100 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b4bbb1adb0b2a726b87a68d4cd242ee4.jpg e0375cb01b0a42be70e3562d01a1d4b4 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 BrooksDonna_Photo1 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Brooks, Donna Description An account of the resource Donna Brooks, Board of Trustees 1993-2009, University Foundatoin 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/35a010bae013091293b3f189d0b15353.mp4 6f25c4e1761cfb64a9c1c3879c782436 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d5a3f2ddcae25e8ff4266566dd08144d.pdf 0c7222c03fe04298b9bb05871f5984f8 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Ed Brooks Length: 32:06 (00:15) Background Information • Ed was born in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan in 1940 • He had 2 brothers, his father was a farmer and his mother a housewife • Ed went to Hoover elementary school and then a larger school in the city after 8th grade • He played baseball and basketball in high school and graduated in 1959 • After graduation Ed worked at a gas station for a while and then decided to enlist in the Army in 1962 (8:40) Training • Ed was sent to Fort Knox in Kentucky for basic training in October of 1962 • He trained and worked in the motor pool, repairing jeeps and trucks (10:40) Korea • Ed was sent to Korea on a troop ship and was very sick the first 3 days of the trip • In Korea, there was very hot weather and the smell was terrible • There were a few civilians that they worked with and some of them spoke English • Ed spent 1 year in Korea and thought the food was great there • He worked driving jeeps and other vehicles and was never in any combat • Ed later took another troop ship back to the US and landed in San Francisco a month later • He was discharged in San Francisco after serving for 2 years (16:45) Back in US �• One year after being discharged Ed got married back home in Mt. Pleasant • He continued working at the gas station and now has 3 children and 4 grandchildren • He recently broke his hip working and was recovering at the Masonic Home at the time of the interview � 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 Brooks, Ed (Interview outline and video), 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brooks, Ed Description An account of the resource Ed Brooks served in the US Army between 1962 and 1964. He trained as a mechanic and worked in motor pools at bases in the US and in South Korea, where he served for a full year. 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 Video recordings United States. Army Korean War, 1950-1953--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 2004-06-26 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BrooksE 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/91ef98006067c60b45310490df639eb7.mp4 88e98e8dbdad0ac74b66bf6b40c10884 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2cf9ab29e1f4ba1e3256b71bf05844b5.pdf cac9dcdee6e1289dc45448bf4b6fe154 PDF Text Text GVSU Veterans History Project Mary Jean Brooks Interviewed by Frank Boring Transcribed by Emilee G. Johnson, Western Michigan University, September 2012 Interviewer: Mary Jean could you begin first by saying your full name including your maiden name? Mary Jean: My maiden name was Mary Jean Wood and my married name is Brooks. Interviewer: And, Mary Jean, where were you born? Mary Jean: I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but from age 5, I grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Interviewer: What was your schooling like—your early schooling? Mary Jean: Well, I went to the public schools in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I graduated from 1:00 East Grand Rapids High School in 1939, and then I went on to Michigan State University, um, got a bachelor’s degree in home economics education in 1943. Interviewer: Well, ’43... you already heard about Pearl Harbor. Mary Jean: Oh, yes…Pearl Harbor occurred when I was a junior in college and I remember it vividly. It was on a Sunday, and um, the campus was in an uproar. Some of the men literally left immediately to enlist, and a lot of the men were in ROTC, so they were called up very soon. And by the time my senior year rolled around, there were very few men on campus other than some military units 2:00 that were being trained there. Interviewer: What was your reaction to the actual event, personally? What did you feel like or what was your reaction when you first heard it happened? Mary Jean: Well it was a shock. It was more of a shock for many of my girlfriends who had boyfriends that they were planning on marrying. I wasn’t in that situation, but uh, a lot of them, there were a lot of hurried up marriages that occurred, um, shortly after that, before the men went overseas. But it was a shock and of course campus life kind of came to a screaming halt, the social life, uh, but we finished our degrees and went on, of course. Interviewer: Did you at the time of Pearl Harbor have any inkling that you were going to eventually become part of the military, was that…? �Mary Jean: No, I don’t think so, 3:00 not at that time. Interviewer: Uh, now you graduate from college, but before you do that you were actually involved with USO activities, is that correct, while you were still