. But you know, we survived boot camp. I actually put on a lot of weight in boot camp. I didn’t think I was skinny. Everybody I talked to lost weight. I actually put on weight and buffed up. JD: Yeah, some muscle mass, there you go. 00:07:53: JG: I. Like I say, I didn’t mind boot camp that much at all. Before this I had a paper route. I used to get up at 4:30 in the morning to carry my paper route. You know. And, and, and you know, you get up and you don’t waste time before you out carrying your, your sacks. I had a double sack route. I used to you know, front and back pouch so I’d get up and I’d carry the, carry that. And I’d go home and if I, if it wasn’t raining and I was able to get done in time, I was able to eat breakfast before I went off to school. And, and so boot camp wasn’t a, a big problem to me. It just seemed like it was never going to end. My dad. Actually we were living in Altus, Oklahoma. My father and his family is from Granite, Oklahoma, which is about 28 miles away. So we used to spend our summers you know, before the paper route, working on the farm. And learning how to shoot and stuff. So again I didn’t, I didn’t have any trouble at all with boot camp. Just it, they would not let you (drink?) soda. JD: Yeah. 00:09:06: JG: I hate warm kool-aid to this day. But, but they were, “Soda’s carbonated drinks,” which is kind of a taboo. JD: Yeah. 00:09:15: JG: So. JD: Reminds me of high school sports. We didn’t drink any soda either. 00:09:17: JG: Yeah. We went. Then I went like I say, to Fort Gordon, Georgia and again, I had not shot a, a pistol that much, a handgun. And back in those days the M.P.s were carrying .45s. So that was a little big, little heavy little, but again I mean, it wasn’t anything. I knew the principals of lining up a site and stuff and I didn’t have any problems with it. JD: So did M.P.s have to qualify like everybody else does with a rifle. Do you have to qualify with, with a handgun, with, with your .45? 00:09:53: JG: We, we had to qualify with a, our M-16. Well at, at first it was 14, but right in the middle of basic, we changed over to the M-16. JD: Really? 00:10:04: JG: So. We got to handle both. Mainly the M-14, we got to drill with. We never got to the range part. That’s towards the end of boot camp. They wash so many people out I guess in the middle that they don’t want to give you ammo too till. But anyway, so. We have to qualify with our M-16, a shotgun, and sidearm. JD: Was the shotgun unique to M.P.s or was that also something the average soldier did. 00:10:33: JG: That was. As far as I know it was unique to M.P.s and tankers. People on a tank. JD: Right. 00:10:39: JG: And again I, I don’t know why a tank but. JD: Hmm. That’s a good question. I guess if you’re in such a bad situation, somebody’s gotta be pretty dang close to you if you’re operating a tank. 00:10:48: JG: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But. M.P school wasn’t a problem. My wife went through M.P. school you know, a year later. And she was from Gary, Indiana. Which is, think of downtown Chicago, and she just didn’t know a lot about the Army. She was kind of doing it to get away from the situation up there. And. JD: I imagine it was relatively unique to her as a woman M.P. That had to be. 00:11:22: JG: She was one of the first three women to actually go through M.P. school to get the M.P. I mean you, you, you see pictures during World War II of women that are, are wearing the M.P. brassard, that’s what they call the shoulder thing. But they technically weren’t. They didn’t the M.P.M.O.S. They were clerk typist, they were nurses, they were something in detailed to the M.P. corps. But she was in the second or third class to actually go through M.P. school. But anyway, one of her drill sergeants. Again, you’re not, never been in the military? JD: No. 00:11:59: JG: Okay. The drill sergeants (dream?) your, your basic training. They are, the first thing they’re going to try to do to you is to knock you down. To. They want to start with a level playing field and they would do everything to, get you at the lowest point in your life. And then they’d gradually build your self-esteem, your teamwork, your everything else until you’re, you’re what they want. But they, they intimidate. They, they knock you down. And like I say, my wife’s drill sergeant ask her what her name is the, the first couple of days she was in processing ‘cause it’s [spells] Schlichting. Schlichting. But he didn’t know how to pronounce it. And he wasn’t. Drill sergeants do not look like a fool. So anyway. He kind of got in her face a little bit and says, “What’s your name?” And she looked at him and said, “Robin.” Okay. And that was the wrong thing to do with a drill sergeant you know. JD: Yup. They don’t care about your first name. 00:13:12: JG: He doesn’t care about your first name unless it’s Darling. He’s not gonna call you, “Darling, get over here.” You know it just, that, that doesn’t go. [chuckles] So anyway they. He got in her face and intimidated her, like no end. And, and that was (Sergeant Jack Digby?). So anyway, we get to Fort Hood. And I’m there for, a year, year and a half before she got there. And I, by that time, I was working as a traffic control. And Fort Hood is a large instillation and I worked in the traffic unit. And did traffic accident investigation. And then we also stood on the corners and directed traffic. I was lucky enough for most of my time to stand on the corner with a control box and just have the little plunger that, that I’d operate the lights, which was really good when it was raining because I could sit in my truck, or my jeep, and, and work that. But I started working a lot with the criminal investigators. And eventually I went to M.P.I. school which is in Fort McCul-Fort McClellan in Alabama. And then came back and worked crimes against persons and thefts while I was at Fort Hood. And then I was transferred to Germany. JD: Is that where you joined up with the unit of all Vietnam vets? 00:14:49: JG: No, I was at Fort Hood! JD: Was when you got with them? 00:14:53: JG: I-it, when I got into the unit at Fort Hood, they were all, like I say, Vietnam vets. And. JD: They were rough huh? 00:15:01: JG: They were crazy. They were crazy. We had a guy, first name was Bill. I won’t go any farther than that in case he ever comes across this. But he knows who he is. He was really in, or thought he was in to karate and kung fu and stuff. And he really didn’t know a whole lot other than what he’d seen in the movies but, we, you know. Anyway I was in the office one time and he came to the door. And I forgot what he said he was going to do, but he jumped up, hit his head on the top of the door, and knocked himself out. [laughs] JD: [laughs] Just out there on the floor. 00:15:42: JG: He was out right on the floor. And pretty much everybody. There must’ve twenty people outside in the driveway area, saw him or heard him and we just left him there and laughed and laughed, it was just. But (Fritz Sanchor?) was one of the guys there. He’s a pretty good guy. Think of Arnold Schwarzenegger in a younger, younger than I’ve ever seen pictures of him. But I mean, this guy was just. And he went out and he later became a California Highway Patrol. And last I heard, he was a captain or something with the California Highway Patrol. We had a guy. The company clerk. (Ralpherdy?), I can’t think of what his first name was. Anyway, this guy was. You think of Radar or Riley on M.A.S.H.? JD: Yeah. 00:16:40: JG: Think of the opposite. JD: Alright. 00:16:43: JG: But not quite a clinger. But, but you know. This guy was, was always. He hated the Army. I guess he was a draftee and was waiting for his time to get out. But we would, back in those days, on payday, we had to stand formation in our dress, dress uniform. So he would be out there in the dress uniforms and the commanders would inspect, you know commander and platoon sergeants inspect him and everything and he’d be fine. And then he’d go to walk back in his office and he’d take off his jacket and he had this big, thick, rainbow suspenders. Robin Williams, Mork and Mindy suspender’s on, under. You know, you couldn’t see. JD: That was his act of defiance? 00:17:29: JG: Yeah it just. It’s just. You know. We had a guy. (Leo McCarthy. McCartney. McCarthy?) play the violin. And for an M.P., this guy was just a, a, I mean, he was really good. I’ve never really appreciated violin, but he was in second platoon and I was in first. So we were different buildings. And I could hear him when he’s practicing. And it just. I don’t know, there’s something about a violin that I, I, I, when I hear certain songs, I can remember back in the day when, when Leo would be play, practicing, or playing this. And it’s just really strange, but we had open bay barracks. So our platoon sergeant would have one room at the end of the bay. And then, the other forty people would be in double stacked bunks, throughout. JDL What rank were you at this point? 