382 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/42f6e0b660eb34ebe37d38bd20a264c9.pdf 166603baf6801f916dd4a9545ae298ea PDF Text Text Symbol and Ritual: Healing the Heart as We Say Goodbye In the Presence of Mystery Ecclesiastes 3:1-23; II Corinthians 4:16-5:5; I Corinthians 15:20 Richard A. Rhem Grand Haven Community Center Grand Haven, Michigan All Saints Day, November 1, 2009 Transcription of the spoken sermon Having decided that we would gather once again as dear friends with wonderful shared memories, the next thing was to find a date. Being retired I’m always available but, in the case of Mr. Bryson, that is not the case. He seems to get busier as the years go by as congregations ply for his services. And then to find a date free on his calendar that coincided with an open Sunday on Gwenneth’s calendar was the challenge. The first such date was today, November 1, which happens to be All Saints Day. The date was set sometime near the end of August, the time of the funeral of Teddy Kennedy. Nancy and I spent nearly eight hours in front of the TV that day, totally immersed in the event. I knew immediately what I wanted to deal with this morning – the Funeral Mass of the Resurrection and All Saints Day – it brought back a flood of memories and emotions. There were several moments throughout that Saturday that I sat with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat as I was touched by the grandeur of the cathedral, the great organ, the strong processional hymn, the liturgy, the vestments – all the great pageantry, the solemnity, the celebration of a life in the reality of death before the Sacred Mystery, in the presence of God. It was, for me, so deeply moving – and I knew that today I wanted to reflect on all of that because I realized so poignantly what I have missed not having a community of faith with whom to share the unfolding Liturgical Year – not only the unfolding Christian Year as season follows season, but even my week – I cannot remember what day it is whereas I used to be able to click off all the Sunday dates for months to come. The calendar with the seasons; the liturgy with the respective celebrations – They gave structure to life along with familiar celebrations, songs, scripture, symbols and color – all of it creating life’s mosaic with beauty and form. I did so love it and I miss it. The annual celebration of the Christian Year or Church Year came to be the most important calendar for me – Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter and the season of Eastertide culminating in the Festival © Grand Valley State University   �Symbol and Ritual Richard A. Rhem Page 2   of Pentecost and Trinity Sunday. The secular holidays couldn’t hold a candle to those High Holy Days. The fact that I could be so moved by the Kennedy Funeral Mass and celebration points to a major movement in my life and my religious experience. Like many of you I was raised in the tradition of the Protestant Reformation. Were I preaching today at CCC of old, the Reformation theme probably would have found expression unless we decided to celebrate the previous Sunday so as to keep today for All Saints. It was the Eve of All Saints that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenburg. Halloween was really Hallowe’en –shortened for All Hallows’ Even – the Eve of All Saints' Day –November 1. A web site, History.com, gives a history of the day which originated among the Celtic people in Ireland, Britain and Northern France 2000 years ago; it was their New Year celebration. By A.D. 43 the Romans had conquered those lands and in the course of the 400 years they ruled the Celtic Lands, they introduced two festivals of Roman origin which were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain (pronounced sowin). Feralia was a day in October which commemorated the passing of the dead and Pomona, the goddess of fruit and trees, was the second festival combined with Feralia to celebrate the Celtic New Year Samhain. The current celebration on November 1 probably originates from the time of Pope Gregory III (d. AD 741) and was likely first observed on November 1 in Germany. There is some dispute about the history and earlier connections. As happened so often in the history of the church, a secular or cultural festival was “baptized” and given a Christian significance. The Pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints, All Saints, and All Souls, were called Hallowmas. But, back to how Reformation Day and All Saints’ Day point to a movement in my own religious experience – and because you were with me through this evolution, it has probably changed your religious experience as well. I never really reflected on the significance of the close connection between the celebration of Reformation Day and All Saints’ Day. For me, in my nurture and training, the Reformation marked a turning from the Christian Year, the Liturgical framework, the celebration of the Mass, honoring and praying to saints, the vestments and the whole ambiance of worship space. As one silly example, in my early years of © Grand Valley State University �Symbol and Ritual Richard A. Rhem Page 3   ministry I would insist on a central pulpit – not a divided chancel with lectern on one side and pulpit on the other with the Communion table or “altar” central. Protestant Reformed worship was centered in the Word. Some of you may remember the earlier sanctuary, now the parlor, where the pulpit was centered and elevated while the Communion table was on the floor level below the pulpit. Architecture matters! When I returned here in 1971 the sanctuary had been redone. The pulpit was to the congregation’s left, the table raised to the chancel level with a worship center focus with cross and candles. By now you may wonder why I’m making so much of this, but stay with me because I’m attempting to give a graphic picture of what was for us – for me as Pastor, you as people, a major shift in religious understanding and experience. Moving from a strong celebration of Reformation Day to an increasingly significant celebration of All Saints’ Day charts a major movement in our worship life reflecting a major new perspective on the meaning of Christian worship. My experience - which I think I can say was our experience - was movement from the head to the heart. This is not to deny that there was “Heart” in traditional Reformed worship. Nonetheless, the address was to the mind, a rational, if passionate as well, exposition of the Scripture read through the lens of the Theological System. As I reflect back over the years I remember one particular moment when the lights went on for me; it was an “aha moment.” I’m sure it was over 30 years ago. My dear friend, Herman Ridder, had been President of Western Theological Seminary in Holland. Soon after I returned here in 1971, “Bud” as I called him, left the seminary to pastor the Central Reformed Church of Grand Rapids. We established a strong friendship, shared resources, and were in frequent contact. On one occasion he suggested we attend a continuing education event at McCormick Seminary in Chicago, a Presbyterian school. The theme was a fresh look at the Apostle’s Creed. At a Lutheran Seminary in the same complex of schools was a great theologian, Joseph Sittler, who led one of the sessions. I don’t remember what his specific topic was but I shall never forget one of his “throw away lines” – whatever point he was making, he looked at the group and said, “You Presbyterians always go through the head. The Catholic tradition addresses all the senses. There is pageantry, fabric, color, incense, vestments, banners, candles, etc. They approach the whole person, not just the intellect.” Well, it was one of those moments. I said to myself, “Oh, my goodness, he is right!” Nurtured in Reformed theology, the Heidelberg Catechism, the centrality of preaching, I suddenly realized how much the churches of the Reformation were in reaction against the Roman Church from which they separated. Of course, there was need for reform and renewal but, as is true of great institutions, © Grand Valley State University �Symbol and Ritual Richard A. Rhem Page 4   they don’t bend easily or recognize the need to change until it’s too late and there is brokenness, alienation and division. So it was in the 16th century. The consequences of the break can be seen nowhere more clearly than in worship. Let me set that forth vividly by contrasting the worship life of the divided Body of Christ. The Roman Church continued with its Christian Year or Church Year, its festivals, its liturgy, its church architecture, symbols and vestments. And, in reaction, the Protestant tradition, in its Reformed expression, “cleansed” itself of all the accoutrements of the worship experience. And in its place? – the preaching of the Catechism. The Heidelberg Catechism stemming from the 16th century (1563) is the most beloved and formative of the catechisms to arise in that era of Reformation. It consisted of 129 questions and answers divided up into 52 Lord’s Days – one for each Sunday of the year. When I was ordained in 1960, the requirement for a minister was to cover the points of doctrine contained in the Catechism once every four years. The Christian Reformed Church required the Catechism be handled annually. Reviewing it again I was struck by the careful delineation of the Christian faith as understood in the wake of the Reformation division of the church – understood by the reformers and set forth in very rational discourse with the precision of careful logic – it was indeed an intellectual document. The first question and answer begins with a warm pastoral note: “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” The answer: “That I with body and soul in life and in death am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ….” Then Question 2: “How many things are necessary for you to know that you may live and die happily?” And the answer: “Three things: First, the greatness of my sin and misery; second, how I am redeemed from all my sins and miseries; third, how I am to be thankful to God for such redemption.” There you have the outline of the Catechism. Question one and two comprise the first Lord’s Day. Then follow the three divisions of the catechism – as someone has named them – guilt, grace and gratitude. In the first section our fallenness is set forth. The second part deals with our redemption through the atoning death of Jesus Christ whose death satisfies the demands of God’s justice and also in this section the Apostle’s Creed is explained. Section three sets forth a life of gratitude for salvation through a life of obedience and prayer – the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer being exposited. It is in this section in the treating of the © Grand Valley State University �Symbol and Ritual Richard A. Rhem Page 5   second commandment that I was struck by the flash point of the great divide between traditional Catholic worship and the worship of the newly emerged churches of the Reformation. We find a fascinating question and answer concerning the second commandment “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath…” Regarding the second commandment the catechism asks what God requires – the answer: “We may not make any image of God… No images at all? No. But may not pictures be tolerated in churches as books for the laity?” And here is the crux: “No; for we should not be wiser than God, who will not have his people taught by dumb idols, but by the lively preaching of his word.” With the distance of centuries and a pinch of objectivity it is easy to feel the negative tone of such an assertion. The Reformation movement certainly had various facets, but one obvious reaction was against the symbolic drama of the Catholic pageant of salvation as it was played out in the liturgical celebration of the Mass. In stark contrast to the richly symbolic, sensual Eucharistic drama was the church, barren and plain, dominated by a high pulpit from which was proclaimed the Word of God. You may remember my experience which I’ve shared on several occasions. I was in Leiden where I had lived for four years. On a Saturday evening I visited one of the great old cathedral-like Protestant churches, the Hooglandse Kerk. It had recently been renewed in its interior. There was the High Pulpit attached to one of the great columns, folding chairs set up around it, an organ with pipes displayed – the only ornamental, though also functioning element in that vast white-washed space. It was clean and bright and sterile. Then I moved down the street and entered the one Catholic church in Leiden. It was like entering a warm womb – lighting was dim, candles glowed, windows of stained glass, the chancel with the altar the obvious center where the drama of the Mass was enacted. Visiting those two churches in one evening was a striking visual and visceral experience of what Joseph Sittler had pointed to at the seminar at McCormick Seminary – “You Presbyterians (Reformation folk) address the head. The Catholic tradition approaches the whole person through all the senses.” About the time of that seminar, Mr. Bryson came to us as Director of Music and Fine Arts. In the beginning he was also directing the St. Mary’s music program and thus brought with him not only his own artistic sensitivity but the experience of the Catholic liturgy. Fortunately, Joseph Sittler had shocked my consciousness © Grand Valley State University �Symbol and Ritual Richard A. Rhem Page 6   about the nature of worship. In response to Sittler I remember as though it were yesterday saying to myself, “Why must one choose between ‘the lively preaching of the Word’ and the rich, sensual, liturgical experience as practiced in the Catholic Church?” From that moment I attempted to combine the best of the Reformation and Catholic worship. The result, in my not unbiased opinion, was a thing of beauty. Oh, there was some grumbling – the sermons were too long, there was too much music… Services so rich in their offerings couldn’t be pulled off in an hour! But for the most part I think we all agreed that we had found a formula for moving corporate worship experience which stimulated the mind and moved the heart. It consisted of intelligent articulation of Christian faith – its claim, its hope, its comfort and its challenge – wrapped in meaningful liturgical movement and artistic expression that created as aesthetic experience that elevated the soul. To return to where I began, it was that movement in my understanding and sensitivity that caused me to watch the funeral celebration of Teddy Kennedy with rapt attention and deep emotion. While I was experiencing the moving of my own being, I was also aware of myself in the experience. I was so deeply aware that my heart dwells in the deep mystery of life, of living before the Sacred Mystery we call God. I was aware of how much I missed the liturgical framework of the Church Year that moved me through the seasons as we celebrated the life of Jesus – life from birth through ministry, passion, death and resurrection and the Spirit’s gathering of that Apostolic church community. A lot going on there, you might say, but it was so and I think I know why that was so. It was because that whole funeral celebration from the entrance to the cathedral to the final committal was for me so rich in memory – memory of such deeply meaningful experience over many years. There were those who said my best preaching was at funerals and I will admit to the rather strange fact that funerals were my favorite time to preach. I think that is because there one is faced with life’s ultimate mystery, death, and I think the impulse to religion is probably fed by the fact that we shall all die. And again in the celebration of the Christian year we are brought face to face with our mortality. Ash Wednesday was one of my favorite services. At Lent’s beginning, we were invited to begin a period of disciplined practice that would lead us to Holy Week – Good Friday and then Easter and the celebration of Resurrection. You came down the aisle and we looked into your eyes and, as we placed on your forehead the ashes in the sign of the cross, we repeated the solemn words from the Genesis story of the fall of the human creature – solemn words of judgment: “Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return.” (Genesis 3:19) That’s how the story begins – Creation, the Garden, the test, failure and judgment. It is a story from ancient time stemming from the deep human © Grand Valley State University �Symbol and Ritual Richard A. Rhem Page 7   intuition that God is the Creative Source of all that is, that creation is good and yet there is misery. Why? Human hubris? How will the Creator respond? A sentence of death – Dust thou art; to dust thou shalt return. Is there then no hope? Yes, there is for God has called a people to reverse the judgment; finally Grace will prevail. Such a story! And it goes on. From that people God called emerges one, Jesus of Nazareth. Those who encountered him sensed they were in the presence of God. Offensive to established authority, he was crucified. Yet amazingly, those who knew and loved him experienced his presence; He is risen, they cried! Such a story! Such a drama! And in the midst of it all was the urgent human question: Dust and nothing more? The Hebrew sage wondered. The Ecclesiastes writing from his pen articulates his wonderings, his questions. In the wake of Jesus, St. Paul who had a blinding encounter with light and a vision and voice of the risen Jesus thought he knew where he was in the divine drama of creation’s history. He was at the edge; the end was near. Death conquered in Jesus – the first fruits –would soon be universally defeated. Jesus enthroned in Heaven was engaged in a “mopping up” operation. The last enemy to be defeated was death and then all would be handed to God who would be “all in all.” Such a story! Such a drama! There was concrete history here. Jesus was an historical figure. He was crucified. But then all of that was mixed with Israel’s history, the prophetic expectation, the vision and hope of that people. But to separate fact and faith interpretation is quite impossible. It all became a Story – the Story of the emerging Jesus-Jewish movement and eventually of the Gentile Christian Church. The Hebrew writer wondered about what happened to the human spirit. St. Paul “knew,”…If the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” But, of course, he was wrong about history’s time-table. Maybe he was speaking words of faith, of trust, but not words to be taken literally. He was wrong too, I believe, about death being the last enemy. That view stemmed from the old Genesis myth of the “Fall” and, again those solemn words, “…to dust thou shalt return”. But whether he had it right or not isn’t really the point. Rather, he was combining all that his religious tradition had given him, in which his spiritual formation took place, and his own personal experience, and out of all that he created a story. And that story is a drama of life and death, of the source and ground and goal of our existence – issues of meaning, issues of ultimate questions. © Grand Valley State University �Symbol and Ritual Richard A. Rhem Page 8   Now go back to the Kennedy funeral – all of that was there – the biblical story – all of it. But it was woven into a tapestry, it was acted out as a drama, it pointed to that dimension of our existence that transcends the earthly, the rational, the empirical realm. And so it touches our depths, plays on our hopes, assuages our grief – offers assurance of Grace in the end. It is claimed by many that our biblical story no longer fits the facts – that is, our present knowledge of our cosmic reality as it is emerging and our understanding growing. Quite true! Not perfection/fall/redemption ending in the Apolcalypse vividly portrayed in the final New Testament writing. Rather an emerging, evolving, expanding cosmic reality whose mysteries are being unlocked more and more. Those who wrestle with these things suggest we need a new story – “a likely story” because it will combine what we know with what we can only wonder about. And that is because finally there is Mystery: Mystery not about to be unraveled, “solved,” but Ultimate Mystery that will, I suspect, remain forever in a “cloud of unknowing.” Come back once more to the two worship traditions – the ongoing Catholic tradition with its story wrapped in incense amidst flickering candles surrounding the body and blood of the Eucharistic sacrifice, and the 16th century emergent catechetical preaching of the Bible in rational discourse developed logically appealing to the intellect. Overdrawn? Perhaps, but also a profound insight into the parting of the ways symbolized by All Saints’ Day and Reformation Day. I have no doubt what I choose. Thank God for that moment of clarity when the difference was pointed out as a difference of appealing to the head or to the whole person. Thank God, recognizing the Bible as story and thus allowing it to come alive in a drama, a pageant, did not mean abandoning the mind. But it did create a setting of sensitive, artistic expression that elevated the soul through aesthetic experience, that opened the mind and warmed the heart, readying the worshiping community to be moved in the depths and discover faith, hope and love in the presence of the Sacred Mystery whose presence was pointed to in song and dance, cross and candle, table and font. Thank God we have shared memories of shared experience of being lost in wonder, love and praise. Yes, we miss it terribly, but we could not miss it had we not had such rich experience of celebrative worship in which head and heart were united in lifting us into the presence of that Mystery in whom we live and move and have our being. PRAYER O God, to You we lift our souls, to You we lift our hearts. © Grand Valley State University �Symbol and Ritual Richard A. Rhem Page 9   The Psalmist wrote of the deer panting for streams of living water and saw himself mirrored in that thirst. We, too, thirst for You, O Living God, to know that You are; to sense Your presence; to rest in Your grace. As your people gathered here in this place, we would be still and know that You are God. We bring our thanksgiving in the conscious knowledge that all is grace The order of creation – we reset our clocks and watches to catch a bit more light in the morning, but Brother Sun and Sister Moon are affected not at all; Summer and Winter, Springtime and Harvest in passing parade proclaim Your great faithfulness. You are a God we can count on, keeping this vast cosmos balanced on a razor’s edge, just so, just right. And we breathe; planets move in marvelous symphony; salmon swim upstream; birds migrate to warmer climes; trees, so recently so richly garbed now poke heavenward bony fingers, warning of winter storms gathering, their leafy coats of dazzling color now lying shredded on the ground. And we sense a certain melancholy, a gentle grieving, for once again we are rushing headlong toward the end of another year. Like sand streaming through our fingers is the passing of our lives, and we seem paralyzed, failing to grasp it. Where have the years of our lives gone, O God, where have they gone? And what will become of us? Ah, Dear God, Creator, Lover of this world © Grand Valley State University �Symbol and Ritual Richard A. Rhem in all the wonder of its diversity, there is no shadow of turning in You. You, the eternal God, from Whom we have life, to Whom our life returns, in You we trust, in You we rest. All is grace. We give You thanks through Jesus Christ, our Lord. For these moments, let us quiet our minds, letting go of concerns that burden us, regrets that cripple us, fears that paralyze us, whatever is troubling us. Let us image that which causes gratitude to rise in us – the gift and grace of life; the sources of our joy; those persons who make life rich. Let us call to mind those images which have shaped us – the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; the Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Since God is for us, who can be against us? neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. All will be well, all will be well, All manner of things will be well. O God, those words rise from our depths so naturally. O God it seems that, in moments like these when we purposefully, intentionally turn to you when we turn to whomever or whatever you are, we do so almost with a sigh, O God, © Grand Valley State University Page10   �Symbol and Ritual Richard A. Rhem Page11   for we know we are now in the zone of Mystery. There was something about Jesus when he prayed that caused the disciples to plead, Lord, teach us to pray. we plead, as well, O, God, teach us to pray. Once, perhaps, we came as suppliants to the Royal Throne of the Universe with requests we must admit on reflection were very self-centered, reflecting a very small universe in which our hopes and fears loomed very large. And still there are moments when we flee into your presence totally occupied with our own concerns – something that threatens us, or some experience that crushes us, or some potential happening that involves us in a loss we fear would undo us. And sometimes it is sheer joy, ecstasy, exhilaration that bursts forth in a torrent of praise, shutting out everything else for the moment. But, more and more, we look not out there, but somehow within, into our own depths, sensing we are connected deep down, rooted in Being itself, you being the inexhaustible Source and Ground of all that exists – the good earth, the starry heavens, the oceans’ tides And ourselves, conscious, aware, groping for some clue by which to know you, to rest in you, no longer strangers, but at home in the universe, at one with all that is. Sacred Mystery of Being, of our lives, it is so good, so familiar for us gathered here to be gathered consciously in Your presence. Such rich memories we share of days gone by. O God, how grateful we are for all we have shared, for all we have experienced together – grateful for friendship, for mutual trust, mutual caring, support and love. On this All Saints’ Day we remember those we’ve loved and lost awhile. We are grateful, O God, for the confidence with which we live and die, © Grand Valley State University �Symbol and Ritual Richard A. Rhem Page12   that to live is to live unto the Lord and to die is to die unto the Lord and therefore whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. We are grateful, O great Mystery of life, that we have been graced with a fundamental trust that this cosmic dance into which our lives are woven is not a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, but a universe whose grain is love, whose end is life and light, a cosmos exploding before our eyes with marvels our forbears would not believe and we can hardly begin to comprehend. O God Our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Grant us joy and peace as in You we live and move and have our being, confident we will never walk alone. Amen © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Sunday Social Gathering, All Saints Day Series Symbol and Ritual Scripture Text Ecclesiastes 3:1-23, II Cor. 4:16-5, 5:1, I Cor. 15:20 Location The location of the interview Grand Haven Community Center Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20091101 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-11-01 Title A name given to the resource Healing the Heart as We Say Goodbye in the Presence of Mystery Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 1, 2009 entitled "Healing the Heart as We Say Goodbye in the Presence of Mystery", as part of the series "Symbol and Ritual", on the occasion of Sunday Social Gathering, All Saints Day, at Grand Haven Community Center. Scripture references: Ecclesiastes 3:1-23, II Cor. 4:16-5, 5:1, I Cor. 15:20. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1bc38f3d7b569362aa9fd6e02377aee3.pdf 1ff7f04b9140af42603b590acb200d4f PDF Text Text H[AllNG YOGA restoring the mind & body September I 5 - 'December g rffiursdays from 7:30 - 5:30 pm Xirkfiof Center Lower Level 'Rm. 0072 free drop-ins welcome open to everyone & all levels These sessions will focus on healing, empowerment, and self-awareness. Participants will be introduced to new techniques that will: • help manage stress, anxiety, and depression • allow for physical and emotiona l healing • positively affect their health *Bring your own yoga mat if you have one. A limited amount will be available for those who don't have one. This program aims to honor and welcome each personal journey. Join us in our effort to provide support for those who have experienced dating and domestic violence. 'Tor more information, please contact: @ GRANDVALLEY SrAn:UNIVERSITY WOMEN'S CENTER I 616.331.2748 www.gvsu.edu/women_cen womenctr@gvsu.edu @ GRANDVALLEY 1616.331.3659 STATE lJNivERSIT'I'. CAMrus REc REAnoN www.gvsu.edu/ rec rec@gvsu.edu � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource GVSU Sexuality and Gender Flyers Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Rainbow Resource Center Women and Gender Studies Department Women's Commission Gayle R. Davis Center for Women and Gender Equity Description An account of the resource Digitized posters, flyers, event notices, and other materials relating to gender expression and sexuality at Grand Valley State University, with materials spanning from 1974 to 2019. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1974/2019 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Digitized from collections at the Rainbow Resource Center (formerly the Milton E. Ford LGBT Resource Center), Women and Gender Studies Department, Women's Commission, and Gayle R. Davis Center for Women and Gender Equity. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Subject The topic of the resource Gender identity Gender expression Sexual orientation Women's studies Queer theory Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-09 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource eng Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-09_SGF_2011_Healing-Yoga.pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Women's Center Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-09-15/2011-12-08 Title A name given to the resource Healing Yoga: restoring the mind and body Description An account of the resource Flyer describing a series of free yoga sessions focused on healing, empowerment, and self-awareness. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Women's Center, Campus Recreation Subject The topic of the resource Community centers Yoga Healing Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Women's Center Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8dd2392178367faa83777dfc78cc8d37.jpg 517cbe122129922a33be17e2e4dc39ef Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1980s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UAPhotos_000205 Title A name given to the resource Health Sciences department with AV equipment Description An account of the resource Health Sciences faculty with AV equipment. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Technology Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6759ffc8b8f5cb7e913c8d02e980f249.mp3 d06fa5cd20f892b3c744b6d416b115b0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Ascension Sunday Scripture Text Exodus 34:6-7, Psalms 78:5-7, Romans 8:34-35, 39 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19860511 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-05-11 Title A name given to the resource Healthy Families - Grace Across the Generations Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on May 11, 1986 entitled "Healthy Families - Grace Across the Generations", on the occasion of Ascension Sunday, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Exodus 34:6-7, Psalms 78:5-7, Romans 8:34-35, 39. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0951ecf3d3be47f371e30bb278526f13.mp4 06582e6e9926cbcf057a2e755c521a89 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c798b0c59c8d9427fcf98bc25acb6160.pdf 8f58ca9f2c6a6deb9e3b2949266caa2f PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Oral History Interview Veteran: Roger Healy Interviewed by James Smither Transcribed by Grace Balog Interviewer: We are talking today with Roger Healy of Gobles, Michigan, and the interviewer is James Smither of the Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project. Okay Roger, begin with some background on yourself, and to begin with, where and when were you born? Veteran: I was born in Allegan, Michigan. We lived in Bloomingdale my first 5 years of my life. Interviewer: And what year were you born? Veteran: 1949. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: I was put into school at 4 years old. I was next to the youngest person in there. But I went to kindergarten in Bloomingdale and then we moved to a farm in Gobles. And I lived there on that 5-acre farm for 10 years until I was 14. Graduated from Gobles. Interviewer: Okay, high school? Veteran: Mhmm. Interviewer: Okay. And what year did you graduate from high school? �2 Veteran: ’67. Interviewer: Okay. And what did you do after you got out of high school? Veteran: I went to one year college at Southwestern Michigan in Dowagiac. I was 17 when I got in and there is no way I should have been. I always felt that I have been one step behind and trying to catch up. I was the biggest. That’s why they put me in there, at 4. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: But I wasn’t up to speed on things and that. I never had a brother. I had 2 sisters. So, I never was able to experience that. So, I have a lot of brothers that they don’t know that they are my brothers, but I don’t have a lot that many anymore. But my best brother is right over there and that. [referring to fellow Vietnam vet Chester Johnson, who sat in on the interview session] He’s here right now. But… Interviewer: Okay. So— Veteran: Drafted on July 15th, ’69. Interviewer: Okay. So, you had basically about a year between when you left school and when you got drafted? (00:02:23) Veteran: No, I went to school for a year and decided that it wasn’t for me. So, I went to work for an electrical company, IBW, building steel towers and streetlights. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: Different things like that when I was drafted. �3 Interviewer: Alright. Now, this is a point when you are—you have finished high school in ’67 and then you try college, and you go to work. That’s when Vietnam—the Vietnam War—has really heated up and the draft is going full blast. Were you basically expecting that you were going to get drafted at some point? Veteran: Yeah. Interviewer: Okay. And what was your attitude toward that? Were you just going to take it when it came? Or…? Veteran: I didn’t necessarily come from a military family, but I grew up knowing the system and knowing, you know, you enlist—or not enlist, when you turn 18 you… Interviewer: Register for the draft. Veteran: Register, yeah. And I just rode the wave, you know? I just did what I was told. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And I had planned for it, I guess, my whole life more or less. Interviewer: Okay, so you just kind of expected that was something you were going to do at that time. Okay, did you pay any attention to the news before you went in? Did you follow the stuff about what was happening in Vietnam? Veteran: Not a lot. One—you only needed to see it once. You knew what, you know, you kind of knew what was going on and just prayed to God and crosses your fingers and all that stuff. Interviewer: Okay. Alright. So, you get drafted in the middle of ’69. What’s the process now? You get the draft notice. What do you do next? (00:04:13) �4 Veteran: Well, a friend of mine got his notice—in school, a classmate of mine—and he had 30 days. And so, we were doing a normal riding around out on the back roads, feeling sorry for him and all that. Well, 2 weeks later, Nixon gave me a letter for the same day. So, those two weeks we are going, “Oh man,” and this and that. So…And when the time came, we…at least I had a friend, a classmate, that we were good friends. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And we went through basic training at Fort Knox. Interviewer: Where did you report to first? Veteran: Paw Paw, Michigan. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: A small house that had the office and a… Interviewer: Just like a— Veteran: Still there. Just went by it yesterday. Interviewer: Was that like a recruiter’s office? Or…? Veteran: Yeah, I guess it probably was. Interviewer: Yeah. Or an armory or something. Veteran: No, just a small stucco house. Interviewer: Not an armory. Okay. Alright. And then they send you then to Fort Knox? Veteran: Well, we went to Detroit. �5 Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And that is where we were inducted and then we went by bus down to Fort Knox. Interviewer: Did you get a physical at Detroit? Veteran: Yes. Interviewer: Okay. Now, sometimes you hear stories about people trying to game the system and do things to— Veteran: All around you. Interviewer: Okay, so did you observe any of that? What were people doing? Veteran: Yeah. Sleeping with bars of soap in their armpits so their temperature would be raised so that they would just say, you know…Simple as that, they were doing you know. Interviewer: Okay. Did that fool anybody? Veteran: I don’t know. I didn’t pay attention. I was just…just kind of doing my own, you know, in my own world. Interviewer: Alright. Alright, so that— Veteran: We did do—we did go to Canada. About 8 of us. Max and I, my buddy. We got on a bus and went through the tunnel. Went to Canada because you could drink at 18, I guess or something there, at that time. And so, we went over there and had a pitcher of beer. Pass it around and this and that. We looked around and we go, “Oh, what are we going to do now?” We looked at each other and we just got up and went back to the bus station and…And we just did— and you know, none of us were going to stay. We just went because we could. (00:06:46) �6 Interviewer: Sure. Okay, well that’s— Veteran: Last bit of freedom kind of. Interviewer: Alright. Well, had you reported in by then? Or did you do that kind of on the way over there? Veteran: It was after the physical and things like that. Interviewer: Okay. So, they actually let you out? Veteran: It was overnight. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And we stayed in the Ford Hotel, I think they called it. And they were throwing televisions out. I mean it was…I mean it was chaos all around us but… Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: We were hometown, you know, back country boys. We just watched them. Interviewer: Okay, so there were a lot of people there who were not happy to be there? Veteran: Probably, yeah. Interviewer: Okay. Alright. But now you take a bus down to Fort Knox? Or do they fly you down? Veteran: Yeah, we took a bus down to Fort Knox. Interviewer: Okay. And what kind of reception do you get at Fort Knox? �7 Veteran: Well, I am pretty sure it was dark. And we were tired and just wanted a place to sleep. And that’s what we was was given quarters and a place to sleep. Interviewer: Okay, so they didn’t start yelling at you right away? Veteran: I don’t think so. Interviewer: Okay. Because the Army varies with that kind of thing. The Marines always yell at you. Veteran: Back then it was kind of trying—it was being phased out a little bit. But they still got in your face a lot. Interviewer: Okay. But that didn’t start the night you got there? (00:08:14) Veteran: No. Interviewer: Okay. Now, did they process you for a couple days? Or what happens then? Veteran: Yeah. Yeah, processing and then they tested us. Aptitude or whatever to see what our background had been. And heck, I didn’t know what to fill in on that. I would have done it differently if I had known. But our past skills and things that, you know, I had driven truck and farm machinery and all that stuff, but I never wrote it down. When we were into firing range, I was hiding from the silhouettes and just shooting at the top instead of doing what I should have, or I probably would have been a sniper. Or they would have wanted me for a sniper because I deer hunted. I had killed 5 deer by the time I, you know, starting at 14 and that. And with one shot. And but I am glad that I didn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to do that I don’t think. I don’t think. �8 Interviewer: So, what designation do you get? Do they just—they make you an infantryman? Or something else? Veteran: Well, it was…Fort Knox is infantry but the second day, they marched us down to another company area or whatever and this and that. They marched us through. And we went in and got our—I think we got our clothes and stuff like that or whatever. But anyway, we got back into formation. And they called my name. They said, “Fall out.” I am going, what did I do wrong? Well, they said, “You are the platoon guide.” They put sergeant stripes on me and said, “Take them back to the company area.” And I am going, what?? So, somehow, I—you know, I just kind of did what the drill sergeants had been doing. You know? And so, I took them back and I was given my own room in the barracks. And I lasted…I don’t know how I lasted, how long it was….14—or a month or so, 4 weeks or something—but I had to get up before everybody else and go around and take sick call and do all this stuff and get down there. Well, I was never a morning person. (00:10:38) Veteran: Never, still haven’t—aren’t. So, I came home probably after 4 weeks, 5 weeks, I don’t know, into it. And my—it was a daily basis that my footlocker was upside down and my standup locker was…They just came in because it was—I didn’t do the right things, place my stuff right. Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: If I would have been smart, I would have employed some of the other people. Max would have been a perfect one to have—he would have done that for me, and I would have, you know. And but I was back in the ranks with the rest of them. And just went along with it because �9 I, you know, I wasn’t—I am not—I wasn’t a leader. Never was. I was the, you know, I was the youngest one in every group, so I was just floating around and following everybody. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: All of a sudden, here I am leading 32 people and keeping them in line and this and that and whatever. And I didn’t do it right. Interviewer: Okay. Now, physically, was the training very demanding? Or could you handle that? Veteran: Yeah, I—it was—once we got in shape. But I was a farm—I worked on the farm. We baled hay and this and that. And when I worked, it was physical. So, yeah that worked out pretty good, I guess. Interviewer: Okay. And could you adjust to just following orders? Was that…? Veteran: Oh yeah. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: I had readied myself for, you know…there has got to be a top of the pyramid and, you know, right there. And our main thing is the DI and the rest of us went down from there. But… Interviewer: So, you just kind of did what they told you to do when—and got through it. (00:12:28) Veteran: Yeah. Interviewer: Okay. So, how long was basic? �10 Veteran: You know, I have never really paid attention to that because I was in—it’s hard to because what happened after that. I was in country longer than I would have if I had just gone through basic AIT and then shipped out. But I lost track of things when they…Again, when we were in AIT, I don’t know if you want to skip forward to that? Interviewer: Oh yeah. Well, we wanted it to be—so, basic training is normally at that point about 8 weeks. At least, that’s the standard course. Unless you get hurt or something and stay longer. And then from there— Veteran: Okay, that’s about right. Interviewer: Okay. And then you get the Advanced Individual Training, AIT. And where did you do that? Veteran: Fort Polk, Louisiana. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: I believe we flew down there. Might have been a bus but I think we—I think that was the first time I had flown on an airplane. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: So, we went down, and we went through that. Interviewer: And what kind of training was that? Veteran: Infantry. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: Combat, Vietnam. �11 Interviewer: Alright. And what kinds of things did they do there to try to prepare you for Vietnam? Veteran: Well, the terrain and the climate kind of like that has was similar to Vietnam except for in the wintertime. When I was there, it was 17 degrees down there. When the monsoons in there in Vietnam, you felt like it was 17 degrees when the monsoon is—if you got wet. I mean, it was…You had to take care of yourself. But they had the Heartbreak Hill and several different pretty tall…. not mountains but… Interviewer: But hills or ridges or whatever? Veteran: Pretty good ones, yeah. And we did full pack and just a lot of training and more of the same. (00:14:26) Interviewer: Okay. Was there a difference in terms of how you were treated in AIT as opposed to how you were treated in basic? Or was it still pretty much the same? Veteran: It was probably about the same. It was—I think it was starting to ease up from what previous soldiers or whatever had to deal with. But I—it didn’t bother me that much. So…I just got through it somehow. Interviewer: Alright. Now, did they try to teach you anything about Vietnam in terms of the people, or the society or dealing with civilians or anything like that? Veteran: Mostly weapons. Just getting to know the weapons and that stuff. Now, I don’t really think that there was that much going on about what was there, what the people were there doing. Interviewer: Okay. Were your—any of your instructors people who had been to Vietnam? Veteran: Probably. I really couldn’t tell you. �12 Interviewer: Okay. Because if they are not telling you things about Vietnam then you might well not know. Veteran: Well, they were kind of private. There was one where—sergeant I remember that got busted to an E-1 because he borrowed money from some of us and they found out about it and that. So, they didn’t kick him out, they just busted him from an E-5 to an E-1. And so, he was back on the ladder. But he was someone who couldn’t survive on the out, you know. He had to— better than prison, he was in the service. He was able to be, you know, but he was the type of person that just wouldn’t have made it on the outside. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: Back in those days you know, that was what I figured, you know. (00:16:23) Interviewer: Alright. So, the AIT is also normally about 8 weeks. Do you think that’s what—about how long? Veteran: Mhmm. Interviewer: Okay, so what happens to you after AIT? Veteran: We were standing in formation again and they are passing out—or calling names—and passing out orders. And the next thing we knew, they called 8 of us out of the formation. And they said, “We didn’t get enough volunteers for NCO school so you 8 are going to NCO school.” So, we got orders. We went home for 30 days and then reported to Fort Benning, Georgia, for NCO school. Interviewer: Okay, that is Non-Commissioned Officer school, for people who don’t really know. �13 Veteran: Right. Interviewer: Okay. Yeah, alright. And so, what was that program like? Veteran: Well, there wasn’t as much people being in your face more. It was a little bit more mature and, you know, we more or less knew what to do. We knew what was going on and things like that. So, it went a little bit smoother and that. Interviewer: Okay. And physically, what did they make you do? Veteran: The obstacle courses were somewhat more. We would, you know, using a rope to get across water. You know, and just a little bit more intense than what the basic…You know, just went up a little bit more. And then we knew, you know, it was all infantry training. So, we knew… Interviewer: Okay. And did they give you any training in leadership or in tactics or anything like that? Veteran: Yeah. Yeah, but I don’t know how far along into that was that I decided that I wasn’t going to—I didn’t want to tell anybody what to do. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: They can tell me what to do and I will decide how I am going to do it. I will get the job done. But I am not going to be stupid about it. (00:18:20) Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And about the same time, a buddy that had been in basic and AIT, another Michigan guy, we sat down one day, and he was married and had two kids and stuff. And he said, “Man,” he says, “I want to get this over with.” And he had more or less made up his mind that he was �14 going to go home. We dropped out, is what we did. And he went home, and I went home. And we’d keep in contact, and he said, “I am not ready.” He says, “I am not ready to go.” And I said, “Well, just call me when you are.” Well, 8 days later we finally reported. Interviewer: Okay. So, were you AWOL? Or you were talking— Veteran: It was like 8 days AWOL. Interviewer: Okay. And that—was that before you went to Fort Benning? Or was it after you got there, and you did it for a while and then went away? Veteran: This is when we—after we got our orders for Vietnam, after we quit Fort Benning and NCO school. Interviewer: Okay. Okay. I am just trying to shore up this scene. So, basically you go a certain—you go through part of NCO school, but you don’t finish. And then you are able to tell the Army, basically, “I don’t want to do this.” And then they say, “Okay, you are going to go to Vietnam now.” Was that—so, you get orders for Vietnam, and you have some time before you have to report. Veteran: We had 30 days legally and then we were about 38 days when we ended up reporting to—in Oakland. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: California. Interviewer: Alright. Now, did you—when you got there, were you in any trouble for being 8 days late? �15 Veteran: We got busted to E-1s and spent two weeks in a barracks. And then we got on a plane and went to Vietnam. Interviewer: Alright. Remember, was it a—like a chartered civilian plane? Or military— Veteran: Yes. Interviewer: Okay. Alright. And do you remember if you stopped anywhere? (00:20:20) Veteran: Yeah, we stopped in Hawaii. We stopped in Wake Island. We stopped in Guam. And then I think it was…and I don’t know because I actually did the whole thing twice. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And I might tell you that later. But because going over there and coming back once, and then going back over and coming back, they took different routes that it was different. One time we went through Alaska. I think that is when I came home though. We came through Alaska. But… Interviewer: Okay. Alright. But Wake Island would have been on the way from Hawaii because that’s a natural kind of jump and so was Guam. So, and if the plane wasn’t big enough to fly the whole distance, then you refuel. Veteran: Yeah. Interviewer: Okay. So, where did you land in Vietnam? Veteran: Probably…Well, we got—I got assigned to the 25th infantry, which was in Cu Chi but I don’t know if it would have been… Interviewer: Probably Tan Son Nhut because that is— �16 Veteran: I was going to say Tan Son Nhut or Cam Ranh Bay but that was—I had malaria twice, so I was there for two weeks a couple times. But it was probably Tan Son Nhut. Interviewer: Okay. Now, when you were going to Vietnam, did you know what unit you were joining? Or…? Veteran: No. Interviewer: Okay, so you are just a general replacement at that point. Okay. When did you arrive in Vietnam? Veteran: That was February… Interviewer: 1970 now. Veteran: Right. I was there 11 months and 19 days. So, I was never very good at math. So… Interviewer: Okay. So, basically the early 1970 is when you arrived there. Okay. And what was your first impression of Vietnam when you go there? Veteran: The smell. Interviewer: Can you describe it? Veteran: It was—I never smelled anything like it. It was, I guess, a conglomeration of gunpowder and latrines and…incense probably, smoke and different things. It was just hard to…it almost—it was just to the point of making you nauseous, you know, making you sick. But you sooner or later got used to it. (00:22:44) Interviewer: Okay. Now, did you land during the day or at night? �17 Veteran: I believe it was nighttime. Most every time we got transported it seemed like it was nighttime. So, I didn’t really get a good look at things coming in. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: Get a lay of the land or anything like that. Interviewer: Alright. So, once you land, what happens to you? Veteran: I guess they probably issued us uniforms and some equipment. No weapons at that time. And I don’t know how long I kicked around before I reported, because I ran into people that I knew, people that had been in basic or AIT or something, and they had been there for a while because I spent the 5 weeks or whatever in NCO school. Interviewer: Right. Veteran: So, I was behind again. No, kind of, but it worked out. But 2 of the guys that I remembered their names and faces but I saw them coming. I was like oh man, cool, there is somebody that I can get some information on what to do here. And they, “Hey, how you doing?” and just kept on. I was like what the heck? They turn around. Well, they had been on an ambush, and they were on a poncho line, and they are in rice paddies, and everything was flying and that. And a ChiComm grenade got tossed in and they tossed—I guess they split, and they left their M60 machine gun there. And they got out of there and they weren’t injured. (00:24:33) Veteran: But they came to the rear, and they said, “We are reenlisting. We are going to Japan.” And that’s…And I am going wait a minute…I don’t know if that’s what I want to do. And then I ran into them, a buddy from high school, and this and that. And he was just about ready to ETS. He was going home. And but he let me camp out there in his hooch for a few days and that. And �18 I finally got homesick and wanted to get some mail. And I don’t know if it was a week or a month or whatever, but I finally went and reported. Interviewer: Okay, so you basically were just kind of there… Veteran: I was shooting pool, going from an NCO—or a… Interviewer: Club to another? Veteran: …club to another. And just feeling the place out and that. Interviewer: Okay. So, now you show up and they have orders for you? Veteran: They assign me to the 25th Infantry Division, 1st of the 5th Mechanized [Infantry Regiment], which I wasn’t going to kick there. So, we were able to ride to our ambush points and that. Rift during the day and then they would drop us off and we’d set up and ambush, they’d go back to the night logger. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: Come back in a day, two days, a week, or whatever. You know, however long we were out there. Interviewer: Okay. Alright. And what kind if vehicles did you have? Veteran: Armored personnel carriers. Interviewer: So, that is like the M113 mostly? Or…? Veteran: Yep. Interviewer: Okay, so standard. Like a big box on a tank chassis? �19 Veteran: Yep. Interviewer: Okay. Alright, and that—but you still fight normally as infantry? You would dismount and—if you were going to go out and engage? Veteran: If and when we ran into it. Interviewer: Yeah. (00:26:17) Veteran: Thankfully, we didn’t get a lot of it. Towards the end but… Interviewer: Okay. So, that’s the unit you were assigned to. Now, where was the unit at that time? Veteran: Cu Chi. Interviewer: Okay. And explain a little bit about where Cu Chi was and what sort of place it was. Veteran: Well, it seems like every time I look at a map of Vietnam, it was near Saigon, but it seems like—I thought it was in one spot and it was—it is in a different one or whatever. But…And what they know about Cu Chi now is crazy. But I don’t know. I don’t really know what happened between there and the next thing I knew I was on top of an APC, and we are going out in the jungles, rice paddies, rubber plantations. We went from there towards Cambodia, Tay Giang, Dau Tieng, Camp Frenzell, Firebase Frenzell-Jones, and back to Cu Chi, which is where the 25th was based at. Interviewer: Yeah. That was their headquarters area. Okay. Now, when you—so, are you joining basically an infantry squad that has its own armored personnel carrier? Is that…? Veteran: No, it was a whole company. �20 Interviewer: Okay. So, you have a company and then—but a company isn’t going to all fit in one carrier. So, you have to have multiple vehicles. Veteran: Well, a squad was—it was a 10 man. Driver, 50 gunner, and then 8 personnel so there was 10 altogether is what the vehicle was designed for to get inside. Interviewer: Right. (00:28:06) Veteran: And…which was a no-no, we rode on top. Interviewer: Okay. So, why would you ride on top rather than inside? Veteran: Because of landmines. The concussion that would…it was better to be on top, sitting on ammo boxes full of grenades and ammos and whatever you could find to sit on for a seat. Interviewer: Okay. And were there roads and trails to drive on or did you just… Veteran: Most of the time, we’d have—we had two trackers. We were in the Michelin Rubber Plantation and BF Goodrich. We were there a lot. And surrounding areas. We’d go out on rifts; they’d call it rift. And kind of like recon or something like that. But we would all ride on the vehicle and tell the guys, “Okay, here is where you are going to…” and we’d get off just before dark and set up the ambush and just pull guard duty and… Interviewer: Okay. Alright. So, you are sort of there for several—a period of 2-3 months or whatever before the invasion of Cambodia happens. Because the Americans officially start going in— Veteran: Well, that was in May. Interviewer: That’s in May. �21 Veteran: May 7th. Interviewer: But you were there a couple months before that gets going. So, was that time mostly one of just sort of driving around and going back and forth? Veteran: Well, they had gone into Vietnamization. They had—instead of going out in a company, we were going out in squads. It was broken down into squads. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: We didn’t—and it was a whole different ball game, and nobody really knew what was going on; even the guys that were—had seen, you know, had been in country for a while. So, we were all…We counted on our Chieu Hoi Scouts, which were—they surrendered and came over to our side and we—they were Kit Carsons. Interviewer: Yeah. (00:30:20) Veteran: Chieu Hoi. They were Chieu Hoi, which is…but we relied on them quite a bit. You just watch their eyes. If they…you know, you grabbed your weapons. And just watch that true or low, one of the two, because we trusted them. They were good kids, or good guys. They were probably older. They were older than us but… Interviewer: Alright. So, you are just going out with an individual squad with one armored personnel carrier, just going out someplace by yourselves? Veteran: Yeah. I think we probably traveled in what we had left. There was usually four armored personnel carriers to a platoon. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: A squad needs one. �22 Interviewer: Right. Veteran: And when you look—when one got destroyed, you—we jumped in, you know. Interviewer Yeah. Were your squads full strength? Or were you usually missing some people? Veteran: The squads, I guess, were—we got resupplied, you know, as far as that. But E-6s, E-5s, and E-6s and their—I’ve got a thing I printed out that we were very low in a lot of places in…as far as officers. Interviewer: Okay. So, you don’t have enough sergeants of the right rank and you don’t have enough lieutenants to lead the platoons and— Veteran: No. Spec-4s were brought up to take care of it, you know, to fill the spot and stuff like that. Interviewer: Okay. Well, was there much actual fighting going on at this point? Or just IEDs or…? Veteran: We were—the Vietnamization was for us to go out and find it. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: We were in a no-fire zone that you couldn’t fire unless fired upon. And then you were supposed to get, you know, clearance. But you know that didn’t happen. We could see the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I remember watching it with the naked eye. I could—we could see them and there wasn’t a thing we could do. Interviewer: Okay, so you are kind of getting up to the Cambodian border at that point? (00:32:27) �23 Veteran: We were back and forth. Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: The two months before we went in or the three months that I was there. And in the meantime, the track that I was on, 32 track, with 3rd platoon or 3rd squad, the driver said, “Man, I am done. I am leaving.” Well, we says, “Well, who is going to drive this rig?” And I was the FNG. I was the… Interviewer: You’re the new guy. Veteran: And looked around and nobody is saying anything. I am going well hell, I’ll drive this thing. I’d seen what, you know, and I had had enough farm life and stuff like that. So, they said, “There it is.” So, I was assigned to the—me and the 50 gunner were assigned to the APC. We’d take—we’d rift all day long and then drop everybody else off and then we’d go back to the night laager and then pull guard. There was just the two of us so we would have to pull guard ourselves at night. Interviewer: Okay. So, the night laagers were a bunch—a group of the vehicles will be together kind of in a circle? Veteran: I call it a wagon wheel. We’d pull in and just follow the lead all the way around so that—and then we’d do a 90 degree, so we were all facing out. And go out and set our trip flares and Claymores and put our RPG screens up at front. And… Interviewer: Alright. Now, when you were in that kind of situation, would the Vietnamese—would they probe you or attack you? Or did they leave you alone? (00:34:05) �24 Veteran: No, they would—they would…Well, they had the bomb craters. A 10,000-pound bomb leaves a big hole and that. Well, they would hide in those and then just hold their AKs and fire above us over the top. Well, it was a diversion. They’d—on the other side of the night logger, they would crawl in and turn the Claymores around and things like that so when you hit the clacker, it would blow 100,000 BBs at us instead of them. And they would do things like that. I got to say the only one I guess that we got in was…pulled into the night logger one night, or one afternoon, and I just got off and everybody had to haul the duffel bags and everything on a litter just so, you know, all their belongings, everything and that. And I went over and laid down on them and I fell asleep. And I dreamt that there were Cobra jets and… gunships. I mean, I dreamt that all this…I woke up in the morning and looked around and it had actually happened, and I slept through it. I was so tired that I slept through that. But the—I was actually… Interviewer: You dreamed a fire fight and there was one. Veteran: Yep. Which would have been a nightmare. Interviewer: Yeah. Now, so did they—did that do much damage to your unit? Or…? did you— Veteran: There were some people missing and it was all small arms. Well, it must have been more than just small arms fire from the NVA or VC whichever it was. We—I don’t know if we ever found out. Excuse me. But I was very lucky I didn’t have—we didn’t have a whole lot of contact. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: We did a lot of time guarding things. Like I say, the rubber plantations and things like that. We went out one time at night. We had never—nobody had ever done that before. You �25 know, black light, dark, and that was a trip. But I was—I got to say that it could have been a whole lot worse. (00:36:42) Interviewer: Okay. Now, did you—aside from the Kit Carson Scouts—I mean, did you work with any of the South Vietnamese military? Veteran: ARVN. Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: Yep. Interviewer: I am…Now, did you work with them before the Cambodian incursion or only after that started? Veteran: I think we probably worked with them. We were—it was a—the whole year I was there, it was off and on. but they just didn’t want to. You know, they…when something happened, they’d go the other way. And 100 yards or something where they were safe, and they would be just sitting there going oh man. And you couldn’t blame them. I mean for crying out loud, it was…it was, you know. Interviewer: Yeah, I know a lot of—most of them would have been draftees and probably didn’t want to be there either. And then, didn’t necessarily have the level of training that you did or anything else. But so, they were there but you didn’t see them as a particularly effective fighting force at that point. Veteran: They had brand new M-16s. They had brand new fatigues, they had brand new armored personnel carriers that had never been off the road. Ours were—we had busted jungles. You could pull up on a tree that big around and knock it down. �26 Interviewer: Alright. So, how—what’s it like to drive an armored personnel carrier? (00:38:06) Veteran: It’s like driving a bulldozer, somewhat, only you are in the front left-hand corner instead of in the middle of it. But just laterals. We had extended laterals to ride on top. They had the motor pool made extended laterals so we could sit up. Interviewer: So, you could sort of basically stick your head out of the top and look around rather than just being out of sight? Veteran: Well, there is a round manhole cover that flips over to the rear. Interviewer: Yep. Veteran: And I put a cushion or whatever on top of that. So, I was actually—had my feet on that and I went and had a long pole for the accelerator, with our 350 diesel Oldsmobile’s, I guess. I thought they were Chevys. That’s all that was moving that 13-ton vehicle. Interviewer: Okay. Alright. So, basically, if possible, you preferred to be up top driving rather than buttoned up inside the vehicle. Veteran: It was required. If…One time, one of my laterals broke so I had to leave them behind and I had to ride in the—down inside. But what—the first day in Cambodia I hit a landmine, a 70-pound landmine. It was right—took out the drive sprocket on my side. So, I was 5 feet above that. And it rocked us up, took my track off and everything. It knocked a couple of guys off. Everybody’s ears were bleeding but mine. I still have perfect hearing. Probably more than perfect. But I was back on the ground then. Interviewer: Okay. So, if you had been in the original driver’s seat down inside— �27 Veteran: If I had been in there, I would have…I don’t know. Interviewer: Have been killed or badly wounded. Yeah. Veteran: Probably. The closeness of it and everything, there is no place to go. Interviewer: Yep. (00:40:16) Veteran: But that’s why we were up on top. Interviewer: Okay. Alright. Now, in the—so the big operation or whatever that you are involved in initially is that incursion into Cambodia that starts at the beginning of May. Now, did you have any kind of build-up or preparation for it? Did you have any idea that you were going to be doing it until the day it happened? Veteran: Maybe a day or so. Something like that. Interviewer: Okay. And did they tell you what you were doing or why you were doing it? Veteran: Well, we pretty much knew. We were still in the no-fire. I think it was still a no-fire zone. I remember the night before; it was dark when we got there. And they had us—they’d walk us, and they’d say, “Okay, 90 degrees. That’s Cambodia across that river.” So, we are sitting side by side like that and somebody said, “Well, there is…” “Well, no, they didn’t tell us.” But anyway, we heard movement. They said, “There is a little bridge out there, a footbridge, and it’s right out there.” I don’t know how far they said. Whatever and this and that and they said, “But that’s the only thing.” Well, there were Marines out there. And we heard the Marines and I guess I gave the command to open up with the 50. And of course, we were shooting through the Constantine wire that we had for protection on the front for RPGs. And one of them did catch a �28 fragment of the wire. One of them had to be dusted off anyway. We didn’t know they were out there. Interviewer: So, there were actually U.S. Marines there? (00:42:12) Veteran: Yeah. Interviewer: Okay because I thought the Marines were normally up north and not down in the Saigon area. But that’s where they told you they were? Veteran: It was dark and never saw anybody. It was just firing at the sound because they said there was a little bridge and that’s where it looked like they pointed from. But it was a—I don’t know how many down there, but they were U.S. Marines there, yeah. Interviewer: Okay. Alright. So, then do you go forward at daybreak? Or…? Veteran: Well, they were still putting the bridge together. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: A floating bridge. And I think it was about noon we started crossing that bridge. And I, at that time, I had—I was driving at that time. The 32-track. And I was the 5th one across that bridge that day. Interviewer: And how long was it before you hit the mine? Veteran: It was near the end of the day. We split up. I think half the battalion went south and half of us went north. And we would go through villages, and they were coming with arm loads of bananas and, I don’t know, anything that they had indigenous to them. They were just piling it up on the track. Just…it was crazy. �29 Interviewer: So, they were happy to see you? Veteran: Oh, it was just like it was like oh my word. Look at this and look at that. Smiling and the whole nine yards. And when we came back out two weeks later, our unit actually—we were there for two weeks. And you couldn’t give them a case of C-rations for a banana. It was—I mean, it was the Garden of Eden. When we went into Cambodia was what Vietnam used to look like. It was just like there’s a place in Arizona, Cave Creek. Up in that area there is like a mist. It’s like you’re just in someplace that you had never been before. And that’s the way Cambodia was when we went in there. Interviewer: Okay. (00:44:39) Veteran: But after the airstrikes and the B-52s, it was just bomb craters and it was just…it was hard to be in the skin. Interviewer: Okay. So, on that first day, was there any opposition, aside from the mines? Veteran: Oh yeah, there was all kinds of a lot of stuff going around. There was VC and NVA both encamped in those. And you didn’t know so everything was just being leveled. And there were a few that popped out and were killed. I only actually saw one U.S. casualty that day. But you are busy driving, you know, and you are trying to maneuver and this and that and stuff. You can’t really take in a lot of the other stuff. Interviewer: Yeah. Okay. So, after you hit the mine, now what happens? Your vehicle is disabled. So, what happens to you when you and your squad then? Veteran: Well, I want to go back a little bit. Interviewer: Okay. �30 Veteran: Going to it, I was the 22nd vehicle in line. We were going down a two-track road. Interviewer: Right. Veteran: And like I say, I was the 22nd one in line and there was one APC behind me. And I hit the mine. And Ron Siefer from Ohio was behind me, and he knew he was good, but he immediately pulled around us. And they said I was tracking. I was tracking like, you know, it wasn’t like I had drifted off, so it had to be either a step-down mine, which it clicks down so many times and then blows, or they detonated it. (00:46:42) Interviewer: Command detonated mine. Veteran: We never knew. Interviewer: So, you were tracking. It means you were following I exactly the tracks of the one in front of you. Veteran: Yeah. Yeah, people behind, everybody, and the guys on it, they said I was doing the right thing. Well, the whole company just kept on going. Our battalion. It would have been the battalion. Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: And Ron just pulled around and he says, “Here, let’s get the cables hooked up.” And he started hooking the cables up proper to tow me. And my track was blown apart, so it was—and it hung up on the rear bogie wheel and was dragging behind us, 10 or 15 feet beside us. So, that was like…And we are sitting on top. He’s towing us. And I am going if that thing hits a mine…and this and that. But we are following the…Well, actually, when he was driving it, we’d look—I looked back—and I saw deuce and a halfs. There was 4, 5, I didn’t know. It was so far �31 back. The doors came open and there were stars on the side. There was not supposed to be anything but mechanized armored vehicles. Interviewer: Okay. But the deuce and a half is just regular trucks. Veteran: Deuce and a halfs are not armored. And we didn’t know if an RPG was going to come our way. Turned out, I am reading—I found out in the last—actually, the last year—that there were actually retired rubbered vehicles that were there. But we didn’t know. But we just got in there and hauled ass. And finally got to the night laager where we were at. And the next day, they brought a sky hook. One of the big choppers brought that over into Cambodia and they picked my APC up and I watched it. Interviewer: Okay. So now what do you do? You lost your vehicle. (00:48:40) Veteran: Well, I had to go get on another one. And I remember we—they had a partially bombed out bridge over a river. And I have never really figured out where that was at yet. But we were left behind, I guess, because there were too many of us to go out or something. But we guarded that bridge. And the rest of them went out and they caught [unintelligible]. They were—it was some bad news that they got into that day. But I think we guarded that bridge. It must have been the two weeks that we were there. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And set up ambushes. That’s the first ambush. Well, it was the second one. I popped one. Somehow one of Papasan’s pigs had swum across the river and came and tripped one of our trip flares. And I don’t know. Well, I actually blew a Claymore on the pig. And the next morning, a hunter found it—or the farmer—found it on the other side of the river. And well, he ended up cooking it and invited us. �32 Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: You know, we killed his pig. I don’t know if we, if anybody, ever paid for it or not but… Interviewer: So, aside from the pig, were you left alone while you were there? (00:50:16) Veteran: Yeah. Interviewer: Okay. So, kind of a quiet way to spend an invasion. Veteran: A 6 toed South Vietnamese general. He had 6 toes on each foot because they wore flip flops. And we had heard about him. And he come walking across that bridge one day. We just all kept looking at his toes. But we were just grunts, you know. It was…I don’t know what happened then. Interviewer: Okay. So, you are basically parked there for a couple of weeks and the rest of the battalion has moved on. Veteran: Well, they would go out on rifts and get into trouble and then come back. Interviewer: Okay, so they were still using the bridge? Or…? Veteran: We were on one side and the platoon was on the other. Interviewer: Okay. So, they are still kind of operating in that area at that point. Veteran: Yep. Interviewer: Okay. And did you have any idea what was going on elsewhere? Veteran: We’d get bits and pieces when they’d get back in. They came back in. one they came back in firing. They were coming back from that bad and we were getting ricochet. We were �33 getting it friendly fire. And we hid behind the APC until they came and then turned into the night laager and that. But they were—one of the APCs hit a mine that took it up in the air and flipped it over and came down on its top. And I know the 50 gunner never got out. But we just didn’t talk about it… Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: …that much. Interviewer: Alright. And so, you think you spent a couple of weeks there. And at that point, do you move on and advance farther into Cambodia? Or…? Veteran: We were only allowed 30 kilometers, I guess, or 30 miles or something. That’s all we could go in. Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: They stopped us before we could have really made a difference. But at the end of two weeks, we just went back to Camp Frenzell-Jones, I think. Firebase Frenzell-Jones. Interviewer: Okay. Alright, now having done that, do you go back to just patrolling the area? Or what do you do next? (00:52:31) Veteran: Rubber plantations in the surrounding areas. Interviewer: Okay. Alright. Now, were there particular rules and regulations for what you could do and not do on a rubber plantation? Veteran: Well, you weren’t supposed to damage any of the trees for sure. Because I found out, I don’t know if its true or not, Lady Bird Johnson owned those two plantations. �34 Interviewer: I don’t think she owned those. Veteran: That’s what I heard. Interviewer: Yeah. That might well have been the kind of thing somebody would say. Veteran: We didn’t know while we were there. I found—I heard it after I got home and that. But we’d go from Dau Tieng to Tay Ninh to one of the rubber plantations or whatever. We just moved around. We would have a cache of weapons and food. We had I don’t know how many tons of rice we captured. Nine-millimeter machine guns and things like that. But… Interviewer: So, you have—well, you are basically—you are patrolling, you are finding plenty of signs that there are enemy around. They have got all their caches, all their stores of stuff. But for the most part, were they not trying to fight you? Veteran: They’d take pot shots. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: You know, just to make us think or whatever. And now and then, I don’t…I can’t say that I—I through a lot of ordnance down range. We had a mini gun mounted on our 50 turret. Interviewer: Okay, explain what the mini gun is. (00:54:14) Veteran: A mini gun is a top speed of 7000 rounds a minute. Run off batteries. It is a continuous belt. Every 7th round is a red tracer. Communists had green tracers, so we knew who was fighting—who was shooting at us. Interviewer: Right. Veteran: And they knew who we were too by our tracers. �35 Interviewer: But a mini gun can put out a lot of lead fast. Veteran: We were called to the front to mow some brush down quite a few times. But being driving in this, you know, a majority of my time, I was driving. Because I eventually got another APC when a driver went home. I never took a bead on anything. I…it plague—I don’t know if it’s a plague or not but I don’t know if I ever killed anybody. I don’t know. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: Like I say, I threw a lot of ordnance. I had an M-79 grenade launcher. On night laager, I’d—I kept them thinking. If there was anything out there, I kept them thinking. And nobody ever said anything. I’d shoot a case of grenades in a night, you know, while I was on guard duty and that. I don’t know, what was your question? Interviewer: Okay. Alright. Okay, and now do you basically stay with that unit your whole time in Vietnam? Or— Veteran: Yes. Interviewer: Okay. Now, did you spend much time on the base at Cu Chi? Veteran: Near the end, I did. We did in—you say, some of the things we transported a lot. We— The Big Red One, 1st Air Cav…I can’t remember but we would transport units from one part of South Vietnam to others. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And then come back and that. Had a lot of ARVNs. We would give them rides to different places and this and that. �36 Interviewer: Okay. And then, would you go in and out of Cu Chi when you are doing that? Or…? (00:56:21) Veteran: We’d most generally be out in the field when they came walking in and… Interviewer: Okay. Alright. Veteran: Gave them a chance to rest or whatever and that and then…We were in a—just—even though there was all this going on around. I just had tunnel vision, I guess. Interviewer: Yeah, you had a very small world that you were part of. Veteran: I—yeah. Interviewer: Okay. Did you see much of the Vietnamese civilians? Veteran: Oh yeah. When we went through the villages and that. They’d get on the back, open the back door and try and get stuff out and things like that. I remembered one time we stopped and chased them down a side street and thought what are we doing? This is stupid. So, we went back but… Interviewer: Alright. Sometimes people talk about people—are they trying to sell you things? Or prostitutes kind of following along and are getting in the vehicles. Any of those kinds of things happen? Veteran: Probably but not a lot. We were moving on. We did night laager at times near villages and that. And we’d sneak out to all the two-tracks, you know. We are going into the village, you know. So, they’d say, “Okay.” You know, they’d watch for us and stuff, whatever. But that was there, it was around, but I don’t…I don’t know much about it. Interviewer: Okay. Alright. And were there drugs around? �37 Veteran: Yeah. Not out in the field so much. I mean, I know—I remember we’d smoke some marijuana, and they’d tell us—when they’d come around, the top would come around. We got some intel, you know, hold it down tonight. Yeah, okay. (00:58:27) Interviewer: Okay. So, would you sometimes do that in a night laager position or only when you— Veteran: Yeah. Interviewer: Yeah. Okay. But not if you are out on an ambush patrol or something else like that? Veteran: No, not that I know of. Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: But I mean, it’s…well. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: Your awareness is…you get really aware when you are doing that. And it was I think somewhat of an advantage. Because it doesn’t mess you up, you know, other ways than that. Your awareness, like you know, even now shooting pool or doing some things like that, I mean you are—you just get tuned into it and it’s…I don’t know. Interviewer: Okay. So, in—because usually the assumption is that it can make you less prepared or less sensitive to things. Veteran: Probably could in civilian life, but when you are on—when you are on top of things, if you are not, you are… �38 Interviewer: Okay. Alright. Now, did you ever get an R and R while you were in Vietnam? Veteran: No. Interviewer: Okay. Did you know that that was a possibility? Veteran: I knew that we had a leave and that we had an R and R coming. And came up somehow a buddy of mine from New Jersey, we each got a leave, one week leave, so we says, “Okay.” So, we go to…I don’t even remember if that was Cam Ranh Bay where they flew out of there for that or not. But we were on leave. And we were in line, and they came up and they said, “We got two seats for Hawaii.” And we just stood there because that was for married. And they said, “We got two seats for Hawaii.” And we said, “Well hell, we’ll go.” Interviewer: Okay. (01:00:30) Veteran: Because we didn’t know where we was going to go. We didn’t know if we were going to Japan or Bangkok or—we had no idea where we were going. But we knew we weren’t going to Hawaii. Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: But next thing we know, we are on a plane for Hawaii. And he says, “If they’ve got a flight going to New Jersey, I am going home.” We got in the terminal, and he said, “There it is.” And he went and got a ticket, and they actually stopped the plane on the tarmac and took a set of stairs out there and he got on the plane. And I watched him. I am going well, okay. And I look around: Detroit, nonstop. So, I bought a ticket. Called my sister, “Pick me up in Detroit.” “You are coming home?” “Yeah.” Well, everybody thought I was home for good. Interviewer: Yeah. �39 Veteran: I was only home for 5 days. They said, “Well, how long are you home? What are you doing now?” I said, “Well, I am going back to Vietnam.” They go, “What?!” I am going, “Well, I am AWOL right now.” I said, “You know, I could be in big trouble. I might not ever see Vietnam again if they put in brig or something like that.” But anyway, we met back up at the end of the time and I rented a motel, or a hotel room, and…Well no, I had rented a motel. I guess that’s when I got back. I rented a hotel because I remember that. But yeah, I was back on the block for—and that was around Halloween time because I brought a pumpkin back. And set it in the seat next to me and put the seatbelt around it. On everything, you know, from civilian, from Detroit, Michigan to… Interviewer: Maybe Seattle or someplace if you went by Alaska to go back? Or…? (01:02:29) Veteran: I don’t know. It might have been a nonstop to—I think it was a nonstop to Hawaii. Interviewer: Yep. Veteran: I could be wrong but— Interviewer: But you mentioned that you flew through Alaska at some point. Veteran: That was on my final trip when I finally came home. Interviewer: Okay. Alright. Veteran: We came in that way. Interviewer: But anyway, so you have gone and so you basically make it back to Vietnam pretty much on schedule? Veteran: Yep. �40 Interviewer: Okay. Alright, now how much time do you have left on your tour at that point? Veteran: That was around this time, and I left in February 15th so… Interviewer: About 4 months. Okay. Alright. Now, I don’t know, what was it like to go back to Vietnam after having been home? Veteran: Nothing. It was just—I—just going through the motions. Like I said, tunnel vision. I am doing what I am supposed to do and… Interviewer: Okay. Alright. Veteran: Just being a good soldier. Interviewer: Okay. Now, were those last few months any different from what you had experienced before? Veteran: Yeah. August 31st I was…actually, that would have been before I went back home. Interviewer: Yeah. Okay. Veteran: But I put that out of my mind. But that was the worst day of my life, was August 31st of ’70. And we rifted probably half the day, the whole company, for some reason. We were—we did a rift and that’s just traveling around, trying to kick up some incoming and… Interviewer: Yeah. (01:04:08) Veteran: …deal with it. And we had pulled up in this big wide space. It was bulldozed. You know, it was just—you could see for a long ways. And they pulled us online, all on one point, and we sat there, and I remember “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was playing on the bridge track �41 because we had a 60-foot bridge that traveled with us. And everybody is just kicked back, enjoying the song and this and that. And all of a sudden, they got a—we got a call that they wanted the lieutenant at headquarters. And they picked 33. At this time, I was driving 33 Track. And they wanted two and there was only two left out of our platoon or our squad. And so, I was leading, and they just told us, they said, “Well, you go down here,” because we had never been in that territory before; didn’t know where it was. It was pretty wide open and this and that, but some brush burns and stuff. And I remember I made a left-hand turn because the road took a 90. And as soon as I got my turn complete and started forward, I thought I had hit another landmine. Now, this is where my laterals were broken like 6 inches, so I was down inside driving off the actual gas pedal and all that stuff. And I thought I hit a—the explosion, I thought I hit another mine. So, I got up and started to come out of the turret or whatever the…I don’t even know what we called it. Interviewer: Oh, a hatch or whatever. (01:06:04) Veteran: But Sergeant Gilbert was right behind me, and he said, “Go!” so I went back down. So, when that RPG hit, there is two straps that run along each side of the—I got a bad shoulder here—each side that—you pull a lever, and the back tailgate falls down. Well, those straps are about this thick and that wide and whatever around. Well, we would take a case of each colored smoke grenades and slide the spoon into that behind that and then bend it down. So, up on top, guys could reach down and grab a color of whatever we needed. They were all there. And I would say there was about 100-150 grenades. When that RPG went through, the concussion set all of those grenades off at once. And I am down here. I was driving with my periscopes. When he said, “Go!” I still had my tracks. I didn’t, you know, I thought I hit a mine and I was dead in the water. Well, I wasn’t. I think those smoke grenades lasted for 7 minutes. I think. And when I �42 finally quit driving, they were done. And I stopped and I put it in park, turned the key off, and got up out of there and there was nobody there. There wasn’t a—nobody in sight. And I could see for a long way. I had no—I had—where in the hell am I going to go? I am out here in the middle of nowhere. My armored personnel carrier is on fire. Interviewer: So, when the smoke grenades went off inside it, were you separated from that? Or did you have smoke in there with you while you are still driving? (01:08:06) Veteran: I had to use the periscopes to drive. Interviewer: Alright. So, you are surrounded by smoke inside of this thing and you are just using periscopes to look outside to see where you are going? Because you can fit the periscope to your eyes, basically? Veteran: Well, it was a manual. It was there, stationary. It was just a square and… Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And so, I am standing there, and I have got my—I didn’t have a shirt on. I am all—my weapons were—I had an M-60 mounted on my—in front of me. But you know, I wasn’t even thinking about it. I got off there anyway and I am thinking maybe I can get my duffel bag out of this thing. Because there is nobody around. Interviewer: So, the men who were on the APC, they are gone? Veteran: Some of them, a couple of them, got blown off. They—one got burnt pretty good. But— Interviewer: But nobody had ridden out there with you? Veteran: I assumed they were all there. I don’t know… �43 Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: I never did find out what happened to all of them. But I got—I guess I got greedy or whatever. I thought I could—I knew where my duffel bag is, so I climbed up on the track, on the—and looked over because we had the 4 by 4—I guess you would call it a…a sunroof or something. And that was always open when we were traveling and that. But I got up there and climbed up there and I looked down there and here was my 50 gunner, laying down there. And he was looking up at me. He was on his stomach, looking up at me. Just—he had been in all that smoke. And did not—had no idea what was going on with him. But he was mortally wounded. I knew he was a dead man. But I knew I had to get him out. And so, my duffel bag got—I was able to get him out. The hand grenades were starting to go off and, you know, and blasting caps. I don’t—it was just… (01:10:41) Interviewer: So, there was—okay, so the vehicle was still on fire at this point? Veteran: It burned to the ground. It burned down to the chassis. Well, they got the other, the one that was following me, before he made that 90-degree turn, they hit 50—an RPG hit the 50-turret dead on, and Jimmy Hepler was in that. And he didn’t make it. Interviewer: Okay. So, both vehicles got hit with RPGs there? Veteran: Yeah. Interviewer: Okay. So, now what happens to you? How do you get out of there? Veteran: I got Phil on the ground and his leg was just hanging on by his kneecap, one of his legs. And I tried to get him—because I got him in a bear hug. His entire back from his neck down to his belt, his organs, everything, were right there. And I got him in a bear hug, facing me, and got �44 him up and got him up over the side and I said, “If I can just get his leg…” You know, because he is in shock. He doesn’t know anything, I don’t think. And just as I got that, his leg got up there, he somehow turned around and saw it. He said, “Oh, my leg.” And this guy had two kids, he was married, is what he told me because we got a lot of time when we were at the night laager, just him and I pulling guard at night. He was an eccentric. Didn’t have a lot of things going on. Never knew that his first name was Charles. He went by his middle name Phil because he didn’t want them—because Charlie, Chuck, you know, that was the enemy. Interviewer: Yeah. (01:12:42) Veteran: Never knew that until about 5 years ago when I got some information off of a computer and it had his full name on there. I am going whoa, I didn’t—never knew that. But I turned coward that day. Because it wasn’t long but the company—or somebody from the company or platoon had—or battalion—had come and they stopped about 300 yards away because all they could see was wreckage and I was behind. And I heard them, I guess, but they stopped, and they are just going, you know, what are we going to do? And I says, “You get your—get over here.” And when Doc Dixon got there, I said, “Give him as much morphine as you can.” Because I had—I think he was on his back so the injuries other than his leg weren’t visible and that. But I didn’t stay with him. And I didn’t help go and put him on the Dustoff. I didn’t—I was afraid. I didn’t want to go. Even though my personnel carrier was on fire, and everything was going on, I was—I didn’t want to leave that spot. And somehow, I got on to another APC. I don’t know anybody on there or what, but I got a ride back to the rear, but I should have gotten onto that chopper with him. I should have been there. (01:14:31) Interviewer: You got him out of the vehicle, so that was the most important thing to do. And the doc was there. �45 Veteran: And that gives me a lot of relief. But I should have stayed with him because I don’t know if he was still alive when they got him onto the chopper or not. How he was even…how he was even alive, how he was like, I don’t know how. Interviewer: Yeah. Okay. So, after that, was it not too long after that event—I guess it was a little while before you actually got to leave. Do you just—do they give you any kind of break after that? Or you just go to another APC and just go back to your usual business? Veteran: Business as usual. You just—so, you didn’t really try and get close to anybody because of that. Interviewer: Right. Veteran: And I blocked that out of my mind for a long time, a lot of years. But see everything that I owned was in that duffel bag. My photo albums especially. When I came home, I had no— nothing to show anybody. Well, if they had—nobody ever asked me. My father. Nobody asked me anything about anything. Interviewer: Now had you been taking pictures in Vietnam? Or did you just bring stuff from home when you went over? Veteran: No, it was pictures that other guys—I didn’t do a whole lot of photography. But somebody took them and then they would have copies and pass them around and that. So, we had albums. I sent one picture—I was going to bring it today. But I got one picture standing beside my armored personnel carrier at Frenzell-Jones about two weeks before we went into Cambodia. And but I have nothing to reminisce. I have nothing. It’s an empty feeling because it was a very big part of my life, when it boils down to it. And I am an emotional basket [case] most of the time so… (01:16:52) �46 Interviewer: Alright. So, you got through that. And now, and basic—and then you basically go back to the regular business. You get your leave, you go to—you get home briefly, you come back. So, now after you are back, after you get back and you brought your pumpkin back, do you just go back to driving a track again? Veteran: I didn’t—that was a—the only two that I—I hit a landmine and then got ambushed. And I was a grunt back on the ground again. Interviewer: Okay. So, now you are just an infantryman again? Veteran: Yeah. Interviewer: Okay. And still basically in the same area, conducting the same kinds of patrols? Veteran: Well, I didn’t find out until years later that my unit was being phased out. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: We were starting to de-escalate. Because they weren’t replacing. We weren’t getting new equipment, this and that. They were just letting it—and actually, they decommissioned in…I spent more time in the rear. For some reason, I know I get up in the morning, go to morning formation, go to the motor pool, we’d get a deuce and a half full of empty barrels. And we would drive around the company area, kicking them empty barrels off and putting loaded ones on and then shuffling them up to the front and this and that. (01:18:24) Veteran: And that was our—by 10 o’clock, we were done. And we had inhabited some bunkers for hooches or something. We were living in those. I don’t remember how long. Things get fuzzy and that. We were in that position for a while. But it just really pissed me off because Phil, the �47 guy that was mortally wounded there…man, my head is going in so many different directions right now, I can’t pull one thought out of… Interviewer: Okay. Basically, you— Veteran: But…man, I can’t remember. Interviewer: Okay. Well, you were upset about something relating to what happened to Phil? Or…? Veteran: Oh. The day we went out, Phil had 6 days to go. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And he asked them if he could stay behind. And they said, “No. You are not only going out, but you are not the 50 gunner anymore. You’re on the 60 gun that had been mounted on a pole on the right side.” We were de-escalating. We were standing down, to a certain extent because of my unit—the 1st of the 5th Mechanized was being disbanded. Interviewer: You weren’t really even trying to win a war anymore, at that point. You are kind of— Veteran: We didn’t know. Interviewer: --killing time. Veteran: I didn’t know that until 4, 5 years ago, that I have gotten this information that has been on a computer of what my unit did that month. I have got it out in the vehicle. Interviewer: Yep. (01:20:34) �48 Veteran: They never should have sent him out there. Another one of my friends would have died but they put him in the 50 turret and put Phil out on the out. And especially finding out that they didn’t need him. They could have left him behind, you know. Six days. Interviewer: Alright. So, who is giving that kind of order? Is that the sergeant or is that an officer or do you not know? Veteran: Officers, I am pretty sure. I don’t think it was—I don’t know if it was talked about or not but when he came and—to join us—we were getting ready to go and he climbed on top and I think Dennis probably started to get out of the turret and he said, “No,” he says, “I am demoted. I’ve got to be over here.” Interviewer: Alright. Veteran: And he was the only one on my track that was…basically the only one that was wounded. And Jimmy was cut in half. And Sergeant Robinson was trying to get him out and he couldn’t because he was still alive too and that armored personnel carrier was burning to the ground. Interviewer: Okay, so that was the other carrier? Yeah. Alright. Okay, what impression did you have of the officers that you dealt with? (01:22:11) Veteran: LT Decker was a piece of work. But he was doing the same thing because Sergeant Robinson hadn’t seen him going through the burn line. He wouldn’t have known where to go either because he was trying to rescue somebody. And everybody split. And they knew that Phil was down there. They had to have known he was down there. Because when I looked in there, I was being greedy. I was trying to get my stuff. And that…it… �49 Interviewer: Well…Alright. Okay, so I guess to back up a little bit kind of to look over this now, is there anything else that went on in the last few months there that kind of stands out in your memory? Or did you do anything that was different? I mean, or did you mostly now drive people around different places? Or did you— Veteran: No, I was doing the garbage. We were doing the company area garbage detail. And we would go to the dump, which was outside of Cu Chi. I did take a Jeep and take officers out in the bush a little bit. There is no escort. It was just me and the Jeep and him. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: So, there was not a threat. I don’t even know if I had a—I probably had a 45 with me and that would have been probably the only thing because my M-16, I threw that on a shelf in the APC and covered it up, because you had to turn it back in and I—it was a Mattel toy gun to me. It jammed in basic training. Well, we had it in basic and IT both. And with that spring going back and forth in there, I am going no, this is not a weapon that I have ever had. So, I had an M1, I had a M-60, I had an M-79 grenade launcher, and a 45 is what I relied on. Interviewer: Okay. Alright. Now, as you get toward the end of your tour, are you kind of counting days or do you not really know when you are going to leave? (01:24:44) Veteran: I knew when I was leaving. I did not know anything about the early out. And when I got in line to come home, they told me I had to go get a haircut. I said, “Screw you.” Well, they weren’t going to let me on the plane, so I had to get a haircut and catch the next flight. And I don’t even remember what you asked me. �50 Interviewer: Alright. Well, I was—basically, I was just asking about that process for getting you home and how that worked. So, you basically have a date, and you get to go back to— Veteran: Yeah, I think I found—well, if I had gone back the day before, I would have had 150 days. But having to wait, get a haircut and wait for the next day, I had 149 days. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And that was a definite ETS as soon as I hit Fort Dix. And… Interviewer: So, explain a little bit just—so basically, you are going to get—be able to get— out of the Army early? And so, why was that possible? Or what was going on then? Veteran: I don’t know. Anybody that had 150 days or less was in the jungle one day, on the block the next. No debriefing, no…not a damn thing. Interviewer: Okay, because normally if you had gone back the day earlier, you would have been sent to some base in the U.S. to kind of finish out your time? Veteran: I don’t—I might have, I might not have. But I think 150 days was it and I would have been right on the… Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: …right on it at that time there. But… Interviewer: Alright. So, at what point do you find out you just get to leave the Army? Was that when you got to Fort Dix? Or…? (01:26:40) �51 Veteran: I knew it, I think, before we left Vietnam, but not very far. Because that would have meant—you wouldn’t want to know that because that would have been even more of a bad luck charm on your or something like that. Interviewer: Yeah. Okay. So, this was—so, when you are flying home, this was the time that you think that you go through Alaska and then come back? Veteran: I think we went to Japan. Interviewer: Yep. Veteran: And then Alaska, and I think we went straight to Fort Dix. And that was weird because coming from that way, whatever, people wonder why I went to Fort Dix but that’s just where we went. Interviewer: Well, a great circle route. You fly over Canada. Veteran: And then the buddy that had jumped ship in Hawaii and went home lived there. He actually came and picked me up. He had gotten home a month earlier and he came, him and his girlfriend, came and picked me up. I had fallen asleep. There was nobody in the room. Everybody had disembarked; they were gone. And he had to come and find me, wake me up and say, you know, “Here we go.” And I ended up spending a week there, trying to, I guess, debrief. Because I was—I am, you know, had to get that haircut. So, I am sticking out like a sore thumb. I didn’t have anybody—well, I was in civilian clothes. So, I didn’t get any of the spitting and things like that. But people looked at me and they could probably tell by my haircut. But I hung out there for a few days, a week it was. My parents had saved Christmas for me when I got home. (01:28:35) �52 Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: And I told them I wasn’t going to be there for another week and oh, they were mad. They were—I don’t know if they ever forgave me for that, but it was February 15th. And I just knew that I needed some time. Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: I needed to do something. So, I did. And I don’t know if it helped or not. Didn’t really but… Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: Went back and of course they wanted me to go to work. Go back to work. My family was…They had bought the old feed mill in town and put a hardware store in there and a lumberyard out back. And—well, they wrote me and had written me in Vietnam and wanted to know if I wanted to be a part of it. I thought hell yeah, we’d been doing that for—home improvements—for some—from the time I was 14 or less until the time I went in. I, you know, and I said, “Well yeah. I want to see that grow and that.” Interviewer: So, is that what you did then when you got back is you went to work for the family? Veteran: I drew unemployment for a couple of months. I was…I don’t know. I have always been weird and doing my own—doing different things and whatever. But I finally went to work and a year and a half later, I had worked for the IBW before I got drafted. And you have a year to reclaim your job before—after you get back. I think it’s a year. But about a year and a half into it, I plumbed a new house that we had built, and my uncle praised my—a friend of mine, who �53 was a co-worker—he said, “Hey, you did a nice job on that.” You know, he says, “I didn’t do the plumbing,” he says, “I did the electrical.” He said, “Well, who did the plumbing?” and he said, “Well, Roger.” Well, a couple of hours later, my uncle came on the job site because my uncle and my dad went together in this whole venture. And he came in and did a walk through to see how we were doing because we were doing the drywall. I mean, we were—we built the houses from… Interviewer: Yeah. (01:30:56) Veteran: …the basement up. And he started to leave. Went out and he was going through the garage, and I went out and said, “Hey Uncle Les. How come you didn’t give me an atta boy pat on the back, you know, for that?” “You’re family. You’re expected to do that.” Interviewer: Oh. Veteran: And he fired me. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: He fired me for doing a good job and me just saying, hey, you know. Two weeks ago, he had told Chuck this and…But he fired me. And I lost out on my seniority for the IBW because I could have gone—that first year, I could have gone and had four years. It basically would have been four years of…But that was gone. And I just dropped out. I dropped out. My dad said, “Well, we can go back to insulating and roofing and windows and siding.” And I did that for a while, but I said, “I am crawling around in 100, 150-year-old houses in the attics and that’s not a fun thing, you know, and then all of a sudden here we are building brand new houses.” And I said…And a group of us, four of us, just went to Colorado. Stayed there for six weeks or so and in the meantime, I had went to Arizona to visit my sister. We spent Christmas in Arizona, came �54 back to Colorado and my buddy’s wife was going to take the kids away from him if he didn’t come back home. So, I rode back with him, got my car, went back out there. Blew my engine going into Boulder. They replaced the engine, because it was under the warranty, and made it back down to Phoenix and spent New Year’s in Phoenix again. Christmas in Phoenix— Interviewer: Yep. (01:32:58) Veteran: --New Year’s in Phoenix but…But why am I talking about that? Interviewer: Well, basically we just kind of followed up. Now, did you have kind of a long—a longer career doing something? Did you find regular work for a while that you liked? Or…? Veteran: I had 23 jobs from the time I got out of ‘Nam until they took me out of the truck for sleep apnea, which I don’t have. But in 2006, I was 56, or—I was 56 years old. I haven’t worked since then. Interviewer: Okay. So, you were a truck driver for a while? That was the last thing you did? Veteran: I was driving truck. Michigan trained. Best job I ever had. Driving doubles and that. But I kicked around for several years, and I had driven truck. I started driving truck at 14 with a moving van, all around. I had been in 37 states—38 states since before I graduated high school. So, I kind of got back into that and then I don’t know if you have heard of a company in Allegan, they do health and beauty aids. I had gotten married and got a job working there. (01:34:22) Veteran: So, I drove truck for them for 8 years and then I went into management in the warehouse. They had a bid and I said—and I thought I could change things and make things �55 better, which I did, but they didn’t like that. I didn’t do it right. I was just a truck driver. I didn’t know how to do all that whatever. But I was there 14 years all together. And then they started getting crappy and I just said, “I am not putting up with this.” Come to find out, I was the second one of 100 supervisors that they got rid of that year because they were downsizing. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And I didn’t know that for two years because I was the second one and I was in a satellite warehouse, away from the main stuff. So, we were kind of out of it. Interviewer: Okay. Alright. Veteran: So, I went back to driving truck. And mostly, but companies would sell and get rid of everybody or they—different things and that. But I had 23 taxable jobs after I got out of Vietnam. Interviewer: Alright. And this is the kind of thing where you look back. I mean, the time in your service, clearly there were a lot of negative consequences of that. I mean, you got sort of the PTSD type issues and— Veteran: That’s only the tip of the iceberg. Interviewer: Yeah, and the jobs— Veteran: I would have paid to get out of Vietnam. Interviewer: --and the rest of it and that kind. Do you think there was anything positive for you, in terms of your service time? Did you take anything good out of it? Veteran: Well, the problem is is I took too many things from it and applied it to daily life, not knowing it really but there are things that work that can be done in civilian life that if you do it, �56 like washing dishes and this and that, the procedure that we went through, it was, you know. Well, I would try to help with housework. I had two sisters and I was the youngest and I did the outside work. I never was—I never made a bed, I never did anything like that in the house. I did the—fed the animals and all that. So, I didn’t know too much about that stuff. I knew about it, but I didn’t physically know how to do it or whatever. Didn’t desire to do it. (01:36:56) Interviewer: And did you learn some of that kind of thing in the Army? Or the Army way of doing those things? Veteran: Yep. Well see, I didn’t—I lost my job as platoon guide because of my lack of, you know, not straight enough. You know, I just didn’t do stuff. I lived on a farm for crying out loud. When you unhooked a piece of machinery, you left it there until you needed it the next season almost. You know? There was no order. You just grease it up and go. Yeah, I am just… Interviewer: Okay. Well, I did ask you was there a positive element to the service time for you or in the— Veteran: Yeah. These days, what’s going on these days, I don’t know if I would have gone. I don’t agree with a lot of things that are going on. And—but yes, there’s a lot of things that they teach you in the military. I mean, if it’s not—it’s got to be right. You know, they can’t be doing things wrong and be—excuse me. Yeah. And I think I carried that into—I lost my family. I got married a second time. I had two daughters with the first marriage and two with the second. Raised a stepdaughter. And I thought all these years, I thought I was doing good. (01:38:35) Veteran: But in fact, my stepdaughter, shortly after she—or about a year—after she graduated high school, because she moved out the next day. And she called me, and she brought chills to my spine. I actually started—I teared up. She said, “Dad,” she says, “we didn’t really care for the �57 way you raised us.” She said, “But you did a good job.” She says, “I know now.” You know? And it just like…wow. That’s—that kept me going for quite a while, to have her say that. Because we weren’t all that close or anything. But I appreciated that. But I just thought, you know, things worked. But in the military, you told somebody to do something, and they did it. You know, and the girls were just—had their heels dug in. Interviewer: Yeah. Mine were the same way. Veteran: And it caused friction and right now, to this day, I haven’t talked—I live within 10 miles of 4 of them. Interviewer: Alright. Veteran: And the other one is in North Carolina, but she is the only one I talk to, because she needs help. But the other ones… Interviewer: Alright. Veteran: They don’t want to run into me. Interviewer: Okay. Alright. To kind of look back over the—your military history or career, is there anything else you want to add on the record before we close out the interview? (01:40:16) Veteran: Well, I had an issue with payroll. Three months after I was in ‘Nam, they started paying me as an E-2. I wasn’t even supposed to be in the field. E-1s weren’t supposed to be in country to start with, I believe. Interviewer: Yeah. You are supposed to be an E-2 automatically once you go over. Veteran: Well, I had been busted to E-1 in Oakland. �58 Interviewer: Yeah. Right. Veteran: So, when I go there, they paid me as an E-1. Three months later they started paying me as an E-2 and I went to top. We were out in the night laager, and I says, “Top,” I says, “I haven’t—I didn’t get any orders for this.” He said, “Well, you better go back, go to the rear and get it straightened out.” So, the next chopper, I went back to the rear. And I went in and said, “Hey,” you know, I went to the finance clerk. “I didn’t get any orders for this.” He said, “Oh,” he said, “They’ll catch up with you. You are an E-2. Go back out in the field.” Okay. I go back to the field, and I look around and there is not as many carriers around and there is people missing. They got into a big one. Three months later, they started paying me as an E-3. I went to top. I says, “Top, I haven’t even gotten my E-1’s yet.” “Well, you better go to the rear and straighten it out.” So, I go to the rear, clerk tells me the same damn thing. “You’re an E-3. An E-2—or an E-3 now—go back out in the field.” So, back out in the field I go. Three months later, they start paying me as an E-4. And I still haven’t gotten any orders. I go to top. Oh, when I got back the second time, less armored personnel carriers, different people. They had gotten hit—they had got into some scunion. The fourth, I says, “I didn’t get orders.” He said, “We’re going back.” He pulled the whole company up. We went back to the rear. He said, “We are not—every time you leave, we catch hell.” I didn’t do anything. (01:42:36) Interviewer: Well… Veteran: Well anyway, next payday, and we got paid in cash out in the field, they gave me $13 and a note. “Come to finance.” And that’s—that was—and I don’t know if they pulled up then or not. Maybe I was in the rear. So, I go in there and they said, “You are a private E-1. You owe the government $1200. And until you pay that money, you will not get out of Vietnam.” And I am going, what the hell? Well, the JAG office was one hooch over. But they had boardwalks about �59 like this. And it was monsoon time. Well, I came out and went to the end, got on this sidewalk to head over and go to the JAG office. There’s a 4-star general walking. The only one around is a 4star general walking down. And he was on his tiptoes on the side of that when I walked past him. And he said, “You don’t salute an officer, troop?” and I said, “Not anymore.” And he says, “Well, what’s the matter?” he says, “Wait a minute. What’s going on?” I said, “Well…” I told him the story. He said, “I’ll fix…” Well, he ended up getting me an E-3 but I still had to write home and get six—because I had sent my money home, most of it. I had to get $600 sent to me in the mail and pay that $600 back before they would—or they wouldn’t have let me out of Vietnam. I should have tell them to take it out of my hide if you want it or whatever, and this and that, because I was going to buy a stereo, you know. I had that money that I was going to do something with. And that turned me about as bitter as anything there. (01:44:33) Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: It’s just money but… Interviewer: Yeah. But they mess up your life in enough other ways, and then they want you to pay them for it. Veteran: Yep. Interviewer: Alright. Well, the whole thing makes for a pretty remarkable story. And I appreciate your willingness to share that. It is part of why we do this, to understand what actually happens to ordinary people who wind up in these places. And you have done a good job telling it at the end so thank you very much. Veteran: Thank you. I…I am doing anything and anything to get—I am being greedy again because I am trying to heal myself. After all these years, you know, 50 years…It took 46 years �60 for me to find out that I even had benefits coming. They don’t tell you if you don’t ask, or if we don’t tell each other… Interviewer: Yeah. Right. Veteran: So… Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: And they haven’t done anything I don’t think for PTSD or Agent Orange in the last 50 years. Interviewer: Well… Veteran: I am putting myself out there and going to groups. I have been in, I think, 12 group therapy sessions. I spent 6 weeks in Battle Creek. One of the last classes they had for PC— PTC—PCT… Interviewer: PTSD, yep. Veteran: Well, they have a PCT clinic. I think it is PCT clinic. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: For PTSD but I spent 6 weeks there, just trying to fit in or whatever, and this and that. Being around other veterans is just a natural calming. Interviewer: Yeah. (01:46:17) Veteran: For that, but I have said—I don’t know how many psychologists I have seen. Psychiatrists kick me out. So, I have seen many psychologists. I am seeing one once a month now. Two of them actually. And anything I can get, anything I can grab. I have lost everything in �61 my life. I have been a failure in everything in my life. And being in the military, that has been the most constant. That’s an everyday thing. I am constantly back and forth from Vietnam. Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: And places in between. And… Interviewer: Yep. Veteran: I don’t think I would have ever enlisted. If I hadn’t been drafted, I doubt that I would have enlisted. But I did what they wanted me to do and… Interviewer: You are doing what you can now to get some control over it, which is a legitimate thing to do. Alright then… Veteran: And Vietnam veterans were committing suicide at 70 a day back in—when I did that clinic thing. Now it is down to I think 30-something. I don’t understand that. I mean, I can. I can. If it doesn’t go through our minds once a day or more, it’s…it is just—it’s always right there. Interviewer: It’s a reminder on some level that war is a bad business. And it does bad things to people. (01:48:04) Veteran: Yes. But we have got to revisit it. We have got to go in and hash it over because each time I do it, I don’t know if I feel better or not, but I have been able to help other veterans in the group because we will sit around there and look at each other for…and I just start talking. Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: I say, “You know, if we are here…and I apologize, tell me to—” and they say, “No, go for it. Go for it.” �62 Interviewer: And you can also help ones who are younger than you are, because they are actually—I will bring the younger veterans together with the Vietnam guys and, you know, you have a lot in common with them. And they know enough to respect you, take you seriously. Veteran: It was a strange enough war that it stands out and it always will. Things were different for…on almost every plane, everything that was going on. Interviewer: Yeah. And I mean— Veteran: And…yeah. But I bend over backwards for these guys that are stepping up. When the veterans quit coming home, this country is already in deep doodoo. We have got a window right here with the president that is going on. I believe it is the only window that we had to keep our country somewhat sane. And it is being done. And yeah, I am afraid how it is going to go if we don’t get a handle on it right now. We got very few years left to get the train back on track as much as we can. Interviewer: Alright. Alright, I think that makes for a pretty good closing statement so thank you. Veteran: You’re welcome. (01:50:06) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HealyR2338V Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Healy, Roger Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-10 Title A name given to the resource Healy, Roger (Interview transcript and video), 2019 Description An account of the resource Roger Healy was born in Allegan, Michigan in 1949. He attended high school in Gobles, Michigan and graduated in 1967. Roger was drafted into the Army on July 15th, 1969. He completed his basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. He did his advanced individual training at Fort Polk, Louisiana. Roger became a part of the infantry and attended part of non-commissioned officer (NCO) school at Fort Benning, Georgia, before deciding that it was not for him and leaving NCO school. After quitting NCO school, Roger was sent to Vietnam in February 1970. He was assigned to the 25th infantry division, 1st of the 5th mechanized, based out of Cu Chi, Vietnam. Roger drove armored personnel carriers in his unit. His first armored personnel carrier was destroyed after hitting a landmine and his second was hit with an RPG and burned to the ground. He was part of the incursion into Cambodia. During his time in Vietnam, Roger was involved in various skirmishes. He returned home from Vietnam in February 1971. Roger is currently involved in a Vietnam veterans’ group in Michigan. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States—History, Military Veterans Video recordings Iraq War, 2003-2011—Personal narratives, American Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401. Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6c5a3f6ab06a777d755943cdcfec771a.jpg 082f225234d1be5f3db1f0adccc1a191 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Decorated Publishers' Bindings Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Description An account of the resource From the early 1870s to roughly 1930, many publishers issued their commercial book covers with a remarkable variety of graphic designs and illustrations. This sixty-year period saw many artists and designers contributing to this art form. While some can be identified from their style or initials, others remain unknown. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection Michigan Novels Collection Regional Historical Collection Lincoln and the Civil War Collection Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-08-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>, <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source Michigan Novels Collection. PS3537.K56 H43 1901 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01_Bindings0061 Title A name given to the resource Heart and Soul: A Novel Description An account of the resource Binding of Heart and Soul: A Novel, by Henrietta Dana Skinner, published by Harper & Brothers, 1901. Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1901 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ae4d9c075146f732d00788fef4ccd654.jpg 3bbf90626d7d8e31ab08fa1dae877939 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Decorated Publishers' Bindings Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Description An account of the resource From the early 1870s to roughly 1930, many publishers issued their commercial book covers with a remarkable variety of graphic designs and illustrations. This sixty-year period saw many artists and designers contributing to this art form. While some can be identified from their style or initials, others remain unknown. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection Michigan Novels Collection Regional Historical Collection Lincoln and the Civil War Collection Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-08-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>, <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source Seidman Rare Books.PS3503.E1135 H42 1915a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01_Bindings0439 Title A name given to the resource Heart of the Sunset Description An account of the resource Binding of Heart of the Sunset, by Rex Beach, published by Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1915. Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1915 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/91959f30357aae6129b7a2fbe7485fd3.jpg 488545305ca87369917ac7be43743415 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Decorated Publishers' Bindings Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Description An account of the resource From the early 1870s to roughly 1930, many publishers issued their commercial book covers with a remarkable variety of graphic designs and illustrations. This sixty-year period saw many artists and designers contributing to this art form. While some can be identified from their style or initials, others remain unknown. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection Michigan Novels Collection Regional Historical Collection Lincoln and the Civil War Collection Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-08-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>, <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source Seidman Rare Books. PS3503.A55972 H42 1915 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01_Bindings0433 Title A name given to the resource Heart's Content Description An account of the resource Binding of Heart's Content, by Ralph Henry Barbour, published by J. B. Lippincott Company, 1915. Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1915 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/395f146c2e577d64f9af845ca9155286.mp4 6bc47e46ddb822b2e7f6117523adc8f2 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ebd560f5d257f57cd0f72372dd4b133c.pdf 414e899a9d29bf231d2d60ca29cacdd4 PDF Text Text Heath, Robert Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: Afghanistan War Interviewee’s Name: Robert Heath Sr. Length of Interview: (2:28:57) Interviewed by: Koty Leroy Rollins Transcribed by: Maluhia Buhlman Interviewer: “Hello my name is Koty Leroy Rollins of the Grand Valley State Veterans History Project, I’m here with Robert Heath of Allendale, Michigan and let’s go ahead and jump into it. So we’ll start off easy, where and when were you born?” So I was born September 18th, 1979 in Chicago, Illinois. Interviewer: “Alright, what was your early life like?” (00:51) Lot of moving around, my father was in the Army and so we moved to Germany, we moved to South Carolina, then we wound back in the Chicagoland, northwest Indiana area, and that’s where I graduated high school, in Merrillville. Interviewer: “Okay, when you were a military brat you lived in Germany, how old were you?” So we moved to Germany when I was seven, almost eight and then we lived there for about three, three and a half years from ‘87 to summer of ‘90. Interviewer: “Were you living on a base or were you living out in town?” Yeah we did a little bit of both, when we first got over there there wasn't base housing available so we lived in Hamburg, my dad was stationed in Vilseck so we lived in Hamburg for about six months and that was a really interesting experience because I spoke no German when I went and �Heath, Robert so learned how to play with the kids and go out and everything but it was a lot of fun, learned how to play games. Got some friends who spoke enough English and then I learned enough German so that we can make it happen and so we spent about six months on the economy and then we moved back in– On to base in, I want to say, about the winter of that year. Interviewer: “Okay, and was that a huge culture shock going from that life on the town to like the more structured military base life?” It wasn’t so much of a culture shock there just because as a kid it’s not that structured right, like you go to school, you come home, you live in a neighborhood, it’s the same idea. It was actually cool because my parents, when we lived in Hamburg it was about a half hour drive back and forth so they had a half hour commute, whereas now it was like five minutes from dad getting off to dad getting home so it was a lot cooler because we got to see him a lot more. Interviewer: “That’s pretty awesome. Do you know what your dad did in the Army?” (2:35) Yeah he was a supply sergeant so he, he did a lot of– I remember one of the things that he talked about was, because we left right in June, July time frame of 1990 which was the run up to Desert Storm and so he was sitting there and he’s like “Why are we sending all these tanks to, you know Saudi Arabia? What’s the point in that?” Because all of that was going through EUCOM and going through Germany and so he was like, he was in charge of a whole bunch of Abrams tanks and then– I can’t remember the second one, the second something with a bravo in it. Anyway, he was in charge of all of those and one of the cool things growing up as a kid was he could get us into– You know like I remember he got access for my class and my teachers and everything we took a field trip to the simulator so all of our classmates got to go and run through the simulators and be, you know the captain and all the rest of that type of stuff and the gunner and we got to simulate fire and on targets and all the rest of that type of stuff, it was a lot of fun. Interviewer: “That’s pretty awesome. How long was your dad in the Army?” �Heath, Robert He stayed in for 11 years, he wound up being a drill sergeant down in Fort Jackson and we wound up getting out a little shortly after that. Interviewer: “Okay, and then did you– Was that when you moved to Chicago?” That was when we moved back home, yeah and then my dad he got into trucking, he actually owned a trucking business for a while and wound up getting out of that when the downturn happened in the late 90s, mid 90s. Interviewer: “Okay, yeah so did that have a big impact on your life, the military?” The military was a– Was a tremendous impact on my life, I remember looking back at my kind of my childhood years. That was the time that I felt kind of most– It was the best group of years when I look back at my childhood and I think a lot of it had to with the fact that there was kind of a homogenous community of not necessarily races or you know ethnicities, but because of the fact that everybody was moving towards the same target. (4:42) You had a group of Army spouses, Army soldiers and then Army kids so we all knew what– We lived the same life and had the same experiences. Interviewer: “Yeah, and I guess that was pretty different once you were going to high school.” Yeah it was a completely different thing and high school was interesting too because like I said I’m from Chicago, all my family’s in Chicago, we lived in Merrillville which is about 30 minutes outside Chicago just across the Indiana border but all of my social life was Chicago so high school was kind of a split experience. Interviewer: “Yeah, so what’d you do after high school?” So then I went to college at the University of Illinois down in Champaign Urbana and I graduated a little bit early. So I graduated when I was 16 so I went down to college at Chambana �Heath, Robert and then I studied and got my degrees in economics and speech communications with a minor in Spanish. Interviewer: “Okay, so when did you decide you wanted to join the Marines?” That came a lot later actually, I had always wanted to serve in the military but always tell everybody when I graduated college I was not military material, I was not in the place where anybody was going to be telling me to do anything and so I graduated in 2001 and I wanted to impact and be able to have an impact on community– On my community and to give back. So I went and got a master’s degree in teaching, I taught Spanish and coached basketball for six years and really the Marine Corps came about, as I call it, during my quarter life crisis period. I went through and I was looking at some of the things that I had wanted to do in my youth, I was about 27 when I decided to join and things that I had wanted to do and that I wasn’t able to do or that I didn’t complete for whatever reason because I wasn’t disciplined enough, because I didn’t care enough, because I didn’t want to go through all the red tape to do whatever it was and I decided that wasn’t going to be the case anymore and I had always wanted to serve in the military but like I said I had to become ready to serve in the military. (6:40) Interviewer: “Yeah, you weren’t quite up to taking orders yet.” Yeah you can’t really be anti-authoritarian and serve in an organization where you gotta follow orders, it just doesn’t work. So at that point in time I looked at my life and I said, you know there were a couple things I had always wanted to do that I hadn’t done yet. I’d always wanted to go to law school, I’d always wanted to– And to become a lawyer and I’d always wanted to be in the military and so I went and I saw a recruiter and it was actually happenstance I was– I had a bit of bronchitis, I was at a clinic getting checked out and there’s a recruit office right next to that office and I was in this moment. So I was like “Hey let me go and walk over and see what the Marines got to say.” So I walked over and this was actually an enlisted recruitment station but the RS just happened to be there so he came in and he talked to me about the officer programs and he was like “Oh you’re interested in law and you want to be a Marine Corp officer? We’ve got a program for that.” And so he got me set up with the OSO out in Murfreesboro, this is when �Heath, Robert I was living down in Memphis, Tennessee and so he got me set up with the OSO officer selection officer down in Murfreesboro and we started the work to become a Marine Corps officer and it took a while because I was not in the shape I needed to be in to be a Marine. Interviewer: “So did they have to put you in like a special program for that because I know for the enlisted they have the delayed entry program where they sort of fine tune you into– ” Yeah, no there’s not a– You’re called a pool lee, so you’re in the pool of people who are thinking about being officers and I stayed in that pool for the better part of a year but it’s really you doing the work because on the officer side a lot of it is them– The whole goal is it’s a screening process until you get designated as someone who can actually be an officer. So all the way before officer candidate school and through officer candidate school the concept is not we’re gonna make you into a Marine the concept is are you good enough to lead Marines, and so there’s programs or there’s groups, like there’s group runs, there’s workout programs and all the rest of that type of stuff that the officer selection office will attach you to. (8:57) One of the things that I did that was extremely helpful to me and I appreciated the camaraderie and the help that I got, the University of Memphis has a Navy ROTC program and so they do, you know workouts in the mornings, PT just like any other unit and so they allowed those of us who were part of the pool who were wanting to become officers to go and work out with the ROTC group so I was able to get in shape and work out with those groups and then I did workouts on my own as well to just kind of improve and get better. Interviewer: “That’s actually kind of funny because when I was going through my A school I was in the Navy and I worked out with the Marines because they were the ones that were actually working out whereas the Navy guys were just kind of like lazy, that is pretty funny though.” It was interesting because there were four ability groups and what you saw– Because it’s a Navy ROTC program so you got the Marines and the Navy all together in the ROTC program but what you would generally see is that ability group one, ability group two was full of Marines and then �Heath, Robert there were the Navy guys who wanted to be SEALs or wanted to be submariners or wanted to be a nuclear tech, and then ability group three, and ability group four were full of a lot of the Navy ROTC regulars and so it was interesting because I started out, when I first went there they were like “Here run with ability group four we’ll see where you are.” And then I moved to ability group three and then I was making my way up to ability group two when I was getting ready to go to officer candidate school because just the standards are so much different. In the Marine Corps like for officer candidate school in order to get in to get selected you have to run three miles in less than 24 minutes. Now that’s just to get there, what you see is most of the people that are there run it in 18, 19, 20 minutes, you might have a 21. I was the guy that was still bottom of the barrel pushing it because I was doing, I think my best time pre-ship was 22:46, 22:45 so like I was under the 24 minute mark but I was still not fast and my best time ever was 22 minutes so I never really got fast in long distance, but I was really good like I could do my pullups, I could do crunches, I could do anything short distance and I could carry a pack a long way so I was good that way. Interviewer: “So before we jump into your OCS experience I do have to ask, why the Marines, why not the Army?” (11:13) That’s a great question, I actually sat down with my dad and part of what led me into revisiting serving in the military is I wanted to be a better leader. As a teacher one of the things that I saw that really bothered me was the high attrition rate in the teaching profession and when you think about it right we’ve got these people who have a passion for helping young people and helping young people to grow. Most teachers I knew had grown up their entire lives wanting to be teachers, that was what they wanted to do any they wanted to, you know help their society, help their community, and the attrition rates were, you know 50% of teachers leave before five years, 80% of teachers leave before ten years and what I noticed was a lack of leadership. It wasn’t that the teachers weren’t good in their professions, that they weren’t good at dealing with the kids, but what you saw was from the administrative perspective administrators in our schools across the country really struggle because normally you’ve got an administrative staff of about four or five administrators tops that are running a hundred teachers. So you know if you break that down you’re looking at 20 personnel per administrator right and so they’re overwhelmed and they’re �Heath, Robert not really taught a lot how to deal with– How to deal with their peers, how to lead those people, and how to lead them effectively and something that I’ve noticed and now with what I do I see it everywhere but at the time I saw it and I was like if this profession where you’ve got people who love the work, who are comfortable taking a sacrifice in how much money they can make and all the rest of this type stuff to do this work and they’re leaving at such crazy rates right, what does the rest of the country look like, what does the rest of you know the things that we’re doing for societal good what does that look like and what does leadership look like, and I knew if I wanted to be able to have the type of impact in society that I wanted to have, because I wanted to be– Eventually I was on the track to becoming the superintendent because I thought that, you know schools were a place where we can make a positive impact in society, and what I saw was the school system in general didn’t have the infrastructure that it needed to be as good as it could be and to impact society. So that was kind of how I went and realized I needed to first understand how the systems work, how we decided our laws, how we design these systems, where our levels of power are in society, and then I also need to be a better leader and the Marine Corps is the greatest leadership academy in the history of the world and that was one of the things, interestingly enough my father was the person who recommended me going to the Marine Corps. (13:50) Story that went behind that he was like “So what do you want from your service? You want to join the military, what do you want to do?” And I told him, I was like “I want to be challenged physically, I want to be challenged mentally, and I want to learn how to lead people, large groups of people, to do great things.” And so he, you know he looked he said “Son here’s the deal, you want to be taken care of, your family taken care of, and have a good life, the Navy and the Air Force they take care of their officers, they have really great experiences, it’ll be great you can join those. If you want, you know to be able to see the world and go lots of different places the Army is an awesome place, I mean it’s got lots of bases and you’ll get promoted pretty– Relatively quickly and you’ll get a decent challenge as an Army officer, you know physically and all the rest that type stuff, but if you want to walk into a room full of service people and everybody in the room know that you’ve done some stuff and know that you earned your title, you want to join the Marine Corps.” And that was it, I was sold. Interviewer: “Alright, so what was OCS like?” �Heath, Robert Oh wow, yeah so by the time I got to OCS I was 29 years old, so I– Interviewer: “What year was that?” This was 2009, I was almost 30 so my birthday’s in September, I was going to turn 30 that September. I got selected for officer candidate school in March of 2009 and I shipped at the end of May 2009 and so that was an interesting ten weeks. It was by far the hardest thing that I had ever done physically but what was more difficult I think was the mental strain, because the way OCS or officer candidate school is set up is it’s a screening and evaluating school. Their job is to train you but also to screen and evaluate whether or not you can lead Marines, whether or not you can be trusted with the privilege of leading Marines and so the entire time you’re aware of the fact that you can go home at any time. If at any point in time they feel like you’re not good enough or you don’t cut it, you’re not ready, whatever the case may be you can go home and that’s the way they do it and so every day you’re under that constant kind of pressure. Which for me right, I was as old as I could be in the program that I was in, so I didn’t have a come back next year type of attitude or idea. (16:10) I would age out and so then I would have to go into– I’d have to wait till I got out of law school and then I’d have to go back after I graduated law school and then I would have to get an age waiver and some other stuff, like there was a lot of paperwork and it was basically I was either making it this summer or I wasn’t making it and so that coupled with the fact that I was in a, what they called a platoon leaders course. So the majority of people in my platoon were 18,19, 20 year old sophomores, juniors in college who the reason that they do this course is because they can get through and get screened and then when they graduate they can commission, it’s almost like a delayed entry program and so I’m in the age cohort of some of the most in shape people but I’m on the upper end of that cohort and I’m not great at distance running. Now I was in shape for every– Like I was in the top of my platoon in everything we did that was short, so if it was the obstacle course, you know if it was the short martial art stuff all the rest of that type stuff, I had been a martial artist for, at that time, about ten years. So anything that we were doing in those realms I was good, but all of the stuff that was distance and endurance I wasn’t, like I said I ran a 22 to 46, not super fast, like don’t get me wrong we’re running 7–7:15 mile pace but nonetheless when you got guys that are running 19 minute three miles and 18 minute– One guy in our platoon used to run cross country in college �Heath, Robert and he ran like a 16:20 three mile, it was just stupid. Right so you’ve got that big a gap so OCS was a lot of– For me it was physically challenging and the physical challenge of it and the fact that it wasn’t easy physically for me created more of a mental challenge. Interviewer: “Yeah, and did you feel like pressured to perform well with all these, I mean relative kids?” Yeah, it was– There was definitely a lot of kind of Malcolm Gladwell and David and Goliath calls it relative deprivation right. So even though I was fast comparatively to the other 29 year olds my age right or in the country, in this group I was one of the worst runners. Now interestingly enough I wasn’t the worst runner, I was one of the worst runners, but what it did is it put me into a position where I wasn’t assured of victory, quote unquote, I wasn’t assured I didn’t know that I was gonna make it, I actually had to work to make it, I had to earn it and that was something that was new to me from the perspective because I had never challenged myself up until that point at that level right. I had done martial arts, I had been a national champion in martial arts, but in my arena generally it was one of those types of things where I was more athletic, more coordinated, better situated than a lot of the people I went up against. (19:09) So I went into it knowing I was good and I was going to make it, and what was interesting here was I knew how to lead, I knew how to be successful at doing things so all of the– Like I had one of the highest GPAs in the platoon because we took– You got graded on academics, on leadership, and on physical fitness right, leadership and academics I never had a problem about, never had to think about but there were some physical fitness challenges that I wasn’t sure I was gonna make like and that was one of the things that was interesting and that was the first time that I had been involved in something where I wasn’t sure if I was good enough, and so you know that was stressful but it was, on the flip side of it, it was one of the best things that happened to me because going through that experience right it shows you what you can do and how you can dig deep and how you can work harder and to be better and that’s what I was able to do. Interviewer: “Yeah, so what all does OCS consist of? Is it– Are you staying in a barracks while you’re doing this? Are you–” �Heath, Robert Yeah OCS is basically– A lot of people when you look at recruit training right OCS is a little bit different than recruit training in that every weekend after the first three weeks you get one– You get 24 hour period of liberty whereas in recruit training there’s no liberty for the entire 13 weeks that they’re in right, but the interesting thing about that is that’s a test. It’s not designed as free time, it's actually a test and there’s a number of people who got sent home because they would go out and get drunk on liberty and then come back later. They would do all the stuff that– And so the liberal period is actually a test to see how you handle freedom right, and it’s so crazy how everything is set up. So you stay in a barrack, you have squad bay with your platoon and you have to field day every Sunday when you come back from libo just like, you know everything else and we clean everything, you wake up, you muster just like everybody, get online and do your accountability, everybody gets out the door, it’s the same thing I was actually in charge of– My squad was in charge of the head so every night, basically every morning, 04:30 right muscle is at 05:00 so 04:00-04:30 we were up cleaning the head making sure it looked good, making sure it was clean and getting everybody through and then when we left the house we’d have to make sure that nobody had left anything as well. (21:30) So we did that every day for the entire time and you go– You’ve got classes during the day so you’re marching to class and taking classes, learning how to be like learning the basics of what it is to be a marine, learning the basics of the M-4– I’m sorry the M-16, A-4 service weapon and you’re doing everything to learn how to be a Marine but then you’re also going through and we’ve got PT multiple times a day, you’ve got field ops so we would go out to the field a number a various times throughout the ten week period. You’ve got humps so we had, I want to say three or four humps that we had to do throughout the time so you build progressively, we did a three mile, six mile, nine mile and then I think we finished up with a 12 mile. Interviewer: “So a hump that’s a backpacking–” Right so you got a pack and I think in OCS it was 45 to 75 pounds or something like that and you go on these excursions where you’re walking through the woods, up hills, and all the rest of that type of stuff. What else did we do? You learn martial arts, the Marine Corps martial arts program, you wind up learning the beginning phases of that, it’s just basic training to see how you do throughout the training but there’s also a lot of tests that are out there. So there’s �Heath, Robert leadership exams so after you’ve done, you know a march or after you’ve gone out and done PT and things of that nature then you’re tested on how you lead a group of people through certain things, you’re given billets or jobs during that time so everything from platoon sergeant on down in a platoon. So you rotate through being fire team leaders, you rotate through being squad leaders and you’re evaluated on your leadership in those roles during that period of time, like I said it’s a great– The way the Marine Corps has it set up is phenomenal for being able to spot and evaluate those people who have the talents to become Marine Corps officers, but the funny part about it is a lot of people don’t realize that’s the first part. So you go through ten weeks of screening and evaluation and once you make it then you commission, or you know if you haven’t graduated college you wait until you graduate college and then you commission, but then the Marine Corps actually trains you how to be an officer and that’s the basic school which is six months of similarly styled training where you get a bunch of lieutenants in a company and we’re in Quantico, Virginia again and you’re going through and you’re learning everything that it is to be a Marine Corps officer. It’s not like a lot– A number of the other different branches have you go straight to your kind of– (24:07) You go through like in the Navy they have what’s called officer development school which is about six weeks, I believe, of learning how to be an officer, understanding what it is to be an officer and then they go straight to naval justice school which is their job specific thing if you’re in the legal profession and so the Marine Corps is different, the idea in the Marine Corps is you’re an officer first. So it doesn’t matter if you’re a pilot, if you’re a lawyer, if you’re a supply guy, if you’re logistician, whatever your job is gonna be in the Marine Corps that’s great, you’re an officer, you’re a platoon commander and so for the first nine months if you go through for the first nine months of your training you’re not doing anything job specific, you’re doing Marine Corps platoon commander specific training and so that’s the ten weeks you’re doing the initial portion and then you go through six months of going to class, learning how to do everything from calling a cav evac to set up a defense to offensive structures to learning how to flank an enemy to all the different things that we do, attack an objective, call in calls for fire and everything that a Marine Corps platoon commander would need to do in the field of battle. �Heath, Robert Interviewer: “So even though you weren’t, you know logically you were probably never gonna see the field going into the legal profession that you did, they still wanted to train you to be able to do it if you needed to.” Exactly, exactly because the ethos of the Marine Corps is every Marine is rifleman, every Marine Corps officer is a platoon commander, in the Army and the Navy and the Air Force they have what’s called the Jag Corps and so that’s really a professional designation, it’s separate and it’s a different type of an officer. In the Marine Corps you have the legal support services section and you have judge advocates who are Marine Corps officers but they’re also lawyers, so for example during my Marine Corps career I was able to be a company commander, but I was a lawyer and that’s because as a lawyer I can do any billet, any job that’s an open source job or a job that’s for any officer in the Marine Corps then we’re able to do that because we have the same training, because we have the same background, because the way the Marine Corps looks at it is, it doesn’t matter what your job is, this is what your real job is. Interviewer: “Yeah, that’s a good way to do things honestly.” (26:28) Yeah I loved it, that was another reason why I joined the Marine Corps– Why I picked the Marine Corps as the branch to serve in because what I didn’t want was to just be a lawyer in a uniform. The reason I wanted to serve in the military I also wanted the knowledge and understanding of how to defend my– How to defend my neighborhood, how to defend my family, how to defend and be part of, right if anything was to ever happen and someone was invading over here I didn’t want to be like “I was in the military but I don’t know how to–” That wouldn’t– Interviewer: “I’m a lawyer!” Exactly, right like that wasn’t my goal and so joining the Marine Corps and going through that training like I know how to dig a fighting hole, I’m an expert on the rifle and on the pistol like I can shoot and I can do those things, I understand all the mechanisms of war to the level that, you know a Marine Corps officer needs to understand them. Now as I’m not anywhere near as skilled �Heath, Robert as my infantry officer brethren who go through another nine weeks of super grueling training to learn how to truly lead an infantry platoon in some of the worst things that you can think of right, but the one the thing that I love about Marine Corps training is you don’t get to say “I’m just a lawyer.” Right they’re like “So? Get your pack on and let’s go.” Interviewer: “So those six months did you also have to struggle physically or were you sort of catching up at that point?” It was less of a struggle physically, I won’t say that it wasn’t a struggle physically but it was one of those things where– And it was interesting because this was actually– Mine was split because basically the way the contract works is I was going into law school when I commissioned, so I would go on active duty during the summers but I was in law school during the years. So I was three years later, and one knee surgery later, when I went to the basic school and so there were thing that I had to deal with because I was getting older so like I had achilles tendonitis while I was there, like I had rolled an ankle so I had some injuries to deal with but what was interesting was everybody wound up getting injured sometime over that six month period. (28:37) Everybody had to deal with injuries, everybody had to deal with being tired, pulling muscles, all the rest that type of stuff. So physically I knew I could do the work and it wasn’t something where I was ever worried about not passing anymore, I knew that I could do it. What was interesting about it was TBS, whereas OCS is really a sprint you just go go go go go go go go go, the basic school is more a marathon and so you’re really trying to figure out how to make it through this entire period. So you can’t just go as hard as you can go, you have to take care of your body, you have to learn when to give, when to relax, when to kind of let other people lead, when you’ve gotta step up and when you’ve got to lead and so the basic school was a– It was a physical test but it was a different test because, you know I had a wife and I had two kids at the time so you’re living a little bit of a different life than the single bachelor Marines who were there just– Right cause you’re living in the barrack but then you also have your family and they want to see you but then we go, you know we’re in the field for a week at a time, so no communication, no talking, no texting, no any of the rest of that and so you gotta deal with it. Then when you come back there are people that are wanting to talk to you, and they’re missing you and all the rest of that type stuff so you get the experience. It was a very interesting �Heath, Robert experience because again being older you’re at a different life experience than a lot of the people that you’re going through with even though you’re having the same kind of curricular experiences that they’re having. Interviewer: “Yeah, so jumping back a little bit you said you were active duty during the summers while you were in school?” Mhmm. Interviewer: “What were you doing during those summers?” I would go and I was basically high profile internships– Or low profile internships, I would work in– For two years I worked in the legal support services section at Quantico and so I was at the University of Illinois for law school but we would go out to Quantico, Virginia and we would work. The first year I worked in the staff judge advocate's office and so staff judge advocate is the– Basically the lawyer for the base. (30:50) He does– He or she does consultations with the base commander and writes a lot of– Does the rewrites for any of the base orders that are going out and all those different types of things make sure everything’s good but then they also run the litigation shop so criminal defense and– At least at that time there was a reorganization in 2010 so this is 2009, 2010, after my summer in 2010 there was a reorganization and they changed a little bit how things work but at that time the base SJA owned, litigation owned, civil law. So understanding, you know administrative stuff, ethics stuff, all the rest of that, long story short I did my internship there, I spent a little time doing civil law work so I did a lot of researching and writing briefs, right. One of the things that I did a brief on, which was really interesting at the time, was the Posse Comitatus law and for those that don’t know Posse Comitatus is the law that talks about what the U.S military can do on U.S soil, because the idea is that the military is created to defend America against foreign enemies right and that policing powers are not relegated to the military, policing powers are designated to the FBI, the Coast Guard, the local municipalities for policing and so one of the things that’s interesting is you have military bases on federal land but in the middle of the United States and the continental U.S. So what are the rights and what are the– Where does the line end between what a base commander can do to �Heath, Robert defend his base and the people that live on the base and things like that and where does the jurisdiction begin for whatever the municipality is because at the time we had a shooter– Or a potential shooter there was a guy that had been spotted kind of scoping in around the housing area who had a rifle but he was outside the gate so technically he was not on the base and so there was a question of what can we do, can the MPs go and detain him and then wait for local law enforcement officers to come in, what was that and so I wound up doing the research on that and sending that up through the chain to the base commander. Interviewer: “Out of curiosity are you able to talk about what could you guys do in that situation?” Yeah, well I can talk about– Now I’ll caveat that with, this was almost ten years ago so laws have changed, things are different. At the time what we came down to was the self-defense powers allowed for the base commander and basically the extension of the base commander, the provost marshal's office, the military police to go and to act in defense. (33:40) So if they think that there’s a threat or something like that, they have a reasonable threat they can go ahead and detain. They can’t arrest the person but they can work with local law enforcement to then call local law enforcement in and then they would take jurisdiction of that person and do whatever needs to happen with that but if there’s an imminent threat then you don’t have to like call the police and wait for them to get there before you do anything, that’s the idea. Interviewer: “That’s good.” Yeah, it made me feel a lot safer cause we were actually, we weren’t living on base during the time but we were– My wife was always on base going to the commissary and working out at the gym, doing stuff like that with the kids and so it was something that it was definitely affecting me plus when I lived on base when we were stationed in Camp Lejeune we lived on base the entire time and so that was really important to know. Interviewer: “Yeah, so when you were going to law school were you receiving BAH, were you receiving a paycheck?” �Heath, Robert Okay so no, the way that the system was set up was I was basically inactive ready reserve during the year and so it was just like any reservist that once you get out and you execute EAS orders you’re technically still in the Marine Corps for– And still in the Navy, the Army for whatever the length of your contract is. So if we go to war you can get called back, all the rest of that, but you’re not receiving any benefits, any services, anything like that. So while I was in law school I basically, I paid for law school the Marine Corps didn’t pay for it, and I did, you know I was a law student basically by day. I still worked out with and helped out with the local OSO’s office, the officer selection officer and you know I would run morning workouts for the pool lees, people who wanted to become Marines and I would help them with different local events but for the most part I was a law student during the year and then during the summer I would execute orders, we would move out to Quantico, I would go and do the work that I was gonna be doing, basically it was pre-training, on the job training so that when you get to the fleet you actually hit the ground running and during that period of time I was getting paid. Interviewer: “Okay, so that must have been kind of a strain on your family?” (35:52) Yeah it was definitely– It was one of those things that we had prepared for but it was– I can– Looking back I can see a number of different ways that I could have done it differently which would have been better financially for my family. Interviewer: “Yeah, especially the moving back and forth had to be kind of rough.” Oh yeah, it was– Well, it was rough but at the same time it was an adventure so it was cool, my kids got to– Because my son was born he actually never made those trips but my daughter she got to live in Virginia, she got to– It was basically a vacation right, it was a two month vacation. It was a real strain for my wife because we would move and we were up and then we would go for two months and then we moved back and so she would lose touch with friends and all the rest of those things and plus basically we would move so that I could go to work all day and she could be at home with my daughter. So she had to basically figure out what she was gonna do for �Heath, Robert the day, which is a lot easier around where you’re living than it is when you move to this new place where you don’t know anybody. Interviewer: “Yeah, so you did that for three years and then what was your first full time station?” Right so when– After we did that for law school I got orders to the basic school so that was the six months and that’s Quantico and that’s when we moved to Quantico, Virginia for six months and went through the whole basic school process. After that we went to Norfolk, Virginia– Not Norfolk, Virginia we went to Newport, Rhode Island for naval justice school and then after that we were stationed permanently in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina right outside of Wilmington. Interviewer: “Okay so what was– How long was naval justice school and what was that like?” (37:40) Okay, so naval justice school was about nine weeks and it was actually, it was a great time just because like when you go through six months of Marine Corps training like naval justice school was like professional school. There was a couple of things we did, a morning run, everything Thursday morning it’s called pain before breakfast which was fun. It’s a five mile run, you go out and you run along the coast line and then we double back and come back to base. The big thing about that run if it was– Like when it was warm it was great but of course when I went to naval justice school we started in October, finished in December. So toward the end of the nine weeks it was crazy, you’d have to bundle up and have your gloves and your hat and your gator and everything. Interviewer: “Especially in Rhode Island.” Yeah, in Rhode Island it was– And you’re right off the water so like wind and there were time where you literally were just like kind of trying to see the person in front of you to figure out where you were running, but that was pretty much the extent of physical grulieness of naval justice school. A lot of it is really teaching you how to go through all the facets of being a lawyer �Heath, Robert in the naval services. So we had Coast Guard lawyers there, we had Navy lawyers, and then we had– Excuse me, we had a contingent of Marine lawyers there as well and that was where you really got to see the difference between kind of what it’s like to be a lawyer in the Marine Corps and what it’s like to be a lawyer in other services, like I said for the Navy the people that we were in class with had been in, I want to say, maybe ten weeks and then they were in naval justice school and then they were getting ready to go and get assigned to wherever they were assigned. The people that were in the Coast Guard with us had been in maybe six months and many of them less than that, and then they were doing the same thing and the average time in service for the people that were in the Marine cohort was like 18 months. Interviewer: “Wow, that’s a big difference.” Right, and all of us had been on active duty at least six months, some were kind of like mustangs, me-steps, people who had been enlisted, gone to college, and then joined the officer corps. We also had a major who was an aviator who was changing over to his designation to become a lawyer now and so he was– He has been in the Marine Corps for already ten years before he made that change and so the Marine cohort was definitely– Had done a lot– Not done a lot more, had been in a lot longer and so it was an interesting dynamic. (40:20) Interviewer: “So this was 2012 right?” This was 2013, that’s the end of 2013 so I spent– This is the other thing about the basic school, because of the way that everything works you’ve got to get a spot in a class and those spots fill up and so because as a lawyer in order to get– To earn your spot in the class you have to pass the bar, otherwise you don’t get your law designation you then just go in as kind of general population. So graduate in May of 2012, take the bar in October of 20– No take the bar in August of 2012 and then you get your results in October. So you’re not eligible for a slot until October so there’s four months after I graduated, five months after I graduated where you’re kind of in limbo, luckily I wound up getting selected as the dean’s fellow at the college. So basically I graduated and worked directly for the dean for the college of law and basically worked on a lot of special projects, we worked to develop a mentorship program between senior alumni, people �Heath, Robert who had graduated six or more years ago and had been practicing law for that time, and then recent graduated those who had three or less years out of school. So we developed that program while I was there, I did a number of research projects, I did some work on how to make college recruiting– College of law recruiting process more attractive for diverse applicants and then I did some work as well doing– Helping 1L students, beginning law students to figure out what it is they want to do and helping with their path so that was some work I did with the career development office as well. Interviewer: “Yeah, did you see a lot of diversity in the officer programs or was that really something that you wanted to jumpstart?” Right, well so this was for law school but one of the things that you see generally in these– In programs that are of higher quality or that have high screening processes right. The legal profession in order to get into law school it’s a very high bar, you gotta have good grades, you gotta have a good LSAT score, legal scholastic aptitude test score. (42:38) Same thing with the Marine Corps there’s high standards and so getting there is difficult and one of the things that is interesting when you look at the dynamics of our society right, because of the fact that you don’t have a lot of people who make it through right, I’m an African American male, there’s not a lot of African American males that graduate college, there’s a chunk but proportionately not a tremendous amount right. So once you can make– Once you can reach that level, once I can graduate college as an African American male what I represent to organizations who are looking for the perspective of African American males is considerably as an– You know vis-a-vis individual to individual than my counterparts, caucasian males, women, etc and the main reason why is because I’m so much less likely to be there. So if you want the African American male perspective there’s a smaller pool of people that you can go to that are qualified to be where you’re– Doing what you’re doing and they can do it and so what that does is it means that you actually have to, and I’ll use the term pay more but it’s not really pay more, but there has to be more value, there has to be more welcomingness, there has to be more where I can see myself being welcomed into that society, like as an African American male graduating high school or with my– When I had my credentials having a master’s degree and going to college I wasn’t going go some place where I feel like I needed to struggle to fit in. I wasn’t going to go some �Heath, Robert place where I felt like I was going to have to do work, more work than I had already done, to get to the place where I was because that was work that you have to do in every step along the way because it’s like college isn’t set up where it’s basically it’s a play– College isn’t set up in way that says, you know “We understand your experience and come on it’s gonna be just like everybody else’s experience here.” You go to a lot of these places and I mean I’ve had this experience all growing up and it’s not a bad thing, it’s not a complaint thing, it’s just a reality thing right. If you’re– And you’ve been stationed overseas you know how it is, when you’re an American in Japan there’s a different feeling, you don’t feel less than, but you know that it’s different. Interviewer: “Yeah you stick out.” Right, you stick out and people speak a language that you don’t speak and they understand things and can tell jokes and laugh and there’s a different sense of ease they have with belonging, and that’s the thing it’s not that– They treat you nice, they say hello like it’s not that they treat you bad, but you understand that you don’t– That it’s not necessarily your group, and so that was one of the things that I understood. (45:20) Growing up I was, if not a couple, generally I was the one black kid in my class, in every AP class in high school, in college, in graduate school going through and so you start to understand that experience and so that’s something where you get to a point where you’re like “I want to have an experience where I don’t have to feel like the odd person out, I don’t have to feel like this.” And the schools that are– That create that type of an environment, that can be more diverse and the programs that create those types of environments are more appealing to that small group of people who are now qualified to go there, and so you see a lot of schools really clamoring for the small groups of people who are there because it’s a perspective that’s needed, and that goes with any minority. When you look at Native Americans, again another minority that is disproportionately represented on the low end in higher education, women used to be and has now in just the last, you know 20 years really gotten back, gotten to the point where women are represented and ever over represented in higher education but for so long women were underrepresented in professions and professional education. So anyway that whole study I was doing was really on how do we show people and how do we make ourselves more welcoming, more appealing to those groups we want to attract, because the idea is that– All �Heath, Robert the studies have shown that the more diverse opinions you have in an educational setting the better the educational experience, and that’s not diversity just on the basis of color that’s diversity of experiences, that’s diversity of life challenges, that’s the diversity of how people have built up their resiliency to be where they are, and being able to do that and understand that you have to learn to attract those people who have diverse experiences but there’s an interesting thing, when you’re looking for diverse experiences you’re looking for things that are outside of the norm but if you’re presenting everything that is the norm you’re not attracting people that are outside of the norm and so there’s this kind of dichotomy that goes on there and that’s what I worked on during that kind of inter period while I