in college? Mary Jean: No, no, that was when I was working, oh, after college, I uh, well, I wanted to be an airline stewardess—it sounded so glamorous, and my father absolutely had a fit. He said, “I did not pay for your education for you to be a glorified servant!” So, with tears in my eyes, I accepted an offer to teach in Traverse City, Michigan. So, um, I went up there in the northwoods, and um, there was a Naval Air Station there in Traverse City. Uh, so it wasn’t a bad…socially, it wasn’t a bad assignment and I enjoyed the teaching, and uh, we teachers 4:00 used to date the pilots that were out at the air station, and we volunteered at the USO in town and used to go and visit with the young men and help them write letters home and put on suppers and events for them. Interviewer: Um, it was soon after that period though, that uh, you joined the WAVES…I’m wondering how did that come about? Mary Jean: Well, I was, uh, rooming with another teacher, and I don’t know, we got it in our heads that we wanted to join the service…It’s funny you don’t remember exactly how it happened. One thing that I do remember was that there was a WAC officer (WAC is Women Army Corps) uh, who was up in Traverse City trying to recruit teachers and she wined and dined us. 5.00 Uh, and that may have put up the idea in our heads, I don’t know. But, uh, we got to talking about joining the service, but when we discovered that the WACs wore khaki underwear [laughs] we didn’t want to be in the WACs, you know, when you’re 22 those things are important. And of course we’d been exposed to the Navy up there at the Naval Air Station and my father had been in the Navy in World War I. Alice’s mother had been in a, um, oh, it was like a secretary corps in World War I in the Navy. So anyhow, we decided on the Navy. We made our applications and waited and waited. School was out, we got accepted, but we had to…we were waiting for our orders so we both took jobs for the summer in Traverse City. 6:00 And I was working as a chemist, uh, in a cherry cannery. Um, we were uh, testing every 50 th can of cherries or whatever, to make sure that, you know, the pits didn’t go through or anything. So one day, I was there at the cannery, and this car from the Naval Air Station drives up and they’re asking for me, and here they are, they’re coming to pick me up, take me to the air station and swear me into the Navy. [laughs] So there I was with cherry stains on my hands and a big apron on me and they took me out there and I swore into the Navy. And then shortly after that, uh, I received my orders to um, report to Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, for officers’ training. 7:00 Now, the um, the WAVES, by the way, the WAVES, the letters stood for Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service. Uh, they…you could enlist as an officer, you didn’t have to come up through the ranks if you were a college graduate. So I went straight �into officers’ training in Northampton. And I remember going out there, and uh, I was alone because Alice hadn’t gotten her orders at the same time I had, so I went alone on a train, uh went to Springfield, Massachusetts and then took the little commuter train to Northampton. And uh, you know a whole bunch of us ratty-looking civilian uniform. 8:00 girls being met by all these girls in Interviewer: Uh, you were talking earlier about the train trip over, uh, if you could describe your feelings…and then the actual ride over, what did you find? Mary Jean: Well the little train that I took from Springfield to Northampton was full of girls who were on their way for WAVE officer training. And we were all very excited, and apprehensive, we didn’t know what to expect. But, when the train arrived and we got off the train, here were all these girls in their snappy uniforms, greeting us. And, uh, we felt welcomed, we really did. And of course we were ushered into a big building and they uh, 9:00 I think right off the bat they issued our uniforms, you know. Uh, we got a winter uniform which was the blue uniform which was a grey and white sear-sucker dress with a jacket, matching jacket that went over it and then a dress summer uniform that was like a white sear-sucker. We hated those. [laughs] And then shirts and ties and purses and shoes—oh, the shoes were awful! Just awful! [laughs] They were…they looked like, I don’t know, they were clunky and they didn’t fit and we all got blisters from marching. As soon as we got out of training we rushed out and got some decent shoes. [laughs] Interviewer: Let’s go back uh, to before training, uh you arrived there and you were met by women in uniform, uh 10:00 there was a certain sense of excitement about it, because here you’re seeing what you’re going to be like very soon. Mary Jean: Yes. Interviewer: But where were you actually brought to, I mean, what kind of environment did you live in, where did you eat? Mary Jean: Well, we were at Smith College. Now, there were still college students that were there also, but uh, the Navy and the WAVES had taken over a couple of the dormitories and we were fed in the Northampton Inn, uh, which was a lovely hotel. Now, we were fed Navy style, you know, we had our trays and we went down…like uh, cafeteria style. But the food was good, uh, so…and then