00:18:34: JG: A private. E.2. P.F.C. JD: Yeah, yeah. So I guess with M.P.s. It’s because you’re an M.P. that you have the authority to be able to direct traffic and, and tell people, I guess in, to some extent, what to do even though you’re most likely telling somebody much higher rank than you what’s. 00:18:47: JG: Oh yeah. JD: Yeah. 00:18:49: JG: Oh yeah. JD: So what was that like? 00:18:51: JG: It just directing traffic. I mean we’d get yelled at and get the finger by anybody and everybody. You know, I mean, soccer mom or fifteen-year old wanna-be hippie. You know it’s just. JD: But there was never. I guess ‘cause when you think of M.P., or (I guess?) when I think of M.P., you often see like sort of the kind of crowd control kind of action or, or the guy that’s busting somebody for doing something they shouldn’t have been doing on base or something like that. 00:19:16: JG: Well I, I. Yeah, I mean we, we do that. I mean it’s basically a policeman on a military instillation. I, I busted a guy. Again, early ‘70s, CB radios were the, the craze. Believe it or not at Fort Hood at that time, was kind of an open base. If you wanted to drive on base, you could. And this guy is a civilian. I caught him in somebody’s pick-up truck, stealing their CB radio. Well it, it was a shock to me but I had to turn him over to the F.B.I. JD: Wow, 00:19:51: JG: He’s a civilian creating a crime, or committing a crime on a military reservation. JD: Gotcha. 00:19:57: JG: So I had to go to Austin to testify, testify before the federal grand jury is to what I did and how I did it. JD: About a guy stealing a CB radio? [chuckle] 00:20:03: JG: Yeah about a CB radio. And I’m thinking, “Wow,” you know. But it was, it was different. We were doing a surveillance at the Belton Lake N.C.O. club, which is Belton Lake is Belton Lake, and we have a club out there. And there had been some drug activity in the parking lot and stuff. So we were out there watching it and we were, you know, way up in the corner of the parking lot where we can look down on the parking lot. And you know, parking lot you got your spaces for cars and light poles. And, and the cars would park around the light poles so you know, not to be out in. Anyway, closing time one night. There was probably six cars, seven cars there. And the people got in the, in between them. And they were smoking cigarettes and finishing their beers and whatever. And little shoving got going on. So we’re like, “Okay, let’s watch this you know.” And they kind of broke up and left. And we waited a little bit, watch the people from the club get cleared out. You know, make sure everything was set. Went up, checked the alarm panel, made sure the alarm had been turned on. And then we left. And we’re halfway back to base, which is probably a twenty or thirty minute ride. I mean that’s how far, that’s how big Fort Hood is. But anyway, we’re halfway back to base and the dispatcher comes up and ask us if we were on, if we had been doing surveillance there at the club. I go, “Yeah, we just left.” And he said, “Well yeah, this guy’s at the hospital has been stabbed.” And he says, “You guys were sitting there watching it and didn’t see anything.” And well I mean, you’ve got the seven vehicles and then you have bunch of people, we didn’t see any weapons. But supposedly we were sitting there and watched somebody get stabbed. I go, yeah. But it’s just like, “Wow.” But, and you don’t see it. It happened so fast and it wasn’t like they were in a big hurry when they left. No one came by, if they saw us sitting there, no one came by to tell us, “I just got stabbed and that’s the guy that did it.” So I, I don’t know. But it just you know, it didn’t look good. JD: So that sounds like general, pretty much general police duties, just like you, you’d imagine. 00:22:27: JG: Yeah, we did, we did. Fatal traffic accidents and drug busts and on payday, we’d do robbery detail. We, in teams, and it varied on, on what, how many people were detailed for the teams, but normally there’s five to eight or nine people on a team. And you pick one or two people to walk into areas where we’ve had a lot of trouble. And see if they could get jumped. And, and we had mixed successful. Sometimes we’d have something going on, but most of the time they stumbled on somebody smoking some dope. It, you know, [clears throat]. So they’d keep on walking and then they’d radio to us, “Hey you know, over here to the le-, to the right, and the steps going into the boiler room for the building, whatever, there’s somebody smoking.” But one time we were doing this and we took a break. And we’re just sitting around in, in front of the bowling alley there in Fort Hood, which was across the street from the enlisted club. But we were sitting there taking a break, it’s hot. We’d get, went in bowling alley and got something to drink. And, probably three or four of us sitting on the little planner, cement brick planner thing they had out front. And taking a break, and back in those days, having a cigarette. And. This guy we were with, you know part of our group, was sitting there and he tipped his. He had drank his drank, drink, and was getting the ice out of the bottom of the cup you know, and he looked down and there was three guys surrounding him. And this one guy pulled out and just socked him. And then grabbed his shirt and says, “Give me your money!” JD: This is a military base? Yeah, right in Fort Hood. 00:24:26: JG: Yeah this is. Oh, oh Yeah, but. And I don’t even remember whether these guys were military or not. But like I say, there was like five of our group. And, and they were. JD: And you all were in uniform with your gear. 00:24:36: JG: Oh no, no. We’re, we’re civilian clothes. JD: Oh, okay. 00:24:39: JG: I mean, we. Once I got into investigation, we threw our uniforms away. When I got promoted to E-5, I had a beard and a ponytail down the middle of my back. I wore shorts and sandals to work. JD: ‘Cause you’re doing investigation, you don’t want to (see that?). 00:24:55: JG: We-, well I, undercover plain clothes I could fit in a lot of areas where. Anyway so, pretty much all of drew down on these guys ‘cause we didn’t know weapons or not ‘cause weapons have been used. And, and we got all three of them. JD: I bet they were a little surprised. 00:25:15: JG: Just a little bit. One guy wet himself. But I mean yeah, we got all three of them. And but, we tried to write it up and we kept cracking up because this was like, “Nobody’s gonna believe this.” And, and we didn’t have any surveillance video or anything. But. JD: Hah. That’s something else. 00:25:35: JG: Yeah. So. At Fort Hood for a while. Was involved in a traffic accident. I was trying to stop two armed, or an armed robbery car. They’d committed a bank robbery in Copperas Cove. And they’d come back on Fort Hood. And I happened to be sitting on the intersection. When, when you get on Fort Hood from Copperas Cove, and again I don’t know how it is now, but back in the seventies, you could either go north, the, the West Range road which will take you up to Gatesville. Or you can take the Copperas Cove road, there was pretty much nowhere to turn until you got past the intersection I was sitting at. So I was sitting there, and I saw ‘em coming, and I turned on my lights and my siren, and we called them wigwags, but your, your head lights flashed. Okay. And they came from my left and they made a left turn. So now they’re going straight, straight front of me. I had my lights and sirens going. And I got up close to the intersection, everybody had stopped, I had a green light, I went on. And a pickup truck coming from the right broadsided me. So thus ended my pursuit. Both of us hit a third car and then I went off of the third car and took down a telephone pole about three feet off the ground. JD: Wow. 00;27:06: JG: So yeah, I was a little messed up. But it, that’s how, that’s how I met my wife. JD: All right. 00:27:11: JG: Anyway so when I get out of the hospital, I’m on limited duty because I had broke my collarbone so I had my arm and stuff all taped up and strapped up. So they had me working in the, the company office for, seemed like forever. But anyway my wife had transferred in and I worked C.Q., Charge Quarters at night. I was a speck-four by that time, E-4. So I was getting off work in the morning. Because I was worked investigations, I lived off base, I didn’t live in the barracks. I had to maintain an area there with my uniforms, but I lived off base. So. I was going home and the supply sergeant asked me to give her a ride to the store because again, being one of the first few females, especially in the M.P. Corps, he didn’t have a lot of women’s sizes and blouses and, and whatever else that she needed for her uniform. So. Took her to the clothing, clothing store, uniform shop. And brought her back to the company area. And went home. And a couple of days later. I think I had come in there for something and she was there and I says, “I’m going to run to the (B.X.M.?) or snack bar and get something to eat. And wanna go?” And “Yeah.” So we went out for hotdogs or whatever (and I?). JD: There you go. 00:28:49: JG: Then, then I. You know, I went in and worked, work, went to work that night. And then, probably a month later. I mean, we’d see each other. But you know, no talking or anything. But about a month later, I was going to be sent. I, I had got my arm out of the cast. And I, still weak, limited ability so I was going to go to Fort Bliss in El Paso as a temporary duty. Worked security. At a special site they have down there. So anyway. So I went down there and was gone for about six weeks. And I knew when I was leaving, I was gonna be gone for a while. So I lent her and my best friend my car. Well they took it to the drive-in movie. There was like six of them in my car. And had a popcorn fight. When I sold the car years later. I’m still digging out popcorn from everywhere on there. I don’t know what kind