was dean’s fellow. Interviewer: “Yeah, okay.” And so we used to have a lot of talks about this in the Marine Corps as well when I was in the basic school 275 officers, eight black officers, right and you would see– And it was interesting we knew, we were aware, you’d see just different things like we’d get together and there’d be the eight black– Maybe it’d be six of us, or five of us, but there would be a group of black officers talking and then you know you’d get looks like “What they talking about? What’s going on?” (48:10) Right and so every once and a while we’d do stuff just for fun, we’d grab somebody like “Hey you come here, we need to integrate this circle so people stop looking at us.” So we grab some of our friends because it was never that we got together and were like “We’re gonna exclude people.” But we would just get together, start talking and one of the things we got to see was we had to make it more comfortable for our white friends to be part of the group as well. So that’s what we would– We would intentionally pull people over and be like “Hey! Come here, let’s talk, let’s be over here to integrate it.” Because it looks weird and– Not weird, you would feel the eyes go to the one group, now there’d be a group of all white people standing over here and a group of all white people standing over here, nobody’s paying attention but when the group of all black people got together it was like “Hmm, I wonder what they’re talking about?” Interviewer: “Did you see that with any other ethnicities, were there like groups of Filipinos?” �Heath, Robert There were groups of– There were other ethnicities but there were a lot less so normally– Like there were some Latinos that were in our group and there were some descendants, Middle Eastern descendants that were in our group, there were some Asian descendants that were in our group as well but they were onesies and twosies kind of and normally what was interesting was that minority group would be all of the above, but we would– You would just notice the difference in how those groups– Any time if it was a group of minorities that were together you would just– You could see the difference and sometimes it was just pure curiosity, but nonetheless it was interesting to see that because you’d see a group of 15 white people talking and the curiosity wasn’t the same, the interest, none of that was the same and it wasn’t– Again, it wasn’t nefarious, it wasn’t anything malicious, it wasn’t anything bad, it was just different and you could notice it and those were the types of things, those are subtle cues that you notice about not being part of the norm, not being part of the regular and I mean I think the numbers right now African American officers make up, I want to say, about 2% of the Marine Corps officer corps and the numbers are a lot higher in the enlisted ranks but a lot of the reason for African Americans not making up a large portion of the Marine Corps is– (50:24) I mean the Marine Corps officer corps has nothing to do with kind of traditional discrimination or anything like that but if you look at the system for recruitment of officers in the Marine Corps what you see is that there are no, like one of my– Case and point one of the guys that was in my platoon was a former Marine, he had been in the Marine Corps ten years he was a staff sergeant, he went to Howard historically black college and university, in order to be part of his officer selection office pool he had to go and travel over to Georgetown because that’s where the office was and that’s where the majority of everybody worked and so there was no officer selection effort at Howard University. Which if you think about it right if you’re recruiting African American males you’re going to have higher propensity to get African American males who are qualified to become Marine Corps officers at Howard university which is a historically black college and university than at Georgetown university, right but at the end of the day that was one of the things that he had to deal with and if you look in Atlanta there isn’t an officer selection office that caters specifically to Morehouse and you know Atlanta, all of the different historically black colleges and universities in that area. In the recruiting mindset they’ll recruit an area and generally right if you look at the system people recruit where they’re comfortable. If the majority of officer selection officers are white then they’re gonna recruit in areas where they’re comfortable with the people, �Heath, Robert which are majorly white and once and a while you’ll get a black person that’ll trickle through whereas– So there’s a whole bunch of kind of that process in the system and don’t get me wrong like the Marine Corps is doing a good job at moving it forward. One of my friends, a former middle linebacker at Marshall University, infantry officer, African American male infantry officer, was an officer selection officer for three years and he was in the Kent State Ohio region and so you know he was doing more to do that and just having more diverse faces and all those different types of things but it’s– Ultimately I think the diversity is a lot more difficult than people give it credit for and because what it requires is for people to do and to step outside of their comfort zone on the regular which is not a normal behavior. Interviewer: “Yeah, so did you ever have a lot of struggles with that or did you sort of, because of your background, fit in so to speak?” Yeah, fitting in was easy and that’s one of the things that I love about the Marine Corps, race, color, all that rest of type stuff doesn’t really matter, it’s not– Even with those subtleties and those things that we talked about everybody was awesome, amazing. (53:15) You got people from the north, you got people from the south, you got people from the west and the east and it didn’t matter we were all Marines right. We all bleed green and so that was the basic idea and so there’s a camaraderie and there’s an esprit de corps that is developed through that training, through that time that you spend in the field with each other and learning about each other, and so I want to be clear in that description. One of the reasons the Marine Corps is so amazing is because of the fact that in the culture it’s not allowed for you to be thought of based off of where you come from. Right, like where you come from is a component of who you are as a Marine but you’re a Marine, that’s the most important component of who you are and that’s the thing that you remember that we follow. When you pay attention to honor, courage, and commitment that we are this group, semper fidelis right always faithful to one another and that’s more important than any of the other stuff and that was one of the things that is so– Was so liberating about being a Marine Corps officer that you never had to really overcome racism and those things like you would literally be laughed at if you harbored those kind of– People like “What are you talking about?” Like it’s Marines, like are you a Marine or are you not a Marine, like you want to be a racist go ahead and be a racist but like are you gonna be a Marine, you gonna not be a �Heath, Robert Marine– That was the thing that for me was– And that was the experience I had with my– You know even 20 years before with my dad in the Army it was the same thing. A lot of his best friends were white and we used to hang out and he played semi-pro football when we were in Germany it was a lot of fun and you didn’t get a sense of you’re different, you got a sense of soldier, soldier that was the way that it worked and so– But coming from society that’s one of the things that you always notice the subtleties but I love the fact that in the Marine Corps what I got to see often was what society looks like when people don’t pay attention to that. Interviewer: “That’s awesome, that’s a really good thing to hear. I'm glad that that’s true for all the branches and you know that definitely holds true with the Navy too. So you do your naval justice school and then you got sent back to Quantico you said?” Yeah– Well no,after naval justice school I went down to Camp Lejeune so then I linked up and I was attached to the defense services office east, which is the eastern region. (55:48) So legal support section east which is basically the legal support services are broken up into four regions in the Marine Corps You’ve got the national capital region which deals with headquarters of the Marine Corps, Quantico, and everything and kind of the DMV if you would and then you’ve got legal support service section east which is headquartered at Camp Lejeune but deals with Parris Island and Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany and everything– All the little kind of detachments and everything we’ve got in the southern and the southeastern region and then you’ve got Marine Corps L triple S west which deals with everything kind of west of the Mississippi and then you’ve got the Pacific region L triple S that deals with everything that is Japan, Iwakuni, Camp Butler and all of the detachments that are out in the Pacific region. Interviewer: “So did you choose this station or were you given this station?” Yes, so I was voluntold so I went and actually my first choice was to be stationed in Japan, so kind of I went Japan, Pendleton, Hawaii, and then Lejeune was my number four but I got Lejeune and I think one of the main reasons my daughter has asthma and one of the things that they look at when they’re deciding where they’re gonna station you is with your dependents they have to station you somewhere your dependents can get care and in Iwakuni there is an asthma �Heath, Robert care facility that’s feasible and so I couldn’t get stationed there so they sent me to Camp Lejeune and when I was there– And I loved it, it was a great experience and it’s interesting because although I had wanted other experience this is one of the experiences that for me really solidified what the Marine Corps means and being able to see the camaraderie because one of the things about Camp Lejeune specifically is the surrounding community has so many veterans and so many people who still love the Marine Corps, have retired, or have served and just stayed around and plus also Camp Johnson, which when I was a company commander a couple of my units were on Camp Johnson, was the site of the Montford Point Marines which were the first African American Marines to train in the Marine Corps so it was– From a historical perspective it was a really cool moment. Interviewer: “I’ll bet, did you have– How long were you there?” So I was there from December of 2013 to October of 2017 so almost a full four years. Interviewer: “Okay, and what were you doing at that time?” (58:39) Okay so the first thing– First billet that I had I was a defense counsel, so in the Marine Corps if you’re– If you’re alleged to have committed a crime if you’re indicted of anything you get access to a Marine Corps lawyer, one of the things that we pride ourselves on is the fact that Marines are defended by Marines and because the whole– We believe the idea that you’re innocent until proven guilty and the allegations are just that, they’re what people think may have happened they’re not what exactly happened and so the defense services office and actually that defense services office, defense services office east is the busiest defense shop in the Marine Corps, we run through more cases than any other defense shop in the Marine Corps and that was– At least for the three years– For the three, four years I was there that was the busiest shop during the time and I spent two years in that post and we defended Marines and sailors from allegations of wrongdoing. There are a number– And I always look at it as we didn’t just defend people and say “Okay, well you’re definitely innocent, that’s definitely the case.” We also helped to broker the deals that were in the best interest of both parties, of the service member and of the Marine Corps because there were some– There were a number of my clients, I had over, you know 200 �Heath, Robert clients that I– That I advised while I was a defense counsel, I had over 70 that were my individual clients ranging from everything from administrative separation or being fired from the Marine Corps if you would, all the way up to general court martial felony level offenses and so throughout the time that I was there there was a number of my clients that were guilty of what they had been accused of, and in those cases what I did is I helped them to navigate the process to get them the best situation for them so that they were able to admit their guilt, to deal with the consequences thereof but then also move on with their lives and be reentered back into society as productive, contributing citizens. I took that role very seriously as well because like you said I’m a Marine Corps officer first right and as a Marine Corps officer my job is to support and defend the constitution of the United States. The goal is to make sure that our systems are working so that our citizens can be as productive as possible right so as defense council one of the things that I was able to do, and you get a special kind of place and role because you’re the person people can talk to and tell you all their dirt, everything that they did. So I got to know where my clients were and what they were struggling with so I would be able to give them recommendations for help, I would be able to give them recommendations for how to move on with their lives after the fact. (1:01:17) A lot of my clients, you know especially the ones that were dealing with getting fired not so much on the criminal side, they were getting fired because of behavioral issues right, some of them were getting fired because– Like I had one client who was in a drug rehab program, he had been doing drugs and– But he had been doing drugs because of the fact that he was dealing with PTSD and he having trouble sleeping and all the rest of it. So it was he was self diagnosing and self medicating which wasn’t the system that he should’ve followed but everything about his performance as a Marine, everything about what he did was honorable, he had served, served in combat and so it was trying to figure out how to deal with these people who like– The thing that I always prided myself on and the thing that I always remembered was every one of my clients had stood on the yellow footprints, raised their right hand, and said “I swear to defend and protect the constitution of the United States.” And were even willing to give their lives to do so. So it wasn’t– We weren’t dealing with people who were morally, you know decrepit, corrupt, we were dealing with people who were good people who made bad choices, who were good people who were dealing with bad– Dealing with some demons, and so that was something that I liked about the job is that we got to work. I was an attorney and counselor at law and I got to help people to make the transition that they needed to make, maybe you don’t �Heath, Robert need to be a Marine that’s true but you’re not a horrible person, let’s get you back into society so that you’re not, you know continuing to do the same things that you’re doing but then I also prided myself on the fact that I got to protect a number of people who were innocent and who had been accused of horrible things who– They hadn’t done it so one of the things that I love about that time, I held– It was 70% and it dropped in the end of my career but when I left defense I was at 70% acquittal so I took 11– I took ten cases to trial at the time and seven of them wound up with acquittals. That turned into I got pulled onto another case later on in my career and so that wound up being a guilty verdict but even with the four that were guilty they were necessarily guilty like that case I– The last case that I took he had already admitted to one of the crimes on the charge sheet it was the other five that they had put on there that we were like “Nah, he didn’t do that.” And they were trying to end his career and send him to jail for nine years and all the rest this type of stuff and it was like that’s– No, he did this, he said he did this, we’re gonna go ahead and defend all this other stuff cause that’s crazy and at the end of the day he got convicted for what we said he did, he wound up being reduced in rank from an E6 to an E5, and he got a reprimand. Interviewer: “Wow, that’s a very drastic difference there.” (1:04:08) Right, because we were at felony level criminal court, like I said they were trying to put him away for nine years. Interviewer: “Wow, so you said you also defended sailors? Was that–” Yeah, I defended sailors, I had a couple of sailors that I defended. One was a felony case actually and this was a– This was a case that was really tough for me because it was a sexual assault case, and one of the interesting things about the case was there were problems with the case from the beginning, the NCIS went back an reinterviewed the alleged– The complaining witness to see, you know because there was text messages and there were communications back and forth between them that didn’t jive with the story that she had told and there were already problems that were, you know she had told this story a year after the alleged incident and then we went to trial a year after that, and there were a number of different issues that went to do with that and I �Heath, Robert won’t go into all of the issues but one of the things that was really difficult for me in this trial was like, and with sexual assault trials in general, I’m a martial artist instructor as well I teach women– Empowered women self defense classes, I work with a lot of survivors of sexual assault, I consider myself an advocate and an ally for women who have had to deal with sexual assault. One of the interesting things about being on the defense side is you get to see the problems that go into this area and you know I’ve talked a lot in my legal circles about the fact that I don’t think that– In most cases when were dealing with sexual assault I don’t think the criminal court is the appropriate forum to deal with the issue and one of the main reasons why is because the nature of the facts and the nature of the cases, it’s a very hard case– Even if you have a legitimate sexual assault, it’s a very hard case to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law because there’s so much that had to do with sexual assault that is– You’re listening to two people who are in a situation tell different stories about what happened in the situation, and as a third party who wasn’t there you have to make judgements about what happened and what didn’t happened and credibility determinations are very difficult, it just it puts us in a place that makes it very difficult for the third party to move forward and so what you wind up is having this skewed perception where women have actually been violated, women have actually had– (1:06:34) Women and men have actually had things happen to them that they didn’t want to happen to them but because of the fact that the bar is so high for them to be able to convince a third party, they generally wind up– I mean the success rate in sexual assualt cases– The convinction rates are something like 6 or 7% right and it’s because it’s such a difficult inquiry, not because– And I’ve been on both sides of it, like I said I was a defense counselor, I was also a company commander and sat in conversations where we had to decide whether or not to prosecute sexual assault allegations and how those case were gonna go, I’ve been on both sides of that table, I’ve dealt with– As an ally with assault survivors and so I’ve always been more of the opinion that in cases like that the court system of criminal court is not a great place to try those cases because the system isn’t set up for it. The system is set up– And intentionally so right? We as a society say “We’re gonna take away your freedom, we’re gonna take away your– Possibly, potentially we might take away your life, we’ll definitely take away your liberty and your right to pursue happiness.” Right, that– We put a high bar on that because those are enshrined in our constitution and the level of credibility and the level of evidence we need to say “Yes, we’re gonna do that.” is relatively high. We have another court system which is a tort court �Heath, Robert system which basically is a person to person, you have wronged me and I want redress of that wrong I’ve been damaged, that has a lower bar in most states it’s a preponderance of the evidence it’s 51% to 50%-- I mean 49%, if we think you did it then you can be convicted or not convicted, you can– The plaintiff can win and be awarded damages and that way they can have that kind of vindication from society saying “Yes, you’ve done this and I can now get monetary recompense from you in that vein.” But I think that one of the other things we need to do in our system is focus a lot more on support and aiding survivors in overcoming the incident. When I say all that it’s kind of prologue to– I look at this issue from a lot of different angles, and when– As a defense counsel however I was in a situation where my client had been accused, and in my opinion had been falsely accused, of sexually assaulting someone and the crazy thing about that case was, like I said everything in the system. The prosecution team was coming to me with deals trying to get us to just agree that he was in the barracks when he shouldn’t have been in the barracks so it could be something easy to get away because they weren’t wanting to prosecute this case because they were like “We don’t even believe that it happened but we have to prosecute it.” Because the way that the laws had changed and the way that things went, it had to go forward, and so it was really difficult cause basically my client was facing sexual assault charges, being a registered sex offender for the rest of his life right. (1:09:38) All of those different types of things and he was maintaining his innocence, I believed he was innocent, but we had gotten it to the point where he could’ve gotten a slap on the wrist for something that didn’t have anything to do with sexual assault and it wouldn’t even really be on his record, but he was like “No, I want to go to court, she’s lying on me, she’s besmirched me, I want vindication.” And so now I’m in a place where I’m taking a case to trial that could go the wrong way and like, so it was– I mean the level of stress was crazy because you never know what somebody– What might happen, what people might say and I’ve seen cases that should’ve been won get lost over and over and over again right. So ultimately we wound up and he wound up being acquitted of all charges but that was possibly one of the most stressful things that I had to do as a defense counsel because you have somebody who’s legitimately innocent who’s facing tremendous consequences and– Cause the conviction alone, like triggers all of these things. Even if he serves no jail time he’s a registered sex offender, there’s certain places he can’t live, certain things he can’t do, all the rest of the, but we wound up– He wound up being acquitted so that was a really good experience. I had a number of other cases kind of that were of that level. I had one �Heath, Robert Marine who had been accused of being part of a conspiracy to sell weaponry, he was stationed in Afghanistan, long story really short there was one guy who was doing a lot of bad stuff and he has some issues as well. His wife was leaving him and she was cheating and she was taking the kids and all this type stuff while he’s deployed so– She’s spending up all his money so now he’s got creditors, there’s– None of the situations are ever like “Ah you’re a bad guy, you’re just evil.” There’s always stuff that’s behind it but nonetheless he was doing some things he shouldn’t have been doing, and when he gets caught he’s facing, you know 130 years in federal prison, and he just starts naming, naming, naming everybody he could think of and the interesting thing about my client’s case was like my client went in, talked to the officers, he had never done– He had never done anything wrong so he was like “I’ll talk, I’ll say whatever you need me to say, everything’s fine.” They go and they check and the conspirator kept telling different stories about my client and it’s just like– Interviewer: “It’s not tracking.” It’s not tracking not only do you tell different stories about my client– (1:12:08) There were some people he told the truth about and they got convicted and they went through that but my client was that one that it was just like they threw him in and there were a couple other people that he named and they wound up getting kind of exonerated and they never even had charges brought against them but my client wound up having charges brought against him because there was a money transfer, but the interesting thing about the money transfer right the things that he was selling he was selling for about $200-$300 a piece. These were consistent transfers from everybody that was involved in it, my client gave him $600 right and so I was like “Hmm?” So either he was really good and duped my client into buying this thing for way more than he was selling to everybody else or the story that my client had tracks out. Now what everybody else didn’t know but what we knew was not only did my client– So the guy who came to my client right before he went on R&R so when he was getting leave to go back home to the states and he had talked about his sob story, his wife was doing the things that she was doing, he needed money and one of the reasons why he was doing all this dirty stuff is because he needed money. So he came to my client “Hey can I borrow anything, can you give me any money to take back?” What everybody else including this guy doesn’t know is that my client didn’t manage his money, �Heath, Robert his wife did. So he calls home and says “Hey babe, can we give him any money, what can we do?” She sets the standard and her number– I mean her name, is on the account that the money’s coming from. So this transfer didn’t come directly from my client to him and so in the case, long story like I said less long, what you got to see was the guy who was making up the stories didn’t know any of this background so he made up all types of “Oh we were in my room and we did this transfer and he did it right on my computer.” Etc, and it was like “Really, that’s interesting cause do you know the transfer didn’t actually happen in Afghanistan, the transfer happened from the United States to Afghanistan? Oh and did you also know it wasn’t from my client's account?” And you know the NCIS agent hadn’t done his research and so he didn’t know this either and he was trying to act like this was and open and shut case and I was like “You all have the ability to track where transfers come from like that’s a pretty standard ability for NCIS isn’t it?” And he was like “Of course, yeah.” I was like “So at any point in time in your investigation did you come upon the fact that this didn’t come from my client’s bank account but it came from his wife’s bank account?” So “Well, I’m not really sure.” “Exactly, and did you check and see that the transfer actually happened from the U.S to Afghanistan, not Afghanistan to Afghanistan right, the transfer online?” “Well I don’t know.” Long story short this kid had spent a year and a half– He was about to get promoted to sergeant, he’s about to reenlist. (1:14:52) All of that was on hold, he was getting corporal pay still and there was a number of different things that happened with his life but he was so dedicated to the Marine Corps, that all he wanted to do was stay in the Marine Corps and this was after, you know they had been threatening him and all the rest of this type stuff and it was so painful for me when I was dealing with this and one of the main reasons like the kid came to me and he was like “Sir” because at the time they were giving out deals for like three months to four months and his wife had just gotten pregnant, they had been trying to get pregnant for three years, she had just gotten pregnant and so he was like “Sir, can I just plead guilty so that I can be out by the time my baby is born?” Like I– And of course as the lawyer I’m like “Did you do it? Like because that’s different than what everything else you told me so talk to me like tell me how you did it if you did it.” He’s like “I didn’t do it but if it means that I can just get out and be there for my child then I’ll be cool.” And I’m like “But I can’t let you plead guilty to something you didn’t do. So if you can tell me you did then we good but if you can’t tell me you did it we can’t do that.” He’s like “Well I didn’t do it sir, I didn’t do anything wrong but like can I just tell them I did something wrong so I can get out?” And like �Heath, Robert that conversation was so difficult and then the second conversation which was like after he was going through all of this bad stuff. He had gotten hurt and they wouldn’t let him get surgery for his shoulder, he– Like there were so many things that he was getting denied because he was this bad guy now right and there were so many of us that were like “Hey, like we get you got out, when you get finished like we’re pretty sure that you’re gonna get acquitted, we’re gonna make that happen.” I had to work hard to do it but I figured we had this case in the bag, but it was like you might want to think about doing something different just going and– Cause you know it might not go well for you if you get acquitted of this and keep going but his love for the Marine Corps was so– He was like “Nah this is all I’ve ever wanted to do sir, I want to be a Marine.” So he stayed, I saw him a year and half after the trial he was still in the Marine Corps, still doing the thing and he loved the Marine Corps and it just– It was amazing but that was another case that really emotionally for me right– Because it’d be different if I thought that he had did something wrong, it’d be a completely different story but like I get to grill them, I get to ask the questions that nobody else gets to ask, I get to say “That doesn’t make sense, tell me again.” And over and over and over again so most of my clients, right I had a very good understanding of whether they did it, whether they didn’t. (1:17:20) This kid I know didn’t do it and to see the trauma like he wound up getting sick and gaining weight and all types of other stuff and then he wound up getting back in shape after, but you just saw like I got him acquitted but I couldn’t give him a year and a half of his life back. So that was really trying, but anyways that was my defense career. Interviewer: “So you said you advised 200 cases, you took 70, and only 10 went to trial?” Yeah, 11 over the course of time, only because like I said a number of them– So of the 70 cases I had probably about 40 of them, 35 to 40 of them were cases where they were going to get fired from the Marine Corps. So technically there were trials but there were hearings, so I did about 25 of those that wound up being hearings that I was also kind of in trial but those were– The stakes were a lot lower on those like at worst case scenario you lose your job, right like you’re not– It wasn’t– And for the person don’t get me wrong it was still bad but it wasn’t the horrific scenario of you’re a criminal when we get finished and so that was probably about a good 35 to 40 of the cases that I had and then 30 of the cases that I had were criminal cases and in those cases, like I �Heath, Robert said, 11 of them went to trial the others we either were able to get them dismissed before we even hit a trial, so there were a number of cases where they thought my client did something and then they found out that they didn’t, right. A lot of them sometimes there would be you pop onto your analysis test and they think that you did something so they charged you with unlawful use of drugs and they find out you had a prescription for the medication and they didn’t know you had a prescription so the charges go away or somebody says that you did something and then it comes out that somebody else did it, those types of things. So those cases will go away so of the 30 or so that I had we had some guilties as well, some people that were guilty and what we did is we had them plead guilty and we worked out the sentencing structure with the cases. I had a couple of cases like that, most of them involving drug use or something like that where the people were guilty and so we went and took them to plead out, to plead to their guilt and to work on what was a good sentence and their rehabilitation. So that was we– Over the course of that two years I did a lot of different work, the trials were the ones that were– That stick out the most mainly because they were the most high stakes. Interviewer: “About how long did these trials take, do they have like an average time?” (1:19:52) Yeah, so normal trial like– I want to say I did six of those or seven those those trials which are special court martials which are basically misdemeanor court, you could serve it most the year, and in those trials it’s normally about three days and then in those federal felony level courts the general court martials those are about five days and so in those trials you’re in court, you know the majority of the bulk of the day nine to five and later and you’re calling witnesses, going through testimony, doing all the rest that type of stuff and then the jury is deliberating and you’re waiting. That experience, I mean it’s interesting because it’s what I had trained for, was what I wanted, I wanted to be a litigator that was– I was on the mock trial team when I was in undergrad at U of I, we were nationally ranked, I was on the mock trial team when I was in law school so this is what I had been doing. The interesting thing about litigation is once you’re doing it for real there’s real people’s stories, real people’s lives and so it’s not– At least for me, there’s some people that can still do it and it’s just a game, it’s just, you know it’s the thrill of the battle right. For me I always got locked into the reality of my clients lives and that was one of the �Heath, Robert things that was difficult for me, it’s one of the reasons I’m not a– I don’t practice law now because the problems that they were dealing with and the things that I was dealing with, like I said, even when I won and I won 70% of the time I wasn’t able to give them back the time that they had lost by being accused and by everybody around you thinking that you’ve done something that is outside of your character and outside of the person that you are and that was something that was really difficult for me as an attorney and it was one of the reasons why I decided to request command right after that because I saw so much in the system that we were quick to say “He did something wrong, let’s send him through the system.” And a lot of that is because people were trying not the lose their jobs, they’re worried about if I let this go, if this doesn’t– Right it makes perfect sense why they would do it that way so I didn’t hold it against them but the place where I could be of most service was not kind of outside of the system railing against the machine but more as a commander and that was– Because I spoke to a lot of commanders and a lot of times I helped them to come to solutions where they didn’t have to– Where, like perfect case I had one case where there was a kid, he was a bad egg right, he was not– He didn’t need to be in the Marine Corps, he already been busted down from lance corporal to PSC or private, he was already getting ready to get kicked out, and he had popped on your analysis for oxycontin which is a narcotic. (1:22:56) Problem is, again the systems that we had didn’t show that he had a prescription for this drug and like literally I had the prescription paperwork, you know like it’s obvious that– And once you have a prescription it’s no longer a crime you’re completely doing what you’re supposed to be doing and so this was an administrative error where we just didn’t know, we his command just didn’t know that he had a prescription, perfectly fine but they were gonna try to send him to trial for this issue and it’s like, okay let’s pause for a second because I– And the kid didn’t even want to be there he wanted to get out, he was like “Just fire me, kick me out of the Marine Corps that’s fine but I didn’t do this so I’m gonna fight this because I didn’t do–” Right, there’s that argument of I’m not gonna get in trouble for something I didn’t do. Interviewer: “Yeah, he’ll take the other than honorable discharge over the dishonorable discharge.” �Heath, Robert Exactly, right and so– And being a criminal right, and so at the end of the day– Because all the stuff that he had gotten in trouble for before was like not coming back from leave on time, like a whole bunch of ne’er-do-well, you don’t need to be in the military type of stuff but not– Interviewer: “But not crimes.” Exactly, and so I helped the command to figure out okay, here’s the deal and I went in– This is towards the end of my career in defense, I’m like “Here’s two things”Number one I’m about to be a company commander so I’m thinking, and I’ve always been thinking about this, from the position of being a command, second thing I’ve won three cases like this already. It’s a really easy case to win, here’s the deal he didn’t do the crime, you’re gonna send this to trial, you’re gonna spend a whole bunch of money, we’re gonna call a whole bunch of witnesses and at the end of the day you’re gonna find out that he didn’t do the crime which I’m telling you right now like there’s no– The elements are not met, you can’t beat it, but here’s the other thing that you need to realize, we have a point of meeting. He wants to get out of the Marine Corps, he wants to go home, he wants to be back with his friends doing 18 to 22 year old stuff. You want him out of the Marine Corps and he’s already done enough stuff for you to ADSEP him, you’ve already done the paperwork. (1:24:47) So we worked it out, so it was like send that paperwork up, get it done, he can be out of the Marine Corps in two months– Or two weeks rather, and you can be getting another Marine to fill his spot, whereas if we go through this process of trying to take it to trial just administratively the trial is gonna be three or four months from now, then he’s gonna get acquitted, then you’re gonna try to ADSEP him later cause you can’t ADSEP him while he’s going to trial. So all that paperwork has to restart three to four months from now, you’re six, eight months later before this kid is out. So which one are we gonna do, and easily enough the trial goes away, the kid get ADSEPed he’s out of the Marine Corps in two weeks and the unit gets another Marine so now the unit’s better, like it was about helping to create a solution where everybody wins and that’s the thing that I think being in defense before I was in command or any other type of unit really helped me to see there are a number of solutions that work because at the end of the day even if we have these criminals right, they have done something that the majority of Americans haven’t done, which is they have stepped up and taken the oath, right. So at some point in time in their lives they had some semblance of this is bigger than me and I want to do �Heath, Robert something better than myself and if we can keep that in mind like what we were able to do like was to make solutions that work better for everybody and that was really my goal, especially towards the end of my defense career once I had seen the system in action and then once I became a company commander it was the same thing. My goal was to figure out– We had to kick two Marines out while I was company commander but those Marines left thanking me and prepared for the next chapter of their lives instead of disgruntled and thinking that the Marine Corps sucks and hating everything. Interviewer: “Yeah, so before we move too much forward into your time as a company commander, what were the trials like? Just like the bare bones of the trial, who was the judge, who was the jury?” Right, so all of those– Generally you have a jury of members that can be Navy or Marine Corps, members they’re whatever unit is conducting the trial. So for example if it’s 2nd Maintenance Battalion or if it’s headquarters regiment which is a logistic element right, they would source the members for that trial. So you’re judged not by just your peers Marine Corps wide but by your peers in your unit and then we would do jury selection and we would generally wind up with a panel of anywhere between three and ten members, sometimes there were panels even bigger 12 or 15 members but those are– (1:27:39) It’s normally not that many people and then you’d have a judge who was part of another section that’s not technically part of legal support services section it’s another administrative distinction. So you’d have a judge that would preside over the case and that was a Marine Corps officer generally or a naval officer but all of my cases were presided over by Marine Corps judges, and then you would have a prosecution team which was from the trial shop and that was just like I got assigned to defense there were people that got assigned to trial and sometimes you would go back and forth and so like a friend of mine who was a defensive counsel for his first two years at Camp Lejeune, left from defense and went to trial and became a trial counsel the next two years. So those are– It’s not as if you have a defense brain in your only defense, I had another colleague who had been a trial counsel at Parris Island and came and got transferred to Camp Lejeune and she was a defense counsel at Camp Lejeune. So if you’ve ever seen the T.V show Jag it’s not as fluid as they make it where you can be on trial one day and you can be on defense the next day but it is– It’s not one of those things where �Heath, Robert you’re a defense counsel and you’re always a defense counselor, you’re on trial you’re a trial counselor. So that’s the way the court was set up, generally there will be two attorneys on each case so I was lead attorney on a number of the cases that I did but I was also second chair and generally you’ll break the case up and you’ll do certain things depending on what your specialties are. So I was really good at cross examination I would cross examine a lot of witnesses, I would do closings because I was also good at that and ultimately you prosecute the trial, you bring people on, you have them tell their stories and oftentimes what would happen in my cases was the story that gets told in paperwork is a lot less robust and realistic than the story that actually exists and so when you get people on the stand and you actually tell– Get them telling what they know, and then you get them talking about what they just conjecture or what they just speculate about or what they just think might possibly be the case, then you start to see that the story that’s on paper sounded a lot more confident than the real story and so that was what happened in the majority of my cases, I mean even the cases that when my clients got convicted like I said I had one client that got convicted of drunk and disorderly conduct which is what we said at the beginning he was guilt of and we had been willing to do an NJP but the command thought that he was guilty of assault and hazing and all these other things, which we were like “We’ve done the investigation, we’ve talked to people like nobody says that he did this! Your witnesses–” (1:30:31) And so that was a fun case because literally the prosecution’s witnesses came on and they said– The prosecution asked them questions and then we asked them questions we were like “So the prosecution says he assaulted you, did he assault you?” “No.” “Did he ever haze you? Did you ever feel threatened? Did you ever feel in danger?” “No, no, no, actually I wanted him to be my– To be the person that pinned me on when I picked up corporal but the command wouldn’t let me because he was charged and they didn’t want it to happen. I think that he’s an amazing Marine.” That was the kind of case that that was so it was easy, basically their case made our case and so at the end of the trial we were like “So jury like we said, at the end of the day when you hear all of the witnesses you’re gonna come to the same conclusion we came to, which is why why are we here.” And they did and they had to convict him of drunk and disorderly conduct, he was drunk and disorderly, it was completely stupid they were all just rough housing and playing around. They were all drunk and disorderly though, he was just the only one that got charged and so he got convicted and he got a reprimand and it was �Heath, Robert like yay we spent three days of everybody’s life to do what we could have done in the CO’s office. Interviewer: “So these were different from NJP, non-judicial punishment, it’s more of like a captain’s mass, this is a real criminal case.” Exactly, this is a real criminal case that should have been a captain’s mass or an office hours or an NJP right but at the end of– And this was the thing that I saw over and over and over again which is why I wanted to be a company commander like I wanted to be the person making those decisions or recommending to my battalion commander what we should in those situations. I want to be in those legal meetings because a lot of times what happens is– It’s incomplete information going through the chain and so of course if I’ve got 70 problems and I’ve got something that looks a little bit like a problem I’m gonna run it through the system because I’m getting incomplete information and so I can’t rely on you’ve looked at this, you’ve thought about this, you know about this and so I can say “Nah we don’t need to do that.” Normally by the time it gets to the battalion commander he’s the person– Or she’s the person that’s having to stop the train because everybody else is just passing it along, it’s not my job, it’s not my job. (1:32:30) Hey they did something wrong, how do I cover my butt? I make sure I pass it up, never be the highest ranking person with a secret right. Right and so there’s this idea of just pass it through and let the system do it, the system will work it out, but that’s not what’s best for the Marine or sailor that’s in your charge, that you’re charged with taking care of, just because you think they might have done something wrong doesn’t mean they’re not your sailor or your Marine and that’s the thing that was so problematic for me, and so as a company commander that was what I really focused on. There were a number of times– I mean I had Marines that did stupid stuff, I had a Marine that got a speeding ticket going 75 in a 35 right. Interviewer: “Sounds like a Marine.” Right, and then– He was on a motorcycle and it was a stretch of road at 10:30 at night, what’s the harm right, that was his thought. Now we could have run him up the mast and gotten him in a whole bunch of trouble, put a 6105 on his record, all the rest that type stuff but we looked at the �Heath, Robert Marine right. Who was he, had he been in trouble, he wasn’t a troublemaker he just got promoted to sergeant, which you could look at at it one way, he should be a better example, or you can look at it like he’s 23 and he has a motorcycle and it’s Camp Lejeune at ten o’clock at night, like any single– Like these are the types of things that they do, we don’t catch them hardly anywhere near as much as it happens and so how do we make an example? We had him teach about how stupid of an idea that was and why he shouldn’t do it and what he could’ve done, we used him as a tool to make the entire unit better and at the same time we made him a better leader. Interviewer: “Yeah and you taught him a lesson, you taught him you know this could’ve been much worse if we decided to send it up but instead we’re making it better for you and the Marines.” Exactly, because my job as a company commander was to develop you into a better leader right and I don’t do that by just slapping your hand all the time, right especially at the end of the day he got a ticket, like there’s not a whole bunch we’re gonna be able to do. All the administrative stuff that we would’ve done would not have taught him the lesson that the sit down, the conversation, and the making him teach what he learned did for him and did for them. I didn’t have another speeding ticket the entire time I was commanding. Interviewer: “There you go, so what years were you commander?” (1:34:47) So I was company commander from June of 2015 to July of 2016. Interviewer: “Okay, and in the hierarchy where exactly does company commander sit?” Okay, so in the unit that I was commander of I was bravo company commander for headquarters support battalion Marine Corps installations, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, Marine Corps installations east. So basically if you look at the entirety of the base of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina there’s a commanding general that’s over the base and he runs all of the different sections. The G4 which is logistics, the G6 which is communications right, the G1 which is admin, all of those sections he has all of the civilians and all of the– All of the military personnel �Heath, Robert that are involved in that, and then they have– There’s a number of tenant commands like the two MEFis on– The 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force is a tenant of Camp Lejeune, 2nd Marine Division is a tenant of Camp Lejeune, there’s a number of different tenants that he works in kind of cohort with to be the support of those units and what they’re doing. Underneath the general is headquarters and support battalion for Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, and that’s my boss who was the colonel at the time, Colonel Seagraves was my boss and during that his purview is all of the administrative work that is kind of below the colonel level or at the same level– He was peers with everybody that was– So the G4, the senior logistics person on the base or the senior kind of transportation, logistics, food services, management, all that type stuff, that person he was a peer with but he was also positionally superior to. So all of those people and all of their subordinate commands were underneath headquarters and support battalion and we were in charge of them administratively and any disciplinary, any issues like that we took care of. Anybody needed to get court martialed if anybody got in trouble, if anybody needed to get training, if anybody needed all the basic things for the upkeep and the care of the Marines we were the high point of that chain. So that was headquarter and support battalion, I was bravo company, there were four companies: Alpha company, bravo company, India company, and security company. (1:37:20) Alpha company had a number of different units and we did a reorganization during that year so that’s the reason why I’m trying to remember what it was like when I first started. Alpha company had kind of like the post office and the postal Marines were under alpha company–And this is the base post office now, Camp Lejeune had about 45 to 50,000 personnel aboard the base so the base post office was a big concern to a number of Marines. They had– Alpha company also had legal support services section east originally, and that was another 200 or so Marines, about 40 officers and then alpha company had a number of other smaller units that were part of it. The whole company I wanna say was about 230, 240 Marines when it first started, maybe 270 Marines. Bravo company I had about 25 different sections that were kind of hodge podged– A collection right. So I had the combat camera Marines, I had the G6 Marines which was the communications branch, communications arm, I had the phas-mo Marines, which phas-mo is they go and do inspections to make sure inventories are kept up, that we know where all the weapons are, that we know where all the equipment is. They go and inspect the units to make sure they’re doing the systems the right way. I had the EOD Marines, so the explosive ordnance demolition and disposal Marines, that was a unit I had �Heath, Robert that was aboard Camp Geiger, I had mizzou which was an administrative section, it was aboard Camp Johnson and then I had, like I said the G4 Marines so the food service Marines, DMO which was the transportation management and dependent management arm of the wing. So anything that got moved from Camp Lejeune somewhere else, when people PCS and everything those Marines, those were my Marines and I had a number of other different sections, like I said there were about 18 to 20 different sections that I owned across the base. We did the reorganization I also wound up getting the legal support service section that came underneath my purview and there were a couple of other sections that we added as well the– Not personnel, the base PAO office which is the public affairs office, came under my purview as well so we went from being the smallest company in the battalion, we had about 220 sailors and Marines to start off with, we had the boat crew, the Navy boat crew that was on the base. So they patrolled all the waterways and make sure there was nobody doing anything they shouldn’t be doing on the waterways aboard Camp Lejeune because there’s a number of rivers and inlets that run through the base, that was part of my group as well. When we did the reorganization we went from 220 to about 385 Marines and sailors that were part of my organization. (1:40:20) Now when I started I had a staff of five, when we did the reorganization I had a staff of five so. It was good though because my staff they were a well oiled machine, they were running it, they did phenomenal things and we actually did a great job. So we went from being the smallest company in the battalion to one of the largest companies in the entire Marine Corps, and it was a wild ride, it was a lot of fun. Camp Lejeune has a beach, we own the beach debt so I had the baywatch crew, that was my– They were my Marines as well and then we housed a number of different units, kind of the RBE, remain behind elements, for a number of different units that would– When they were deploying we were in charge of them and responsible for them as well. Interviewer: “Okay, what rank were you at this point?” Okay, so I was a captain at this time, I pinned on captain cause one of the– One of the benefits of the program that I was in was even though I didn’t wind up getting paid while I was in law school I was picking up time and service, time and grade. So I picked up captain, I want to say it was November of 2013 so while I was at naval justice school I picked up captain and so I was a captain for the majority of my active duty service in the Marine Corps. So my first year I was a �Heath, Robert butter bar when I went on eight-OS orders during the summer and then the second year I was a butter bar and then I got promoted to 1st lieutenant and I spent all of training as 1st lieutenant and then I picked up captain just as I was finishing up naval justice school training. Interviewer: “Okay, and you just stayed captain until you got out?” Yeah I stayed captain until I got out and interestingly enough like I was telling you before we started talking I got notified because I’m still in the reserves technically, like I’m on the roles in the reserves, and my wife and I talked back and forth about whether or not I’ll pick up a reserve billet here but I just got selected for major. Interviewer: “Congratulations.” Oh thank you. Interviewer: “That’s a heck of an honor for a reservist to get right?” (1:42:25) Yeah it was– Definitely I didn’t expect it and I mean I felt like my career and the things that I had done while I was in Marine Corps because– I was company commander and I received Marine Corps commendation medal for my time there and the things that we did, I also– Because– And then I went and I picked up a billet, I was the regional civil law officer so that was a major’s billet that I held after I went into– And I was still a junior captain at the time. I did that billet for six months and transitioned it over to a major but during that period of time I also revamped how we did the work that we did and shrunk our lead time on the request for information and request for documents that we would get from 14 days to about five days external, three days internal and during that period of time I ran– So the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society does an active duty fund drive every year and technically the coordination of that committee and the coordination of that event is another major’s billet that I held concurrently with the other major’s billet that I had and so I ran that and we actually were able to raise over $230,000 that year aboard Camp Lejeune and so while I was in I felt like did– I had a pretty good career, I always got good marks and I wanted to be in career designated while I was in the �Heath, Robert Marine Corps and so that kind of distinction as an officer what they do is they look at your first tour and they say, okay when you’re about two and a half, three years in they say okay they put everybody on a panel and who are we going to select that we think should remain in the Marine Corps, should be able to go basically to 20 years and so once you go through that board, you get selected, your career designate candidate it basically says that the Marine Corps thinks that you can remain a Marine Corps officer, you’ve been pretty good while you were there. Interviewer: “Yeah I can see why they’d want to keep you.” Well thank you I appreciate it, but yes I’m really excited about– Like I love my Marine Corps experience, I love the Marine Corps and I think that getting out was more, it was a family decision. It was interesting because I didn’t wind up deploying and one of the things that I realized over the time that I was there was how much