we used classrooms in the college also uh, for our classes. Interviewer: Well, tell us a little about these classes, what was a typical day on the first part of your training? Mary Jean: Well we 11:00 did a lot of training that was very much like men’s basic training except we didn’t use any guns. We marched and we marched and we marched, we marched �everywhere, to class, to mess, we had drills on the field, we did a lot of marching, it was…it was very physically demanding. Interviewer: Now, when you see film footage or movie depictions of men’s basic training, they had fatigues and boots…what were you marching around in? Mary Jean: We marched in our regular uniforms. And I was there in the fall, so we wore our winter uniforms. Every morning when you got up, on the loudspeaker it came and they told you what the uniform of the day was and what you were to wear, um, so, yeah. And we always wore uniforms, 12:00 you could never be out of uniform during the war. Uh, today, I guess, when you’re off duty you don’t have to wear a uniform, but that was not the case during World War II. In the classes, oh, they taught us to recognize all the Navy aircraft and Navy ships, we learned all the Navy lingo. Um, we had, uh, oh, updates on how the war was going every day, um, kind of news-types that would give us updates. Interviewer: By updates, are you talking about, “we’ve taken over this particular place,” or “the Germans are attacking us here,” or was it more in general, was it specifics or general? Mary Jean: It was specifics except we didn’t get any top secret information, but, uh, no it was 13:00 quite specific, what was going on in the war. We were really, uh, we knew pretty much what was going on. Interviewer: Did you have any idea, I’m talking about the early part of your training, you just arrived there, you’re only starting to go to classes, of what your role in this war was going to be? Mary Jean: No. Um, nobody knew what their assignment was going to be. We knew we were going to be officers. If we washed out, you could, you had the choice of going home or enlisting in the ranks, um, that was a choice. And some women did wash out. Interviewer: Well, let’s discuss first of all, cause people may not, I know what wash out is but what is wash out mean and what does it mean to return to the ranks? Mary Jean: Oh! Washing out means, uh, not making it, basically, for physical reasons or for the classroom work or maybe for some behavior that 14:00 isn’t appropriate. Um, ranks means enlisted ranks. Um, we learned all the Navy regulations, there was quite a bit of learning involved. Interviewer: Well, to wash out uh, somehow, means there were some kinds of tests that were given, so please talk about that. Mary Jean: Oh, yes. Well, we had tests in our classes and uh, you know the physical aspect of it, we did calisthenics and we had to swim. Now I knew how to swim, I never know a soul that didn’t know how to swim, but everybody that joined the Navy had to be taught to swim if they �didn’t know how. Um, and all the marching. Some of the women, some of the older women particularly just…they couldn’t take it. Interviewer: Um was there any, and once again, we’re only talking about the early days now, 15:00 any kind of social life after you finished with the training, you’ve had your dinner, were you just too tired to go anywhere or were there actually places you could go? Mary Jean: No, we had, um, I’m trying to think. I don’t think that we did anything socially during basic training. Once I had my commission and I was being trained in the communications school, then we would have, uh, weekends off, and we could get off base. Interviewer: Ok, I don’t want to go that far yet. Mary Jean: Ok. Interviewer: All right, so basic training, obviously you passed that, physically as well as the tests and everything. Um, at some point you were involved in a special drill team, is that right? Mary Jean: Yes. Interviewer: Ok, tell us about the special drill team. Mary Jean: Well, apparently I got pretty good at it. And it is fun to drill. Interviewer: I don’t know what you’re talking about. Mary Jean: Drilling is marching and following orders, 16:00 you know. Interviewer: So what is the special drill team? Mary Jean: That was a group of, oh I can’t remember, oh the Special Drill Team was a group of women, probably 20 of us, I don’t remember for sure. Uh, and we’d go around and do demonstrations. We’d go to schools and uh, different events all around Northampton, we didn’t go any farther. But we didn’t drill with guns or dummy guns, it was just a drilling with orders to drill. Interviewer: Uh, we’re going to leave now and enter into the Special Communications School, but is there anything you can think of now that was extraordinary or special or…that you can remember from that basic training period that you want to say. Mary Jean: Well, we all 17:00 had blisters, I’ll tell you. At sick call every night there were people going in and getting their blisters fixed. Oh, it was terrible and I uh…when we were commissioned, that’s when you get your rank, we were commissioned as ensigns in the Navy, Naval Reserve. I was so worn out, I got sick and I had to be in sick bay for a couple days and all I did was lay in bed and think of that wonderful hat with the