of. But they got into a popcorn fight in my car. But, anyway. We got back from Fort Bliss and, I don’t remember what day of the week we got back on. But supposedly I was gonna be off for like three or four days before I, I go back to work. And in the meantime the fall of Saigon had started and. I, well, I had turned all my uniforms in. We, we got back in at like three in the morning. And I had checked with my platoon sergeant and we, I was gonna be off for you know, like four or five days. And so I turned all my uniforms in because trust me, after couple of months in El Paso in the desert, the uniform needed some clean. And so, I, I turned all my uniforms in. And then, the fall of Saigon started and we loaded all of our stuff from Fort Hood. And my future wife and the rest of our unit conveyed from Fort Hood to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. Which is outside of Fort Smith. Because I had been gone and some of the support headquarters platoon people and the head staff, the administrative staff and stuff, we got to get on a helicopter. We rode and it was so much better. But then when we landed there, they wanted us to put everything together so that when they guys conveyed in, they’d have a place to sleep. And it’s kind of like, “What?” We thought, yeah, we thought we were gonna enjoy ourselves. But, again we were back in open bay barracks. They didn’t have a dining hall there. In those days, we were still, still eating sea-rations. K-rations. JD: Really? 00:32:00: JG: Oh yeah. JD: In a dining hall? 00:32:03: JG: Yeah. JD: Or, or wherever you would have been. 00:32:03: JG: Well wherever we were at. They did get the Coke machines working. That was the first place I’d ever seen where you could go up to a Coke machine and get a beer. You know, they actually had the, the beers in a separate machine. But again, you’re on a military base. You know, there’s not a whole lot of kids where, where we, the area we were at. But I don’t think there’s ever any kids on Fort Chaffee anyway. But anyway so for the next several months, we worked with the Vietnamese refugees coming in and getting out. JD: Yeah, what kind of work was that? 00:32:46: JG: We’d go. The, the Vietnamese had their barracks. They had their own cantonment area. They had their own dining halls, medical facilities and everything there. Our main goal was to one, keep them in their area. Two, keep newspaper reports, anybody else that was on base, anybody that wasn’t supposed to be inside their area. Ha-, they had all special passes. If, if you weren’t supposed to be in their area, our job was to get you out. JD: And these were people who, I’m assuming, had worked and, for the U.S. government. 00:33:22: JG: Work, worked, helped for, help the Americans during the thing. Some spoke English, some not. JD: And these are entire families? 00:33:32: JG: Yeah, yeah. Well whatever could get out. Sometimes we’d get one or two kids. Or the older people and the rest of the family would come on a different plane or different bus. But we used to go to the Fort Smith Airport and meet the planes. And then convey them through Fort Smith. And again, this was the first time most of them had seen you know, the United States or anything. JD: So what was there demeanor most of the time? I’m assuming somewhat relief? 00:34:08: JG: Relief, tired, and hungry for the most part. Most of their medical cares had been taken care of. Again, this has been a year or two ago, but I want to say most of them were in Hawaii, Guam, Philippines, before they flew into Fort Smith. So if there was any immediate medical things that were taken care of before they got there. Or, or at least by the time they landed, we had ambulances and, and the, the military style buses for standing by. Because we knew what we were gonna, or I didn’t, but you know, the people up above knew what, who and what was coming. But for the most time, most time, they were hungry, tired. I mean, think of, they’ve been traveling sometimes for days or weeks. Or, you know so think of what, how you feel after a travel. It’s just, it’s just the same thing. But not knowing the language and stuff. I think they were a little fear, a little bit of anticipation worry, type thing. But we met with a, again, we didn’t meet, but we met with the church groups and civic organizations that were coming in to adopt or sponsor some of these families. JD: And they were all coming and were going to be American citizens? 00:35:30: JG: No. I don’t, I don’t remember talking with a whole lot of them about that. But they would come up to us ‘cause we had basically phone booths down the middle of the street, around their area. And again like I, if you didn’t have a special pass, you weren’t allowed in. But we, we had the phone booths sitting up there. So they would come up to us and say, “Oh I got a sponsor family in Chicago.” You know, “Or, I got a sponsor family in Houston. Or I got, I’m going to.” And they’d ask about the place you know. I, if I’d been there, I’d tell them about it. If I didn’t, we’d get on a radio ‘cause we had basically a landline phone system for. But, “Hey anybody been to or you know this area or whatever.” And then I’d direct them. You know, go over here to this way and talk with the people because. But that was pretty much. I mean it was, it was long hours. There, I don’t remember any, any big excitement anything. They had some cowboys come from Saigon. And cowboys were the local gang in Saigon, that tried to get the money and supplies that these guys had been given before. I know, they got pointed out to, to the, the higher-ups. The actual you know. And then they got, we, we got told about them and we wrestled them up. And I don’t know whatever happened to them, but they were out of camp the next day so. JD: Really? Huh. Yeah. 00:37:07: JG: Yeah. I don’t, I don’t know. But anyway, yeah, we got back from there and I was working downtown Killeen, with the Killeen police department. We had joint patrols, ‘cause the Killeen police officers, it’s their town, it’s their jurisdiction. But because of large influence of military people, we’re mainly down there to observe and make sure that they’re not getting picked on just ‘cause they’re Army. Just be-, you know if, if he does it for this guy who’s a, a resident or a passerby, passer through the state of Texas, and then he’s harder on the military, then we were kind of looking at it both ways. But anyway, we got involved in a situation at the Center Theatre, in Killeen. And several years later I was sued for civil rights violation and manslaughter as a result of that. And, I’m not gonna mention any names there, but my buddies that, we had came to Fort Hood together. As our time, the guarantee time we were spending at Fort Hood, we all had put down that we wanted to go to Germany. Well I had met some guys. Again, this is years after I’d been at Fort Hood. But I, I spent a lot of time in Honolulu, San Francisco. I like Oriental food, I like you know. So I changed my overseas area preference to Korea, because we had several guys come back from Korea and say, “This is really the place you want to go.” And again, I wasn’t married at the time. But. So anyway, I changed my overseas area preference to Korea. This incident downtown Killeen happened and I was, flagged from orders. I, I couldn’t rotate until all this was resolved. Well then I went ahead and did get married. The orders came down. All my buddies that had Germany down, ended up going to Korea. I had Korea down and after this thing was all cleared up, I went to Germany. So military wanted to get you one way or another. JD: Yeah, yup. When, about when was this when, when you went to Germany? 00:39:43: JG: 1977. JD: Yup. And where in Germany? 00:39:47: JG: I was, my, my headquarters was in Würzburg, which is in Bavaria. Central Bavaria. I was actually, my station most of the time in Kitzingen. Which is a little (purson?) south of there. But anyway. I went over first. I was there, I was going, I went over on a unaccompanied tour which meant I was going to be there for a year by myself. And my wife stayed here with our, then one year old son. And. I got over there. She’s German extraction, I’m German extraction. I got to see, touring, visiting a little bit. And I go, “This is really pretty nice. I think you’d like it.” So I extended for what they call sponsorship so she could come over. JD: So you extended your period so that she come over. 00:40:40: JG: Yeah. So instead of a year, I’d be there for two year, two to three years. JD: Was she able to come basically immediately? 00:40:45: JG: Yes. No, no. We had to wait until there was housing available. In, in the area we were at, there wasn’t much housing for families. JD: Housing (since?) it’s on base or housing just in the population? 00:40:55: JG: Anywhere. JD: I gotcha. 00:40:55: JG: Anywhere. We got a house in Wiesentheid. Which is a very beautiful town. But it’s about thirty miles away from Kitzingen. JD: I’m going to google this real quick. I spend a lot of time in Germany. Try to figure out. Do you, is it Würzburg? Is that what you were saying? 00:41:14: JG: Yeah. [spells: Wurzburg] JD: Okay, yeah, I know Wurzburg. 00:41:20: JG: Okay. Well then you go south on the B8 Autobon and you hit Kitzingen. Going towards Nuremburg. JD: So I got. Here’s the map. South. 00:41:42: JG: Well it’s not the B8. JD: Yeah, I know. I don’t seeing that either. 00:41:47: JG: Okay. JD: Zoom out a little bit (bigger?). 