anxiety that like, that possibility caused my wife. I would be remiss if I didn’t– Or I would be less than honest if I said that she was excited about me joining the Marine Corps when I joined at 27 and we had a two year old baby. She was supportive but she was definitely not excited and I think I didn’t realize how much stress and anxiety the service takes on the spouses and I learned that over the course of my time in the Marine Corps. (1:45:29) We did a lot of– I did a lot of retirements as a company commander and a lot of ceremonies for Marines and you– One of the things that always struck me was the comments from the family and there’s so many times where it was, you know we missed you a lot, we loved you a lot and one of the things we tried to do is we always gave– We always gave certificates of appreciation to the family members at the retirement because of the sacrifices they made and just hearing all those stories over and over again really put into kind of context what my wife was doing and what she was going through and so that is something that when I made the decision not to continue my career in the Marine Corps it was in large part because of the fact that my family really wanted me at home and even though I was stateside I remember it was a time period– Especially because I did defense which was lots of hours, lots of times. I was visiting my clients in the brig, I was staying up late and coming home at, you know 11, 12 o’clock cause I had these cases that were really important and the stress of it was always on my mind so– And then I went to company command, you’re 24/7 commander it’s not like oh nine o’clock to five o’clock and then I don’t got to worry about it. I get, you know messages in the �Heath, Robert middle of the night, all those types things, so even though I was home my wife would talk about I wasn’t home, I wasn’t present and that was something that she really wanted and so I kind of made the decision for my family that I’m not going to continue pursuing that track because I wanted to be home and to be available for them especially because what my wife started to realize was over the years that we didn’t deploy then the– And if it was that hard when we didn’t deploy what was it gonna be like when I’m gone for six, seven, ten months, twelve months and so I really applaud the families that have endured deployment and the spouses that you know held the home front home and those Marines and sailors that have had to do it. It’s been– It was definitely an eye opening experience to me for the tremendous toll that it takes on the family. Interviewer: “Yeah, that’s one of the driving factors for a lot of people that get out of the military is they want– They want a solid family and yeah. So when you were, just to jump back just a little bit, when you were a company commander was there any– Other than the restructuring, was there any big things that you think are noteworthy?” (1:47:55) Well I mean as far as accomplishments or anything like that one of the big things that I was proud of is our battalion in general had had a readiness rating that was relatively low and these are mainly administrative issues, number that we get from the Navy docks, numbers that we get from here and the way that things need to work. We wanted to have 85% readiness because what 85% readiness says is that 85% of the battalion at any time if we needed to go and send people to deploy is ready to go and we were consistently hovering, you know as a battalion somewhere around 82 to 86% but in my company when I took over we were at 74% and one of the things that I was struggling with was in the two months from the time I took over until I started figuring out how to get my head screwed on right we were– We dropped from 70%-- 74% to 70% and what was hardest about that was, you know I’m putting in hours, I’m doing– I’m there seven in the morning I don’t leave till seven, eight at night and like trying to figure out all these things and trying to get people to do stuff they need to do, we gotta get people to range, we got to get people to the doctor, we gotta get people taking classes, we gotta get all this stuff done and ultimately what I learned was– And this is a really important leadership point for me, I learned that, you know I’m good and I can work hard but at the end of the day leadership is about getting other people to do great things and getting other people to manifest or to bring forward the �Heath, Robert greatness that’s within them and so it didn’t really matter how hard I worked, it mattered how effective I was at bringing out the best in my people, and so when I started changing my focus and really started focusing more on putting people in positions to be successful and setting up systems that worked for my people instead of systems that worked intellectually in my head and were great for me to do, then we were able to do tremendous things. We actually increased our readiness from 70% to 90% over the course of about four months and consistently stayed above 87% and that was with an upper cap of 93%. So 7% of my company at no point in time was going to be ready because of, you know, administrative barriers. So some people were, you know hurt, they were still eligible for state side service but they could never deploy, some people were on maternity leave so they just had a baby and there’s mandatory 240 days that you had to wait before you were eligible to deploy because you have to get cleared by all the medical docs and all the rest that type stuff, you had other people who were getting ready to retire and so they’re nondeployable because they don’t have enough time left on service, that type of thing. So 7% of my company was never going to be in that administratively ready to deploy and so to get to 90% out of 93% was a tremendous accomplishment for us and especially coming from where we were at 70, so that was kind of a cool experience. (1:50:54) One of the things that happened while we were there, and there was this big push to really– To have better security around the bases. I don’t know if you remember that was when there was some of the random shooter attacks at Marine Corps recruiting stations and Navy recruiting stations and things like that so there was this big push all over the country to really reevaluate our security posture and so there was a lot of training that we did to get increased support personnel, especially when we would raise the defcon levels and force protection levels and so we were instrumental in getting people trained and figuring out how we were gonna do that and everything because being the second largest Marine Corps base there’s a lot of kind of eyes focused on what we did and so getting our people trained and going through those courses was important. There was a lot of active shooter training that we wound up doing as well and then, like I said, I got to be involved in a lot of kind of conversations about legal procedure with Marines because every meeting– Every commander’s meeting, every staff meeting that we had we had a legal meeting and what I got to see was the number of those cases that we were really struggling with start to decrease because we started learning and becoming a lot better at dealing with it at lower levels and that was something I felt really happy about being instrumental in. �Heath, Robert Interviewer: “Okay, so you said you had five support people with you as like your core group, were they all officers?” No, no I had– It was I was the only officer, normally in a company you have an executive officer as well who’s normally a first lieutenant or second lieutenant that’s working there but my company was set up it was me, my first sergeant, my company gunnery sergeant, I had my barracks sergeant– Barracks manager and then I had a clerk that was in my office and then for about the first half of that year I had a staff sergeant who was my company gunnery sergeant who was also getting ready to get out and get medically separated and so there was a little bit of an overlap with my staff sergeant when we got a company gunnery sergeant that came in and so we had– We had the six personnel for a little bit but with my staff sergeant that was– He was kind of transitioning out so we didn’t give him a lot of stuff to do because he was hitting medical appointments and doing stuff like that so. Interviewer: “Yeah, did you ever have any pushback from your enlisted guys cause I know a lot of senior enlisted don’t have the best view of junior officers? I know at that point you weren’t really a junior officer but you’d only been in like eight years.” (1:53:30) Yeah, right and at that time I had only been in five years and I had been active for three and a half– Two and half, three years, so what was interesting about it– And this is where my father being a staff NCO was really helpful to me, I always grew up everybody I knew were enlisted and staff NCOs and my father always told me, you know from the beginning whenever I thought about going to military he was like “Hey son here’s the deal, as an officer you need to go in and find the saltiest, longest standing, crustiest staff NCO that you can think of and sit at their knee and learning everything you can about leading from them.” So that was the kind of approach that I took to it, the other part that was really cool was even though I was junior in Marine Corps years to all of my staff, I was– My first sergeant I think was a year older than me and my company gunnery sergeant we were the same age and everybody else was younger than me so I still had age maturity and I also had a respect for their knowledge and their experience so I didn’t lead from a position of, alright here’s what we’re gonna do, ready go do it. I led from a position �Heath, Robert of here’s what the problem is talk to me about the solutions you’re aware of, what have you tried, what have you seen, teach me what you know and then ultimately the decision is mine to make but I loved leading by consensus because I wanted them to be invested in what we were doing. I didn’t want it to just be my plan that they were trying to carry out because that doesn’t allow them– Like I said, that doesn’t allow them to bring their genius and their greatness to the table and so the conversation that I had with my staff often times I would ask them, you know I would have them push back I would say “Okay this is what I’m thinking about doing, why is it stupid?” Right like that was a normal conversation that we would have, what’s wrong with it, what problems do you see? I didn’t want to walk around like the emperor with no clothes on, I wanted to be the type of leader that my people could feel comfortable following because they knew I wasn’t going to lead them into anything bad. I remember we watched a lot of Band of Brothers when I was in officer candidate school, in the basic school, and David Schwimmer’s character, right getting lost on maneuvers and “This fence shouldn’t be here!” And like you never want to be that guy and so I was always comfortable, I didn’t need to be the smartest guy in the room, I didn’t want to be the smartest guy in the room. (1:55:52) I was confident that I was smart and I was confident that I was surrounded by a lot of other smart guys, let’s use our intelligence and do the best thing and I feel like that’s what we did and you know my company gunnery sergeant got promoted, he’s a first sergeant now, my first sergeant is now a sergeant major and they’re leading and working with Marines and advising and helping and I’m still friend with those guys to this day. Interviewer: “That’s awesome. So that’s what you did right up until you decided to get out?” So no, after I left command I transitioned command in 2016 so I had another year, year and a half that I was in and I spent six months and it was interesting because it was about that time that I was making– That I was looking at what my decision was going to be and so I wound up getting career designated shortly thereafter and then my wife and I talked and we decided to leave the Marine Corps. So I was in legal support– Legal service I was basically, I did a lot of divorce counseling, I wound up becoming the mediator for Camp Lejeune. So there was a new pilot program we were working on to help married couples deal with their problems and instead �Heath, Robert of having to go and do, you know a divorce where both sides are kind of against each other and adversarial we started a mediation group where you could come in and we could help you to divvy all that stuff up and do a lot of stuff that you would pay a civilian lawyer to do and it would cost a lot of money on both sides, and we set up offices to do that directly inside– In the office, so I did that work, I did a lot of work with junior Marines who had kind of issues with credit card companies coming after them or you know just contracts with their lease and their tenant or their landlord and stuff like that and then we did a lot of the pre-deployment brief. So I would go to the units that were getting ready to deploy and we would give them all the information that they needed so they could be ready to deploy, how to deal with your cell phone, how to deal with your car insurance, how to deal with you know bills and all these different types of things. We would teach them about the service member civil relief act and so we had a lot of reservist units that would come in and get ready to get deployed, so they need to know can they fire me, can this happen, can that happen. We would help them and brief them on that, we would do a lot of powers of attorneys for them and so they could set up their spouses or their parents or whoever was going to take care of their estate while they’re deployed, we make sure they get will and all the rest of that type of stuff. (1:58:25) So we basically it was a lot of services and we did– I mean I briefed over 2,000 people in the six months that I was– That I was in legal support services, just getting them ready to get deployed because, like I said, the deployment rates were really high. They were– They had shrunk for lawyers but they went up for everybody else and so I was dealing with a lot of people who were getting deployed and then I got tapped. There was a major who was the civil law regional solo officer, he wound up getting deployed because at this point in time only majors were getting deployed on muse and attaching to units and so he wound up getting deployed. The colonel who was the officer in charge came to me and said “Hey look, I need somebody to do this job we don’t have any other majors that you know they can be pulled from what they’re doing and so you’re one of my senior captains, you’ve had command experience, this is an important job I need you to do it.” So I went ahead and I took that role and, you know we set about really restructuring that office to be better at what it did, do be more efficient at what it did because a lot of the weight of that– The regional civil law officer sends opinions to you know colonels, to lieutenant colonels, to generals, things that you’re going to be advising, commands out in the field and so one of the issues with that was the way that it was set up was that the officer had to do all of that work or had to at least be �Heath, Robert responsible for all of that work and because of that, like I said, system idea of thinking you know my name is on it so I have to do all of the work. That creates a funnel and it creates a choke point where that person had to do so much work, and we would have people come through the office who– You know I supervise anywhere from two to seven different attorneys at any point in time in that office and the crazy thing was these attorneys were attorneys who were coming out of law school, who were great at research, great at writing, right they were coming from some of the top law schools in the country. So they could do the work that wasn’t the question, but we didn’t have a system that was set up that allowed the officer in charge to do the part that they needed to, which is really proofreading and making sure that it was– That it was sound legal logic, we didn’t have that. So what I did is I wound up revamping the system, like I said it used to take about 14 days on some of our larger projects to get stuff out and we were able to cut that down to five days externally, three days internally where we would be able to get the work turned around, and what was even more important was I was able to remove a lot of what the officer in charge had to do so that it didn’t slow down the process as much because a lot of the slowing down of process, the old processes was they still did all the research and did everything but then they would bring it and the person would have to read through everything and decide and do all the rest of type stuff and so we created a process that was a lot more efficient so that while I was officer in charge I also wound up becoming and being chairperson of that committee where we were doing the fundraiser. (2:01:45) So I was running a fundraiser for the entire base and then I wound up getting that 11th case that I told you about, I wound up getting requested to be on another case which was a high profile case that was in Quantico. It was being tried in Quantico and it was about– It was one of the Parris Island cases during that period of time where there was a number of recruit mistreatment allegations that were going on. My case was not attached to the death of the recruit, it was not– It was in the same company not in the same platoon as the recruit that died, different staff, different people, everything else and there were no– The charges were nowhere near as severe but there was this kind of spotlight and catch all everything that’s bad and so they were trying to throw the hammer at some behavior that was really not anywhere near that level. Interviewer: “Not as bad as someone dying but still less than acceptable so to speak.” �Heath, Robert Less than acceptable but not as– Not even close to someone dying right like and so the thing that was going on and one of the things we dealt with in the case was the reality of the situation is they were trying to get people for violating the recruit training order, but when you read the recruit training order it’s so ambiguous in a lot of areas about what’s acceptable, what’s not acceptable, how you do this and where. So there’s a lot of room for discretion right, inherently when you get a lot of room for discretion what you also have is a lot of room for people to make mistakes. Now the question about your discretion and your bad judgment is not whether the judgment was bad, like we can all agree the judgment was bad, the question was is it due to recklessness, is it due to negligence, or is it just due to you making a mistake. When you look at those questions a lot of times people are making mistakes, they’re stupid actions but it’s not criminal, it’s not like you were trying to mess something up and that’s what we were dealing with in that case like there was– And my, like i said, in that case my client had already admitted in the investigation he was like “Yeah we were doing, incentive training that was illegal. We were doing incentive training that wasn’t according to the specs.” So we had him for that but that’s an NJPable offense, that’s one of those types of things where you don’t do that anymore.(2:04:07) It wasn’t anything where they were putting people’s lives in danger or anything like that so when you look at what was going on, and I want to be clear here, it’s not to minimize the behavior, the behavior was wrong admittedly by the person that was doing the behavior it wasn’t like we had to convince people that this behavior was wrong. The issue was there were a number of other things that were alleged that just didn’t happen, and there was a number of other factors that were involved like there were a couple of parents that like the reason this became a big issue was because there was a parent that wrote a red dot letter to the president. If you know anything about how that works, president gets a letter, immediately there’s an investigation right, and once there’s an investigation now everybody’s eyes is on it and immediately what starts to happen in the apparatus right is everybody starts trying to cover for themselves to make sure that they don’t get in trouble for whatever's going on. So this was an issue that I mean so much stuff happened and so many things went wrong in the administration of this because there were a lot of people who were just trying to to cover up. Understandably so like I don’t wanna– I don’t wanna act like the people who were trying to cover up were doing something bad, they were trying to make sure that they weren’t in trouble which it makes sense right, but again when you look at leadership, and this is the thing that’s so important and it’s the �Heath, Robert thing that I learned and I loved, my friends, my peers right, one of my neighbors, one of my best friends was an infantry commander, took his group, his company you know to Iraq and Afghanistan served and did things and we would talk all the time about the way that he was conflicted between what he could do for his men and what he couldn’t do for his troops and what he couldn’t do because of the fact that right you have to be worried about this constant, what if somebody thinks I should’ve done something different right, even if I’m doing what’s best for my people, even though nobody’s dying, even though all the rest of that stuff if I do it wrong I could get in trouble. There’s that part about it that makes it really difficult for a lot of people in leadership in the Marine Corps and in any large organization because you’re always– You’re held to the court of, you know subjective opinion as well as you know actual what happens. So anyway this case was a big sense of that like there was a Marine recruit that died so– Interviewer: “Big thing.” Big thing right, so these things are happening kind of concurrently in the same sequence but the way that we kind of had these knee jerk reactions like the pendulum swings all the way back to the end, that’s not rational and so anyway the basic thing that happened with the case we wound up my client got convicted for the things that he admitted that he had done and we told the story. (2:06:50) We told the story of who he was as a Marine, we told the story of what happened, like we allowed the jury to learn and we also dealt with the people who were there because there were a couple of people that the prosecution brought in who wound up– Who didn’t make it through recruit training who wound up quitting and not become Marines and let me just say that their stories were a little bit less than factually accurate right, as indicated by the other Marines who did wind up becoming Marines who were part of the unit who came on the stand and said “Nah, he’s lying. That dude he never liked him and he was always trying to make–” Like we had this stuff that happened and I mean that was one of those cases I was– We were frustrated about it a lot because it was another one of those why are we here cases, government probably spent $100,000 on that case because we had to fly people in from all over the country, I was stationed at Camp Lejeune, my co-counsel was stationed at Camp Lejeune, we had to fly to Quantico and stay in Quantico for a week to prosecute the case. All of this stuff that happened and again my client was willing to admit to what he did wrong but he wasn’t willing to admit to all the stuff �Heath, Robert they were charging him with that he didn’t do wrong and they were trying to kill his career and all this– You know in order to become a drill instructor, this is the thing a lot of people don’t realize, in order to become a drill instructor you are already one of the top 10% of Marines, enlisted Marines, like they get selected it’s not something where you just get to apply and people are like “Oh okay, sure you applied.” They’re not struggling for applications to be a drill instructor so you’re talking about very good Marines who have already demonstrated a career of service, who are sergeants or above and have demonstrated a career of service, who have already gotten reenlisted twice– You know reenlisted once and all those types of things, the Marine Corps has already said you’re good to go. Now when they get there, there are some Marines that do things that they shouldn’t do, there are people– There are things like that that happen I’m not going to act like that’s not the case but the fact that the presumption is that somebody’s doing something they shouldn’t do is the thing that bothers me because it speaks poorly about what we think about those of our service members who step up and say “I’m gonna do the hard job, I’m gonna go and do the hard thing.” And that’s what really frustrated me and that’s what frustrated me with that case and so it was really– We were really happy you know at the end when we got the verdict that we got and then we got the sentence that we got which was basically he got reduced in rank for doing something he should– (2:09:17) Right, shouldn’t have done that, that was not smart, and then he got a reprimand which said “Yeah you shouldn’t have done that, that was not smart, now go back and continue being a good Marine, learn your lesson.” Interviewer: “That’s good. Out of curiosity you mentioned incentive training, I don’t actually know what that is.” Great question, so incentive training is basically disciplinary training but it’s given a euphemistic name right. So when you’re in boot camp, and it’s changed years over years, my father-in-law was a Marine, infantryman from ‘78 to ‘82 and he came in and he talks about the differences and there’s differences even from when I went in in 2009 to now, etc, but the basic idea is when Marine recruits are not stepping up, not learning, not doing what they’re supposed to be doing there are certain approved physical punishments, for lack of a better word, that you can do. You can make them do squat thrusts, you can make them do push ups, you can make them do certain things, there are specific time frames that you can have them do those and there’s a whole �Heath, Robert procedure for it right. Now again there’s a lot of ambiguity in the procedure so I don’t want to make it seem like this is what you can do, this is what you can’t do, it’s not like that but it’s one of those things where there’s certain things that you know are acceptable or certain things that you know aren’t acceptable. That line does get blurred and– Or there are people that do things that they think are okay that aren’t okay and etcetera because I’m a lawyer I know how to read the law, they get trained in it by non lawyers and so, you ever played the game of telephone? Exactly, right but at the end of the day they were doing some training and they had been doing it long was the issue and he realized he had been doing it too long and that– So therefore they shouldn’t have done it that way and that was what he admitted to and that was the issue and the reason that it became an issue was because there was a Marine recruit who– And to spare all the details, he had wound up having a heart condition. This was a heart condition and this is the thing that is where the case became really problematic, his staff– My client and his staff were unaware of the heart condition however everybody outside of the platoon was aware of the heart condition, as a matter of fact he had gotten a waiver for the heart condition largely because his father was a sailor, was part of the– And knew how to go around the administrative tape to get him in because he had been denied to get into the Marine Corps and then they had went and went around and he had been approved. (2:11:57) So there was all of this stuff that was going on there and so normal class with normal information if he had known he had somebody with a heart condition or whatever would he have been doing that? Probably not, was it still out of the bounds, should he still not have done it? Yes he still shouldn’t have done it but this is– And this is the reason why we have rules right because you don’t necessarily know everything that can happen if you break the rules but you just need to understand that there’s a rule. That was where his judgment was problematic because if he had stayed within the bounds of what was acceptable then everything would’ve been fine, he stepped outside of the bounds and now you wind up having this kid that has a heart issue that passed out, came back everything was fine he wound up continuing, he didn’t wind up continuing training– He wound up continuing training after that but he wound up falling out because his heart condition was problematic and what it actually did interestingly enough is it put him on the radar screens because, like I said, at the base they didn’t know. So MEPS knew, MEPS is the screening organization for people to come through, MEPS knew but– �Heath, Robert Interviewer: “Boot camp didn’t.” Boot camp didn’t and so now he was on the radar and so now they watched him and they were like “Let’s do some more tests.” And he wound up getting processed out as well because he shouldn’t have been a Marine but he had been able to get through that process, but I say all that to say, again I never want to make any of this sound like these people did the right thing. Right any of my clients that were guilty were guilty, they were guilty of doing something they weren’t supposed to do, they were guilty of breaking the law, they were guilty and they should’ve been in– They should’ve had to deal with that that wasn’t my issue, my issue is always our job is not just judge, jury, and executioner, our job is leaders. We are to lead these Marines and you know there’s a letter that gets read every year from General Lejeune on the Marine Corps birthdays when we do our Marine Corps birthday balls and there’s a part of– And there’s another letter he put in the Marine Corps manual which is an officer training manual where he talked about our job as Marine Corps officers is to send back to society better citizens then they sent to us. Society sends their sons and daughters to us to train and to lead and to take care of and my big thing is when somebody does something they’re not supposed to do and they’re under my command, my job isn’t just to notice that they did something they weren’t supposed to do my job is to make sure that they leave– (2:14:20) If they wind up leaving my command, my job is to make sure that they leave my command a better person then they came to my command as and that’s something that I think a lot of people kind of shrug their shoulders at or abdicate because well we have to keep– Maintain the integrity of the unit, I’m like “Yeah we do.” But those two things are not mutually exclusive, you can take care of the troops and accomplish the mission and that was always my goal in everything I did as a Marine Corps officer. Interviewer: “That’s a good goal. So after that six month stint you processed out right?” Yeah, I finished out so I did six months in legal support and then the last eight months or so in the billet of regional law officer and then I left the Marine Corps in October of 2017. Interviewer: “Was it a difficult transition?” �Heath, Robert Yeah, interestingly enough yes and I think it was difficult for a couple of reasons, number one because I was still– I didn’t want to leave the Marine Corps, there was– And let me rephrase that. I was torn, there was a part of me that wanted to stay, there was a part of me that wanted to deploy like right I joined the Marine Corp, one of the other reasons I joined the Marine Corps was because the Marine Corps was tip of the spear, they were in the areas that we were engaged in. I joined at a time of war intentionally and it wasn’t something where– That was something that I wanted to be part of, I wanted to be part of the groups that went and to be at least supporting those people who were literally going, you know forward deployed, being the tip of the spear and one of the things that I prided myself on as a lawyer and what I wanted to was to be able to be a battalion judge advocate to talk about rules of engagement, talk about how to keep our Marines safe, how to make sure that we can take care of, you know doing our civil duties and following all of the laws and the rules of engagement but also making sure that we bring everybody back. That was an important thing all during my training, that was something that I focused on, really understanding how to have the discussion with people where they didn’t feel– Because there was so many– Like one of the cool things about Marine Corps training is every one of our enlisted advisors, every one of our officer advisors, all of them had been combat veterans they had come back. (2:16:40) You weren’t able to be in the school unless you had been over there and so a lot of the stories and a lot of the things I learned from them was, you know how difficult it was and how upsetting it was when you were in a situation and you didn’t know whether you could shoot, whether you couldn’t shoot, whether you could take care of yourself, whether you could defend yourself or whether you were just really a sitting duck and so something that was important to me and something I really focused on was understanding the rules of engagement and understand the way to teach the Marines and sailors how to keep themselves safe while still following the rules and that was something that I mean whenever I talked to people, whenever I worked with people when we had units that were getting ready to deploy, any of the rest of that, that was something I really prided myself on because a lot of people again feel like you have to toe this line and you gotta– This is how you must do it otherwise you get in trouble and I’m like alright, you’ve heard a lot of people say “Rather be judged by 12 than carried by six.” Right there’s an aspect of it that looks that way but there’s also this area where you have to be able to understand what the law says and what the law is and a lot of times there are people who are explaining the law who are explaining it to keep �Heath, Robert themselves out of trouble, to make sure they don’t get in trouble for saying something and that was something that I took pride on. I was very good at understanding the law, at reading the law right, I graduated from law school with honors, I was a dean’s fellow, I was a pretty good lawyer right, I was– During that period of time my 70% win rate was the highest win rate in the history of Camp Lejeune. So I was proud of what I did and so I wanted to make sure that I was the person that was giving that advice and I was always going to give that advice in a way that was going to keep people safe while they were in country and when they came home. So that was– So to your question that was something that I wanted to do that I didn’t get to do so getting out I was really looking at– This is when me and my wife really started having a lot of conversations because I was looking at going into the reserves, joining a civil affairs group unit, getting cross designated as a CAG officer, I had done the training I already had a seat locked in and my wife came to me and she was like “I’m just now getting my husband back like you can’t be doing this right now.” Cause I was like yeah, you know we’ll get out, I’ll be in the reserves, I’ll get a job but then I’ll be able to deploy because they deploy like every six months or so and so I’ll be able to deploy and she was like “No, like I don’t think you understand this. You just gave me the news that we’re getting out, that I’m gonna have my life back, that I’m actually gonna have my husband at home and now you’re talking about trying to leave again.” (2:19:16) And that was a really tough conversation, that was a really tough time because it was something that I really wanted to do in my Marine Corps career but I could see the pain in her eyes and I could see and hear in her voice like just it wasn’t that she didn’t want me to do it, it was that she really feared what happened and her becoming one of those– Like you talked about your father doing Caico work right? Casualty affairs counselors right and– Interviewer: “No one wants that knock on the door.” Exactly, and for her– This is what I didn’t realize, like I’m a Marine this is– I stood on the yellow footprints, I accept that possibility, for her what she saw was the light at the end of the tunnel where that wasn’t a possibility anymore when we get out and for me I’m like nah we need to make that possibility keep going because I don’t really, you know I don’t believe it’s gonna happen to me anyway like that’s the mentality. You don’t go out there like I think I’m gonna get shot or blown up or whatever and so you know you don’t process it but I could see the fear and �Heath, Robert anxiety that it brought her. So that’s kind of– Transitioning was, that was where the difficulty came in because I still was wanting to stay attached and involved and my wife was in the opposite direction and then also I wasn’t wanting to go and be a lawyer anymore like I’ve been a lawyer for four and a half, five years really and I did work in law school as a lawyer as well so really I’ve been practicing law for five and half, six years, I was– And I didn’t like the process of– For me the problems that I was solving were not actually giving relief to the people that I was solving them for. So it was a criminal law attorney right, like I said, I literally was– Seven out of the 11 people that I defended got their lives back but I couldn’t give them the time back that they had lost. Similarly the people, the other four who got convicted, all but one of them remained Marine Corps– Remained in the Marine Corps because they got convicted of the crime that they had committed, or you know whatever the infraction that they had committed, right but because it was at a criminal court then they were– They were convicted of crime, they could’ve been at NJP or office mass, any of the things that they got convicted for they could’ve been in those forms as well and so we basically got them sentences that were commensurate with that right. We got one with the reprimand, we got another he got reduced in rank one rank and was on restriction for 60 days, the other guy got reduced in rank one rank and was a reprimand, like nothing, nothing crazy but I didn’t have a passion for going out and trying to do legal work, especially for profit and I didn’t want to work in– (2:22:24) I didn’t have the emotional capacity to do any of the non profit work, like I have friends that are public defenders and like their stories are always sad and dejected because again you got people, like we got people that my friends– My wife has friends who, you know they got convicted of doing something that they didn’t do but because you don’t have enough money for bail and you’ll be in jail for two months until your trial, you plead guilty to a lesser charge so you can get back to society and still go to work and keep a roof over your head cause you got kids right and so you get a lot of people that go into the system that way and just different things that, that was something I didn’t want to be involved in and so I started a company, my company Legacy Leadership Consulting to focus on creating more leaders and building and developing more leaders in society, specifically in businesses and one of the reasons I love this focus is because the problems that I’m solving are not only helping today, they’re helping tomorrow. When I teach people and I help them to overcome the obstacles that they have to being a better leader, to manifesting, like I said, the greatness that they have within themselves and also to then teach them how to help the people �Heath, Robert that they lead to do the same. It’s so amazing because I get them past what has been plaguing them and I make their future better and the past is not really anything that we have to be concerned with, and so that has been tremendously, tremendously helpful and I always like to use the old adage right, you give a person a fish you feed them for a day, you teach a person to fish you feed them for a lifetime, and what I do with Legacy Leadership Consulting is taking that even a step further because if you teach a person to teach a person to fish you can feed the whole world, and so a lot of the problems that I saw in education, a lot of the problems that I saw good leaders dealing with in the Marine Corps by really focusing on helping people to be the best leaders that they can be and to develop systems that develop leaders we can solve all those problems because when you create a leader, when you develop a leader you don’t just transform their lives, you transform the lives of everybody that they touch for the rest of their lives. Their families, theirs spouses, their friends, their subordinates, their community because they then shine that light of leadership, they embody good leadership everywhere they go and so people get to see a different style of leadership, they get to see leadership that takes care of the person and accomplishes the mission, and that’s really– That’s the journey that we’re on now and I credit so much to the lessons that I learned in that great leadership academy, the United States Marine Corps. (2:25:13) Interviewer: “So that’s definitely had a huge impact on your life.” Oh yeah, tremendously like I cannot say enough positive about my time in the Marine Corps and how it’s affected me, how it’s affected my family, how it’s affected my outlook, serving with some of the most honorable people that walk the face of the Earth and being able to be part of that organization and the legacy that the Marine Corps has is I’m still always kind of in awe still that I’m a Marine. Interviewer: “Yeah, and once a Marine, always a Marine.” Hoorah. Interviewer: “So just a few more questions to wrap it up.” �Heath, Robert No problem. Interviewer: “I think I already know the answer to this one but I always like to ask it. If you could do it all over again would you, would you change anything?” I wouldn’t change anything, and normally I would say I would change that I would get in younger and do different things but I don’t say that because I know that I wasn’t ready younger. I would’ve washed out, I wouldn’t have been as committed, I wouldn’t have been the person that I was that needed to be– That I needed to be to become a Marine Corps officer if I had done it younger and so I wouldn’t change anything. Interviewer: “Okay, and a question I always love to ask parents. If one of your kids came to you when they were 18 and said “Dad, I want to join the Marines.” What would you say to them?” I would tell them you need to make sure that you’re serious about this and that, you know I’m all for it but you’re gonna– (2:26:42) If you’re gonna join the Marines we’re gonna make sure you’re ready to join the Marines because it’s not just a question of do you want this it’s are you ready for it are you, and I say this in all sincerity I talk to people about the Marine Corps it’s not just a job it’s a lifestyle, it’s a culture, it’s a brotherhood, it’s a sister, it’s a family and it you’re gonna be part of that family understand the role and responsibility. You’re not just taking from that family you are expected to give to that family as well, and are you ready to give what is necessary to give, and if they’re there then I’m all for it. I think the Marine Corps is a great organization I think that– I’m one of those people that’s a proponent for mandatory national service so I think that everybody should have to, at some point in time between the time that they’re 18 or 24, give two years of their life to something that is bigger than them, doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be a service member, you know like we’ve got people who can’t do it physically I understand that but in some sort of form or fashion that you are doing something and operating in service to something greater than yourself because what it shows you and what it teaches you about who you are, about how your role interacts with the rest of society �Heath, Robert and about the inter-connectedness and the interdependence of society I think is really important so I’m a big proponent of national service in general, so if my kids wanted to go and serve in the military, I’m all for it. Interviewer: “Alright, anything else you want to talk about?” I mean I just really appreciate the opportunity to do this and what you all do with the project here I think is phenomenal and so thank you for inviting me to come and speak about my story and to all of the veterans out there especially those of you, all that have served in– The veteran of foreign wars and the veterans who have served overseas, just thank you for the legacy that you leave and I’m so proud and humbled to be part of that organization, so thank you tremendously. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HeathR2334V Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Heath, Robert Sr. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-08 Title A name given to the resource Heath, Robert (Interview transcript and video), 2019 Description An account of the resource Robert Heath Sr. was born on September 18, 1979 in Chicago, Illinois. While living in Germany as a ‘Military Brat,’ Heath enjoyed life in Hamburg while his father worked for the Army as a supply route manager. After high school, he attended the University of Illinois where he graduated in 2001 with degrees in economics and speech communications. He joined the Marine Corps at age twenty-seven and slowly worked his way into the Officer Candidate School by 2009. While he was attending the University of Illinois Law School, Heath simultaneously worked in Quantico, Virginia, as the lawyer for the base. After graduating OCS and all additional military legal courses, Heath was stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Over his career, Heath advised over 200 cases, taking on seventy of which twenty-five were job hearings, thirty criminal cases, and only took eleven of those to trial. Heath then served as Company Commander for B Company, Headquarters and Support Battalion, Marine Corps Installations out of Camp Lejeune from June of 2015 to July of 2016. He and his five staff members directly administered the Combat Camera Marines, Communications Marines, FSMAO (military supply) Marines, Explosive Ordnance Demolition Marines, MISO (administrative) Marines, Food Service Marines, DMO (transportation management) Marines, and several other smaller sections. By 2015, Heath held the rank of Captain since he graduated from Naval Justice School. He was later given the opportunity to rank up to Major in the Marine Reserves, but ultimately decided to leave the service due to family concerns since his wife was constantly worried about the possibility of his deployment and separation from the family. His final high-profile court case sent him back to Quantico where he worked one of the less severe Parris Island cases. Heath officially left the service in October of 2017 and found the transition back into civilian life difficult since he deeply missed the service and eventually wanted to deploy with the Corps. However, his wife ultimately persuaded him to choose family over service. He then started his own firm, Legacy Leadership Consulting. Reflecting upon his service in the Corps, Heath firmly believed great leadership takes care of both the individual and the mission at hand. He also believed that, in order to become a good Marine, one must be willing to commit as well as prepare themselves for challenge and a change in lifestyle. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States—History, Military Veterans Video recordings Other veterans & civilians—Personal narratives, American Vietnam War, 1961-1975—Personal narratives, American Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401. Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fd3e1a45c5ccdee19a20297a00082140.mp3 7ab1e0fe1367b6447a45ff865e14d25d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Advent II Scripture Text Matthew 25:32, Revelations 21:3 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19851208 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-12-08 Title A name given to the resource Heaven and Hell: The Double Image of the Future Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 8, 1985 entitled "Heaven and Hell: The Double Image of the Future", on the occasion of Advent II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Matthew 25:32, Revelations 21:3. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3c646fcf613a459915d484666e40ba74.jpg 5afe097baf0d1c4e65ad027683fa7988 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Temple B'nai Israel Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Temple B'nai Israel (Muskegon, Mich.) Description An account of the resource Collection of photographs, scrapbooks, programs, minutes, and other records of the Temple B'nai Israel in Muskegon, Michigan. The collection was created as part of the L'dor V'dor project directed by Dr. Marilyn Preston, and was supported by grants from the Kutsche Office of Local History and Michigan Humanities Council. Original materials were digitized by the University Libraries and returned to the synagogue. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Digital objects were contributed by Temple B'nai Israel as part of the L'dor V'dor project. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Jews--United States Muskegon (Mich.) Scrapbooks Synagogues Women--Societies and clubs Minutes (Records) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Preston, Marilyn Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Relation A related resource L'dor V'dor (project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-08 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Image Text Type The nature or genre of the resource image/jpeg application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Circa 1920s-2018 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-08_Hebrew-School-Class Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource B'nai Israel Temple Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1950 Title A name given to the resource Hebrew School Class Description An account of the resource Photograph of Hebrew School students sitting around a table with open books while the teacher stands at the head of the table in front of a chalk board, circa 1950s. Subject The topic of the resource Jews--United States Muskegon (Mich.) Jewish religious schools Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Digital file contributed by the B'nai Israel Temple as part of the L'dor V'dor project. Relation A related resource L'dor V'dor (project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/21a1278bf215d62259c8e96f22517e8d.jpg 1bc8f21122cb8fc19a82819d0d7e7974 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HechtJoyce Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Hecht, Joyce Description An account of the resource Joyce Hecht, Development Director Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1b84852d72fa340d6d47d6b4f54160c6.mp4 ceb5bb49a1869e6c14db2dd07a81e414 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2eec87443ff48dbe5c96cf44c77c720b.pdf 0fb38c81bbdec31aa6a54cd8fe5a3d95 PDF Text Text Hedrick, John Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: Cold War Interviewee’s Name: John Hedrick Length of Interview: (52:36) Interviewed by: James Smither Transcribed by: Maluhia Buhlman Interviewer: “We are talking today with John Hedrick of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the interviewer is James Smither of the Grand Valley State Veterans History Project. Okay, John start us off with some background on yourself and to begin with, where and when were you born?” Well I was born in Wichita, Kansas, but I grew up in Newton, Kansas which is 18 miles north of Wichita. Interviewer: “What year were you born?” 1930 Interviewer: “Okay you grew up in Newton, and what did your family do for a living when you were growing up?” My grandfather was an inventor, and he had I think 17 basic patents on various devices for poultry, and hogs, and farm products in other words. And so we sold, our big item was cardboard baby chick feeders, because during the war steel was not available for the feeders and so the cardboard, we sold over a million one year, which is a lot, lot of cardboard. But they were, this was made for us or the feeders were made in Saint Joe, Michigan, by a paper box company and I �Hedrick, John worked after school, folding and mailing $1 orders for baby chick feeders. We’d sell four for a dollar, and that would feed a hundred little baby chicks during their gestation period. So my dad was into businessInterviewer: “Just to back up a little bit, so you’re born in 1930 and that’s during the depression-” Yes Interviewer: “Now in the 30’s were you living with your grandfather as well as with- or how did that work?” Yeah good question, we moved in with my grandparents in about 1929, about a year before I was born and I remember, I have a brother who’s six years older and he recalls the phone ringing at two o’clock in the morning, and Grandad answered it and then he said “Mercy! Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!” He got off the phone and said “Florence has had twins” so I had a twin sister. We lived with my grandparents for probably close to a year, and then bought a house in Newton and lived there the rest of our lives. Interviewer: “So basically the inventing business it went well enough that they could support the family during the 30’s” Yeah, very well, very very well. Interviewer: “Alright, now do you remember hearing about Pearl Harbor?” (2:57) Oh yes. Interviewer: “How did you learn about that?” �Hedrick, John Heard it on the radio, of course everything was radio in those days but yeah that was a pretty dramatic time. Probably didn't realize the full impact of that attack that it would lead right into war, but certainly remember it. Interviewer: “Now did the oncoming of the war, I mean it generated more business, but otherwise did that change the way of life in Newton or did things stay pretty much the same when you were growing up?” A lot of young men were called into service, in ‘41 I was only eleven so I had to wait until I actually went to college and graduated from college, and then went into the navy. Interviewer: “Where did you go to college?” University of Kansas, Jayhawk! Interviewer: “Now land grant schools had an ROTC requirement, so Kansas State had one. Did you do ROTC at Kansas or did you just decide to volunteer after you finished?” That’s exactly right, they had ROTC but I didn’t join it at Kansas. Seven of us, from our fraternity went over to Kansas City, we had heard that they had reopened the naval officer procurement. The OCS school, 16 weeks of school to get an officer, become an officer, so seven of us went over and applied, all passed, all went back to Newport, Rhode Island. Interviewer: “Now what year was that, that you did this?” ‘52 Interviewer: “Ok so the Korean war was on at this time?” I apologize Jim, that was ‘51, yeah the Korean war was pretty hot at that time. I was number one on the draft list so Carrie Nation was our draft officer, and I said “Well what do I do?” and she �Hedrick, John said, “Well you better enlist or I’ll have to pull you into the army” I said “Okay, I’ll enlist” So I enlisted in the navy and went back to San Diego for boot camp for about seven weeks, awaiting orders to go to Newport, Rhode Island where the school was. Interviewer: “Alright, talk about boot camp what did you do there?” A whole lot of exercises, it was a great experience really because I learned a lot of fundamental things about naval protocol and it stood me in very good stead for becoming an officer. Interviewer: “When you were doing your boot camp the unit you were training with, were you all officer candidates or were you in with the ordinary guys?” No, in with ordinary guys. I remember one young man came from Arkansas, didn’t have a suitcase, didn’t have anything, didn’t have a toothbrush. And he just arrived so they gave him a toothbrush and cut his hair, and fixed his teeth, he had terrible dental problems. But that was typical, we had an awful lot of, you know, young men from the hinterlands at boot camp. Interviewer: “Were there any black recruits in that class, or were you all white?” (6:22) Jim, that’s a wonderful question. We had no blacks in our squadron, and I was, they made me squadron commander because I had a college degree. Later on, on ship of course we had blacks, and I became good friends with a lot of them. But not withInterviewer: “But not with the training group?” Not in the boot camp. Interviewer: “The military was still sort of transitioning into being integrated, the order came out a few years earlier, Truman had desegregated the military officially but it took a while for that to kind of filter through.” �Hedrick, John It sure did. Interviewer: “Okay so you do your seven weeks of boot camp, and then Newport, Rhode Island is the next stop?” Yes Interviewer: “Okay what do you do there?” 