insignia on it, I was so thrilled to �have it. It’s just the proudest day of your life and I know my parents were proud too, my father was thrilled to death that I was in the Navy. But then, of course, orders, we were all waiting— where are we going to go? Everybody wanted to go to an air station, that was 18:00 …sounded real glamorous. But guess what? Almost all of the younger WAVES were sent to communications school. And communications school was right there on the Smith College campus again. They had taken over one of the buildings there and you…we lived in that building and had our classes in that building. Basically we were learning to code and decode messages. We learned a lot of typing [laughs], a lot of nonsensical typing, because the machines—now there were several coding devices that they used but primarily we used a machine. And the machines…uh, the code would come out in 5-letter groups, so if you were typing 19:00 a code into the machine, you would just type in these nonsensical groups of 5 letters. And if you did it right and the machine was set right, it would come out plain language or you would type plain language in and it would come out these 5-letter groups. And that was the main coding device that the Navy used. Uh, on some of the small ships on the outposts, they didn’t have the machines and they used a device called flat strip where they moved strips of paper back and forth. Interviewer: But this is all part of your training… Mary Jean: That was all part of our training and the typing was, and it’s hard to type a bunch of letters that don’t mean anything, it’s amazing. Interviewer: Um, this is going to sound like a very stupid question but I just did you have any idea of what this training was going to be used for? 20:00 want to ask, Mary Jean: Uh, yes, we knew we were going to be doing code work. Now at that point in time, we didn’t know where. I mean, it…there were a lot of places you could be assigned to do code work. Quite a few of the women went to San Francisco but the majority of us were sent to Washington, D.C., to the Navy Department, and that’s where my orders were from. Interviewer: Let’s not go there that quickly. Um, I’d like to talk more about the, uh, the communications school. Uh, give us an idea of what your day was like and what your week was like during the first few weeks of your training. Mary Jean: Well, uh, I’d like to go back just a little bit because my friend Alice was called a month 21:00 after I was called. So I was already a midshipman when she arrived in Northampton and I was part of the greeting committee. It was just wonderful [laughs] to greet her and I’m sure she was glad to see me. And she was also assigned to communications, so she was always coming along a month after me uh, and there’s more to that later. But yeah, uh, our day in communications school…we didn’t do as much marching, first of all, it wasn’t quite as regimented. We went to our classes and we went to mess and all that, um, we still had our �briefings on the war. But, uh, we had time off, we could go into town and shop and get decent shoes, and we had our weekends off 22:00 and uh, we would often go into Springfield and do something. Interviewer: So in a typical day, it’s almost like college, you’re just going to classes and then you have a meal break and then more classes. Uh, homework? Mary Jean: Uh, I don’t remember, I think we did it all in classes. Interviewer: And then your classes, day to day, throughout a week, were they like a college where you went to one class on one day and then another class another day or how was that spread out? Mary Jean: Well, in communications school, it just all ran together, all the classes, uh, you were pretty much in the room, which would be like a code room and you were typing and running the machines and that kind of thing. Interviewer: How many women were in a class—your classes? 10? 15? 20? Well, larger than 5 or less than 10 or--? 23:00 Mary Jean: Maybe 20. Interviewer: OK Mary Jean: Maybe more. I really don’t remember. We were 2 months in that training and 2 months in basic training. Interviewer: And then what happened after that, the training was over with? Mary Jean: Well, that…then you wait for your orders again! [laughs] And, uh, I got orders to Washington, D.C., the Navy Department. Interviewer: And what was your reaction to that? Mary Jean: Disappointment. Didn’t sound very glamorous to me—what about this air station that I was going to go to? You know, but it turned out very well. Washington was a very exciting place to be and I’m happy I was assigned there but you know we all had stars in our eyes. Interviewer: So, you’re packing up, you got your orders, you’re packing up at Smith. How did you get to Washington? Mary Jean: Took the train, and of course 24:00 a lot of us went together. Um, and I had made two very good friends in communications school. The problem with going to Washington was, the Navy would not provide housing for the WAVE officers, there were no barracks for them. We had to find our own housing and um, and we got a housing allowance. So when we first �arrived, the 3 of us got rooms at the YWCA, uh and then, you know we had to report for work at the Navy Department. And that Navy Department was a ramshackle old building that was built for World War I, it was a temporary building, they were not in the Pentagon like they are now. And it was just a creaky-floored old building, it smelled musty, there was no air conditioning, it was uh, 25:00 well, it was ramshackle. It was right across the street from, uh, the Department of Agriculture. It’s no longer there, it’s been torn down. But anyhow, we arrived at the Navy Department and we were directed to the code room. Interviewer: What time of the month—what period of the year are we talking about here? Mary Jean: Well, we’re talking winter. Interviewer: Ok. Mary Jean: All right? And…would’ve been right about uh, I think it was December or January. In fact, it seems to me that after communications school I was able to go home for Christmas and then reported to Washington, now that I think of it. Interviewer: So, Washington, although it doesn’t get the kind of weather as Grand Rapids, it still is pretty cold. Mary Jean: Oh, yes! Interviewer: Let’s talk about the ramshackle building in the cold, ok? Mary Jean: Drafty. 26:00 And they get snow in Washington, and I’ll tell you about one snowstorm later but, um, yeah, it was cold and we had over our hats—we had these lovely hats that were designed by Schiaparelli and they were beautiful hats, but uh, you changed the tops. You had a white top, a gray-and-white-striped top or a blue top to go with the different uniforms. Uh, but we had something called a Havelock which was a blue wool cover that came down around here [motions to back of neck] and you put over your hat if it rained. But we used to do it when it was cold to keep our ears warm. Or we’d wear them when our hair was up in curlers so we wouldn’t take our curlers out until we got to work. [laughs] But yes, it wasn’t a nice building it was a very drafty old building. 27:00 it was cold and Interviewer: So where was the communications room and can you describe what it looked like when you came into it? Mary Jean: I can’t even remember exactly where it was anymore. Uh, it was just one great big room full of these machines and there were some side offices. Our commanding officer had his own office and there was, um, there was another special room that we called “the dog house,” actually I was assigned to that room. And in that room, we had to try to decode messages where people had done something wrong, had used the code for the wrong day or, you know, the wrong �wheels in the machine or whatever. 28:00 So there was that room and then there was another room called “the conference room,” and eventually Alice was assigned to that and that was a neat assignment. First of all I should mention that when I got to Washington and Alice was a month behind me, she’d been sent to communications school, I asked my commanding officer to request her, which he did, so she wound up in Washington and we lived together there. But anyhow, she got assigned later to this conference room, where the admirals would come in and would have conferences with the admirals in the fleet and the machinery would scramble their conversations and Alice would run all the machinery and of course she met all this 29:00 top brass! [laughs] Admiral King and all these pin up boys that we had! [laughs] It was really quite exciting for her. Interviewer: Uh, let’s get back to your first days and weeks in the communications department. Um, you mentioned, you had these machines, which you’d already been trained on. Mary Jean: Mmhmm. Interviewer: Ok? What were the nature of the messages coming in to be decoded? Are we talking about messages from our side are we talking about messages that were captured by German or Japanese? Mary Jean: No, they were from our side. Now, there was another communication building and some of the women were sent to that where they were breaking enemy code. And I don’t know how they did that, we weren’t trained to do that. But that was another, you know, branch of the communications. We were uh, 30:00 doing our own code and most of the messages were from the fleet in the Pacific, uh, back to the Navy Department. Interviewer: Without trying to give away secrets or anything, give us an idea of what types of messages were being decoded. Mary Jean: Well, an awful lot of them seemed to be quite routine. They’d be uh, well, for instance, we used to get a lot of messages from a place called Ulithi. It was out in the Pacific. Turns out Ulithi is a uh, shoot, what do they call it, well it’s like an island with a big harbor in the middle of it. And it’s where all the ships would be gathered to get ready for an invasion. And so, we get these lists from Ulithi of all the ships that were, 31:00 uh, there at harbor and also all the supplies and munitions and everything that was being gathered, you know, getting ready for an invasion. There were a lot of those. We also got a lot of casualty lists which were sad of course. Uh, and a variety of orders, uh, you know, the orders all went back and forth. Orders that went within the fleet would come to Washington. And then there were orders from the admirals in the fleet to the admirals in Washington. You know, you knew what was going on, but some of it I didn’t understand. Like the names of these places, I never knew what Ulithi was till I got out. �I had no idea what it was, it was just these long equipment. 