00:41:49: JG: No. I don’t think. Kitzingen. JD: Here we go. Oh, here’s the 8. Yup. 00:41:55: JG: Yeah, okay. JD: Yeah. Sort of southeast. This is where you were stationed in Kitzingen. Maybe this is the base right here. No (gokgo?) [chuckle]. 00:42:06: JG: Okay well. JD: Might have been a base at one point, who knows, it’s closed. 00:42:09: JG: Yeah, well they had. They had two concerns in Kitzingen. One was. JD: Barracks. 00:42:16: JG: La-larson barracks. And that, that, where the golf course was. That’s also where the nuclear weapons storage facility was. That’s also where the hawk missile cyclos were, or missile battery. And I was there first. JD: (Ahead of?) looks like it was. 00:42:34: JG: Yeah that’s where I was first. I was assigned to a Army Security ASA, uh, agency. Because I’ve got a, had a top secret SPI background, background. Or, or security clearance level. And something happened and they couldn’t do my paperwork. They couldn’t do it through anyway. I went to Harvey barracks which is where the main BX was. That’s where the, the division deputy headquarters were and everything. And I talked with the, the guys in the military police investigations out unit. And they were short one person and one of the guys was going to leave in like three weeks and they didn’t have a replacement for him. So what they did is they transferred me over to the M.P.I. office and, two days later, my first surrogate from Larson barracks called up and says, “I got your paperwork. You can go to work upstairs now.” And I go, “Yeah, I don’t want to.” JD: Yeah. 00:43:42: JG: [chuckle] JD: Yeah. Already in a new place. 00:43:44: JG: Anyway. So we get over there. I get my sponsorship and stuff is signed so my wife can join me. And so she comes in with my son. I take her home. Two or three days. I mean she’s jetlagged. She’s carried the kid through the airports and everything. And it was, it was not a good, good time. So anyway she relaxes, mellowed out, unwound a little bit. We only had one vehicle. And I’d been taking it with me. You know, back and forth to get to work. And, we got, she had been there for a couple of days. And you know, she needed to go shopping, she wanted to see where everything was. ‘Cause again this, like I said, a little ways away from the, where we lived. Weinstheid? JD: See. It’s gonna be a village I’m guessing? 00:44:44: JG: I don’t. I. Yeah. Go. Oh god, I don’t remember. JD: Eh, been a little while. If you remember how to spell it, I could type that in. 00:44:55: JG: [spells: WEINSTHEID] JD: Hold on. 00:45:04: JG: Weinstheid. Yeah, Weinstheid. JD: Well that’s a little ways away. There’s Kitzingen, here’s Weinstheid. 00:45:14: JG: Yeah. Yeah, like I say. JD: It’s a drive. 00:45:16: JG: It was, it was, it was. I went, went through several towns to get there. JD: I know, gotcha, okay. 00:45:20: JG: And, and Weinstheid was actually a lot bigger and better town than Kitzingen. JD: Yeah. 00:45:25: JG: But anyway. So we lived there and you know, when, when she. JD: Was she out of the service by this point? 00:45:34: JG: Oh yeah. JD: Yeah. 00:45:35: JG: Yeah. And so yeah, ‘cause if she had still been in the service, we could’ve come together and make do somewhere. But. Yeah, she was out of the service. And, she needed to sign up. They have, headstart they called it. And it’s basically teaching you the language and the customs of Germany. The money. How to ask for directions type thing. And so she needed to get enrolled in that. I needed to get her a rations card because you couldn’t buy gas, cigarettes, sugar, any tobacco product. But gas, sugar, butter, and it was something without a ration card. JD: Really? This is for everybody? 00:46:29: JG: Yeah, this is for everybody. JD: Not just American service people. 00:46:31: JG: Well I, I mean, this, this is for Americans because we can get it so much cheaper than the Germans can. And too many people, Americans, are paying their rent by. JD: Right, with butter and cigarettes. 00:46:42: JG: With butter, sugar, and cigarettes, and stuff. Or there’s, there’s a limit to your alcohol you could get. But yeah, I mean it was just you know, you can buy it here and pay your rent for it, but than you’re gonna do without because you only get one ration card. And it was always that if you lost your ration card, you would get one effective the first of the following month. So you couldn’t use two in one month because. Anyway. JD: Combating the problem. 00:47:10: JG: Yeah. So anyway so. She had been to where I worked a couple of times and she wanted to go to the BX which is just you know, a block away. It was a nice day so she said she’d just walk over there and then she’d come back. And meet me in my office and we’d drive home. Well. I was, I was finishing up my work and somebody yelled to me that she was coming. And so I came up. And one of my good buddies while I was there, was, was there. So I go, “Hey, come on over and meet my wife.” And so I introduced my wife to Jack Digby, who was her drill sergeant. JD: Oh boy. 00:47:55: JG: Who my wife. My wife turned white as a sheet and it was like, she was shaking. And I couldn’t understand. JD: And he didn’t recognize her I’m sure. 00:48:04: JG: No. JD: Yeah, I mean they see so many people coming through. 00:48:07: JG: Yeah. But, but anyway yeah. JD: [laughs] 00:48:10: JG: So I mean, it was, it was just. But I mean, I could tell there was something. I mean she was shaking and I have never seen her. But that was Jack Digby. JD: I’m assuming that they eventually got over that? Or did she never. 00:48:23: JG: Not on my wife’s part. I don’t know about his part. JD: Really? 00:48:26: JG: But it just kind of like. Yeah, not on my wife’s part. JD: Interesting. So you worked with this guy for a couple of years and she was always. 00:48:33: JG: Yeah. No, no I never worked with him. I was, I was, like I say, I was a criminal investigator. And I was assigned to the, the M.P. station in, in Kitzingen. My headquarters was in Warzburg. He was one of the platoon sergeants for the two pla, one of the, we’ve got two platoons of M.P.s there. He was a platoon sergeant so I mean, we, we kind of worked together because when it came time for him to do his evaluations of his guys, I’d kind of tell him a thing or two. I, I was, again, because of the nature of my position, I was in charge of internal affairs. So I got to talk about all these people with all of his people, conducting investigations and whatever else. But yeah, my wife never. JD: Wow. 00:49:20: JG: I mean to do this day, I bring up that name. And she, I could see her shudder because. But he got up in her grill and it just you know. JD: Small world. 00:49:28: JG: Small world. JD: Yeah. 00:49:30: JG: Anyway. Uh. I extended another tour in Germany. And at that time, Jack Digby and I, and, and my wife. Well I was taking college classes ‘cause I didn’t have a college education. So I was taking college classes through Central Texas College. They offered a school with Scotland Yard in London. And it was, relatively cheap for me to, to go. And, and they provided my transportation from Kitzingen from London and back. Hotel. And it cost me an extra I think, forty dollars for my wife to come for the weekend. Ten day course, whatever it was. So I go, “Yeah.” You know, so we had a second honeymoon in London. But I did, I, I attended a course in Scotland Yard which was pretty good. Anyway so. JD: Yeah. So you spent a couple years in Germany than. 00:50:36: JG: Yeah. We were there ’77 to ’82. JD: Wow. You really enjoyed it. 00:50:39: JG: Yeah. I’d still be there, but they said, “No, you’ve gotta go state side.” And I go, “Well, let me out.” So anyway. While, while I was there, I put in for a course. It’s Counter Terrorist Tactics and Planning course. And. JD: Through the Army? 00:51:00: JG: Through the Army. And we had several high ranking German people work with us in class and some basically their F.B.I. teaching class. We had some of our F.B.I. agents and D.E.A. agents come over and teach portions of the class. And it was really pretty good because this was in April of 1981 and that’s when Reagan, the attempted assassination on Reagan. So we were. We had finished class for the day, and as custom in Germany, you kind of go to the beer, the pub. And you bend the elbow a little bit before you go to supper. And we were on a military instillation. And some officer walked in and unplugged the jukebox and asked them to turn on the lights and made the assignment that, you know he’d been shot. He, he didn’t know what his status was other than he was in surgery. That kind of put a damper on things. But the next morning in class, you know, he’d been, he gotten out of surgery, he was fine. But they kind of put a new emphasis on what would, what we, what we were studying and learning and stuff. So it was really a, really neat, really neat experience. But I got out of the Army. We came back. JD: In ’82 you said? 00:52:22: JG: Yeah. We. The October before I got out. We had come back. I got a lot of family in and around Cleveland, (youclan?) and Ohio. My wife is from Chicago, Illiniois, Gary, Indiana area. And then my parents at that time were look. My dad had retired at Carswell Air Force base. Her stepfather had retired at Carswell Air Force base in Fort Worth. So we came and spent about a month in these three areas. Looking at the houses, the job market, the economy, the you know. And I kind of liked the Cleveland area, better than the Chicago area. But at that time in the, the early eighties, the Dallas/Fort Worth area was booming that, you know. Up in Chicago they had, the steel mills were closing. The houses were dirt cheap because nobody could afford them. You know, you’d drive down the street where she used to live. And there’s somebody in like every eighth house because the rest of them had been foreclosed on or whatever so I just, I didn’t, didn’t see a future there. JD: Right. 