16 weeks of very intense schooling and training, we studied the, all of the naval information that people at- Oh I’m trying to think here, oh shoot what’s the school, the navy school, Annapolis! We studied the same curriculum in 16 weeks that they studied in four years, as far as the navy’s concerned, so it was very intense and a great experience. Interviewer: “And what time of year were you there?” March. Interviewer: “Okay that could be interesting in Rhode Island.” Yeah we had some snow, but we graduated in… let’s see March, April, May, 16 weeks would be June Interviewer: “Now, how easy or hard was it for you to adjust to being in the military? Did you adapt to military life quickly or was it a challenge?” (8:40) No, I think I adapted very quickly. I tell you, living in a fraternity at Kansas was a good background for going into the military because I’d learned to live with other guys and sleep in dorms, that sort of thing. So it was a good background. �Hedrick, John Interviewer: “What kinds of people were training you at Newport, were these old veterans or?” Mostly Navy chiefs. Yeah older guys, they seemed older at the time they were probably in their late 20’s, early 30’s, but we had wonderful training. Gosh, I just really treasure what we learned back there. Interviewer: “Now once you complete this what do they do with you?” When I graduated from OCS they assigned me to the AGC 12, the USS Estes, which is an amphibious group command ship and it was based in the Pacific. I requested Pacific duty so I got the AGC. Interviewer: “Describe the AGC as a ship, how big is it? What does it look like?” 368 feet long, 60 feet wide, it's a converted A.P.A which is a cargo ship or troop carrying. They made me assistant gunnery officer, we only had one gunman on this ship, and assistant navigator, and the first thing we did when I went aboard I said “What’s up?” and they said “Well we’re going out to Eniwetok” for some kind of a bomb test, and none of us knew very much about it at the time. It was really top secret, we were in a race with Russia in the Cold War. So we went out to Eniwetok, we sit in the atoll for about six weeks, I went scuba diving and snorkeling everyday, waiting for the scientific test of the H-bomb. The morning of the test we were 38 miles upwind from the bomb site which was in a shack on an island [unintelligble] or something like that was a weird name, which ceased to exist after the test, the island just disappeared. [Note: Bombs were tested on the islets of Bokonijien, Aerokojlil and Namu. The Namu bomb was tested on the surface, but the island was large enough that it was not obliterated. The Namu test was later than the other two, one of which detonated in the air and the other underwater, and these are likely the ones he is referring to.] Interviewer: “So this is a coral atoll so this is a bunch of small islets and kind of a ring around it.” �Hedrick, John Exactly. Interviewer: “So this is on one of them so it didn’t destroy the entire atoll, but it blew up that island.” Oh no. It blew up that island right, because the atoll is made up of all coral reefs and islands periodically. Interviewer: “Now when they actually set off the bomb, do they allow people to watch it, or do you have to look in a different direction while the blast happens or?” I had to look in a different direction, I was assistant navigator on that AGC so I was up on the bridge, but they didn’t have enough high density goggles to give me a pair. So I had to stand there with my head in my elbow, until they said you can look now. It was incredible the fireball went 50,000 feet high and it was a mile wide, three times as hot as the center of the sun, and it literally vaporized everything for one mile of width and 175 feet of depth. Which, you know, if we took right here that would be almost to Burton Street, on the north, and Division on the west. So that’s how big the fireball was, just gigantic it was much larger than they anticipated. Actually tested out they wanted about six or seven megatons of explosive, they got about 13 megatons. Interviewer: “Was this the first hydrogen bomb test?” (13:26) Yes. Interviewer: “So they really didn’t know what was going to happen” Absolutely not. It was all calculated, I don’t wanna say guesswork but it was, some of their instruments were actually destroyed by the severity of the blast. �Hedrick, John Interviewer: “Did you feel the shock itself when the bomb went off?” No. Interviewer: “Did the water absorb that or?” Probably Jim about two minutes after the thing went off a shock wave came across the surface, but it was very mild by then. 38 miles you know, it had dissipated a whole lot thank goodness. Interviewer: “Alright, so you join the navy and walk into a little piece of history right away” Oh, it was amazing. Then a week later, they set off a smaller nuclear bomb, only about two miles from us and that really rocked the ship and did some damage and got us quite a few roentgens of, what do we call that? Interviewer: “Radiation” Radiation, that’s correct. Interviewer: “So why were they doing that?” They detonated the hydrogen bomb, with a small nuclear bomb, they needed the nuclear bomb to get hot enough to detonate the nitrogen, so they were experimenting. It wasn’t that big of a gamble I guess, they kind of knew what they had. Interviewer: “But, so it sounds like it was bigger than it should’ve been if you were that close to it. Or in those days did they just not think that much about safety?” We didn’t, nuh-uh I remember seeing the plane and hearing bombs away and watching, and watching, and suddenly the thing exploded probably 2000 feet up in the air. Showered us with a �Hedrick, John lot of radiation and broke some antennas and that kind of surface damage. One young man, unfortunately, was going through a hatch when the thing went off and the hatch broke his arm, slammed it shut, but that was a fascinating experience. Here I was just a green young ensign, but got to be up on the bridge with officers and congressmen, generals. We had a real entourage of people out there to observe that test. Interviewer: “Now what did the- How long did you stay on that ship?” (16:32) Well that’s a good question, from there we went right back to Mare Island, which is just north of San Francisco, it’s a big Navy shipyard to repair some of the damage that had been done to the ship and we got involved with some Stanford girls and one of our, one of my shipmates lined up these girls that take us skiing at Squaw Valley. One of the girls’ folks had a cottage up there, so I learned to ski rudimentary. I'm very- from being from Kansas we didn’t have any hills in Kansas but it was a great experience. We would go almost every weekend, go up and ski and then I got emergency orders to report to the LST 914, which was down in Long Beach, California. Interviewer: “Okay, so roughly when was it that you changed ships?” In January of ‘52, yeah ‘52 Interviewer: “So how long in total were you with your first ship, was that just a few months then?” Yeah less than a year, about nine months. Interviewer: “Alright but before we move onto the LST let’s talk a little bit more about life on an AGC. What was- When you were out at sea what was the daily routine?” Well I was assistant gunnery officer and assistant officer of the deck or first lieutenant, which is in charge of the deck and the painting and all of those things. And it was really a good experience, I had a division of workers that I was supervising, and we played a lot of bridge and �Hedrick, John had a lot of fun on that ship. Interviewer: “Were there rules about the kinds of interactions you could have between officers and enlisted?” Not really. Interviewer: “So you could play bridge with enlisted personnel?” Didn’t matter no, I played with the dentist and the navigator and another guy. Interviewer: “Alright, so the officers on some level will still sort of stay together.” Yeah, we had a boardroom where we ate and kind of lounged. No we didn’t have a lot of contact other than, once you got out of the boardroom and out on the ship, then you had a lot of contact. Interviewer: “Okay you had mentioned before you had black sailors in the crew, did you have black sailors doing anything other than working as cooks or stewards?” (19:30) We had a couple in our deck game doing chipping, and painting, and so forth. We had a couple in the kitchen as we call it, we had one, in our little ward room which was where our officers hang out. We had one assigned to us daily, to prepare meals and serve us and do all of that. So it was a good experience. Interviewer: “So that was the traditional role for black sailors but the ones who were in the deck gang, that was actually something relatively new.” Yeah, it was. We had one by the name of Sap S.A.P, who I always say he looked like Stepin Fetchit, real loose limbed. We had a collision with another ship, and the bow of that ship penetrated ours, came right into the guy- the head as we call it, the bathroom and Sap had just gone off duty and was sitting on the john when the bow of that ship came, penetrated broke a �Hedrick, John steam line- now I betcha he’s still telling that story today. Yeah he’s a great, great guy. Interviewer: “Alright what kind of a, what was the work routine for you in terms of how long do shifts last, or when are you on or off duty?” Yeah I stood watches as an officer of the deck, we had six officers so we rotated. Stood watch about every two days, would stand for four hours, and of course we were there all through the night. During the day just kind of supervised the deck gang, and then our executive officer who was a full lieutenant left the ship, and they made me the executive officer. Which was wonderful because then I stood no watches of any kind. It really was a great experience. Interviewer: “Did the, did that ship have any other missions or things that it did while you were on except the trip to Eniwetok?” (22:15) Yeah, we would go out on training cruises, do mock invasions, go up and hit the beach and open our bow doors and lower the ramp. The protocol for that as you went into the beach was to drop the stern anchor, which you could then use to help pull you off of the beach. Interviewer: “Now did the AGC have doors in front of it like an LST or a ramp that came down?” No, the AGC was just a ship. Interviewer: “Okay so you would stay off shore-” I’m on the LST now. Interviewer: “Okay I was still asking about the AGC.” Oh, I’m sorry Jim. �Hedrick, John Interviewer: “While you were on it because we could cover that then move onto life on the LST. Okay so with the AGC, now the AGC was a command ship for amphibious operations?” That is correct. Interviewer: “Now while you’re with the AGC did you do any exercises, or was the only thing you did with them was go to Eniwetok and then come back?” That was basically it, because by the time we got there we were out there about three months, came back in the shipyard and I left the AGC while it was still in the shipyard. Interviewer: “Right now that gets us- where was the LST when you joined it?” It was at Long Beach, California when I went down there, then they sent me right to San Diego, to a couple of schools really. One was on ice navigation, what do you do when you’re in the ice because we were going to the arctic for a resupply expedition of the dew line defense bases, all around the northern coast of Alaska and clear over into Canada. But we were in the ice for 17 days, as I mentioned they had reinforced our bow doors and the stern so we could actually push the ice. We operated with two ice breakers, the Burton sounds and…can’t even think of the name of the other one, but they were our protection in case we got in real trouble. North wind was the other one. Interviewer: “Now when they put you on the LST, I mean what is your assignment on that, what’s your job?” First lieutenant, which means I was in charge of the whole deck force, also navigator. Interviewer: “And how many officers did they have on an LST?” Six officers, 120 men. �Hedrick, John Interviewer: “So you talked about getting ice training, what did that involve?” Really very very little, we were testing some foul weather gear because Korea was still on at the time, and we had a lot of suffering in Korea from the freezing, so we were testing alpaca lined coats, and that was about it. It was a very easy duty, just sailed up, stopped at Port Hueneme, stopped in Seattle to take on supplies and then went up to the arctic, Point Barrow. And who is at Point Barrow? The USS Estes was waiting there in charge of that group. Interviewer: “Alright so your old ship was up there waiting for you” (26:06) My old ship was there, yep. Interviewer: “Okay, now I guess describe a little bit, you’re up there the resupply missions, how does that work or what do you do?” Well, basically we took on about 50 stevedores at Port Hueneme and they rode up with us into the arctic, and they basically did the unloading of everything at the sight of a new dew line base. We carried a high octane fuel, a lot of electronic gear, our main deck was just covered with supplies for that. We were on the beach as it is, we roll up to the beach and open the bow doors and lower the ramp, and then they took the supplies out through the tank deck and left them there. We were, I think, three or four days during the unloading process, had a lot of stuff to unload. Interviewer: “So how do you spend your time, all that’s going on?” Fishing, I did an awful lot of fishing and hunting when I grew up in Kansas, and I had a fly rod I probably hiked up about a mile on this little stream, and never caught a fish. Never saw one, got back to the ship and they said “Boy you should see the fish those guys caught out in the bay!” Big silver fish, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. My dad had given me about a dozen rolls of film, he was quite a photographer, and I took a lot of pictures. Got home, had them developed, didn’t have single picture, the film was all out of date. A bad experience because I really had some �Hedrick, John treasures as far as photography. We saw a herd of caribou, probably a thousand caribou in this big herd. We watched them and I photographed them you know, I was really excited to get home and show everyone those, but not to be. Interviewer: “Were there any people up there?” Yes, we pulled up to this one site and pulled up to the beach, didn’t open our bow doors or lower the ramp, we just sort of sit there on the sand, and there was probably a 25, 30 foot high cliff right in front of us. So cliff and then down to the water. There were dozens of dogs lining the bank up on there, which was pretty exciting. We didn’t want any part of those dogs, so we ultimately backed off and went down to our site. That was the Eskimo village, we were on the north shore of Alaska at that time. We got as far east as the Mackenzie River, which would have been in Canada rather than Alaska, so we went around quite a ways. Interviewer: “So you’re part way through the north-west passage” (29:58) Yes we were. Yeah that was a fascinating experience to go up there, I really treasure my time. Interviewer: “Now once that mission is complete, what do you do next?” Went back down to San Diego for a little R&R, and then went to Japan and spent a year out in Japan. Interviewer: “Alright, now where were you based in Japan?” Yokosuka. Interviewer: “It’s a major naval base, is that Tokyo Bay or that area?” That is correct. That’s exactly right, I was navigator and it took us 32 days to get there, but we hit Tokyo Bay right on the nose. �Hedrick, John Interviewer: “So did you spend- Did you stay on the ship, did you go ashore much? What did you do in Japan?” Well I went ashore, I took two automobiles, took a Chevy and a Ford out to Japan aboard the ship. Sold the Chevy the day after we got there for exactly double what I paid for it in San Diego. I was gonna sell the ford and then I thought “No, I’ll do some driving” so I drove over 2000 miles, in Japan over the period of the next ten or eleven months. Interviewer: “Alright so where did you go, what did you see?” A whole lot, went up to Mount Fuji, went down the coast to Nagoya which is the big pottery place. I was, I had my shotgun with me as well as my fishing tackle so I went out pheasant hunting. I didn’t get one but I saw an old Japanese guy with a shotgun and he got one. But it was fun, I went out into the countryside which I would never had had a chance to do if I would not have had the car. Interviewer: “Now do the Japanese drive on the wrong side of the road?” (32:20) Yes. Oh sure, and that’s an exercise to reorient your thinking, particularly when you’re making a left turn or a right turn, that’s where you get disoriented. Interviewer: “Did you hit anything?” Never did, no. Interviewer: “Okay now what kind of condition was Japan in? Towns, countryside, X number of years after the war.” Well that would have been in ‘54, so nine years after the war. Yokohama was still devastated, awful lot of rubble, and they just hadn’t rebuilt it in nine years. Tokyo, pretty decent shape. It �Hedrick, John was, the attitude of the Japanese towards us, it was just remarkable. They were extremely warm and friendly, and just couldn’t have been better. I learned a little Japanese, enough to be gracious. That was a great experience. Interviewer: “So how much time did you spend in port as opposed to being out at sea during that year?” We probably spent about 80% of our time in port, we did a couple of operations. One was down right at the foot of Mount Fuji, did a mock invasion there we had Marines on board, and did a mock landing and mock invasion there. Which was very interesting, we were pulled in there when it was dark, and then watched the sun hit the top of Mount Fuji, and then work its way down, down the mountainside. It was just a beautiful sight so that was very special. Interviewer: “Now when you’re an officer on a ship like that, I mean do officers have to do shore patrol or are they responsible for men who go ashore and get in trouble, or do the officers do that? No we didn’t do any of that, later on in the reserves I acted as a shore patrol in Jamaica, that was interesting, but we didn’t do any of that type of thing. Interviewer: “Alright now if you’re spending a lot of time in port in a place like Japan and have a bunch of 19, 20 year old guys aboard, did some of them get in trouble while you were there or was everyone well behaved?” Some of them got in trouble. Our captain required every returning sailor to take a penicillin, he said “I don’t want any VD on our ship” He was quite a guy, our skipper, hopeless alcoholic, but a great ship handler and became a good friend. Interviewer: “Was he a World War II veteran?” Yes, yeah he was and, Lou Stilwell… often thought of him, he was married and had a nice wife, �Hedrick, John he’d been in about 20 years at that time. Interviewer: “So then, do you know what he did during the war or did he not tell you that?” You know I don’t have any idea, I should know but I don’t. Interviewer: “Alright now when you did go to sea was it just for training exercises like that invasion or did you transport things back and forth?” No, we had two different operations, one was the Mount Fuji experience. The other one was we were down on the inland sea of Japan, which is a very interesting and beautiful area, we went down there and went to a town called Kure, which no one’s heard of. When we left there we went up to Buckner Bay, for the invasion…come on Interviewer: “Okinawa” Okinawa that’s exactly right Jim thank you. We were a steaming darkened ship so no lights, no transmissions I mean really just trying to be stealthy, we were with six other LST’s and our squadron commander issued an order to turn “Abel, Oval, Zulu” and that’s a shackle code which they change every day. So our first lieutenant looked it up and said “Well that’s turning zero, zero, one” or turning just one degree, and none of us gave it a thought but the first letter of the alpha was not a one, it was a nine. So we really should’ve turned 90 degrees, and the LST that was on our port stern, broadsided us. That’s where Sap got involved with his famous incident, but we took on quite a bit of water and we limped all the way back to Japan to Yokosuka to a shipyard there and got patched up, but that was an interesting experience. The bow where there, the bow of that LST came in was through the stateroom behind mine, and that particular officer had come off duty and he was not in his stateroom at the time or he could have really been seriously injured because it went right through his bunk. But we got patched up enough we could limp back to Japan and spent about six weeks in the shipyard. �Hedrick, John Interviewer: “Alright now on the different ships that you’re with when you’re out to sea, did you ever get into any bad storms or anything like that or was the weather always okay?” We never had a typhoon, it really was alright for us. We hit- the worst weather we ever hit was in the Farallones, which is water just north of San Francisco. There we broke our bow, our deck, main deck. We spent about 24 hours going three miles at flank speed, as fast as we could go, and we couldn’t move. The winds were so strong they just held us stationary, but nothing out in the Pacific we were very fortunate. Interviewer: “Alright so when does the visit to Japan end?” When does what? Interviewer: “When do you finish in Japan?” Finished in Japan in 1955. Interviewer: “Was that sort of the end of your enlistment at that point?” (40:47) It really was, yeah in fact I had a date. Yeah we were in Japan from ‘54 to ‘55 got back to San Diego and I was discharged in March of ‘55. Interviewer: “Okay now did they make an effort to encourage you to reenlist?” Oh yes, oh sure. Interviewer: “Well what do they offer?” I was very very tempted, I love the Navy, enjoyed every minute of that experience. They didn’t offer really any incentives other than “hey it’s a great life and stay with it” but right about that time I met and then married a girl in San Diego. Bad mistake- so that made the decision easy as �Hedrick, John far as not staying in the Navy. Her father was a career naval officer and she never saw him, you know for years it seemed, one or two months of the year, and she said “I don’t want that kind of a life” and I didn’t either at that point. Interviewer: “Okay now did you go find a job someplace or what did you do once you got out?” Went back to Newton, Kansas, joined my brother who was in the oil business with his father-inlaw, and we spent, I spent just about six months there, where my wife had her first child. And then left my brother, just wasn’t enough room for three of us in that business, so then I moved up to Kansas City and joined the Marley Cooling Tower company. A water cooling towers have you ever heard of them? Interviewer: “No.” You remember Three Mile island? Those were Marley towers. Interviewer: “Oh okay so cooling towers for nuclear reactors.” Before any process that generated heat they would cool with water, and then we would cool the water enough that it could be recirculated rather than wasted. We were basically water conservation devices. Interviewer: “How long did you stay with them?” About 20 years, I thought I’d be with them my whole career but just wasn’t. Interviewer: “Did they run out, did they go out of business or did you just move on?” I moved on. I moved, we moved from Kansas City where Marley headquartered, I got orders to go to our Chicago office as a salesman, which is a good deal because that’s where the money �Hedrick, John was, was in sales. So it worked out very well, but it also meant I moved to Chicago from Kansas City, which we loved Kansas City. It was a tough move, but then I spent 13 years in Chicago, and then was going through a divorce, and came to Grand Rapids one night to have dinner with our distributor and met my wife. Just instant, instant chemistry it was really really amazing, so I’ve been in Grand Rapids ever since. Still representing Marley, we got into the- I started my own company and we got into the computer room, air conditioning, and cabling business along with the cooling towers. Two very diverse products but both very successful, so I was really blessed. Interviewer: “Now to look back at the time you spent in the Navy, what do you think you took out of that or how did that affect you?” (45:13) I matured a whole lot, I was kind of a wiseass I guess, smart aleck. I was always very young for my class and age, went to school when I was four and graduated when I was 19. So I just wasn’t real mature, and I think I compensated for that by, you know trying to be kind of a smart aleck. So I felt that the navy really was a time of maturing for me. Interviewer: “Okay well did you take the smart aleck thing with you into bootcamp? I mean did you act like that-” Probably not, I don’t recall that at all, because I was trying to earn some respect at that time, and I was an older person coming out of college. Interviewer: “That’s true, so by then you kind of figured out okay I have to do things differently” Yup, that’s right, take some responsibility. Interviewer: “Okay now to think back at the, about the time you spent in the Navy, are there other particular memories that stand out for you that you haven’t brought into the story yet, or anything you’ve got in your notes that we haven’t covered.” �Hedrick, John Yeah my reserve time. Interviewer: “Oh okay yes let’s talk about that.” I went into the reserves as soon as I graduated, or was discharged, went to a naval reserve battalion down in Wichita, Kansas, moved back to Newton in the oil business, went to Wichita when I moved to Kansas City then I transferred to a reserve base up there. I was there for six years came to, well let me think, yeah boy I’m fumbling. Wichita, Kansas City, in Chicago! Yeah, when I was in Chicago we cruised, went to a drill once a month, at the foot of Randolph street in the naval armory, and then went out for two weeks active duty for training, every year on different ships. So I was on carriers and cruisers, just all kinds of ships, great experiences. Interviewer: “Now you were in the reserves throughout the Vietnam era.” Yes. Interviewer: “Was there ever any of being called up?” Not really, nope. I felt very secure during that time. Interviewer: “Were there people in the naval reserve at that point, who were younger ones who were there to stay out of Vietnam that you noticed? It’s a standard dodge that people would have to avoid the draft if they could get into a reserve unit or a guard unit, then they wouldn’t go.” Jim I suppose there was some of that I wasn’t really aware of it but I’m sure there was some draft dodging. Yeah, bad time during it. Interviewer: “Okay now, which of the through your training stints kind of stand out for you, because you mentioned going to Jamaica once?” �Hedrick, John Yeah, that was a wonderful trip. We picked up a ship in New Orleans, and then took it to Jamaica and spent a week there, and then back to New Orleans again. Had some very interesting cruises, several of them were off San Diego because of my wife and being from San Diego she wanted to be out near her folks and take the kids out there, but those were great experiences, and our company had to give me the time off, that was a requirement. So I had kind of double vacation, it was a good experience. I probably took a dozen different active duty for training cruises, all of them different, all of them fun. Several in the San Diego area, New Orleans to Jamaica, that was a highlight. Interviewer: “Were they all working out of ports in the U.S?” (50:08) Yes. Interviewer: “Okay so they didn’t send you to the Mediterranean or something like that.” No, no they were all out of the U.S, and we really didn’t have much to do on those cruises, I’m- I can express disappointment at our lack of creating valuable time or using the time well. It was just kind of a vacation. Interviewer: “Alright, well I think that then probably finishes out the story here.” Yeah, kind of brings us up to date. When I married Birdie, my wife in ‘74 and moved from Chicago to Grand Rapids, then I dropped out of the reserves. I just felt like I had had enough, by then I was a full commander, and the jobs were very limited so I decided to get out of the Navy. Interviewer: “Okay, well alright makes for a good story so thanks for taking the time to share it.” Oh you’re welcome, I have made a calculation this morning just for the heck of it, of how much I’ve made in the reserves, and when I first joined the reserves it was partly because I just needed �Hedrick, John the money badly. We got one full day’s pay for every drill you attended, every reserve drill, but I figured that I had 18 years of that reserve at about $700 a month, that was for the cruisers about $700, and then I had, I’ve had a total of 52 years of Navy retirement. At about $1200 a month so that’s another $81,000 so it’s been very, very attractive and rewarding. Interviewer: “Alright well we won’t tell the budget hawks then that we’re spending all his money on you.” Alright well I appreciate it Jim, very much. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HedrickJ2102V Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hedrick, John Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-02 Title A name given to the resource Hedrick, John (Interview transcript and video), 2017 Description An account of the resource John Hedrick was born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1930. In 1951, he applied and was accepted into the Navy’s Naval Officer Procurement program, which would lead to him becoming an officer. He received basic training in San Diego, California, then reported to Newport, Rhode Island for officer training. He was commissioned in June 1952 and reported to the USS Estes (AGC-12). While aboard the Estes, he witnessed Operation Ivy nuclear tests at Eniwetok, specifically the testing of the first hydrogen bomb in November 1952 and the subsequent test of a smaller nuclear bomb. John was then reassigned to the USS Mahoning County (LST-914), most likely sometime in the spring of 1953. Aboard that ship he went up to Alaska for a resupply mission of bases on the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line. In 1954, he was stationed in Yokosuka, Japan, and left Japan in early 1955. He was discharged in San Diego in March 1955. He joined the Navy Reserve and served with units in Newton, Kansas, Kansas City, and Chicago until he retired in 1974 as a commander. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States—History, Military Veterans Video recordings Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401. Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c56fed701a4e518244923acf859564e1.pdf 19d8274fc7783db246a8a40d493b07c6 PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Herbert Hefferan Interviewed on November 10, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape #37 (55:16) Biographical Information Herbert Hefferan was born 16 January 1875 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of Edward and Ellen (Laughlin) Hefferan. Edward was born in Michigan about 1842 and died in Grand Rapids on 1 January 1900 at the Kent County Jail. Ellen died 22 May 1903 at the family home on Quimby Street in Grand Rapids. Both Edward and Ellen are buried in St. Andrews Cemetery. Herbert died March 1972 at Blodgett Hospital and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery. ___________ Interviewer: Alright. I suppose… Herbert: You will want to know my age first wouldn‟t you?. Interviewer: Yes, go ahead, how old are you? Herbert: I‟m ninety-six and a half. Interviewer: Yes. Herbert: I am the oldest man here. Interviewer: Were your born in Grand Rapids? Herbert: Yes, I was born on Monroe Avenue, two blocks north of the Pantlind Hotel, it was Canal Street then, only across the road, across the road from… it was called Canal Street. Interviewer: Were (there) homes down there? Herbert: No, there were buildings. Same buildings were up until they tore them all down. It was the Crisp(?) Block, I was in the Crisp(?) Block. Now I am thinking about that, that took place, we lived on the third floor, a tenant that lived on the second floor, a store on the first floor and in the basement where my father ran a saloon. Interviewer: Hmmm. Herbert: My father had, a man had a fight with a woman and he killed another man but not in my father‟s saloon, up on the street. And the man run across the road and ran upstairs to the hallway to the top of the third floor and hid behind a chimney. Well, they put my father who was six foot �2 one and a half weighed one hundred ninety-five pounds, they put him watching down the stairs. But he didn‟t have no gun, and this fellow on the roof had a gun, so my father wouldn‟t stay any longer, so he beat it. And ever afterwards, we would jolly him about it. We used to buy ten cents worth of peanuts and Mother, I, Father and all would go down and sit in this hallway and we‟d all kid him about running away. And here is the funny part of it, twenty-five years later I come down in an electric car and Joe Smith, do you remember Joe Smith?, [He] and [Dad] were [the] only two detectives and Joe Smith was standing in front of this same hallway when I got off this electric car. I lived up on the north end on Quimby Street came down on the car and I got off there and here was Joe Smith and he had a gun out and putting cartridges into it. I said, ”What‟s the matter Joe, what happened?” Well you know Lapman that runs the tramp boarding house, a tramp robbed him last night and killed him He is up on this roof and you are just the right man, that I want. I want you to stay down here at the foot of the stairs, and (this is twenty five years later), and watch it. I said alright Joe, but make sure to bring him down. When he went away, I ran over to the store, the Heyman Furniture Company, it was two hundred feet away and our night watchman had a gun. He carried it at night and he left it in my drawer, in my desk. So I run over and got this gun, and I got back there Joe had came down from the top of the roof, and he had the guy and had manacles on him. Interviewer: I just wanted to make sure it was being picked up (apparently the tape recorder). Herbert: I‟ll have to give you another; I was always mixed up in murders. In Los Angeles, did you ever see a man kill another? Interviewer: No. I‟ve seen a man get shot, but the man didn‟t die. Herbert: But he didn‟t die? Interviewer: No Herbert: I saw two and they both died. I was going down the street in Los Angeles with Mr. and Mrs. Stonehouse, we had an apartment together down there. We were going down Sixth St., down past Jack Dempsey‟s place and we were just going to cross the road and there was a policeman in the middle of the square, he rode this way and this way, and he was in a box. This is what they would do in the old days, they would turn this way, and they wanted you to stop and let the others go. This man ran out of a restaurant and he ran right towards this policeman, and we had just got within about ten [to] fifteen feet of him, when another man came out and begins to holler, “Stop thief, stop thief!” The fellow that was supposed to be the thief ran right towards the policeman. Now the policeman didn‟t have no jury, or asked him if he done it, or tried to arrest him or anything, he just picked up his gun and took aim and shot him right through the temple, dropped dead right in front of us. I was from here to that... Interviewer: The policeman shot him? �3 Herbert: Shot him dead. Interviewer: He shot him? Didn‟t even know if he was guilty or not? Herbert: Didn‟t know anything about him, never seen him before, took shot him right through the temple, killed him deader than a door mat. Aunt Mattie, I‟ll show you my Aunt Mattie, and I got Uncle Albert. This is my family in here. You come right up here. There is my Aunt Mattie when she was twenty-seven years old; she was eighty-five when she died. This is my sister in the center here, she died two years ago. Right back, my Aunt Mattie owned them vinegar quarts back there. They were all a hundred years old, every one; we bought them brand new and gave them to her. Then she gave them to my sister in here. Interviewer: I knew your sister. Herbert: Did you? Interviewer: Sure, Mrs. Thrall, that‟s her right there. Herbert: No, that‟s Mrs. Beaton. Interviewer: This is Mrs. Thrall. Herbert: That‟s Mrs. Thrall, that‟s my sister in the center, you see. That‟s Dr. Beaton‟s wife there, and that‟s Dr. Beaton‟s child. Interviewer: Yes. Herbert: This is Mrs. Thrall‟s daughter. Interviewer: Yes. Herbert: Now, we had the Indians, you know where the orphan asylum is? Well, you go up to College Avenue and go down the hill to the creek, you know? Interviewer: Yes. Herbert: Down there, that was been a woods. Now, the government had set up a place for the Indians at Ada along the river bank. They gave them tents and gave them food, but they didn‟t have any wood to burn. So they had to come down here and gather wood. Right there at that creek on College Avenue, it goes up one hill; there are two different hills there. You know how it is there? Interviewer: Right at Leonard, College and Leonard? Herbert: Right down from Leonard, College Avenue, you go down there .Well, they didn‟t have no wagon to draw it. What do you suppose they done? �4 Interviewer: I don‟t know? Herbert: They went to work and cut down two trees, the roots of the trees they cut off around like that and the narrow parts acted as fills(?) for the horse, and they put the horse inside the fills there and they had a box on top of these two trees and instead of the wheels turning around they just dragged on ground from the roots of the trees, two roots on each side and they could lead the horse. Well, they filled the box with wood and drawn it out to Ada, where they had their place. Interviewer: Yes. Herbert: Comical and really quite a thing to see what did with the knowledge that they used to get that. And some nights and then afterwards, they would sell… it will come to me in a minute, a common thing. I am beginning to forget a lot of this stuff. My age is going against me. Anyhow they took all that stuff and drew it out there. And then in the middle of the winter, they…in January, you know how there is a January thaw, well, they came back after more. It was warmer weather and all the snow would go and that is why they called it Indian Summer. They would draw the wood out. They had it on the other side of the river. Along the river bank was where they had their reservation. Interviewer: Now, that‟s not there anymore, is it? Herbert: No, but it was until up to ten or fifteen years ago, there were some signs of it; a sign up there told where it was. Interviewer: Yes. Where did you grow up as a child, on Monroe Avenue? Herbert: No, we lived on College Avenue, see we lived up on North College Avenue, where we had five acres of land. And black bears, wild black bears, used to come out and eat our strawberries. Interviewer: Where abouts was that on College Avenue? Herbert: The house is still standing. Interviewer: Where is that? Herbert: You know where Spencer Avenue is? Interviewer: Yes. Herbert: Quimby Street, right between them two, on the east side of the street. The house is still standing. Pages lived there last I knew. Interviewer: That was quite a ways out in the country then, huh? �5 Herbert: Well, no it ain‟t so very far from where they were down to Plainfield Avenue, about a half a mile or so. Interviewer: At the time your father built the house? Herbert: He had a log house, and in the winter time my father used to build a cellar like outdoors, he dug a trench outdoors and lined it with straw and then put cabbage, potatoes and stuff like that into the cellar. And then he covered it over with dirt, straw then dirt over it. He left an opening where he could reach in, on this side and pull out cabbage or this side he could pull out potatoes. Then when we butchered, butchered your hog, we had this neighbor, we knew him real well. I forgot his name now, knew it real well when we butchered the hog we would give them half the hog. Then when they butchered one, they gave us half of it. We put half of it down in salt pork for us, and the other half of it we used for fresh meat. I had quite an experience. In the olden times the horse thief was caught stealing horses, they took him out and hung him. Hi Doty was the greatest horse thief of my time; he lived across the road from us on Spencer Avenue. And they came to me one day, when I was about twelve years old and they said they were going downtown to do some shopping, they had two sons and they took one son with them and they‟d be back at five o‟clock. And I didn‟t know he was a horse thief, our folks didn‟t know he was a horse thief, but he had about twenty horses in the pasture up about half a mile from where we were standing then. Hi Doty, and Bill Doty and the son who worked with him, Jay Doty worked with the mother and didn‟t steal or anything and the other two did. Well, two men came along and wanted to see Doty. And I told them he would be back at five o‟clock. So they said, “Do they have any horses? We want to buy some horses. We want to buy some horses.” I said, “Sure come on I‟ll show you.” And I took them down, and we went to this field and I left them there and they were writing down stuff. I didn‟t know what they were doing. Five o‟clock they drove in, Hi Doty drove into the yard, I ran down to tell him there were men there and they wanted to buy some horses. Men stepped out from behind there with revolvers and took him and sent him to jail. They got life. It was written up in the Grand Rapids Herald. Did you ever hear of the Grand Rapids Herald? Interviewer: Sure. The Grand Rapids Herald? Herbert: Two or three times in was written up. Two or three write ups, must be in the library by now, didn‟t mention my name. Interviewer: Oh. He got life imprisonment for that? Herbert: He got life in prison for that. Both he and his son, they were the ones that stole those horses, instead of hanging them, he got life in prison. Interviewer: What kind of name is that, Doty? Is that Irish name? �6 Herbert: No, I think he was a Yankee, an out and out Yankee. The Press, the Grand Rapids Herald had a number of write ups about him. Jay Doty, the famous horse thief. Herbert: I, I went to work I went downtown to work in eighteen ninety-five, near as I can remember. I went to work across from the Michigan Trust Company. You know where the Michigan Trust Company is? Interviewer: Yes Herbert: The corner of Ottawa there, a carpet store Smith and Sanford, where the Michigan Trust Company is now was an apple orchard. I saw them cut the trees down and build the (Michigan) Trust Company. I saw them build the old City Hall, that they‟re tearing down and I saw them build the old Court House. Took them five years to build the Court House, they didn‟t have enough money. The last argument was they had to put a cupola on it, like a church on top and they didn‟t have enough money. It cost four hundred dollars. They were fighting it as much as they could, and finally decided to do it. And the ones opposing it said, now I kind of forget…., let‟s see the ones opposing it said it would be a home for the doves. And they argued it over and anyhow they got the four hundred dollars and built the cupola and that night the doves move in. Interviewer: Now the City Hall was built in the eighteen eighties, wasn‟t it? Herbert: Yes. Interviewer: Were you working downtown then, how old were you when you went to work? Herbert: I must have been about fourteen years old… Interviewer: Yes. Herbert: …when I went downtown to work. Interviewer: You used to go down as a child. Herbert: Now here is where I have the advantage over everybody that wrote any books was, that the city limits first extended to Wealthy Avenue and to Sweet Street and then they kept extending it, see, and anybody living down on Wealthy Avenue didn‟t know what was happening at Sweet Street, cause there was no way to go unless you had a horse and wagon to travel. But us kids went everywhere you see, we went down to the south end and went to the north end. And we went on the river when the ice, iceskating on the ice up to Plainfield and back. Use to build, used to get lumber, wood out of the yards from the factories, the logging companies, see they were cutting up pine. Pine was ten dollars a thousand, that‟s what white pine was. And I went to work in the grocery store Lafoyes for a dollar a week and they give me my meals. I had to be there at six o‟clock in the morning and had to stay until nine o‟clock at night. And I had to come down Sunday and take the horse out to give him a drink to the well, water for him, and curry him all, clean out the stable and everything for him for a dollar a week. I worked until nine o‟clock �7 during the week and twelve o‟clock on Saturday nights. Then I went downtown to work, and I worked in this carpet store across where I was talking about, that was there near College Avenue and North Avenue and Spencer. Then I got in to fracas ….that pretty near cost me my life. Mr. Heyman was head man, Mr. [A. Amos] Raven was the general manager, a man named Rankins worked in the, was manager of the carpet department. I worked in the carpet department under Rankins. They caught Rankins out, I just am mentioning this, but they let him go. They gave me the job of manager of the carpet department. I got up to fifteen dollars a week and after that, Mr. Raven was the general manager and he and I were very friendly but this Rankins and he were not very friendly, they were fighting all the time. When he fired Rankins, why he put me in place of him in the carpet department at fifteen dollars a week. I worked a couple of years that way, when Mr. Raven was taken sick and whenever he went out to dinner or he went away anywhere, he called me downstairs to take charge. So when, I was appointed general manager and received quite a larger sum. There was a Hollander, he was the oldest one there and as a salesman he drew eleven dollars a week. And when they made me manager he quit working, he was so mad because they didn‟t make him, they used to make the oldest person in the institution a head instead of the best man they thought for it. When they made me general manager, why he quit his job and went and bought a dry goods store. He and I were always friends but he was sore at, he didn‟t get the job, you see. Interviewer: Yes. Herbert: I came on one day, Mr. Heyman was headman I was next, Bill Decator was next and he had a credit man he was next to okay sales. You‟d come in and buy two hundred fifty dollars worth of stuff and paid fifty dollars down, so much a week; he could okay the sale, if everything else was satisfactory. One day he okay‟d a sale that was five hundred and fifty dollars and one hundred and fifty dollars down and he took fifty dollars down and delivered the goods without the… I wasn‟t there that day, and he delivered the goods without the other hundred dollars. And he did it with only fifty dollars down. Well, doubt, he‟d have permission had I been there, but he took it upon himself. Anyhow the people didn‟t pay it and he delivered the goods. Then it was up against me to take over from there and sent over after the goods. And in come three men and three women, they were tough looking guys. One of them was a big guy. And I didn‟t know at that time, but do you remember Dillinger that was shot down by the FBI in Chicago? Interviewer: Yes. Herbert: Well, this guy was Dillinger‟s right hand man, robbing banks and one thing and another. He came in to see why I sent over after the goods and I told him. [He said,] “Well, I‟ll have that money tomorrow.” And I said, “That won‟t do, you promised it today and we want it today.” He said, “How the hell you going to get it?” I said, “We‟ll have to send over after the goods.” He said, “You‟re going after the goods?” And I said, “I don‟t know, I might. I‟m not sure what I would do.” And he said, “That will be the last trip you ever take.” He said, “I don‟t like the looks of your mug.” And I said, “I don‟t like yours either.” He says, “What are you �8 going to do?” I said, “I told you just what I was going to do and I‟m going to do it.” He pulled a gun out and stuck it in my chest and said, “I will blow your god damn guts out.” The girl cashier sitting on a high stool toppled off, [and] the colored man and colored woman run in the back room and I was there alone. I pulled the drawer open where the night watchman‟s revolver was and I let him see it. He said, “Pull out your gat, pull out your gat, we‟ll take ten paces here. I‟ll kill you deader than a door mat. I should have let you have it in the guts anyhow.” The others came all running down then and they grabbed a hold of „im and pulled him away and they went up and pretty soon he came down and said, “Buddy I‟ve been drinking.” And he said, “I‟m sorry and I want to apologize.” And I said, “That‟s all right, we all get that way.” He said, “Well if I hadn‟t been drinking I wouldn‟t have done it.” We shook hands and I went up with him. He said he would come in and pay it the next day. The next morning when the Grand Rapids Press came out, there was a robbery of the bank only one block from where we delivered the goods. So I knew right away who done it. So I went up and told Ab Carroll or who I told, but Frank O‟Malley, I forget now which one it was I told about it. But he said, “Okay we‟ll take over from here Hefferan.” Waited all day, didn‟t hear nothing from him, so it must have been the wrong people that I gave him the tip on. So I took three rigs and six men and sent them over to the place at night, about seven o‟clock, it was dark. And I told two of them to go up to the house and the rest to stop a block away from the house and two of them to go up to the house, and tell them they were there to make legal demand for the goods. If they didn‟t give it to them, we put it so we could re(?) them, see? Is it alright? Interviewer: Yes, go ahead. [END OF SIDE 1 31:10] Interviewer: Five men came out of the bushes? Herbert: Yes, they‟re five men and they had guns, and put them in their backs and stood them up against the wall. They asked them, you know, who they were and what they wanted. And they told him. They said, “Did Hefferan send you over here?” They said yes. “Well, come on, get away from here, these are our men they‟re detectives.” Interviewer: They were policemen, huh? Herbert: I didn‟t think, I gave him the right tip, see? They were hiding in the bushes around there waiting for these fellows to come back. The man that got the money, the one that was going to kill me, he took the money and went out of town. They got our men away and at twelve o‟clock they came home, these two brothers and three women, and they arrested them. And those two got life. Interviewer: Did they ever catch the other man? �9 Herbert: Well, I don‟t know what happened, let‟s see, he was the one that was going to shoot me is the one that shot the sheriff down in Indiana, released Dillinger and another fellow from the prison; this fellow that was going to shoot me. Interviewer: Hmmmm…. Herbert: So afterwards, he got into a mix-up and he went over to Wisconsin and there was a summer resort closed up but the help was still there, see? He and five others came over and took possession of it and the FBI heard about it and they worked a man in. Sent him in delivering some stuff in there and they kept him in there. They killed this FBI man, but before they did, the FBI man killed him, this fellow that was going to kill me. Interviewer: So, were they quite a few guns around in those days? Sounds like everybody was packing a pistol. Herbert: Yes, everybody had a gun. I‟ll tell you what we had more of anything then was, when the Civil War was over, then men brought back their old muskets, and in those days, they loaded them with powder and shot and a cap. And these soldiers, now for instance there was a mother that sent five sons, one of them got killed, and another had his legs taken off. The way they shot off his legs was they put a chain with a cannon ball on each end and put it in the cannon and they shot it and it went around and around and took the legs right off of one of the men. They were the Pages, the Page people. Page Street was named after them up on the north end. Afterwards he had a job down to Washington, as a door tender. He had wooden legs. He could take a pail of water and go up to a fence and go right over without spilling a drop. He used to do that as a feat. Interviewer: What was downtown like when you were working down there? Herbert: Well, they were all, I knew Grandpa Steketee, Grandpa Herpolsheimer. I knew Henry Spring, did you ever hear of Henry Spring? He was a great lady‟s man. He ran one store, and he was always dolled up and had a bouquet on every day and was a great lady‟s man. Henry, erFriedman, I knew all of them in my younger days. Interviewer: Were there people living above those stores downtown? Herbert: Live in what? Interviewer: Were people living in those buildings along down town those buildings? Herbert: Yes, they lived upstairs. if it were three story building with a three-story store they didn‟t do it, of course, but they lived up above over the stores. Mom and Dad nearly owned one at one time, had all the arrangements made and then backed out. Let‟s see, what can I tell you, else? Well, I‟ll tell you, when I was working in the grocery store I had to wash the windows and trim the windows on West Leonard Street between Scribner and Front, on the south side of the �10 street. I had a bunch of bananas I had to take down, and it was only about „that much‟ bananas, but it had a long stalk, you know how it curls out like that? Interviewer: Yes. Herbert: Well. I went to take it off and you had a rope from the ceiling and you put a knot here and you put a loop thru the bananas, hang them under that knot, you see. I went to take them off of there. While I was taking it off I shook out one of these spiders - tarantula. Interviewer: Tarantula, yes. Herbert: I shook him out and my arm was bare up to my elbow and lit on my arm and before I could knock him off he bit me. That was nine-thirty in the morning and by twelve at night, they told me they would let me know at twelve o‟clock if I would live or die. I spent quite an evening, and I went up there and the poison went this way, it was this hand right here, the fingers all swelled up. If it would have went towards the artery the other way, it would have gone to my heart and killed me. But it went this way and it saved me. The next morning they lanced me right there and black pus came out, just from that time in the morning at nine-thirty morning to the next morning at ten o‟clock, awful pain. Then I had a dog and there were a lot of rattlesnakes and it was nothing for us, we used to kill four to five rattlesnakes a day on College Avenue from Spencer Avenue up to Carrier Street there, Leonard Street. It was all stone in there, big stones, big as that bed you know, on the surface. Hot sun would heat up the stones, the snakes would come out on a cold day and lay on those stones. We used to go down and kill them, it was nothing to kill five or six of them. So one day, I was standing there and a rattlesnake struck at me. And my dog jumped between me and the rattlesnake. I had knee pants on and he jumped between me and the rattlesnake and the rattlesnake hit him right on the lip. One place, you could just [barely] see it. You know how they work; they got a sharp prong that they dive right into you and they squirt this poison into that, following in with that prong. What gets me is I never could understand how the damn snake can carry poison in his own head and not poison himself. Can you? Interviewer: I don‟t know, must have a sac that it is stored in. Herbert: Herbert: Must be something that prevents it from going to any dangerous part, but they have it in their head. My dog died that night, the next day we killed ten rattlesnakes. You can tell about the conditions of the country at that time. Lots of Blue Racers, and lots of Garter snakes. By the time I was going to St. Alphonsus. I am the oldest member of St. Andrews Church, and the oldest member of St. Alphonsus and the oldest member of St Thomas Church living today. One day I went to school and I took a Garter snake in my pocket and let him out in school, the sister grabbed up the Garter snake, she knew how to handle it, threw him out of doors and she said, “What will you think of next, anyway, what will you do anyhow?” She started to laugh, “The idea of bringing that snake, now what did you expect to accomplish by that? I said, “He got away from me.”No, you put him on the floor…” �11 You want anything out of town? Interviewer: Pardon, no, I kind of like to stay centering around Grand Rapids, if we can. Herbert: Around Grand Rapids? Do you want me to tell you about the stage coach robbery? Interviewer: Was that here in Grand Rapids? Herbert: No, it was in Yellowstone Park. Interviewer: Who robbed the stage? Herbert: Two soldiers. Interviewer: Huh! Herbert: Two American soldiers, quite interesting? Interviewer: Yeah? Tell me the story. (both laughing) Herbert: Well see, we travelled there. About a dozen coaches, one after the other, one following every so often then we would get to some place where there was something to see, why we would stay two hours for dinner. We would have our dinner and then we would go out and see the different springs, you know, Old Faithful and all of them. Well we were coming down, we came down a long stretch and we were seventh in a row, and we were held up. They came down this way and then they turned this way - north. Well some of them had been robbed before, and we were the next one up, we were here, and the others went. The first ones got down to the soldier‟s camp and they brought five soldiers back with them, armed and these fellows saw them coming and they dove into the Yellowstone River and started to swim across. And these five soldiers come up and got down on their knees and took aim them and shot all around them but didn‟t hit anybody. Those guys had waterproofed guns and when they got to the other side they begin to shoot back. We had to get out of the coaches and climb under the coaches to, for protection. Well, after we were all through with that, we started north, and made that turn north. When we got up a ways, there was a place where you could buy bread. And when you go on farther and there was a place where the black bears would come down. And they‟d come up to the stagecoach, and you‟d break off bread and feed it to them, see. Well, we got up that far when I was driving the horses; I was driving the horses for them then. A fellow taught me on the way up. I was driving the horses, we got up and here was a black bear and three little cubs ahead of them, two black bears and had three little cubs. A man ran out there and grabbed a hold of one of these cubs. The driver said give me those lines Hefferan, and get a club and another man and drive that bear off or he will kill that man just as sure as the world. I run down and got a fellow and got two clubs and by hollering see, scared him more than anything else. Anyhow before we could get to him, this bear got to him, he was holding the cub, his face was all exposed like that and she took the whole side of his face off. We were yelling and waving the clubs, we scared her �12 off. We picked him up and carried him back. I got him, I held him in the stagecoach, bleeding terribly and we went up to the hotel and brought him into the doctor and that‟s the last I ever seen him. Left at eight o‟clock in the morning, I don‟t ever know how he ever came out. Interviewer: Hmm. When was that, when did you make that trip out there? Herbert: I don‟t know. I have pictures of all of it. Another thing I went to see, I was down in El Paso. Have you been there? Interviewer: No. Herbert: The Rio Grande River runs around El Paso and the south side is Juarez, and the north side where El Paso is all up high on banks and their down below. Well, I had a friend that lived down there and wanted me to call on her when I came down. Well, I was on my way to California. I went and stayed at their place and then her husband sold goods to the… what is the fellow say of fighting the great war? Interviewer: Pancho Villa? Herbert: Yeah, Pancho Villa. They expected that night that he would cross over the river, well, he had to fight and he drove the Mexican government soldiers across the river. And the Americans put up a place a mile square, in two days, had cottages and everything for the soldiers that were driven across from the other side. It was given out that they were going to come across and attack the soldiers in this place where they built for them; the Americans had built for them. My friend said to me now, you are staying at the hote, said you have been staying in your hotel at night and up here during the day, but now you must come up here and stay at night also. We got to have all the men we can get because they are coming across to attack, and it will be a day and a half yet before the American soldiers can get in from their encampment. I said, alright, so I went up in the middle of the night, and I heard a commotion outside. They‟d asked me if I could use a gun, I said sure I can use a gun. There was a commotion outside so I got up and dressed the rest of the way, I wasn‟t all undressed. Then I went outside and there was soldier, a sergeant and five men and he had a Gatling gun, that‟s what they used to use years ago, you know? Interviewer: Yes, Herbert: In place of a cannon. I asked him, how about it, I‟ve got a gun inside but I don‟t know if you can use me or not? The man said no, we won‟t need you. I have five men here now, and every block down on the street I have a Gatling gun. We‟re up high and they„re down below, if they start anything we have it checked out like a checker board. Mine is number five all I got to do is fire in number five and in five minutes we will have Juarez wiped off the map. But they didn‟t, nothing happened. So the next day, nobody was allowed to go over to Juarez on account of, when you went over there they, if you were a stranger they grabbed you and took your clothes �13 all off, leave your underwear on and rob you of the money you had. So Mr. Heath, that was the man I was staying with at his house, he sold for a wholesale grocery. He had a big order from him, they had to get it [and] so he wanted to know if I wanted to go across with him. I said “Sure I‟ll go with you.” And he said, “I‟ll take care of you, alright.” We got going over there and going along on the street and they would stop us, he would say something in Spanish and they would leave us alone right away. We went up to this house, and Villa had his headquarters in the opera house and nobody that I knew of had seen Villa, everybody wanted to see Villa. He went into the courthouse, but I couldn‟t go in there with him, I had to stay outside. There were two Mexicans guarding, you know Mexicans are short, like Japanese but heavier; all their clothes didn‟t fit them in those days. There were two fellows with general‟s suits on and hats. Their suits didn‟t fit them, twice to big for them. And they had gone there and so, when he went in they began to talk to me, trying to ask me something. But I couldn‟t answer them because I didn‟t know what they said. They were so disgusted. And then Villa drove up, and I was as close to Villa as you are [to me]. Interviewer: Hmmm? Herbert: Everybody wanted to see Villa, and I was there looking right at him, waiting for him to come out. When he came out I told him those two guys there with the general suits on asking me, were trying to get something out of me and I don‟t know what they wanted. He said something in Spanish to them and he said they wanted a cigarette. So I gave them each a pack of cigarettes, I was smoking then. I don‟t smoke now. They bowed and bowed. And then when I left, he didn‟t attack, you know; he didn‟t attack across there. When I left he attacked a town just a mile and half below there and he killed a lot of Americans on the train. When I went on the train ahead of it, I took the train ahead of it and was alright and came back home. Interviewer: Yeah….. INDEX A H Albert, Uncle · 3 B Beaton Family · 3 D Decator, Bill · 7 Dillinger, John · 8, 9 Doty Family · 5, 6 Herpolsheimer, Grandpa · 9 Heyman Furniture Company · 2 Heyman, Mr. · 2, 7 M Mattie, Aunt · 3 Michigan Trust Company · 6 �14 P Pantlind Hotel · 1 R Rankins, Mr. · 7 Raven, A. Amos · 7 St. Alphonsus Church · 11 Steketee, Grandpa · 9 Stonehouse, Mr. and Mrs. · 2 T Thrall, Mrs. · 3 V S Smith, Joe · 2 Villa, Pancho · 12, 13 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f5b1dc91a9515f4be79c621c16e3376b.mp3 6d4ba3b295654fa4e89cf173b95042a8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_37Hefferan Title A name given to the resource Hefferan, Herbert Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hefferan, Herbert Description An account of the resource Herbert Hefferan was born on January 16, 1875 in Grand Rapids. He knew Grandpa Stekete and the Herpolsheimers. He worked at Smith & Sanford. He traveled to California and had experiences involving Pancho Villa and John Dillinger's gang. He died in 1972. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ab6f4dc7a6e9b5280aaab02e5f8bf30c.mp4 93ec9b0a7fea3af7a028db9feafe1254 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f15c28e14ac1fc8733d7d80f73f8497a.pdf 98c2c912f3282b8b7212fb4bb3ecb43a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Timothy Heffron (00:28:09) (00:06) Background Information • Timothy was born in Kirkwood, Missouri on November 13, 1957 • He was raised in Pennsylvania • Went to live with his father in Grand Rapids, MI • Timothy went to Forest Hills High School • When he finished high school he joined the Marines (03:49) Training • After boot camp Timothy was a Private First Class • He joined their wrestling team because he was a wrestler in high school • Timothy graduated 3rd in his class in communications school • A major said that he would catch him with a bad drug test so he went home without permission for 38 days and got a lawyer • When he went back he was court martialed and received a 50 dollar fine and a demotion to private • They asked him if he wanted to take an honorable discharge and he agreed (10:45) After Discharge • Timothy had 2 heart attacks and on February 24, 2004 he went to live at the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans • Right after his discharge he became a chef and travelled to different cities • He got a license to be a certified industrial cook • Timothy got married right after the Marines and divorced a few years later • He then worked for a circus • His father got sick and he had to take care of him for a couple years �• Timothy bought some taxis and ran a taxi business until he sold it in 1996 • He says that boot camp made him a stronger person • Timothy thinks they are working the troops too much and wearing them out in Iraq � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Heffron, Timothy (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Heffron, Timothy Description An account of the resource Timothy Heffron was born in Kirkwood, Missouri on November 13, 1957. He was raised in Pennsylvania and then moved to Grand Rapids with his father during high school. After high school he joined the Marines. He went to boot camp and then finished 3rd in his communications school class. He didn't get along with a major and ended up leaving without permission and was court martialed when he returned. He received a 50 dollar fine and was moved from private first class to private. Then they offered him an honorable discharge and he took it. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Marine Corps Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-01-29 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HeffronT Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a8b8ad7bffecd1966e1a8d804462ac83.mp4 ca206f71aef7ffbc6c7e28085de1a4e5 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/03ae64d32e0b007d498e3f3b83d01123.pdf b80a36d82f3776e145a0e4e6bc5dc98e PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project John Heflin (01:00:07) (00:01) Background Information • • • • • • • John was born in Bellevue, MI He graduated high school and received his draft notice shortly afterwards Instead of being drafted he enlisted in the Air Force John trained to be a mechanic for 3 months He was then sent to Columbus, OH for 2.5 years In Columbus he worked on C-130s John was married in September 1967 and received his orders for deployment 10 days after (02:26) Deployment • • • • • • • In January 1968 he flew out to a small island in the Philippines called Mack 10 On the way they stopped in Alaska and Japan When he got to Clark Air Force Base on Mack 10 he heard about the Tet Offensive Tan Son Nhut Airbase, Vietnam was being overrun by the Viet Cong, so he had to stay in the Philippines John was the crew chief of the mechanics The planes had a crew of 5 operators Every three months they would rotate people from the Philippines to Vietnam (06:10) Vietnam • • • • • • • • • • The Tet Offensive was over in April 1968 Most people were afraid to go to war when they were drafted John didn’t know anyone who enlisted by choice He had pretty good pay when he got to Vietnam because he received overseas, hazard, combat and flight pay Most of the US troops came to Tan Son Nhut Airbase At about 1am every morning they would get mortar fire on the base from the Viet Cong John worked from 6pm to 6am He had to make sure the planes were always ready to go The Viet Cong knew where mortar and rocket targets on the base were because the Vietnamese worked on the base during the day On one occasion he had to go to Dong Ha by the DMZ to fix a tire �(25:45) How the Soldiers Felt About the War There was a lot of tension People would say that the US was not trying to win the war They asked why we didn’t just bomb Hanoi Some thought that the US was just trying to get young people killed to quiet the civil rights movement • A lot of guys went AWOL and stayed over there • The general feeling was “we got to get out of this place” • • • • (27:38) Discharge On February 26, 1969 John received orders to leave Vietnam He had just made sergeant Most people wanted out and didn’t even think about re-enlisting John was discharged as soon as he got back to the US There was a lot of drug use in Vietnam While he was in Vietnam John had heard about people shooting their commanding officers during battle because of racism, they called it fragging • The Military was segregated • • • • • • (36:47) After Being Discharged • • • • • • • • • • John went to get his wife from Ohio and they went to Detroit He went back to his old job at the hospital and worked nights at the Chevrolet plant When Martin Luther King was killed there were riots in Vietnam He joined the Black Panther Party in Detroit There were white sympathizers that helped the BPP The FBI broke them up Heroin had hit the Detroit community hard John was proud to have served in the Air Force He had a family member that was incarcerated in a prison in Muskegon, MI so he would go there to visit and really liked the area John and his wife moved there recently � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Heflin, John (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Heflin, John Description An account of the resource John Heflin was born in Bellevue, Michigan and after high school enlisted in the Air Force. He was assigned to be a mechanic and trained in Columbus, Ohio. John was deployed in January 1968 to the Philippines during the Tet Offensive. After the Tet Offensive he was stationed at Tan Son Nhut Airbase, Vietnam. It was his job as crew chief to make sure that the planes were ready to go at all times. He discusses soldiers' attitudes toward the war, racial tensions and drug use. After leaving Vietnam in 1969, he worked in Detroit and joined the Black Panther Party. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Montagna, Douglas (Interviewer) Great Lakes Naval Memorial & Museum (Muskegon, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans African-American soldiers United States. Air Force Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-02-16 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HeflinJ Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fc05f2909c3f3b6faa036c457441be2b.mp4 386cf3bc8ecb3a80b74ab42c6f7df5a0 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/78d560eddfc63223d0b38808b92e349a.pdf 824e278aceb5113f6eee2ee65eecf29c PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: Korea Interviewee: Lloyd Heibel Length of Interview: 00:34:44 (00:18) Family Information and Enlistment  Lloyd was born August 19, 1931. He served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War and his highest rank was gunners mate 2nd class (00:20).  He was born in Dorr, Michigan (00:56)  Lloyd and his brother joined the service together (01:07).  Lloyd enlisted into the service because he did not like school. He was expelled when he was 15. He wanted to join the Navy, but was too young. He convinced his reluctant father to sign for him. He signed when he was 16 and they took him 1 month after his 17th birthday (01:18).  He and his brother were shipped out to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. They travelled by bus (02:40). (02:56) Active Duty Overview  After completing boot camp, his brother signed up for Class training in engineering. He would end up working on a ship as an engine technician (03:03).  Lloyd was supposed to attend storekeeper’s school in Bayonne, New Jersey and San Diego, California, but they were both full (03:23).  They decided to send him to the [aircraft carrier] USS Midway. Within a few weeks they were headed out to the Mediterranean Sea (03:48).  He accumulated 2 years of leave in 2 years, because they were consistently underway (04:10).  He requested a transfer the ship his brother was stationed on, the Shenandoah, because they were always and dock. The transfer was approved. (04:26)  As soon as he got aboard, they left for the Mediterranean (04:41).  He participated in 4 six months cruises, which took him as far as Panama and also along eastern seaboard of the U.S. (04:50).  They would also take congressmen out on a weekend getaway (05:20).  Most of his sea time was accumulated on the Midway. It was a very good experience (05:28).  One time, while still on the Midway, the commanders were thinking about going through the Red Sea to attack Korea, but the plan was nixed fairly quickly (05:36).  When they came back to Norfolk, Virginia for an overhaul of the ship that is when he transferred to his brother’s ship (05:55).  The Midway would continue on around the southern tip of South America to serve in the Pacific. There would be many accomplishments that those on the Midway would be remembered for (06:15).  He spent 4 years total in the Navy and believed that it was a good learning experience for him (06:58). � He would finish high school while in the Navy. He would complete two and a half years of high school work in two days, getting the GED equivalent of a high school diploma (07:06). (07:48) Life and Duty on the Midway  On the Midway Lloyd worked in the deck crew. His job was to maintain the sailing part of the ship (07:51).  He stood wheel watch on the main deck and had the opportunity to steer the ship. Although they made a big deal of it, he said there was nothing special about it. In fact, the job changes hands every four hours (08:05).  When the ship needed to be fueled, then someone with more experience would come in and control the ship (08:28).  He would end up doing many different types of jobs while he served on the Midway. It was mostly whatever they needed him for. He explained that when they would dock, he would sometimes work on the anchor detail. He describes what happens when the anchor is let down. He would take a sledgehammer to a pelican hook and jump out of the way. If you slipped, you were dead (09:05).  Ran motor launches during liberty (10:58).  Another job he did was to work with the guns on the ship, either loading or firing (11:20).  He would help maintain the ship. Since it was made of iron, it would rust very easily in salt water, so it had to be maintained very vigorously (11:30).  He would also play games sometimes, saying that there were basketball courts and exercise rooms. There was also a big band aboard the ship to entertain them as well as a few movies (11:49).  Living on the ship was the best of life to him. You always had a clean bed, hot food, dentists, barbers, and their laundry would always be done (12:10).  After his four years were up, they tried to get him to reenlist, offering him $1200 and 42 months gunnery school in Washington D.C. where he would have achieved chief gunnery’s mate (12:35).  However, he would decide that was enough (13:30).  He has with him some documents from when he was on the ship. Since Midway was like a floating city, they had everything. One of the things he shows is a Newsletter that the soldiers would get to keep them informed on what was happening (13:36).  He would also send stuff to his parent to keep them informed of what was happening as well. They had kept all the documents, which is how he has them today (14:11).  He describes a time when they were running a fueling operation and one of the fuel lines burst, a guy was thrown off the ship and into the ocean. A helicopter would save him. He also said the guy was not wearing a life jacket, which was a sin aboard the ship, especially during fueling operations. This particular event was illustrated in a comic book (14:47).  He also has some other items collected over the years from when he would dock and explore the place they landed (15:38).  Most of the places he visited were still damaged from WWII. In fact, the soldiers were given cash, which they were expected to spend to help the towns they stopped in. Essentially, an economic recovery program in postwar era (16:26). � He has a book that shows, with much pictorial representation, the last cruise that he went on before transferring off the Midway. Pictures of events the crew participated in and pictures of the personnel on board. Timeline of activity (17:30).  While he was anchored in Italy, he experienced an earthquake (18:45). (20:30) The Shenandoah  When he first entered the Navy, it was not possible for brothers to be aboard the same ship. He said that in WWII, five brothers were aboard a ship and all of them were lost. In the 1950’s things changed and brothers could be on the same ship if requested (20:40).  While he was on the Shenandoah, he serves as a gunner’s mate (21:28).  Lloyd was in charge of five 20mm batteries. He would also work on a 5-inch forward gun and he was attached to the armory, which had the small arms. Small arms were utilized by landing parties (21:36).  Armory issued weapon to men and held them until needed. Explanation of Armory (22:40).  He would also train on a radio-controlled aircraft (23:30).  Description of drones (24:20).  He would spend a lot of his time training with the different types of guns on the ship. One time while they were training and live round got jammed into a hot gun barrel. It was very dangerous, but with some caution they were able to get things right again (23:50). (28:50) Life after the Navy  After he got out of the Navy, he said that life was good. It was a civilian at age 21 (28:58).  He had to apply for the draft, where he got a classification of 5A. (29:10). � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Heibel, Lloyd (Interview outline and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Heibel, Lloyd Description An account of the resource Lloyd Heibel enlisted in the Navy in 1948 at the age of 17. He trained as a gunner and served on the USS Midway and USS Shenandoah, operating in the Atlantic and Mediterranean at the time of the Korean War. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Poff, Chris (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-06-02 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HeibelL Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/05c41a13688eb876f21ce551622cdf1b.mp4 0db98a40995e0ecbf78e7bf1db5699c3 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c2912642af7da1d4cb9f4de9fd54d3de.pdf 48b36e1da3043621fc7ed9bbdc587132 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Vietnam War Edwin Heiden (2015) 105 Minutes (00:00:20) Pre-Enlistment       Born in Benton Harbor, Michigan in March 1947 Raised in St. Joseph, Michigan Mother was a homemaker, father worked for Whirlpool corporation as a tool and die maker Graduated High School in 1965, went to work for Whirlpool on the assembly line Debated college, wasn’t a priority, wanted to see the world Had a friend who enlisted in the Marine Corp, eventually convinced him to join the Marines (00:04:45) Training              Signed up with a Marine recruiter in February, went to Detroit for a physical exam Eventually bussed to Chicago and then flown to San Diego and transported to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, showed up around midnight Edwin’s friend had warned him somewhat about the drill instructors, advised him to just to what he was told First few days were mostly shock and awe for the recruits, drill sergeants establishing control, breaking down the recruits Training was intense, recruits ran pretty much everywhere, lasted 8-10 weeks All gear was Marine Corps issued, Edwin was issued a standard M14 rifle Training was the process of breaking down civilians into marines Recruits did Physical Training every day, Edwin was in fairly good shape, some tasks still proved difficult for him Classroom work entailed Marine Corps History, weapon functions and maintenance Almost all of Edwin’s instructors had experience in Vietnam, focused a lot on team tactics and working together, didn’t mention Vietnam all that much Mistakes were paid for with more PT or verbal abuse, doing it until they got it right Two individuals from Edwin’s platoon were moved to Correctional Custody, where they were treated more harshly, made to carry sledgehammers as rifles and a steel pot for a helmet Adjusting to the Marine life wasn’t too hard for Edwin, he played sports in high school and was used to firm discipline for his father (00:21:20) Advanced Training �        After graduation, Edwin is transferred to Camp Pendleton, California to the Infantry Training Regiment, short 2-3 week infantry training course Trained on different weapons, M60, Rocket Launchers, combat tactics Trained to be a mechanic at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, 4-5 week course consisting of operating, maintaining, and repairing vehicles, much more relaxed than earlier training, all classroom and hands on learning Transferred further east in North Carolina to the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing as a truck mechanic and jeep driver, shuttled pilots and luggage from planes to quarters Wasn’t sure if he was actually going to Vietnam at this point, thought he would be here for a while, had been here for about a year and was getting impatient, Eventually volunteered to go as reinforcement Spent quite a bit of time in the town off base and on the beach Marines were treated pretty well by the locals as long as they behaved In the military, racial divides were minimal, taught in boot camp that “We are all green” (00:32:30) Deployment            Received a twenty day leave before deployment, visited his family Anti-war and Anti-soldier sentiments weren’t really on his radar, people kept their distance while he was in uniform, no open hostility though Sent back to Camp Pendleton for Staging Battalion training, three weeks which consisted of combat simulations in a simulated enemy village, taught to look out for booby traps Taught Edwin about Escape and Evasion, escaping the enemy if caught and avoiding capture while surviving in the jungle Flew to Hawai’i from Travis Air Force Base on a civilian jet, and then to Da Nang Landed in Da Nang at night, rainy and muggy conditions Assigned to 3rd Motor Transport Battalion after a day or two Took a Marine Logistics flight to Phu Bai, driven from there to his new unit Assigned to Charlie Company, home of the “Rough Riders” Initially just performs miscellaneous repair work, soon offers himself as a truck driver, Assigned to a convoy going to Da Nang, does this for the first few months, driving all over Vietnam o Before the Tet Offensive, this duty was fairly quiet, many of Edwin’s comrades were wondering where the enemy was Was transferred to the 3rd Medical Battalion in the middle of January, was transporting injured children in Hue City a few days before it was attacked, closest Edwin came to real danger before the Tet Offensive (00:49:50) Tet Offensive  There was a South Vietnamese Army boot camp just outside of Phu Bai, recruits started leaving to go celebrate the Lunar New Year, found out later the Viet Cong were replacing them �       Took wounded marines off of helicopters from Hue City into the triage, civilians trying to get out caused minor traffic jam Base was shelled periodically before this, but the wounds and casualties coming in from Hue City really drove home that this was war Troops and tanks had to be transported by river because the Viet Cong had blown up bridges and mined the roads Edwin helped with the wounded and identified bodies up through March, the commander of his division, the 3rd Marine, was killed over Hue City o The flow of injured was so great that marines were being treated in the parking lot of the triage o Edwin turned 21 during this time The Tet Offensive changed the whole atmosphere of operations, soldiers were wary of trusting any Vietnamese after Hue City The South Vietnamese had their own hospital, but it lacked many of the facilities of the US military’s, so Edwin treated many Vietnamese casualties as well Edwin traveled through Hue City in April while moving the 3rd Marine Division, he was awed at all the destruction, Citadel was destroyed, Windows and doors of the University were blown out (00:57:39) After the Tet Offensive             3rd Marine Division is moved North to Quang Tri, life here is much different, Troops were living in tents Vietnamese women were paid to help fill sand bags, sand bags were faulty and would often leak or burst Diet was rationed and worked from sunup to sundown Bunkers could not be dug without hitting water, so they had to be built above ground Troops surrounded each tent with blast walls, set up a maze to offer protection from rocket attacks, which happened 2-3 times Eventually got a hospital up and running, nearby bases handled casualties while the 3rd Marine built their base, used inflatable structures called MUST units as surgical tents Supply building and hospital were finished by the time Edwin left A CH-46 helicopter landed at Edwin’s base after being shot up pretty badly, Chunks of the propeller blades were missing, the helicopter could no longer fly and yet the pilot landed it safely Witnessed an incoming AC-130 crash on the runway and erupt in a ball of flame Edwin Developed plantar warts due to the wet and dirty conditions in Quang Tri, sent to Da Nang to have them removed, stayed at China Beach for an extra day for small R&R Took a five day R&R in Japan, was going to go to Tokyo but protests over the war forced him to back out, stayed with a small group of soldiers in a mountain lake resort near Mt. Fuji, took the train to Yokosuka, canceled a trip to Mt. Fuji due to weather and tried sake instead 3rd Medical Battalion had pretty good morale, Edwin was overall very impressed and very happy with the officers and surgeons �    Once brought in a soldier whose arms and legs had been blown off by a dropped grenade, could only be picked up by his flak jacket, the blast had been so intense that it cauterized his arteries and the surgeon stopped the rest of the bleeding, the soldier was conscious for the entire surgery, actually talked to the surgeon Drug use wasn’t prevalent around Edwin, soldiers stayed too busy, got two beers a day, spent most of their free time writing letters Edwin dealt mostly with Vietnamese women, enjoyed working with them, communicated fairly well, he was struck by how poor they were and the awful conditions they lived in Five people from Edwin’s high school enlisted and went to training at different times, ended up serving in Vietnam at the same time, they set up a location network through their parents and Edwin got to visit all of them at some point, all of them survived and made it back (01:20:48) Getting Out      Edwin thought about extending his tour as a sergeant, but his experiences in the medical battalion helped him decide he was ready to go home Flew from Da Nang to Okinawa and got caught up on his shots and got a physical, stayed a few days and then flew to San Francisco, from there to Chicago and then to Michigan Still had five months left in his enlistment, assigned to 5th Marine Division in CA, taught marines how drive trucks properly, ended up being let out 30 days early Returned to work for Whirlpool for a short time and signed up for the GI Bill, then enrolled in Lake Michigan College, attended for two years majoring in political science, then went with a friend to Western Michigan University for two years, graduated in 1972 Looked for a job for a while, did some odd jobs, went back to Whirlpool, got married in this time (01:28:48) Serving as an Officer        Eventually signed up for Officer Candidate School in 1973, moved to Quantico, Virginia Was like Marine boot camp but much tougher and at a higher level, stressed the heightened responsibility of an officer Also went to Basic School, more about combat tactics, leadership, weaponry Trained with many prior enlisted men, this training was very valuable to Edwin in OCS, Hardest mental and physical work for Edwin Graduates after about six months, assigned as an Infantry Platoon Commander, sent to Camp Lejeune and assigned to 3rd Battalion 2nd Marines Rifle Platoon, mostly administrative work, four of his men were in the brig and two were missing Edwin was also in charge of a motor pool, had his hands full Led his troop in desert warfare training for a month, practiced simulated combat scenarios �     Edwin’s unit was part of special mission force as defense line security for the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, troops would do PT and watch ships come and go from the harbor, this was a six-month tour of duty, Edwin was a First Lieutenant Once received a call about a fence jumper who was stuck, he responded and pulled him down to the US side of the fence, it turned out the man was probably escaping a prison in Cuba, and Cuban officials were claiming that Edwin had kidnapped one of their civilians Edwin was transferred to the 3rd Marines in Camp Lejeune, oversaw the motor pool there The war was over and Edwin figured his service was done so he left when the opportunity arose, worked for Coca-Cola in North Carolina for a time before eventually moving back to St. Joseph, Michigan The Marine Corps changed Edwin’s life, taught him discipline, attention to detail, the brevity of life, and gave his life direction when he really had none � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HeidenE1017V Title A name given to the resource Heiden, Edwin Franklyn Jr (Interview outline and video), 2015 Description An account of the resource Edwin Heiden was born and raised in St. Joseph, MI in March 1947. He graduated high school in 1965 and joined the Marine Corps shortly thereafter. Edwin adapted to Marine life well and became a mechanic. He was deployed to Vietnam as reinforcement for the 3rd Motor Transport Battalion in Phu Bai, operating mostly as a truck driver. He was soon transferred to the 3rd Medical Battalion, where he served during the Tet Offensive, helping transport and care for the wounded coming from Hue City. His unit then moved north to Quang Tri where he helped construct a new base. Edwin then returned home to finish his enlistment by teaching marines to drive trucks in California. He then left the military for a short time to attend college and get married, before returning to the service through Officer Candidate School. Edwin became an Infantry Platoon Commander and led a unit operating at Guantanamo Bay. Edwin left the service again soon after this and moved back home to Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Heiden, Edwin Franklyn Jr. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Marine Corps Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-12-08 Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d93977ea80e6aa55f5fc396e1f85e9c9.jpg 538024aba3ecb3ff2930ad9a38d39f05 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/db2434f45c3f845c9ac4163a85cfec3e.jpg a0339cfbcb284b2d9f8614c0b94ca784 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Insel-Bücherei Series Description An account of the resource The German publishing company Insel Verlag was founded in 1899 by Anton Kippenberg in Leipzig. In its early years the firm only printed expensive, beautifully-produced volumes, until demand led to the publication of the more modest Insel-Bücherei series in 1912. Relatively inexpensive but with the same careful sense of design and typography, these smaller-format books reprinted shorter works from a variety of German, European, and world authors. The series numbers considerably more than a thousand titles and is still being issued. The Digital Collection contains the scanned covers of 140 titles held by Grand Valley State University Libraries. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1904-1987 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-05 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource ger Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-09-29 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-05_IB1050 Title A name given to the resource Heidi Manthey: Fayencen Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</A> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1983 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-09-29 Description An account of the resource Cover of Heidi Manthey: Fayencen, by Heidi Manthey, published by Insel-Verlag, 1983. Insel-Bücherei Nr. 1050 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books. Insel-Bücherei. Z315.I5 B83 no.1050 Language A language of the resource de Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e5b32a58c96dc9c518120b9a845f45d2.mp4 7f2759924d4de1d34ea93f94c9193e1d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ca08648a825f2583d3a8d1773f641352.pdf afc98cf70f604179f924b9a3514d4b10 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Kevin Heine Disc One (01:01:07) (00:33) Background Information • Kevin was born in Flint, Michigan on October 1, 1964 • In 1952 [1852?] Jacob Heine migrated from Germany to the US • He had a long family military history that dates back the Civil War • There were six children in his family, five of which joined the service • Kevin played baseball, football, and ran in track while in school • He graduated from Osceota high school in 1982 • About 25% of his graduating class entered into the service; it was an Air Force town and the economy was also bad, so there were no jobs (18:15) The Navy • Kevin went to basic training at Great Lakes Naval Base in Chicago for 9 weeks • After basic training he had basic engineering school in Chicago • The first two weeks of basic training were pretty rough • Kevin had enlisted in the Navy in 1982 and had not graduated yet • He remained in the reserve while finishing high school • When he was only 16 years old he knew that he wanted to be in the service (28:20) Basic Engineering • Kevin was training to be a Machinery Maintenance and Repair Technician • He trained for 13 weeks and then was allowed to go out to sea • He washed out of nuclear power school, but would have done better if he was older and more mature • Kevin was assigned to a ship outside of Georgia where he was working in a crane shop with missiles • He was also working on small arms in the weapons department (33:45) USS Julius A. Fuehrer • The ship was based out of South Carolina; it was a small frigate • Kevin was working in the engine room as a crewmember with a forward five inch gun mount while in the Persian Gulf • He later qualified as a service warfare specialist (43:10) Re-Enlistment 1988 • Kevin re-enlisted because they had offered him a very large bonus; he was married and had young children at the time • He was also provided with a college education • Kevin began working in cryogenics systems engineering; the classes were very hard • He dealt with distillation, storage, and distribution of liquefied gasses �• • The classes were demanding and he was dealing with planes hands on The classes were in Norfolk, Virginia for two years (54:50) Key West • Kevin was assigned shore duty in Florida because his superiors felt that he needed a break • He was working in the Naval air station with two others and one chief • They would go to work at 8 am and then for lunch at noon • After lunch they would mess around or play basketball; only one person would have to go back to the shop to work until 4 • Kevin was taking computer technician classes at a community college in Florida • He received his associates degree in 1994 and also re-enlisted that year Disc Two (01:04:27) (00:15) Millennium Deployment • Kevin was on the only carrier battle group that was deployed during the millennium shift • The skipper was often out of hand and drank a lot • Many in the electrical division got punishment for screwing up or sleeping on duty (06:05) Ship Duties • Kevin was temporarily assigned to the safety office as a representative from engineering • He was doing Naval occupational safety and health work • Working with noise surveys, emergency asbestos removal, and other “boring administrative crap.” • They were at sea for New Year’s Eve and had their own on board fireworks display • They were in Dubai for the Super bowl, drinking lots of beer (13:20) Naval and Marine Corps Center, Indiana • Kevin was transferred to Indiana; it would be his last assignment before retirement • He had been discharged in June, 2002 but was still on the recall list until 2012 • He had to be ready to deploy if needed on 96 hour notice (15:30) Davenport University • Kevin began taking more classes in Indiana for business administration and computer science • He graduated with a double major in 2005 • There were many other vets in the program he took part in • He was going through a divorce while taking his classes • Kevin had been a staff duty officer during the attacks of 9/11 • Everyone at the Navy base was sent home because they felt that would be more �safe than the base (26:15) Reserve Called • Kevin had to contact many men from the reserve to make sure he had their correct contact information if they had to be called to service after 9/11 • Many men were called back to active duty to serve in Iraq • Kevin had to spend about 12 hours calling people in the reserve during 9/11 • By the end of the day he had been able to contact 90% of the people on his list (35:00) Finished with College • Kevin had bad times with the economy in Michigan and Indiana in 2005 • He became more politically active • Kevin joined a citizens’ rights group and fought for sustainable energy • He also tried to help pass the Michigan Fair Tax, but had not got enough signatures to get the proposal on the 2008 ballot � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Heine, Kevin (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Heine, Kevin Description An account of the resource Kevin Heine was born in Flint, Michigan on October 1, 1964. About 25% of his graduating class joined some form of the service in Osceota because it was an Air Force town and the economy was terrible in Michigan during the 80s. Kevin joined the Navy after high school and was able to take many classes in many areas during his 20 year career. Kevin took engineering classes, cryogenics, business administration, computer science, and many others. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-08-17 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HeineK Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/579646f414faeb7faee73262740e5f01.mp4 f6e5013fa5964cdacbc31943a1dfccc0 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ec311636b6bf43fb987b769506b8d098.pdf 83408bb4514af8526976dc3d30caf201 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project The Iraq War Bob Heine Interview Length: (01:49:35:00) Pre-enlistment / Training (00:00:17:00)  Heine was born in 1947 in Bronx, New York (00:00:17:00) o However, Heine mostly grew up on Long Island, New York before moving to Auburn, Alabama to attend Auburn University (00:00:24:00) o While Heine was growing up, his father worked as a construction superintendent for a good-sized construction firm; in 1964, the year Heine graduated from high school, his father joined the New York City school system as the superintendent for buildings and grounds (00:00:34:00)  After graduating from high school, Heine did not like what he saw in the beginnings of the “hippie” culture in and around New York and the Northeast and was simultaneously looking to get into a good engineering program, so he elected to attend Auburn University in Alabama (00:00:57:00) o Once Heine arrived in Alabama, he picked up a southern accent very quickly to blend in with the others (00:01:25:00) o The biggest shock for Heine when he arrived at the university was the blatant racism (00:01:31:00)  During Heine’s first day on campus, he was walking outside the dorms where he was staying and an elderly black man was walking in the opposite direction (00:01:36:00)  As Heine and the black man approached each other, the black man walked off the path and onto the grass while looking down at the ground (00:01:51:00)  That seemed odd to Heine and when the two had passed each other, Heine turned around and saw that the man had walked back onto the path (00:02:01:00)  When Heine later mentioned this situation to other people on campus, they were surprised that he would not expect that kind of behavior; a black person was not supposed to walk on the same sidewalk as he was walking on (00:02:12:00)  When Heine first arrived, the university did not have any black students; in fact, the university ended up getting its first black student while Heine was attending (00:02:31:00) o In the time Heine was at the university, there was very little in the way of anti-war protests, unlike schools in the north-east and western parts of the nation, where such protests were commonplace (00:02:53:00)  In fact, the university maintained a mandatory two-year ROTC program for its students (00:03:06:00)  Many of the students in the ROTC program wore their uniforms for the entire day on the days they had to do drills (00:03:13:00) �   Although the first two years of the ROTC program were mandatory, Heine elected to continue on and join the advanced ROTC program (00:03:26:00) o Heine figured he would go to Vietnam one way or another and he wanted to go as an officer, so going through the ROTC program seemed like a logical choice (00:03:36:00) o Heine ended up being the cadet brigade commander, the top cadet in the program (00:03:47:00) o When he completed the program, Heine received his commission but also received a deferment, allowing him to attend graduate school (00:03:57:00)  The first two years of the program consisted of very basic introductions to life in the Army, as well as a “lab” twice a week that consisted of drill and ceremonies (00:04:19:00)  During the last two years, Heine and the other cadets took a series of courses to learn more about the Army in-depth, all in preparation for becoming an officer (00:04:38:00) o During the drill and ceremonies portion, the older cadets took on leadership roles, where they would train and direct the younger cadets (00:04:48:00)  As well, there was a six-week summer camp where the cadets would have more in-depth training, including training with various weapons and learning infantry maneuvers (00:05:04:00) o The summer camp took place at Fort Bragg, North Carolina (00:05:20:00) o Apart from Heine’s group, there were ROTC cadets from programs all across the country (00:05:33:00) While at Auburn, Heine fully expected that once he graduated from the university, he would be going to Vietnam (00:05:50:00) o From his junior year in high school, Heine had friends who had been called up to serve in Vietnam, a couple of whom were killed in action (00:05:58:00)  As a result of this, Heine followed what happened with Vietnam very closely (00:06:13:00) After completing his undergraduate degree, Heine stayed at Auburn to earn his Master’s degree, after which, he received orders for two years of active-duty service (00:06:20:00) o However, before Heine reported in to begin his two years of active-duty, he received a letter saying that he would instead be going through a basic officer course before going to reserve-duty (00:06:34:00)  The Army had built their officer training programs too high in Vietnam and they suddenly had too many officers coming in (00:06:54:00)  Out of the thirty-nine officers in Heine’s basic officer class, only two stayed on for two years of active-duty (00:07:05:00)  Conversely, the country was going through a recession at the time and some of the officers wanted to stay behind; those who did stay had to sign on for “voluntary indefinite”, which meant at least a three-year �  commitment, although the officers had to stay until the Army was ready to release them (00:07:18:00) Heine received his officer commission in December 1968, earned his Master’s degree in August 1970, and reported for his initial officer training in March 1971 (00:07:38:00) o In the time between his graduation in 1970 and beginning the officer training in 1971, Heine moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to work as a process engineer for Proctor and Gamble (00:07:55:00) Heine was commissioned in the Army Chemical Corps, so he went to Fort McClellan, Alabama for his basic officer course; the fort ended up being only one hundred miles from Auburn (00:08:04:00) o The course was meant to train Heine and the other officers in everything they needed to do to be a platoon leader in the Army (00:08:32:00) o Each basic officer course was focused on what branch of the Army the officers were going into, be it the chemical corps, the infantry, etc. (00:08:54:00) o At the time, the Army Chemical Corps was responsible for chemical, biological, and radiological defense; the United States has a national policy that does not allow the Army to use those types of weapons offensively (00:09:08:00)  However, the soldiers still needed to be protected against those types of weapons (00:09:21:00)  For example, soldiers in the chemical corps might work in an infantry unit’s chemical section to predict the effects of possible attacks using chemical, biological or radiological weapons and advise the unit’s commander accordingly (00:09:25:00)  As well, Heine and the other officers might lead units responsible for decontamination, etc. (00:09:47:00)  Some of the work done in the corps was related to protecting against chemical weapons because they had been used previously by enemy forces; it was not based solely on what had happened in Vietnam, but what had happened in previous wars (00:10:11:00) o The instructors for the basic officer course were more senior members of the Army and most were primarily part of the chemical corps (00:10:35:00)  At the time, the chemical corps had the highest education level out of all the separate branches of the military; over half of Heine class in the basic officer course had a Master’s degree, while seven or eight either already had or were very close to their doctorates in chemistry or chemical engineering (00:10:43:00)  Of the seven or eight men named as honor graduates from the course, Heine was the only one who did not already have a doctorate (00:11:14:00) Reserve Duty (00:11:31:00)  The basic officer course lasted for three months, after which Heine returned home and began his reserve duty (00:11:31:00) o However, Heine was unable to find a chemical unit to join for his reserve duty, so he ended up joining an engineering unit; Heine transferred from the Chemical Corps to the Engineering Corps and stayed there until he retired (00:11:41:00) �   Heine made the switch between the two corps shortly after returning from his basic officer course in 1974 (00:11:55:00)  Although the Army can assign individuals to a specific unit if they have an obligation, since Heine was a volunteer, he was able to look around for a unit of his liking (00:12:17:00) Typically, Heine’s unit would meet one weekend a month, with an unpaid staff meeting on Friday night, followed by paid drill on Saturday and Sunday (00:12:43:00) o The unit’s higher headquarters were located in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati; Heine and the other officers would spend one or two nights a month at the base to meet with the battalion commander and the battalion staff (00:12:59:00) o Initially, Heine was a platoon leader and company executive officer but as he advanced and took a company command, he started having to spend more time at the battalion’s higher headquarters, in Columbus, Ohio (00:13:20:00)  Eventually, it reached the point that, in the fall, it seemed like for seven straight weeks, Heine was traveling to something (00:13:47:00) o The meetings at headquarters consisted of planning, reviewing training from the previous year, looking at training for the upcoming year, etc. (00:13:49:00) When Heine first joined his new unit, there was a very interesting mix of personnel already in the unit (00:14:07:00) o There were still remnants of the draft, including soldiers who had been drafted and voluntarily stayed in the reserves, as well as people who had signed up with the reserves in order to avoid going to Vietnam (00:14:10:00)  Heine served with some very talented individuals in the unit who had signed up with the reserves hoping to not go to Vietnam (00:14:36:00)  Some of the personnel were even professional athletes who played for the Cincinnati Reds and Cincinnati Bengals (00:14:52:00)  Typically, the professional athletes were very much involved in recruiting for the reserves (00:15:25:00)  Heine did not see any tension between the soldiers who had gone to Vietnam and those who had enlisted in the reserves in order to avoid going to Vietnam (00:15:38:00)  For most of them, volunteering to serve in the military, for whatever reason, was honorable enough (00:15:42:00) o At one point, Heine had a private, first class in his unit who Heine placed incharge of creating the detailed aspects of Heine’s training program for the rest of the year (00:16:04:00)  At any one point, Heine had to have a detailed plan for that year’s training program plus outlines for the following two years (00:16:23:00)  When he gave the assignment, Heine sat down with the private and discussed exactly what Heine wanted from the assignment (00:16:32:00)  Heine’s training officer, one of the platoon leaders in the company, did not have to worry about doing anything because the private was doing the whole program (00:16:41:00)  At one point, the training officer came to Heine and asked why the private was doing all the work; Heine explained that the private �   had a Bachelor’s Degree in chemistry, a Master’s Degree in Business Administration, and had more credentials to do the job than the training officer did (00:17:11:00) During the 1970s, Heine and the other officers in the unit stayed very much aware of what was going on in the Army, although they lived in a very different culture from the active-duty Army (00:18:06:00) o During the Vietnam War, very few Reserve or National Guard units were called up to serve in Vietnam; following the end of the war, this created a significant chasm between the active-duty Army and the Reserve Army (00:18:15:00)  This was the period in which the members of the Reserve Army became known as “weekend warriors” (00:18:33:00) o Most of the contact that Heine and the other officers had with the active-duty Army was through advisors assigned to the unit (00:18:37:00)  For the most part, the “advisors” were seen as outsiders and evaluators/inspectors within the unit (00:18:47:00)  As well, the men also encountered active-duty personnel during their training exercises; sometimes those active-duty personnel worked well with the reserve personnel and sometimes they did not (00:19:01:00) o At the time, there was a culture within the Army that perceived that receiving an assignment to be an advisor to a reserve unit was a very negative thing for a soldier’s career (00:19:10:00) o Therefore, the advisors came into the reserve units feelings upset that they had been sent there and in many cases, the personnel in the reserve units did not fully accept the advisors into the units (00:19:31:00) o For the most part, the antagonism between the active-duty and reserve personnel would continue up until Desert Storm (00:19:42:00) Although Heine himself served in a combat engineer unit, which did not have any women members, the higher headquarters was opened up to women personnel (00:20:04:00) o The headquarters did eventually receive some women personnel and there were some problems as a result (00:20:32:00)  The problems did not result from poor job performance by the female personnel but from the female personnel spending too much time with male personnel (00:20:36:00) o Although Heine does not condemn female personnel and acknowledges they are more than capable of doing the job, the handful that the higher headquarters received just happened to cause problems (00:20:59:00) o As time went on and by the time Heine reached the level of battalion commander, most of the specialties within the unit were open to women and there were some very talented women at all levels (00:21:20:00) For officer promotions, there was a regular schedule for an officer to earn a promotion; just like in the active-duty, it was an “up-or-out” system (00:21:52:00) o “Up-or-out” meant that if an officer was passed over for promotion twice, then he was given his discharge; although promotions were slower in the reserves, if an officer did not make the cut, he was out (00:22:03:00) o Although of officers end up missing their promotions because they did not keep up on their military education (00:22:24:00) � At the time, there were a series of courses that officers and/or NCOs had to take; if someone did not take the courses, then they would not be selected form promotion (00:22:28:00)  Personnel could take the courses either through correspondence or going to courses at the various military schools (00:22:48:00) o After completing the basic officer course, Heine’s next course was the Advanced/Career Course (00:23:15:00)  For a variety of reasons, Heine ended up taking four different Advanced Courses; normally, an officer only needed to take one Advanced Course (00:23:24:00)  Following the Advanced Course, Heine’s next step was attending the Command and General Staff College (00:23:32:00)  Heine’s final step was attending the Army War College (00:23:39:00) o Heine did some of the courses by correspondence and some of the courses as a two-week, active-duty tour (00:23:47:00)  The active-duty tours largely consisted of going through the various courses (00:24:07:00)  The tours for the Advanced Course and the Command and General Staff College were easier (00:24:14:00)  Typically, each tour was two weeks, with eight hours of classes every day, followed by several hours of studying (00:24:18:00)  The courses could take place on any base that had the capability to hold them (00:24:35:00)  Some of Heine’s courses took place at Fort Lee, Virginia while others were at Reserve bases, such as Fort McCoy, Wisconsin (00:24:43:00) o On the other hand, the Army War College was much more intense course than the Advanced Course and Command and General Staff College; the two, two-week active-duty tours to complete the course were misery (00:24:51:00)  This course took place at the Army War College itself, located at Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania (00:25:02:00)  The Army War College is the highest level of education in the Army and was so intense that by completing it, Heine was able to earn a Master’s Degree in Strategic Studies (00:25:09:00)  The course was a two-year, ultra-intensive correspondence course where Heine focused on nothing but his civilian job and studying through a box of books about two feet thick, one box every six weeks (00:25:41:00)  After finishing with all the books, Heine ended up writing three research papers (00:25:53:00)  Apart from the papers, at the mid-point of the course, there was a two-week residence course in Pennsylvania and another two-week residence course at the end of the two years (00:26:07:00)  Heine’s papers ended up covering a variety of topics: the papers began by looking at management vs. leadership then continued on to studies at the strategic level, looking at the American military and political systems (00:26:22:00) �o In the papers, Heine did not look at military history just for the sake of looking at history; instead, he used the history to gain information about the strategic implications for the studies (00:27:14:00)  By the time he graduated from the War College in 1997, Heine had reached the rank of colonel (00:27:37:00) Persian Gulf War / Staff-Level Assignments / 9-11 (00:27:56:00)  When the First Persian Gulf War started in 1990, Heine was a Lieutenant-Colonel and a commander of a combat-heavy engineering battalion (00:27:56:00) o At the start of the war, Heine’s unit was very high on the list for their specific type of unit; the Reserves sent the first unit on the list to participate while placing the second unit on the list on and off alert several times (00:28:07:00) o Heine’s unit was third on the list and he largely followed what the second unit did, although without the “assistance” of the Army, a fact he figures was to his advantage (00:28:27:00)  Instead of having people coming in and telling him three different ways to do a specific task, Heine could look at the end result and attain it internally (00:28:48:00) o Heine’s unit ended up not being deployed; however, had the ground war gone for weeks instead of days, the unit would have probably mobilized (00:29:03:00)  Heine knew where his unit was in the mobilization list and was able to follow what happened with the second unit on the list (00:29:27:00)  Because Heine’s unit was located in Toledo, Ohio, not far away from the large Muslim population in Dearborn, MI, the unit received additional intelligence from them (00:30:02:00)  Since the Persian Gulf War and prior to 9/11, both the Reserves and the National Guard were heavily utilized; the war itself was a watershed in terms of the coordination and attitude between the Active-Duty and Reserves (00:30:36:00) o There were a large number of mobilizations that did not involve either the Reserves or the National Guard actually going to war (00:31:12:00) o As well, the United States’ continued operations in Bosnia and Kosovo utilized a large portion of Reserve and National Guard personnel (00:31:25:00)  Heine happened to be in the Pentagon when the hijacked airplane hit the building during 9/11; Heine was able to get out of the building and able to go home, courtesy of the National Guard (00:31:35:00) o At the time, Heine was on a committee called the Army Reserve Forces Policy Committee, an advisor committee on Reserve affairs for the Secretary of the Army (00:31:51:00) o On 9/11, Heine and the other members of the committee were in groups preparing to give a presentation to the Secretary of the Army (00:32:02:00) o When the airplane stuck the building, Heine was one side of the building away from the impact (00:32:37:00)  Although Heine and the other members did not hear the airplane flying in, they felt a shudder, heard a thump and the door of the room, which was not full closed, was pushed open (00:32:46:00) �  The man sitting next to the door pushed the door closed and the members continued on preparing for the presentation (00:33:11:00)  During a break in the preparation, the group’s note taker saw the news about an airplane hitting the first World Trade Center tower and when the group reconvened, the note taker told the others that a Piper Cub had hit the trade center (00:33:18:00)  Heine had flown Piper Cubs before and it would not have been as big a deal as it was, so he sent the note taker to find out what was going on (00:33:42:00)  Shortly thereafter, Heine and the committee meet in the note taker’s boss’ office, which had a television, just in time to see the airplane hit the second World Trade Center tower (00:33:52:00)  The group returned to work, shortly after which the airplane hit the Pentagon, which ended the meeting and forced the group to evacuate from the building (00:34:03:00)  Most of the group ended up getting home either by renting a car or flying home, which Heine himself did (00:34:13:00)  Heine flew back with a group of high-ranking National Guard personnel who were the emergency managers for their individual states (00:34:28:00)  The group received permission from the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and DoD (Department of Defense) to fly a D.C. National Guard airplane to Detroit, where Heine and the commander of the Michigan National Guard got off; the two men board another airplane to Lansing, where the one of the commander’s subordinates drove Heine home (00:34:33:00) After he returned home from Washington, Heine was assigned to be the deputy commanding officer of Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri (00:35:01:00) o Heine managed to make it home on Wednesday, September 12th, and called his boss, the commanding general of the base, the following morning to see if they needed him to go to the base (00:35:12:00)  Although the general was the only one of the five general officers assigned to the fort, the other two were making plans to return, so they did not need Heine to travel to the base (00:35:23:00)  Heine called again on Friday and again, the commanding general said that they had things under control (00:35:37:00)  On Monday morning, Heine was paged as work, which did not happen very often; when Heine picked up the phone, it was the commanding general, who asked what it would take to get Heine to the fort because he was needed (00:35:44:00)  Heine made another phone call and within fifteen minutes, had orders in hand, so he left work, went home, packed his car, and left (00:36:01:00) o Heine stayed at Leonard Wood from the Monday following 9/11 through the end of October (00:36:14:00)  Although Heine expected to be mobilized, he never was and, ended up staying at Leonard Wood until the following May (00:36:21:00) � While at the base, Heine’s job was helping coordinate all the activities on the base and assisting with security, mobilizing both a National Guard military police company and an Army Reserve police company (00:36:44:00)  As well, the base underwent “Training Base Expansion”, which involved bringing aspects of both the National Guard and Army Reserve to the base to increase the capabilities of the base, in anticipation of an influx of soldiers necessary for any operations that would follow (00:37:08:00)  Including Heine, there were five general officers assigned to the base: the commanding general, the deputy commandant of the Engineering school, the commandant of the Military Police school, the commandant of the Chemical school, and Heine (00:37:57:00)  The commandant of the Military Police school was pulled away and assigned to oversee force protection for all the training/indoctrination posts in the Army (00:38:15:00)  The commandant of the Chemical School was pulled to Washington D.C. to work protection of critical assists throughout the country to could be potential targets (00:38:24:00)  The deputy commandant of the Engineer school was pulled away to work as part of a counter-IED (improvised explosive device) task force (00:38:42:00)  Because none of the active deputy commanders were on the base, Heine had to do all of their duties (00:38:52:00) o Heine stayed at Leonard Wood full time until the end of October, when he switch to third time and began traveling back and forth between the base and his home, through the end of May, 2002 (00:39:10:00) Pre-Invasion / The Iraq War (00:39:23:00)  On June 1st, 2002, Heine received his second star and took command of a theater-level engineer command, the 416th Engineer Command in Chicago (00:39:23:00) o When Heine received the initial phone call about the promotion, the general who he would be replacing told him “congratulations, he was receiving his second star and a command, so pack your bags” (00:39:35:00) o Heine took command of his new unit on June 1st and immediately immersed himself in the formation of war plans for the possibility of an upcoming invasion of Iraq; although the orders to invade had not officially been given, the Department of the Army still formulated contingency plans (00:40:01:00)  The unit Heine took command of was the engineering unit responsible for support to U.S. Central Command, which meant the unit was heavily involved in developing and refine the engineering components for any invasion contingency plans (00:40:24:00)  By the time Heine took command, the unit had already had a small cell mobilized that deployed on December 1st, 2001 to Kuwait along with other portions of Central Command (00:40:58:00) � The cell was actively involved in all the engineer planning while in Kuwait (00:41:13:00)  Heine had a secure telephone line to the cell and would spend roughly an hour to an hour and a half each morning reviewing the various engineer support plans for any possible invasion route into Iraq (00:41:19:00) o From the time he took command of the unit, Heine reviewed the invasion plans until he deployed to Kuwait (00:41:37:00)  Initially, Heine went to Kuwait for ten days in August, where he met with the engineering cell; as well, he went to the CentCom (Central Command) Forward Headquarters in Qatar and Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan (00:41:47:00)  As part of his command, Heine was responsible for all the Army facility engineer teams in the region and had teams deployed to: Kuwait, Qatar, Bagram, Kandahar Airport, and a support nod at Karshi-Kanabad Airfield in Uzbekistan (00:42:03:00)  During the ten days he was in the region, Heine visited all of those teams and also worked on the war plans (00:42:22:00)  As he traveled to the various locations, Heine’s mind was always on doing the mission (00:43:02:00)  When Heine was a Lieutenant-Colonel during Desert Storm, he thought about how much time he had spent in the military and lamented the fact that he would not be deploy to take part in the operation (00:43:08:00) o In Heine’s mind, if he did not deploy, as he moved forward in his career, what accolades/achievements/experiences would he have to help him deal with those men who had actually deployed (00:43:33:00)  In a way, once the situation came up that Heine would deploy to Kuwait, in a way, it was kind of exciting for him, the possibility that he might be going (00:43:49:00)  Each of the locations Heine visited was physically different from each of the other locations (00:44:05:00)  However, at each location, the soldiers were all doing their work exceptionally well; from what Heine saw, he was unable to tell the difference between which soldiers were active duty and which soldiers were reservists (00:44:09:00) o Within the engineering component of the Army, the reservists often had more engineering skills, both at the officer and enlisted levels, because that was often their job in the civilian world (00:44:18:00)  During the planning phase, Heine’s unit actually had more engineers within their small cell than the rest of Third Army at CentCom Headquarters did combined (00:44:42:00) �o For the most part, Heine did not have too much to worry about in terms of operations in Afghanistan other than the rotation of his units (00:45:48:00)  The specific operations for each individual units were decided once the units were at their assigned locations (00:46:07:00)  The only real issue Heine had with any of the units in Afghanistan was a leadership issue with a couple of the teams (00:46:12:00)  Heine had to make long-distance decisions regarding the teams and ended up taking the team leader from Kuwait and a LieutenantColonel, sending them to Afghanistan, and having them take command of the two teams (00:46:24:00) o During this command, Heine did not see any problems in regards to the leadership of the units adapting to being in a legitimate shooting conflict (00:47:38:00) o Heine eventually officially deployed to Kuwait in November 2002 along with a fairly good-sized group of reserve leadership who had been deployed to participate in war game exercises at both the Third Army level and the Central Command level (00:47:54:00)  The war games were meant to test the invasions plans that he already been developed (00:48:24:00)  Although a couple of the officers were able to leave relatively quickly due to reserve orders, the majority were involved in a fight between the active-duty component and the reserve component over who would pay to the exercises (00:48:29:00)  Most of the officers ended up being mobilized, which meant they had to go through pre-deployment training, then deploy, then get back in time to go through another process (00:48:44:00)  However, because the Army wanted to limit the officers to twentynine days of mobilization, after the pre-deployment training, the officers arrived in Kuwait on about the tenth day and had to leave by the twentieth day (00:49:00:00)  Heine himself left for Kuwait a couple of days before the other officers; because it was so close to his actual deployment date, he did not have to go through the training (00:49:19:00)  Heine believes that he and his sergeant major were the first of the group to arrive in-country and they were the only ones of the group to participate in the first war games exercise (00:49:38:00)  It was a fascinating experience for Heine to participate in the two different exercises (00:49:59:00)  At the end of the exercises, Heine’s commander, General David McKiernan, kept Heine on for a little bit longer to help with additional planning (00:50:05:00)  Heine ended up staying in Kuwait and offering assistance until just before Christmas 2002 (00:50:24:00)  Before he deployed, Heine had been warned to pack heavy because he might not be going home for an extended period of time (00:50:28:00) �   Heine took the advice and brought everything he needed, so that when he returned home, he left all his supplies in Kuwait and only brought home a small overnight bag (00:50:35:00) Heine returned home just before Christmas 2002 and was officially mobilized on January 2nd, 2003 (00:50:46:00) During planning for the invasion, the engineers were responsible for preparing information on mobility, counter-mobility, and general engineering (00:51:10:00) o The Army forces had to be able to go where they needed to go (mobility), the enemy could not go where the Army did not want them to go (counter-mobility) and the forces needed the proper facilities to make that happen (general engineering) (00:51:19:00) o Heine’s role in the planning was at the theater-level and he reported directly to Gen. McKiernan, who was the commander of Third Army, Army Component Central Command, Coalition Force Land Component Command (00:51:36:00)  Gen. McKiernan was the overall commander for the grounds forces for the invasion (00:51:47:00) o The engineers were responsible for building all of the facilities needed for the influx of soldiers and equipment coming into Kuwait (00:51:54:00)  One of the most important parts of this was constructing landing and parking areas for helicopters; without a proper landing pad, a helicopter could kick up enough dirt that the pilots would lose their frame of reference and crash (00:52:05:00)  Another key aspect that the engineers dealt with during the planning was how to get enough fuel to the forward units of the invasion (00:52:27:00)  Although Coalition forces drew fuel directly from a Kuwaiti oil refinery, the overall fuel requirements for the invasion force was roughly four million gallons per day, and neither the Army or Marine Corps had the haul capacity to carry that much fuel during the invasion (00:52:32:00)  Therefore, the engineers built pipelines that carried two million gallons of fuel a day directly to the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border (00:52:53:00)  The unit assigned to constructing the pipelines was the further deployed unit prior to the invasion, other than various Special Forces units (00:53:06:00) o The unit was well within range of Iraqi artillery and was working to store jet fuel (00:53:15:00)  The engineers also had to develop all of the plans to immediately move all of the logistic capabilities forward, move additional fuel forward, and how to deal with any prisoners of war (00:53:22:00)  During Operation Desert Shield¸ the build-up prior to Operation Desert Storm, one of the limiting factors of the timing of the invasion was the lack of availability of proper housing facilities of any POWs (00:53:36:00) �  The Kuwaitis did not want Iraqi POWs on their soil, so prior to the invasion in 2003, the engineers were unable to build facilities in Iraq (00:53:58:00) o Instead, they prepared plans to build the POW facilities in Iraq after the invasion started, which was a difficult process to plan (00:54:22:00)  The invasion route into Iraq was covered with various rivers and canals and if the Iraqi forces were able to successfully destroy the crossings over the rivers and canals, the engineers would need all of the Army and Marine Corps bridge assets to continue the operation (00:54:36:00)  In some cases, the engineers would have to put a bridge in, let the attacking force cross, remove the bridge, get ahead of the attacking force, and set the bridge up again (00:54:55:00)  However, the Iraqis were unable to destroy the bridges, so the engineers did not have to worry about that (00:55:05:00) o For Heine, prior to the invasion, there was not a period when he knew the invasion would be happening and that it was only a matter of time (00:55:27:00)  Although it looked like the forces would be going in, the actual decision to invade was not made until around the day before the beginning of the invasion actually took place (00:55:33:00)  A small group of officers, Heine included, received a phone call soon after the president had made the decision to invade (00:55:52:00) o Although Heine did not have any direct supervision over develop plans if the Iraqis used chemical or biological weapons, one of the things that he and the other commanders always made sure of was that their soldiers were properly trained in the use of their protective equipment (00:56:21:00)  During the build-up prior to the invasion, the soldiers initially carried only some of their protective equipment but eventually started carrying all of the protective equipment; at the time, the Iraqis were launching SCUD missiles and the soldiers had no way of knowing if the missiles carried chemical or biological weapons (00:56:36:00)  One of Heine’s units was given the assignment of building facilities to house Patriot missiles, which were used to shoot down incoming SCUDs (00:57:15:00) Once the invasion started, the lack of use of chemical weapons by the Iraqis came as a surprise; as well, the speed by which the invasion force was able to advance was a very pleasant surprise (00:57:35:00) o The commanders had anticipated that the invasion would take quite a bit longer than it did (00:57:46:00) o Because he took part in the support planning for the invasion, Heine knew how each of the units was supposed to work (00:57:56:00)  One of the “neatest” briefings Heine saw was when Gen. McKiernan, prior to giving a briefing to General Tommy Franks and the Secretary of Defense, had one finally rehearsal briefing (00:58:04:00)  During the briefing, McKiernan had the Army Corps Commander and the Marines Expeditionary Force Commander, commanders � of the two primary attacking forces, seated at a table at the front of the room, while Heine himself was seated in the first row (00:58:31:00)  At one point during the briefing, McKiernan had a slide where he paused for a second and his civilian contractor said, “Sir, it is on the next slide” (00:58:54:00)  At other times, Heine took part in sand table exercises, which involved massive maps that made up the entire floor of a room, where the officers laid out exactly how each individual unit was going to operate during the invasion (00:59:18:00) o The only aspect of the invasion that really surprised Heine was the collapse of the Iraqi Army and the speed with which the invasion force moved in (01:00:08:00) o There are a number of good books by the senior leaders of the invasion that talk about the pressure from the Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense to use a smaller invasion force than the Army and Marines had used during Desert Storm (01:01:32:00)  However, there was a lot of resistance to that, especially amongst the ground forces (01:01:51:00)  According to Gen. McKiernan, use of a smaller invasion force would result in a “catastrophic success” (01:01:59:00)  The fear was that a smaller invasion force would be able to defeat Saddam Hussein and his government but would be unable to maintain control of the country (01:02:12:00)  Prior to the invasion, Heine believes that McKiernan put his entire career on the line in an effort to obtain more ground forces for the invasion (01:02:34:00) Once the invasion officially started, Heine and the engineering component had responsibility for maintaining the main roads going into Iraq (01:03:32:00) o The Kuwaitis wanted as little traffic as was necessary on their one road north into Iraq, so the invasion forces used the remnants of a road that Iraqi forces had built during their invasion of Kuwait prior to Desert Storm (01:03:43:00)  A large portion of the base camps for the various invasion units were constructed along this road and would use the road once the invasion had started (01:04:11:00) o As well, the engineers had to quickly construct the pipelines out of Kuwait, theater sustainment nodes for both the Army and Marines, and the primary prisoner of war camp (01:04:25:00) o The engineers were also told to begin constructing re-deployment facilities for the equipment that needed to be sent home (01:04:45:00)  All vehicles destined to return to the United States had to rigorously cleaned and pass a United States Department of Agriculture inspection before actually being sent back to the United States (01:05:01:00)  The expectation in June 2003 was that the invasion forces would only be in-country for a short period of time, so the re-deployment facilities needed to be constructed quickly (01:05:12:00) �o The engineers under Heine’s command were not responsible for constructing the defenses around the Green Zone, a fortified area within Baghdad (01:06:12:00)  The plan was for Heine’s engineers to provide support for the invasion forces while a fortified engineering brigade would provide support once the invasion forces had pushed further into Iraq (01:06:16:00)  However, having worked together prior to the invasion, both the brigade commander and Heine sent requests to their superiors asking that the bulk of Heine’s forces be transferred into Iraq to assist the brigade’s operations (01:06:39:00)  At the time, Heine’s forces had much more planning and design capability than the brigade forces did (01:07:11:00)  However, the decision was made above Gen. McKiernan’s level that Heine’s forces would not transfer soldiers to assist the brigade (01:07:29:00)  Instead, Heine was given very clear instructions that as his individual units finished their assignments in Iraq, they were supposed to return to Kuwait (01:07:41:00)  As the units returned to Kuwait, Heine laid out what assignments still remained in Kuwait, which units would be assigned to them, and which units could be sent home (01:07:52:00) o Once the overview was complete, Heine turned over command to a colonel and returned home himself, returning to the United States in July 2003 (01:08:17:00) o Going into the invasion, Heine and the other commanders knew that nothing was going to be easy (01:08:53:00)  As part of developing the war plans, the commanders had the “capstone program”, which involved targeting specific units to complete specific missions (01:09:04:00)  Heine and the commanders knew one of their key assignments was completing the pipeline into Iraq, so a couple of units were specifically trained on constructing the pipeline (01:09:32:00)  However, both units were reservists and the decision was made at the DoD level to not mobilize the reserve units until absolutely necessary; therefore, Heine ended up using an active-duty battalion which had not received any of the specialized training to complete the pipeline (01:10:02:00)  Another large challenge that Heine and the other commanders faced was having enough spare parts for all of their equipment (01:10:53:00)  The Army’s policy was to look at an individual unit’s history in regards to using repair parts and would then authorize additional parts based on that history (01:11:01:00)  However, neither the National Guard or reserve units were authorized to receive repair parts, so none of the mobilized reserve units deployed with any repair parts (01:11:21:00) o Some of the units were able to receive some parts from active-duty support facilities, but not near enough to cover the demand (01:11:34:00) � The active-duty units did not use their equipment all that often, so there was not a large supply of repair parts (01:11:44:00)  Operating in the desert meant that the filters and hydraulic lines on the equipment, as well as the cutting edges on diggers and bulldozers, wore out much fast and there was no provision for units to receive repair parts (01:11:58:00)  Heine’s unit ended up making massive, blanket purchase orders to bring in the repair parts; within days, the orders wiped out the supply of parts in both the Middle East and Europe (01:12:16:00) o Heine never referred to the invasion as “Mission Accomplished” and that statement was frustrating to many of the commanders because they knew the tremendous amount of work that still needed to be done (01:13:37:00) Second Deployment / Post-Military Observations (01:13:52:00) Heine was kept on active-duty through August 2003 and two days after he left active-duty, he received a phone call from the Deputy Chief of Engineers saying that the Chief of Engineers wanted to talk to him (01:13:52:00) o Heine went in the next week to speak with the Chief and found out he was being sent back to Iraq (01:14:05:00) o The Chief informed Heine that the Army was considering establishing a four-star General-level command in Iraq and if/when that happened, Heine was going to “volunteer” to go back (01:14:26:00) o After receiving the news, Heine immediately began working with the senior engineer in Iraq, a one-star reserve general, to lay the groundwork for what the Multi-National Force, Iraq Engineer Section would look like (01:14:39:00)  Part of the section would come from Heine’s headquarters while the remainder would come from other parts of the Army and the other armed forces (01:15:02:00) o Heine expected that once the section was officially formed, he would deploy to Iraq to act as the section commander (01:15:10:00)  Heine received the call that he would be deploying to Iraq to take command of the engineering section in March 2004, on the same day he found out he needed to have open-heart surgery (01:15:22:00) o Heine had his open-heart surgery in April, in June his former Deputy deployed on a short tour to officially organized the engineering section, and a couple of months later, the overall commander made the decision to move the engineer responsibility back to the corps-level, while keeping Heine’s position to act as the head of the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office (01:15:31:00) o Heine deployed the following January after spending about a week receiving additional training (01:16:25:00)  Once reconstruction funding for Iraq passed in a supplemental budget, the President decided to form several new organizations, one of �which was the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office (IRMO) working out of the U.S. Embassy in Iraq (01:16:49:00) o The IRMO had the responsibility to oversee the allocation and utilization of the $18.4 Billion that had been authorized for reconstruction funding; the IRMO also had the lead role in working with the various Iraqi ministries to help develop the ministries’ ability to govern (01:17:11:00) o The original leader of the IRMO was a retired two-star Navy Admiral, who was replaced by an ambassador (01:17:34:00) o The IRMO consisted of advisory teams supporting each of the Iraqi Ministries and personnel working on the allocation of the reconstruction funding in accordance with the Congressional intent (01:18:03:00) o Heine himself was the deputy director for the entire organization and was the director of operations (01:18:25:00)  His primary job was providing leadership to all of the various advisory teams, including those assigned to the Iraqi Defense Ministry and the Interior Ministry (01:18:30:00)  However, the leadership for the Defense Ministry was meant to be led by the military, so after Heine had been at the IRMO for about six months, the leadership of the Defense ministry was transferred back to the military (01:18:45:00) o As well, four Iraqi Ministries had been formed solely to work on the reconstruction of the cities hit hardest by the fighting: Fallujah, Sadr City, Baghdad, etc. (01:19:20:00) o The IRMO constantly monitored the needs of the Iraqis to determine how to best allocate the reconstruction funding and then work with the Iraqi Ministries and the implementation agencies to ensure the funds were properly utilized (01:19:54:00)  Concurrently, the IRMO was using its own resources to encourage the Iraqi government to utilize its own resources (01:20:21:00) o While in the IRMO, Heine had daily interaction with Iraqi officials (01:20:41:00)  The Iraqi government had assigned one of their deputy Prime Minister to be in-charge of reconstruction and Heine met with the official several times a week (01:20:44:00)  One of the deputy Prime Ministers, Ahmed Chalabi, ended up forming a National Energy Committee, which oversaw oil, electricity, water, etc.; Heine himself was a part of that committee (01:21:02:00) o The biggest challenge with Heine’s job was finding ways to get the Iraqis to take additional responsibilities for making their own improvements (01:21:48:00)  The Iraqi system was rather dysfunctional, especially after the order was given to wipe out the Ba’ath party, which effectively removed the entire Iraqi civil service (01:21:58:00) �     It was very difficult to reestablish the civil service capabilities within the Iraqi ministries (01:22:24:00)  The personnel in the IRMO tried as much as possible to use the reconstruction funds and American contractors to work with the Iraqis to improve the Iraqis’ capabilities to plan and manage their own reconstruction (01:22:28:00)  The political situation and in-fighting between the various political parties made the work very difficult (01:22:50:00) The well-known “Surge” occurred after Heine had already returned home from his deployment; Heine himself returned home in June 2006 (01:23:18:00) o However, Heine sees the origins of the turnaround that happened as a result of the Surge in the work done with Sunni leadership in the Anbar province located in western Iraq (01:23:24:00)  During the time period after the invasion, Marine forces were deployed in Anbar and in both Fallujah and Ramadi (the capital of the province), the Marines were attempting to hold town meetings but were struggling to involve the city leadership (01:23:45:00)  However, over time, the Marines were more and more successful in getting the Iraqis involved, so that by the time Heine left, the Marines were sitting around the outside of the meetings while the Iraqis were running the meetings (01:24:29:00) The issue of IEDs was handled primarily at the corps level; the major effect that IRMO felt was the increase in security requirements for the contractors (01:25:45:00) o The increased security requirements were very costly and ended up forcing the IRMO to restructure the program and scale back some of the work that the organization had been planning to do (01:26:08:00) o As time passed, the IRMO tried more and more to get the Iraqis involved in the reconstruction and have Iraqi firms do the majority of the work (01:26:45:00)  One method the IRMO used to do this was posting all upcoming projects and having the various Iraqi firms bid on the projects; however, the postings were in Baghdad but a lot of people did not want firms located in Baghdad (01:27:03:00) There was a lot of politics involved in Heine’s job and he does not know a way in which he could fully train for it (01:27:34:00) From a personal stand point, after spending seventeen months on his second deployment, by the time the deployment ended, Heine was ready to go home; however, the IRMO’s mission was not complete when Heine returned home (01:27:54:00) o By the time Heine returned home, the official mission for IRMO, the allocation of the $18.4 billion, was coming to a close; the majority of the money had been allocated and remaining funds would be used on projects to had been developed after others had been canceled (01:28:08:00) �  Normally, Heine was in the office by 6:45 in the morning, unless something happened during the night that required him to be there earlier (01:28:51:00) o Every morning, Heine would go to a Battle Update Assessment (BUA) briefing every morning at 7:30, which gave him forty-five minutes to review everything that had happened overnight and be prepared for any issues that might come up in the briefing (01:29:03:00)  A couple of slides in the briefing would talk about the essential services in Iraq; if anything happened with the services during the night, Heine would wake up earlier to be “brought up to speed” (01:29:31:00) o After the BUA briefing, Heine would attend another briefing with a handful of other senior leaders, where they discussed in-depth any key issues that had developed in the previous twenty-four hours (01:29:59:00) o The remainder of Heine’s day consisted of going out to meet with various Iraqi ministries, visiting some of the construction projects on Fridays and Saturdays, and meeting with the various American units (01:30:18:00) o Typically, Heine would work until around ten or eleven o’clock at night, when he would go to sleep until early the next morning, then get up and do the same routine over again (01:30:45:00) Heine feels that he was somewhat fortunate because IRMO received “first dibs” on security teams; IRMO received a security team from Blackwater, a private military contractor (01:31:01:00) o The security team would travel with any of the four senior leaders of IRMO whenever one of the leaders went into the field; given the nature of their jobs, out of the four, Heine was in the field ninety percent of the time and the remaining three were ten percent (01:31:18:00) o The members of the security team assigned to IRMO were very talented, very through, and were not very aggressive; Heine felt safer going out with a Blackwater team than with any other contractor (01:31:37:00)  Heine was meeting with various Iraqi ministries and if the security team assigned to him was very aggressive in their approach, the Iraqis would be upset with Heine before they had even met him (01:32:11:00) o The civilians working in IRMO were often out in the field more than a lot of the other personnel in the Green Zone (01:33:08:00) o The two closest calls Heine experienced were when a suicide bomber who’s bomb failed to go off and when he and his team came under mortar attack while in the middle of the largest oil refinery in Iraq (01:33:37:00)  Heine was at the refinery with Deputy Prime Minister Chalabi and the helicopters were just coming in to pick the group up when the mortars started coming in (01:34:03:00) �  The helicopters pulled out and the group got into their vehicles to take one member who had been wounded to the nearest medical facility (01:34:18:00) Looking back, although the assignment at IRMO was very challenging for Heine, it was also very fascinating for him (01:35:10:00) o Heine was amazed to have to opportunities that he did, especially working with the senior-level Iraqi officials and just being able to view history at an up close, personal level (01:35:18:00)  Heine was in Iraq when the Iraqis held elections for the interim government, ratification of the new Iraqi Constitution, and the election of the constitutional government (01:35:40:00)  By the time of the constitutional elections, only three general officers had been in Iraq for all three of the elections, the overall commander, General George W. Casey, Jr., Heine and one other general, who ended up returning home two weeks after the final election (01:35:55:00) o Working at the U.S. Embassy as a soldier was a very interesting experience, largely due to the different philosophies of the Department of Defense and the Department of State (01:36:16:00)  One time, Heine was preparing the ambassador for a briefing to the Principles Committee, which was basically the National Security Council minus the President and Vice President (01:36:43:00)  Few military personnel were allowed to attend the briefing and just as it was getting time from the ambassador to leave for the briefing, the Deputy ambassador asked if the ambassador would like Heine to go with him, in case there were any additional questions (01:37:07:00) o Heine knew he was not supposed to be at the briefing and was hoping the ambassador would say “no” (01:37:39:00)  The ambassador said “yes”, so he and Heine walked to the room where the briefing was taking place; inside the room was a fairly wide table with seats in the back (01:37:46:00) o Heine walked into the room and went to the back with the Deputy ambassador but the ambassador motioned for Heine to sit next to him at the table (01:38:01:00)  When the briefing began, the National Security Advisor, Dr. Stephen Hadley, who was leading the briefing, gave his opening remarks and then subsequently turned the briefing over to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (01:38:40:00)  Once Secretary Rice finished her remarks, she told the ambassador to begin and the next thing Heine heard, the ambassador said that he was going to have Heine give the briefing, which was not part of the plan (01:38:56:00) �o   Roughly eighty percent of the information in the briefing was work Heine had developed and fortunately, he had been at the practice sessions so he could know about the other twenty percent (01:39:06:00)  Heine ended up giving the entire briefing and answered whatever questions were asked (01:39:18:00)  Once the briefing was over, Heine returned to his office and was not back for more than five minutes when he received a phone call from Gen. Casey’s office, telling Heine to come to the general’s office (01:39:30:00)  Heine went to talk with the general, who explained that Secretary Rumsfeld had called about Heine being at the briefing and the general explained that Heine worked for the embassy and the embassy wanted him to be there (01:39:43:00)  As a result of giving the briefing to the Principles Committee, Heine was then assigned the job of giving any reconstruction briefings, which meant he gave several briefings to Secretary Rice and met several times one-on-one with Secretary Rumsfeld (01:40:18:00) Heine believes that Gen. Casey did a better job in his assignment than Heine believes the general receives credit for (01:40:54:00) o All of the senior military leaders whom Heine worked with were outstanding, proving time and again that the military had a very good selection process for choosing its leadership (01:41:05:00) o Heine believes that Gen. Casey in particular received unfair criticism from politicians which was not warranted (01:41:40:00)  Heine believes the military provided significant leadership not just in the military effort but in the entire coalition effort (01:42:02:00)  Gen. Casey faced difficult (Heine would define it was almost hostile) questioning in his confirmation to be the Army Chief of Staff, based largely on his service in Iraq (01:42:24:00) o Nevertheless, Heine worked with a lot of good individuals who did a lot of good work and were heavily invested (01:42:41:00)  Every Wednesday, the commander of the forces stationed in Baghdad would have a three-hour briefing on the reconstruction efforts and would have details about every single project (01:43:37:00)  If the details were not up to the level that he commander wanted, then he wanted to know why (01:43:58:00)  The commander made the connection that the reconstruction efforts in Baghdad would help the overall security; not just the improved facilities but also the process of improving the facilities was beneficial (01:44:29:00) Heine returned home in June 2006 and retired from the Army at the end of July 2006 (01:45:04:00) �o   According to Army policy, as a general officer, if Heine did not have another assignment to go to after returning home, he would retire (01:45:16:00)  By the time his second deployment ended, Heine was too old to be considered for another full assignment; however, he had been considered for as Chief Army Reserve but was not selected (01:45:25:00) o After he retired, Heine was fortunate enough to be selected to assist in training senior National Guard and Reserve engineer units who would be deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan (01:46:01:00)  Heine was a contractor and traveled to wherever the various units were mobilizing out of; primarily, it was: Fort McCoy, Wisconsin; Camp Shelby, Mississippi; and Fort Hood, Texas (01:46:18:00)  Heine’s job involved working with general-led units who were going through a series of very intense exercises that placed the units in the area they would be assigned and having them go through real missions and working with real-world intelligence (01:46:37:00)  Heine’s specific job was as the senior mentor who would coach the various units through the exercises (01:47:02:00) While he was working as the mentor, Heine had to stay abreast of what was happening in Iraq, including at a classified level (01:47:22:00) o Overall, events in Iraq since he left have happened at a level where Heine expected them to happen; however, he would like to see more progress and in his mind, it is disappointing that Shia-led government has not been more accommodating of the Sunni (01:47:55:00) Heine does very little work now-in-days, spending a few hours a week consulting for a non-profit professional services company; as well, he remains in contact with the Army engineers (01:49:05:00) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Heine, Robert (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Heine, Robert Description An account of the resource Bob Heine was born in 1947 in the Bronx, New York. After high school, he enrolled in the engineering program at Auburn University in Alabama, and completed four years of ROTC training. Instead of going to Vietnam, he was sent to graduate school for two years, and then received specialized chemical training, after which he went into the reserves rather than active duty. He soon switched to the Engineer Corps, and pursued a professional career while advancing through the ranks in the reserves. He was assigned to command an engineer battalion during Desert Storm, but the unit was not deployed due to the brevity of the war. After 9/11, however, he was activated, working initially at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, and then being deployed to Kuwait and Iraq in command of a unit supporting American forces in those countries, and wound up doing two tours in Iraq as a major general and working with high ranking American and Iraqi officials. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Kentwood Historic Preservation Commission (Kentwood, Mich.) WKTV WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Iraq War, 2003-2011--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-09 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HeineB1379V Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ff52b58eecaa9685f9d352dddbf64426.mp4 79026dc4ce61de880dd45fd449dc873c https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ecc6f2d727d7e1eccaf4d579f7d501b2.pdf 3265fdbd7964f4cf4adaa4e00b6fde9c PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: World War II Interviewee name: Bill Heintzelman Length of Interview (00:47:15) (00:00:12)Pre-Enlistment  Background o Born August 7, 1943, enlisted in 1961. o Born in Grand Rapids, MI, St. Mary’s Hospital.  Family o Father was a metal finisher, had been drafted into WWII after Heintzelman was born, mother was a housewife. o Had a brother and two sisters.  Education o Went to Godwin Heights High School. o 10 days after graduating, went to Great Lakes. (00:02:00)Enlistment and Training  Why he joined o Family tradition to join the Navy.  Where he went o Enlisted in Downtown Grand Rapids, 1961, before graduating. o Sent to Great Lakes, Illinois. o Entailed a lot about military courtesy and physical fitness, utilizing space on a ship. o In Great Lakes for six to nine weeks for basic training. o (00:03:55)Went to Radioman “A” School, a code school, in VA  There for 16 weeks.  Primarily drilled in Morse code; 22 words a minute, copy and send.  Didn’t use it after training.  Skills Learned o (00:04:46)Was taught the basics of transmitters. o When Heintzelman became a Naval Communication Station Balboa, wound up working with transmitters with high, low, and medium frequencies; time transmitters o Time transmitter- beeps every second, controlled by the atomic clock, exactly on time o (00:05:50)Was also a part of a drill team; marching and “rifle tricks” Active Duty  (00:06:07)Panama Canal o From VA, he went to a Naval Communication Station near the Panama Canal, Naval Communication Station Balboa. o (00:06:33)Day to day duty; watch-standing duty. o Had three buildings, each dealt with different speeds of frequency. �o Definitions  Low frequency (VLF) - meter readings, preventative maintenance, retuning it.  Mid frequency (VHF) - like the VLF, took transmitter readings, kept it in tune; all done by ear/guesstimate.  High frequency - changing frequencies, loading transmitters (30 or 40 different antennae); a very tough job.  Low frequency for submarines; mid frequency for normal transmissions, navigation information for both merchant ships and naval ships  o Work Responsibilities & experiences  A lot of coded messages very top secret but too “garbled” to understand; each frequency had side bands with opposing signals.  120-130 messages could go out simultaneously.  Dreadfully hot in Panama.  Transmitter site located in the jungle itself.  Dealt with a lot of snakes and scorpions.  Once ran across a 14ft. Boa. (00:11:45)Cuban Missile Crisis o Background & Experiences  October 21, 1962; everyone was called out to the High Frequency Building.  At 7o’clock PM, heard Kennedy’s speech about the Naval Blockade.  Any attack on any country in the Western Hemisphere would be considered an attack by the Soviets on the U.S.; U.S. would retaliate.  Ordered the missiles out, went to DEFCON 2 in Panama (DEFCON 1 = all out war, DEFCON 4 = peace)  Was at DEFCON 2 due to the possibility of Russian ships using the channel.  When put into DEFCON 2 had to trade his transmitting duties for patrolling duties.  Had a rifle and went along the canal watching ships then boarding a few to identify them; ship’s wheel given to a harbor pilot to go through the Panama Canal.  Went aboard Russian ships and Communist ships.  One time, the whole canal was shut down to allow fleets Destroyers and Cruisers to go through.  When aboard Communist ships, made sure radios were off and proper flags flying (American Flag or Flag of Origin); had Marines strategically placed to prevent “scuttling” or the sinking of ships.  Communist ships could sink themselves to block the canal.  (00:15:42)DEFCON 2 lasted a couple of months, even after the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis  At the time, people were afraid of Nuclear War, but believed it wouldn’t happen.  Confident in the President � (00:16:30)At the time, had an “Atomic Clock”, set five minutes to midnight; midnight meaning Nuclear War.  During the Cuban Missile Crisis, this clock was set one minute before midnight. o (00:17:50)U.S.S. Thresher  Transmitters were used to calibrate search gear for a Nuclear Submarine that had imploded when submerging.  Used VLF transmitter; delay of beeps helped with finding it.  Lasted about a week to find the remains of the sub.  No tension afterwards because it was a design flaw that caused the implosion, not sabotage. o General Feelings of the U.S. to Kennedy’s Assassination  (00:20:33)When Kennedy was assassinated, was put on alert once more, DEFCON Mode.  Rifle patrol and gun patrol for a while.  (00:21:05)Whenever something of significance happened, Panama Canal was put on alert due to its strategic importance.  The general feeling, in the U.S., about Kennedy’s assassination was grief. o Going Home  (00:22:36)They day after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, 1964, Heintzelman ended his first term of service.  Didn’t reenlist because he didn’t want to continue as a radioman; very critical job in the Navy, had a low retention rate. Further Military Experiences  Background o (00:23:28)Was previously denied to become a journalist in the Navy, but ten years later, went back and was given the job. o (00:23:46)During his ten years away, was a radio news reporter, then a radio news director in Grand Rapids. o Also did a little retail, anything to get by.  (00:24:23)Armed Forces Broadcast o In ’74 was given the opportunity to work for the Armed Forces Radio/Television Service o No military training. o Went Defense Information School. o Learned how to report, camera positions, video/audio tape editing. o Other places he served  Fort Harrison, Indiana.  (00:25:19)First duty station was in Japan.  Also went to: Adak, Alaska; then Keflavik, Iceland; then Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; back to Adak.  Finally wound up with a tour of duty in Germany, and then ended up in Washington, D.C.  (00:26:05)In Japan, they were building a T.V. station at a naval base in Sasabo from a broken down movie theater.  1st T.V. station, in that area, to broadcast television in English. �   There for about one year and a half. Was the Station Manager; mostly trained cadets coming from the Defense Information School. o (00:27:40)Armed Forces Television’s goal was to bring a little bit of home to the men overseas.  Also used to get out command information, replaced commercials/ o (00:29:15)Adak, Alaska was the same duties as in Japan, there for about one year.  Very isolated, nearest landmass was Siberia; very lonely. o (00:30:15)Loved his time in Japan, had an orientation/classes; cultural orientation, spoken language, manners.  (00:31:51)When in town, in Japan, did a little drinking, heck-raising, and sight-seeing; saw the Thousand Islands, went to the Nagasaki Bomb site. o Kind of weird, shadows of people burned into the sidewalks; area called Ground Zero, made into a Peace Park; felt sacred. o (00:33:44)Iceland was a tough duty (similar to Adak); no trees, hostile weather, people were very independent minded; not encouraged to go into the city. o One Air Station was restricted from going into town because it was dangerous. o There for one year. o (00:35:10)Went back to Adak where he met his wife; she was the Officer in Charge. o Navy has rules against fraternization, her superiors didn’t approve of the marriage, but she married him anyway. o (00:36:12)Spend another year in Adak. (00:36:21)Germany: Armed Forces Network, Europe o Went to Germany; became the Broadcast Manager for Armed Forces Network: Europe. o Included all sites in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, nothing with Italy; all of mainland Europe. o Responsibilities & Experiences  Monitored stations; had a lot of sensitivities in Europe.  One time had a woman that commented on the radio not having good Rock N’ Roll music in Austria, which nearly caused an International uproar; made her apologize on air.  In Iceland, couldn’t talk about alcohol or dogs on air.  (00:38:45)After the incident with the Austrian girl, had a Command Assist Visit in which Heintzelman and the Major made rounds and held classes on “Area Sensitivities.”  (00:39:12)Did not have this type of trouble in Japan; they didn’t like the mentioning of nuclear power and wouldn’t allow ships with nuclear power/devices in.  The U.S. Navy and Japan recently have an agreement to allow one carrier with nuclear devices in because it is being “moth-balled.”  (00:40:30)After being married, his wife resigned her commission; first child born in Germany.  His wife couldn’t attend classes with him because she was “too pregnant” to do so; no cultural orientation. �  Traveled quite a bit in Germany. (00:41:52)Talks about his father being in WWII; explains propaganda against the Japanese.  (00:43:34)Didn’t get a chance to visit his family roots, where his family is from, because of the split between West and East; did see the Berlin Wall, visited Checkpoint Charlie.  Gave a hopeless feeling.  Between the walls was white so guards, at night, could spot a target by watching silhouettes. (00:45:33)After the Service  In Germany for one year and a half  Went back to Washington, D.C.; retired from the Navy after two years.  Mainly did office work.  After retiring, went to work in Muskegon for a radio station; there for five years.  Went back to school, Grand Valley, and got his B.A. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Heintzelman, William L. (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Heintzelman, William L. Description An account of the resource Bill Heintzelman enlisted in 1961 and trained as a radioman in the Navy. He was stationed at the Panama Canal during the Cuban Missile Crisis where he patrolled aboard ships and along the canal. When Heintzelman went back into the Navy after a ten year gap between his first and second term of service, he worked as a journalist at several stations around the world. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Natte, Jeremiah (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-08-24 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HeintzelmanW Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/12936b265b7e1ae9f447a2afe079b432.jpg 6716d83c770724c9b8b73b98f2063b74 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Summers in Saugatuck-Douglas Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Stories of Summer," supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant. The collection aims to document the twin lakeshore communities of Saugatuck and Douglas, Michigan, as they transformed through the state's bustling tourism industry and acceptance of minorities. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1910s-2010s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Various Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Subject The topic of the resource Michigan Saugatuck (Mich.) Douglas (Mich.) Michigan, Lake Allegan County (Mich.) Beaches Sand dunes Outdoor recreation Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Saugatuck-Douglas History Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Stories of Summer (Common Heritage project) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Text Language A language of the resource English Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-07_SD-FosterR_0007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Foster, Raymond Title A name given to the resource Heinze Homestead Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of a large white farmhouse on the leftside of the frame and there are a few barns located to the right. A group of people that appear to be a family are sitting or standing in the front yard and on the front porch. The writing on the bottom of the picture reads: "Heinze Homestead." Subject The topic of the resource Michigan Saugatuck (Mich) Allegan County (Mich) Families Farming Black-and-white photography Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Digital file contributed by Raymond Foster as part of the Stories of Summer project. Relation A related resource Stories of Summer (project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8c35ec3ae642d4b2bbe55ed168d87d24.jpg 07193faae20ae400df52b1884fecba4e https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/91fa2660c288ca9aae73124bf49a54ac.jpg 05903b0dd4eb88b577ff76163cba875c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Insel-Bücherei Series Description An account of the resource The German publishing company Insel Verlag was founded in 1899 by Anton Kippenberg in Leipzig. In its early years the firm only printed expensive, beautifully-produced volumes, until demand led to the publication of the more modest Insel-Bücherei series in 1912. Relatively inexpensive but with the same careful sense of design and typography, these smaller-format books reprinted shorter works from a variety of German, European, and world authors. The series numbers considerably more than a thousand titles and is still being issued. The Digital Collection contains the scanned covers of 140 titles held by Grand Valley State University Libraries. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1904-1987 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-05 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource ger Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-09-29 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-05_IB0715 Title A name given to the resource Helden und Opfer: fünf historische Miniaturen Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-09-29 Description An account of the resource Cover of Helden und Opfer: fünf historische Miniaturen, by Friedrich Sieburg, published by Insel-Verlag, 1960. Insel-Bücherei Nr. 715 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books. Insel-Bücherei. Z315.I5 B83 no.715 Language A language of the resource de Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives