Oakes, Ronald (Interview outline and video, 2 of 2), 2010

Smither, James (Interviewer)

WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.)

After returning from Vietnam in 1969, Ron Oakes married, earned a degree in electronics and traveled around the Midwest working. Eventually, he and his family moved back to Michigan, where Oakes joined the National Guard. As part of the Guard, Oakes helped provide security for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia and deployed to Iraq in 2005 for eleven months. While in Iraq, Oakes performed a variety of jobs, including being a property book manager for his entire brigade stationed at FOB "Q-West", a former Iraqi Air Force base between Balad and Mosul. After the eleven-month deployment, Oakes returned to the United States with the rest of his unit and continued serving in the Guard until March 2009, when he retired at the age of sixty.

2010-06-15

Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives

Veterans History Project (U.S.)

OakesR2

application/pdf

video/mp4

Moving Image

Text

eng