00:53:32: JG: And, and. Cleveland it’s relatively stagnant at that time and so we decided to move to the Dallas/Fort Worth area and we did. We were out probably, close to a year. And then we both went into the Air National Guard. JD: Why? 00:53:54: JG: Well again, I had over eight years active duty. She had five years active duty. I was working security at Miller Brewing Company in Fort Worth. And I saw it as a chance to do travel, eventually retire, and you know, job training, job skills and stuff. So I went in as a ramp tramp, which basically is we loaded. We built pallets and then loaded the airplanes with the pallets. And sometimes we strapped parachutes to those pallets and then hooked them up where they’d be air dropped. And then they have a place in Mineral Wells which is eastside, or westside of Fort Worth, where there, used to be a helicopter school during Vietnam for, with the Army. And it’s Fort Wolters. And now it’s all civilian except for couple of hundred acres out back. But the military still practiced areal delivery of parachutes. And truck vehicles. Track, track and rubber tired vehicles. So we, we’d practice building up these pallets full of stuff and planes would fly over and drop ‘em out. And we’d go over and pick ‘em up and bring ‘em back. And then repackage ‘em up for them to do it the next day. And. About a year and a half, two years of that, I was running into trouble at work getting off for military, two-week summer camp and stuff. So I got out. And my wife had gone into, she was a eye technician. JD: For an optometrist or something? 00:55:46: JG: For, well, in the, in the base hospital. And so, I gotten out where she would go on the weekends and I’d stay at home or in my other job. And then not long after that, I went to work for the post office. And then all of the sudden that wasn’t a problem for me, military weekends, anymore. So I went back in, but I had a hearing loss thanks to the jet engines and horseshoes and hand grenades when I was in the Army. So. I couldn’t go work the ramps anymore. So I went in to transportation. Then Desert Storm happened. Part of my job was to see. The, the first thing that left was all of our planes and flight crews and mechanics and I mean, anything to do with the planes. Most of our fuel people went with the, the first wave. And then later on our security police people left. And then our combat engineer squadron left. And then the orders came down one day that my wife’s hospital unit and they were leaving. It was like, “Wow” you know. I, I, I knew she was coming down. She had been activated. She got orders, she’s now on active duty. She’s not in the reserves anymore, she’s active duty. And then that’s always a precursor to your orders hitting the next day or so. Anyway so her orders came down and her entire unit to Fort Travis Air Force base in California. There they were assembling, of course I didn’t know it at that time, but they were going to assemble mash hospitals. So I mean, the Navy sent people there. The Marine Corps, the Army sent ‘em to this Air Force base. And then they get so many surgeons, so many optometrists, so many orthopedists, so many nurses, so many X-ray people, and they form a mash hospital and send them to the sandbox. So anyway I, I packaged her up and got her sent off. And. It was pretty hard to send her off. And like, I, and I knew at that time she was going to California. But I didn’t know how long she’d stay there. So anyway, and the whole time I’m thinking, “Well when am I going? I’m transportation. They’ve gotta have stuff shipped over there and, and then shipped back sometime too.” So any idea, “Don’t worry about it, you’re never going to go. You’re not going, you’re too valuable to us here.” I go, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that line before.” JD: Yeah. 00:58:50: JG: But anyway. Got my wife sent off. My parents were living in Fort Worth and we were living outside of Hillsboro at that time. So I stopped by my parents’ house and had supper that night. And we got home probably about 10:00pm. And there was a message on my answering machine and it was to call the command post at the base. Well, heck. You know, this is, this is like another unit’s leaving and stuff. And they said, “Sergeant Giles. Your plane leaves at six in the morning. So you need to get back up here.” ‘Cause they didn’t have any idea where I was calling from. And I go, “I say What? I got two kids, two dogs. Five or six pigs, a bunch of cats. And, and, and.” JD: A whole life. 00:59:44: JG: You guys. I mean, yeah. I, and it’s like, you know. And, and again. JD: You got eight hours’ notice. 00:59:50: JG: Yeah, I got eight, eight hours’ notice. And, and I’ve gotta get this kid’s school records. I gotta figure out what to do with the kids. And what, my, our oldest son went to live with some neighbors because he was enrolled in driver’s training that was supposed to start a couple of weeks later. And there was no way in hell he was not going to get his driver’s license. And he let me know that. And, and the neighbor’s consented to take him so that was real nice of them. JD: All around ten o’clock at night. 01:00:19: JG: Yeah, I mean. But again, they were close. He was gone. He was, he was the least of my problems. They agreed to come over and feed the dogs and the cats and check on the house. I was working part-time with the Hill County Sheriff’s office at the time. So rather than leave all the weapons and stuff I had in the house, I, I took them to one of our deputy’s of-homes and got rid of all my weapons. And again, I hate, just hate to leave stuff like that in a house that I know is gonna get burglarized anyway. So got that done. My mom consented to take my little one because there was no way he wanted to stay with his older brother anyway. And so he went, spent some time with my mother and just got spoiled rotten. And, and he’s with the College Station Fire Department now so I won’t, I won’t mention his name. But he’s got the same last name as I do. But yeah, so. But anyway, he got spoiled rotten. I got to the command post the next day. And I wasn’t going out on a troop transport. They took me to DFW airport to wait for my plane. JD: Flew commercial? 01:01:30: JG: Yeah so I flew commercial. And again I. JD: To Kuwait? 01:01:33: JG: Again. JD: To Kuwait? 01:01:35: JG: No. I was going to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Then I go, “Oh, good. This sounds like a slow ship to hell.” McGuire Naval Port. Or was, was it not McGuire’s Air Force base? Trying to think of the naval port right outside Philadelphia. Philadelphia Naval Yards. There you go. JD: There you go. 01:01:57: JG: Anyway, it’s right there. And I go, “This is a troop transport to hell.” But anyway rank has its privileges. So I ended up going to Dover Air Force base. And I worked there. I took over the transportation. Well I didn’t say took over. I worked the night. I assisted them in the transportation office ‘cause Dover again was, supplies coming back from Europe and the, the Middle East, Far East, whatever you want to call it. Desert Storm area, would come through Dover. It went that way from either McGuire or Tyndall in Florida. It came back through Dover or Charleston, back in the United States. So all of a sudden they saw, they had like 800% increase in shipments coming back. And they you know, their staff couldn’t absorb that. JD: About what time, what date did you head out? 01:03:05: JG: I’m gonna say end of January, February. And I don’t even remember the year. I just remember. JD: ’90 or ’91. 01:03:13: JG: Yeah, ’90 I, I’m gonna say. But anyway, I remember my wife and I were sitting on the couch and we gathered the boys around, the day they started Baghdad. We were watching the CNN, watching the news of this. And we both knew, you know, it hit the fan. Anyway so. I had to write my wife a letter and tell her that Jimmy, our oldest son is with Ed and Joan and Jason’s with mom because I couldn’t get ahold of her. I didn’t know where she was. They, some knew and stuff anyway. So that was a little, a little hard maneuvering. I says, “Look, my plane’s leaving so I gotta go. I’m not sure where I’m gonna end up.” So anyway we were. I was activated for sixty days. JD: What rank were you by this? 01:40:10: JG: Master Sergeant. And. JD: E-6? 01:04:14: JG: E-8. JD: Oh, E-8. Huh, way up there. 01:04:16: JG: Yeah. Well correct me, E-7, E-8. I’m thinking Army, I’m getting Army and stuff confused. But no I was Master Sergeant E-7 in the Air Force, it’s a E-8 in the Army. JD: Right, right ‘cause you’re in National Guard by this point. 01:04:27: JG: Yeah. So. JD: So pretty senior enlisted? 01:04:32: JG: Yes. There’s only two above me. [chuckle] So anyway I took over like I say the transportation office. There was tech sergeant, [Rick Zerinski] was in charge of the office at that time there. But they worked 8:00am-5:00pm, Monday through Friday. And I took care of the fifteen or twenty reservists, National Guard people that had been activated. And then I basically ran, I didn’t run the night shift. I oversaw the night shift, but I worked mainly days. There. Again, because I was a Master Sergeant, the billet base ability was full because Dover all of a sudden got real busy. I mean it was a C-5 base so they had to have so many rooms reserved for the flight crews ‘cause they were always in. Coming in, going out. You know, they, the, the flight crews needed their sleep. The ramp tramps, stuff, the people doing the stuff I had, they had so much cargo that they were building to go or, most of, for the most part it was come back, but then the mortuary people. Again, I don’t know how big the thing is, but I know they, they doubled and tripled and quadrupled their staff. Somewhat in anticipation of what was to come and luckily it wasn’t as bad as everybody thought, but there was still enough that it, it kept ‘em busy there. And anyway so, we took over the Best Western Motel in Dover, Delaware. And I’m gonna say we probably had thirty rooms there and I was the only one that wasn’t assigned to the mortuary. In, in, in the rooms. So I got to talk with some of the people and, and met with several of them. And. Yeah, sometimes they, they told stories that you know, they needed to vent. And I, I perfectly understood being a policeman for a number of years. I, I, you see things, you smell things, you hear things that just is not right. And stuff. So, but we, like I say, part of our job was whenever they had, they call it a blue bark shipment is human remains. In, in the military it’s a blue bark. JD: Blue bark? 01:07:03: JG: Bark. And don’t ask me who comes up with these names and terminology. But anyway they, they have the, the, the shipping cylinders, containers. Gray metal boxes. And whenever gray bark, or blue bark shipment comes in, they announce it over the speakers to everybody in the warehouse. And for the most part everybody stop what they’re doing, go out and, and. JD: Process it or just to pay respects? 01:07:31: JG: To pay respects. JD: Yeah. 01:07:32: JG: I mean they would be hauled off the, or hauled off, taken off the airplane by a six-man honor guard and placed in a hearse. And even though you’re only driven a couple of blocks away to the mortuary, I mean, they were normally a lot as, as they drove down the street. And if it came in I think like after eleven o’clock at night, un-you know, until six in the morning, then we kept them in the, the hanger. We had a refrigerated warehouse, that we placed ‘em in and again they were, they all got the, the white-glove treatment and, and papers back. They, they left so. JD: That’d be pretty powerful. 01:08:16: JG: It was. And like I say, it was thankful that it wasn’t as bad as they thought. It was going, or could have been. JD: Yeah, sure. 01:08:26; JG: But, it was just, a real moving experience to, how they were treated with respect and the same way the people I talked with inside is. They were, anybody that moved them from table to table or station to station all wore the white gloves out of respect. And they were assigned a person that would follow them through the complete process from the time they hit the door, until they were dressed in their uniform and all the medals and ribbons and whatever, and they were placed in a casket and released to a civilian funeral home. So I mean there’s one person that followed them all the way through all the, the whole steps so. They could, they could say that you know, the respect was given. JD: Right. 01:09:15: JG: So it, it was really pretty neat. I did go in to the mortuary on a Sunday afternoon, right before I came back. They had pretty much disassembled everything. One of the people there was from San Diego, California and she had to go in there for something and. I, I, I met her somewhere on base and she said, “Hey you’ve got a car and I’m fixing to run into the, the shop for something. You wanna give me a ride back to the hotel?” I go, “Yeah.” So anyway I walked in and it was just pretty, a warehouse that, little washing hands and stands, pretty much like you see on Rizzoli & Isles or, or Dr. Quincy M.D. if you’re that old you know. JD: [chuckle] So having seen that, in the way that you know, the war dead were treated from, from the Gulf War. From you’ve seen and how the, how that’s happened today, or in the last decade I guess with Iraq and Afghanistan. Did, did you see a, a different perspective I guess than the average person? Because you’ve been out of the service now since for how long? 01:10:32: JG: ’96. So a while. JD: Yeah, yeah, going on twenty, eighteen years now I guess. Yeah. So is, is, does, it give you a, a different take on, on how yeah, how, how returning veterans, specifically war dead, are, are treated now. I mean, as far as I’ve seen it’s been really disrespectful. 01:10:49: JG: It really is and for the most part the, the average person doesn’t see that. But, but again it, at our military base we used to hold blood drives because in, in, in one of our models, it’s kind of sick to think about it now, was you know, this blood, you may be the one that needs this one. Okay. And then after 9/11 of course, you know, I mean, everybody had blood drives. But we did it every quarter on our, on our base just because we never knew what could or might happen or would happen. But yeah, it, I, I hate to see President Bush, the 41, the older, used to come twice a month and, and be there. JD: In Dover? 01:11:43: JG: When, when the blue bark shipment was coming. And I don’t think the press ever knew you know, and, and I know if they ever did, they never publicized it. But you, you’d see him crying when he left ‘cause it was his orders that put them there. And I think that weighed heavily on him. But again, it was, very respectful. I mean it was, it’s a shame somebody had to die. But more of them died than us. But still it was, yeah. JD: So after all that time in the service, that was probably one of the more memorable parts of it? 01:12:27: JG: Yeah. JD: Yeah. Interesting. So you got out so what about I guess, four or five years afterwards. 01:12:34: JG: Yeah. I, my, my enlistment was up in the National Guard. You’re, you’re not like you’re active duty where you’re competing with people worldwide for your rank. It was like, only you know, at your installation. So if I wanted to make another rank, I couldn’t because of the office I was assigned to, Master Sergeant’s as high as I could go. So I saw that I was holding somebody behind me back from making it. We, we had three, three or four tech sergeants, just waiting for me to leave so one of them could get promoted. So I, I just, you know, I, I wanted to stay more. But by the same token is, I couldn’t think of. JD: Had you gotten enough for retirement, I guess for both, both, for both times in the service. Yeah, so. 01:13:21: JG: Yeah. JD: Was it twenty years shooting? I guess twenty’s the average. Yeah, so combining your Army and your, your National Guard. 01:13:30: (Very?), yeah. And at age sixty and I look at the, look to start drawing it. JD: There you go. 01:13:35: JG: So, yeah. But yeah. JD: That’s quite a span, you know, Vietnam through the Gulf War. 01:13:43: JG: Well my dad—step father—I, I call him my dad. ‘Cause like I say, he was you know, from age eight to sorry, I don’t even know how old I was when he died. But he started out as a waist gunner on a B-17 in World War II. JD: Really? 01:14:03: JG: And he went through Korea and Vietnam. He got shot down once in Vietnam. JD: Really? What was he flying? 01:14:10: JG: At that time a 130. And it wasn’t so much as shoot down as they were taking fire, so they took evasive action and some door popped open and caused them to. Anyway it was a forced landing so they called it shot down. So. JD: Sure. Was he in enemy territory or was he? 01:14:28: JG: No he was, he was. They were trying to land at Tan Son which is outside Saigon. And during the TET Offensive ’68 and they started taking fire so the pilot climbed it to get out of the way and they were going to Da Nang from somewhere else and again, they were, right before they touched down is when they started taking fire. So it was, it was a controlled, let’s get the, down and get the hell off this plane. [chuckle] JD: Yeah, yeah. Another question I meant to ask you, while you were in Germany, you said that you were the uh, Wartzburg or was it Kitzin. 01:15:09: JG: I was Kitzingen. JD: Kitzingen. Was that where the nuclear weapons were? 01:15:11: JG: Yeah, yeah. JD: Did you see any demonstrations, any anti-nuclear stuff on what the, the local Germans were, were if there were any protest demonstrations or anything like when you were termed down there? No. 01:15:21: JG: No. The only demonstration I ever saw anywhere was Hanoi’s Hannah’s peace loving activists bounced a brick off of my head while I was standing at Fort Hood one time. JD: Really? 01:15:34: JG: But yeah those were the peace niks were throwing bricks at the M.P.s. JD: Were you wearing a helmet? 01:15:39: JG: Yeah. JD: That helps. 01:15:39: JG: Oh yeah. But, yeah, that’s only demonstration I’ve ever seen anywhere. We were in Germany one time, and again we were living in a third-floor base housing at that time. And our bed started vibrating across the floor. And I woke up, and you know, I’d had a hard night. And I rolled over to my wife, “What are you doing?” ‘Cause the bed’s moving you know, and I woke her up. But we had had an earthquake. JD: Oh, okay. 01:16:12: JG: And, and. But, but it was just, a rumble, but it was enough that these, these broad iron beds that the base had given us you know, ‘cause we didn’t have our furniture, was, was vibrating across the floor. And it was pretty interesting. When I went, my, my supervisor in Warzburg came back to the states for a couple of months for something. And I took over in Warzburg. We were up in the attic one time because it was raining or cold outside or whatever but we were goofing off in the attic and we found a whole bunch of documents for, I mean, that, that still had the Nazi swastikas and stuff, “we’re shipping Jews to the concentration camps.” Shipping documents. JD: No kidding? 01:17:02: JG: And all kinds of stuff. And I’ve got a spoon or a fork that’s still got the swastika with the, the eagle with the swastika and stuff I found up there. But yeah the, the building we were actually in was some German army building during World War II. And apparently they had stacks of papers and some of it had fallen down in the rafters. We were playing catch up there and the ball had gone down all, all. JD: Found all these papers. 01:17:30: JG: Yeah, we found all these papers and stuff. So we’ve got pictures somewhere. You know you said bringing pictures, but I couldn’t, hadn’t been home. And I wouldn’t know where to look for these anyway. But, some guy from the local university going through ‘em, looking at these papers, describing them, what they are and stuff. JD: Interesting. Yeah, if you do find any pictures from your service work, let me know and it’d be cool to plug it in with it, with, with the interview for sure. 01:17:53: JD: Yeah, I’ve got a picture somewhere of my wife in uniform with a M-16. And it just like, yeah, she scares me. JD: Shoot. I’d love to talk to her too. Yeah. 01:18:05: JG: Yeah, don’t talk to her about Jack Digby. JD: Alright, alright. 01:18:06: JG: [laughs] JD: I’ll avoid that part of it, geez-whiz. Like you said, small world. Man. 01:18:12: JG: Yeah, well. We were in, like I say, my, my stepfather, we were stationed in Carswell Air Force base in Fort Worth and he was looking at retiring, but the. No. Yeah. We were stationed at Carswell in Fort Worth. And then he had bought a, they, my parents bought a house in southside Fort Worth and the Army offered him another stripe if he’d stay a couple more years. And one of the people in my dad’s unit was a guy by the name of (Mike Hornbake). And I got to know him whenever we had, they had squadron parties, functions. I didn’t know him well, but we got to know each other you know, a little bit. My dad got stationed in Hickam Air Force base in Honolulu and his dad had gotten stationed at Hickam Air Force base in Honolulu and then we were in the same grade and the same schools so I got to know him a lot better. We, both his dad and my dad were then transferred to Altus in Oklahoma where I, eventually graduated. But again, we were not only in the same school, but there was like one house separating us. So Mike and I were always getting into things. He became, he went to college. I went into the Army. He went to college and was commander of the destroyer or something. I mean he was, he was a big time naval officer. We still correspond with each other and we’re actually going to meet in April of next year when I go through San Diego, where he’s living now. JD: Cool. 01:20:11: JG: Anyway. There’s Mike and I. He had an older sister named Bobby. I don’t know how old, how much older, she was a year or two, two or three. I don’t, I don’t know. And then he had a younger sister named Kelly. Well Kelly and my sister Linda used to play together. I’m at Dover Air Force base in Delaware during Desert Storm and I’m going through the commissary and this nurse, lieutenant comes by. She looks so familiar it was you know. The last time I had seen Kelly was there in, in Oklahoma. JD: So it had been twenty years. 01:20:54: JG: ’73 when I left you know. And, and this is ’90, ’91. Anyway uh, she looks so, anyway so we see each other somewhere back by the meat department, I don’t remember where I was at. And then I was walking down the line to get something ‘cause we had a little, I had a little kitchen in my hotel room. And I bump into her again, and it, I’d been away from my wife for a while and I go, “Yeah, that.” Anyway, so I, went to check out and she was right behind me. JD: Are you guys in uniform? Or did you have name tags on by that, then or? 01:21:38: JG: She was, I wasn’t. JD. Oh she might have married though so she may not have had the same last name. 01:21:42: JG: Yeah I, I, I don’t remember even looking at the name tag. I just, there’s something about her face. You know, face, facial features. And I’m, I’m checking out and there was, you know they’ve got the little racks, the last minute sale things, you gotta. So anyway I reached to grab thing and I saw she was right behind me. And I turn and I look and I go, “Kelly.” And she looked at like you know, and it’s like, oh yeah, I bet it was, it was, really. Like, last time I saw her almost twenty years earlier, several place, several states away. And. JD: Yeah. So she’d been brought up for the same thing, 01:22:25: JG: Yeah. She was, she was, like I say she was in. She wasn’t a nurse, she was wearing a white uniform, hospital thing. But. I don’t remember, she said she worked in a dental lab or something. She, but yeah, anyway so it was just like, “Wow.” JD: Yeah, imagine small world. People all over the place. 01:22:47: JG: Yeah. And Mike came to Germany ‘cause we were stationed in Germany when he was still in college. He took a time off between. No, he was on a Mediterranean cruise and, and he came up to visit my wife and I while we were in Germany. JD: Cool. Germany’s a nice place to visit. 01:23:03: JG: I like Germany. Like I say, if the Army had told me, I could’ve stayed there. Or I mean I wouldn’t have to come back to the states, I probably still be there. JD: Yeah, have you been back since? 01:23:13: JG: No, my wife has several times. With her guard unit. JD: Oh right. 01:23:18: JG: You know, so, so she’s been back several times and I’ve never been. Well I take it back, I’ve never. Yeah, no I’ve never been. We take cruise vacations. So we cruised a lot, but we’ve been to France, but I’ve been to. JD: Back to Germany. 01:23:34: JD: Back to Germany. That’s a place I do want to go. But like two years ago we took, we were in Rome. We were in Germany, we had driven down to Rome. JD: Yeah, down there in Bavaria, you’re close to just about everything. A few hours from wherever, anywhere in Europe you want to be. 01:23:52: JG: Except Brussels, Belgium and yeah, I was. General Alexander hate his bodyguard in, in (SHAP?) headquarters, when he was (SHAP?) headquarters commander there. You know when the, the attempted assassination on him, I knew two of the guys that got hurt, on his attempted assassination. So we work with the secret service. And everybody, a lot. I’ve, I’ve got a stack of business cards from F.B.I. agents and secret service agents and stuff that I’ve dealt with in one form or another over the years. JD: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I can’t think of anything else. So how did you end up in College Station? 1:39:37: LG: After I retired, like I say, retire from the military, I was working for the post office and I’d, my, injuries from the, from the Army started gettin’, getting to me, so I couldn’t carry the mail anymore so I had applied for disability retirement from the post office. And my wife, like I say, she had been optometry technician during Desert Storm and while they were in California and she could come so close, so many times, becoming, getting placed with a mash unit. It was really, it, it worried you know. But in this, once we finally made contact and she knew where I was, it was you know, a lot better for her but. I said, “Hey, I got orders, I got to leave at six in the morning. Gotta be back up to base.” And, and so I mean she said, a friend of hers said that was pretty hard for her to read that letter ‘cause it’s kind of like, “Where is he, where’s my kids.” But she had been calling the home phone and didn’t get any answer. I hear, I didn’t change the messages or whatever, but anyway, so she didn’t know what was going on. But anyway, uh, she had assisted with eye surgery, there was a lot of eye injury and stuff due to the sand and, and chemical not so much. Poison chemicals that Saddam had but supposedly never used. But just, just chemicals in general and, and stuff. So she’d had hel-assisted optometrist there with a lot of eye surgeries. So when we got back to together she said she’d thinking about going back to school to become a nurse. She really liked that atmosphere type thing. And the plant she used to work for in Hillsboro was closin’ down and because they employed over a thousand people, Heart of Texas Council of Governments had a program that was gonna pay for schooling for. So she took you know, whatever battery of, series of tests that she could and she went to L.B.N. school on, on their dime and became a nurse. And then later on went back to school and became a R.N. so she’s at St. Joe’s now work, working as a R.N. I’d retired from the military. My boss at the post office came to me one day and he told me, “We have an option for you. You can take disability retirement or we can transfer you over to the clerk craft.” I was a letter carrier so I worked door to door delivering the mail. “Or we can transfer you over to the clerk craft. You’ll lose all your seniority. You get to keep you know, no monetary loss. You’re gonna lose all your seniority, so you’re gonna go to the bottom of everybody for the vacations and, and whatever list. You’ll have to go through the clerk, window clerk school. ‘Cause all the, in our office, all the clerks backed up the windows whenever they got busy. But most of the time there’s only one or two people assigned there. And you know, you, we’ll give you till the end of the week.” And this is like on a Monday or Tuesday. “To decide which way you want to do.” And this is you know, 9:30 in the morning. And by 11:00 I had turned in all my keys, badges, uniform, whatever I had to. And by lunchtime I was walking out the door and I’ve never been back. So anyway, my wife, we lived in Hillsboro, or just outside of Hillsboro. And she was working in Waxahachie, which is about a thirty mile an hour, thirty mile drive. So she’d spend an hour a day to and from. And most of, most of that was on I-35. But anyway she’d still spend an hour a day in, in traffic and she didn’t like it. And I came home and told her that I’ve retired. I gotta find something to do. And that day we had gotten a thing in the mail about a traveling nurse’s agency. And they’re looking for traveling nurses and how thrilling and exciting and stuff it would be. And we go, well you know, it’s something to think about. [coughs] So we had thirteen acres of land where we lived. And a couple of weeks earlier, because the kids had, had graduated high school. They were moving on. I had put a sign on, on 11 point whatever acres. ‘Cause we didn’t, we weren’t running horses or pigs or cattle for them 4H projects, F.F.A. anymore you know. So I, I wanted to get rid of that and was just gonna keep the little section of land that the house was on. And she said, you know she’s talking about the traveling nurse thing and somebody knocked on our door. Not from the area, had never been in our house and made us a hell of an offer for house and land. And again. JD: Sounds like a sign. 1:30:23: JG: Yeah, yeah. It was, it was a sign. Thirty days later we closed. We put some stuff in storage. We bought a Chevy Suburban because as we traveled from her work assignments, her visiting nurse, traveling nurse things, they would rent us a furnished apartment in a gated community. They would provide us with basic cable, most of the places had a gym or exercise thing. They did not provide your bedding, linen, towels, blankets, sheets, dishes, T.V., computers, etc., etc. So the two of us and our cat Mr. Sammy, traveled the United States for a little while. We were in Dover, Delaware. We said, “Where, you know, where can we start.” And they sent us the list of well eight or nine hundred places and we go, “Let’s start in the northeast, kind of work our way down the east coast. And then we’ll work, go back up and, and work our way across to the west coast up and down.” After you had been with the agency two years, they’d send you Alaska, Hawaii, or the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and stuff. So anyway, we went up to Dover, Delaware, ‘cause we were both familiar with it you know. We were there and again, she had extended her time because she’d work three days a week, four days a week. We traveled to Gettysburg, New York. We did I don’t know how many Broadway plays on Broadway. JD: Sounds like the way to do it. 01:32:16: JD: Ellis Island, Ellis Island. Statue of Liberty. Battery Park. Hershey, Pennsylvania, Gettysburg. We went to, we had our 25th anniversary in Cape Cod. But we did Boston, we did, I don’t even know where we did, but we did Washington D.C. While I was in the military, I used to go to Washington a lot. And we, we, the hotel I used to stay in. We went to dinner in the basement, the hotel restaurant. Well not the hotel restaurant, but it’s a restaurant under the hotel. Anyway so as we walk in, there’s a guy over in the corner table and he’s got a whole bunch of people around him. And he sees me and he waves and I wave back you know. And we go over and have a seat and little while later this guy comes up and introduces himself to. Or he says, “Hi Jim. How’s it going? How’s Texas treating you?” And I go, “I’m not there anymore. We’re living in Delaware.” So we chitchat for a little bit. I introduce him to my wife. And, and my wife’s really like, “Wow.” You know this guy’s nicely dressed, it’s kind of like, “Well, what are you doing in here?” you know. But anyway after he leaves he tells the waitress to get our drinks and put it on his tab. And my wife’s, oh she’s really impressed you know. And she said, “Who is that guy?” And I go, “That’s Michael, he owns the place.” And she goes, “You really spend too much time here when you’re.” [laughs] JD: Yeah. If the owner knows you that well. 01:33:58: JG: Yeah, the owner knows you that well. But I mean really, he did, he came over and talked with us for five or ten minutes and, and knew I was from Texas and, and, and everything. But anyway, so my wife. Like I say, we did several tours in Dover, Delaware. It got to be really cold. The place they had put us is like two blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. And the evenings in October, there was nothing stopping that cold air coming off the Atlantic. I don’t care how close, you know, how tight you had the doors closed. It was like you didn’t even want to be on that side of the, the apartment. It was just, it was, so anyway. So she called up her agency and she said, “Look, you know, my assignment here is gonna be up in a week or two weeks, whatever. Where can we go?” And so we picked St. Petersburg, Florida. JD: All right, I have family in St. Pete. 01:34:49: JD: So went down there, and again spent some time. It’s a whole lot warmer down there in, in December uh, than, than Dover, Delaware. Even though it never, I can only remember it snowing like twice in all my time I’ve been in Dover. But it, it, the sn-, it would snow but turn to sleet you know or, or, or kind of rain before it hit the ground so. JD: So it was miserable. 01:35:17: JG: Yeah. But it, again, you didn’t have to worry about shoveling your snow sidewalks and stuff as much. But anyway so we spent some time down there and then she got homesick. So we went to the Plano Medical Center in Plano. At that time, our oldest son and his wife were living in Wichita Falls. She was in the Air Force and he was working for the Texas Department of Corrections. And then our youngest son was working for the Klein Fire Department. So we figured Plano would be kind of halfway in between. You know. And then our oldest son, his wife was gonna get out of the Air Force, and he had been accepted to the D.P.S. Academy so he was gonna become a state trooper. So he had put down, again, on his area preference that he wanted to go to Huntsville ‘cause he went to S.A.M. College Station ‘cause he’s been to I don’t know how many bonfires, or Austin as his area preference. So my wife says you know what, she’s done out of this. My son in Klein had gotten a job with the College Station Fire Department. And he says, “You know, I’ve been here a while and it’s kind of like I’m tired of paying rent and not seeing anything, so I’m gonna look for a house.” So at that time I, I had gotten a part-time job working for the Sam’s Club in Plano. And I was working and she decided to come down here and help him hunt for a house. And she came back and says, “Oh by the way, I found a house. We’re moving the first of April.” So it was kind of like, “Okay.” So we moved down here and that’s how we ended up in College Station. Our son moved from Klein to the College Station Fire Department. His third shift was the bonfire collapse. So yeah, it’s, and he’s been still, still here. I came here and went to work for Wal-Mart for a little while and then went to work for St. Joseph’s Hospital. And then came to work for the city in the mail room because I was again, post office and you know kind of, I went to work for the mail room. And again I, it was a part-time job and I didn’t want to go full time. But after being here and meeting the, the city employees and it was kind of like, “Yeah, I could go full time here.” JD: A nice bunch of people. 01:37:50: JG: It, it is. It’s a bunch of nice people. And so I was looking around and then the job in code enforcement came open so I, I took a job with it. JD: Now here you are. 01:38:05: JG: And here I am. JD: Excellent. 01:38:07: JG: So, because of all my military injuries and stuff, like I say, I’m 60% disabled. I’m 70% disabled, 60% compensate-able, which is, I don’t know what that means. But, and then like I say 21 year retired vet. And so I, I’m retired from 21 years with the military, 23 years with the post office. And I’m working on 7, here with the city of College Station I think now, six or seven. JD: Yeah. So you can get pensions from both the military and the post office. That’s the way to do it. 01:38:45: JG: And, and I got my, was looking at my statement from T.M.R.S. the other day, and it goes, “Yeah, you’re estimated retirement salary at 65 is $328. And if you contribute a hundred dollars more to your retirement plan, you’ll be making $348.” Keep my hundred bunks. [chuckle] $328 at, at age 65. Give me a hundred dollars a month between now and then and you get $348. Yeah, it just, yeah. JD: Don’t think so. 01:39:30: JG: Don’t hold your breath. JD: Yeah. Well great. Let’s go ahead and wrap this up.