32:00 lists of you know, munitions and Interviewer: Now, I want you to give us an idea of incoming coded messages being decoded. Where do they go from there? Mary Jean: Oh, then we would deliver them. Because we handled all confidential, secret and top secret. They all had to be handled by officers. There were also restricted messages uh, and nonclassified messages. They were uh, all handled by uh, non-commissioned people. Not only did we decode them but then we would deliver them to whomever they were sent to. And uh, every once in a while you got to go to the White House to deliver 33:00 the message. I can remember that was really exciting. They’d send a Navy car around for you and you’d sit in the back seat and they’d drive up to the gate at the White House and the guard would ask for your credentials and then he’d give you a smart salute, you know, you drive in. Then you go in a side door and down in the basement and they had a room that was called “the war room,” knock on the door and somebody opens it up a crack and grabs the message and that’s it, you’re gone! [laughs] I never saw the president or anybody but you know, it was exciting to do that. Interviewer: Um, part of this I’m sure was somewhat mundane— Mary Jean: Yes. Interviewer: You know the day to day [garbled]. But out of all that can you recall any particular incidents that may have stood out, funny things that might have happened, or as you say, going to the White House 34:00 was a big deal, but other things that might have happened? Mary Jean: Well it really was more like a job, you know. Especially since we had our own housing, you know, you get on the bus and go down to the Navy Department and go to your job. We worked watches (they called them in the Navy) but that’s shift work. We would work 2 days each shift, 7 to 11 in the morning 2 days, then 11, how does that go, 11 to 7, then 7 to 11 [laughs] then 11 to 7. In between each watch, you know, 2 days on each one, you get 24 hours off. And then when you run the whole cycle, you get 48 hours off. In our 48 35:00 hours off, we used to go and play, you know, go to New York and see a play or we’d go to the beach and we’d go out to the Naval Air Station at Anacostia and see if we could bum a ride somewhere in the airplane. Uh, but it was kind of hard on your constitution because nothing ever was the same especially at night watch, it was really hard. Interviewer: Uh I want to cover two different things but you don’t often get a view of New York City during the war. Mary Jean: Oh, yes. �Interviewer: Give us an idea of what it was like, put us in your shoes—you’re arriving, this young woman in New York City and, on leave. Tell me what you [garbled] Mary Jean: Well, first of all, um, where do you stay in New York City? Well, there was a um, I believe it was on 5th Avenue, there was this big, uh, 36:00 mansion that had been turned into a military women’s hotel. And you could go and stay there free if you were, you know, a woman in uniform. There were…it was a beautiful mansion but they just had rooms with bunk beds in them. But that’s where we almost always stayed. And then you could get reduced price tickets because you were in uniform so we would go to plays and we would too, often go to radio shows and see them and, well, everybody was in uniform. Especially in Washington, young people, if you saw a young person not in uniform, a man particularly, people would go, “Gee, I wonder why.” And I had a very good friend, a young man that I went to high school with. 37:00 He was a chemical engineer and he was working on the atom bomb (we didn’t know that, you see) in Tennessee. And of course he was not in uniform. And I remember he came to visit me in Washington, and we went out, and here I am in uniform and he’s not. [laughs] Anyhow, people just looked sideways at us like, “what’s going on there?” Interviewer: Well I fully understand that cause my dad, he went through the same thing, he was working, didn’t realize it, on the Manhattan Project, they didn’t tell him cause they wouldn’t let him join, so he had that same kind of experience. You say everybody was in uniform in New York, I mean— Mary Jean: It just felt that way. Interviewer: Yeah, ok. Yeah. Uh, radio shows, was there any particular personality you were able to sit it on, Bob Hope or any of those people? Mary Jean: Uh, Fred Waring I remember. 38:00 It was a music show. I can’t remember any of the others. We saw Oklahoma, standing room only. [laughs] And after I met my future husband, we would go to New York and take in some plays when we were still in uniform. Interviewer: Even though you’re out on leave and you’re relieved to get away from the daily routine of the work, was there still, was there a sense of the war, did people try to forget it or was there a sense of…I’m trying to get an idea of the environment, the kind of emotional environment, of coming into town and…I know if I went to New York to go, to see a play, I would be in a certain frame of mind but I’m not going during World War II, so I guess, how was, did you see, were people apprehensive or just like it was a normal day? Mary Jean: It felt normal. Uh, it was, you know, that’s the way it was. 39:00 Um, in Washington, of course, you know, they had blackouts, and the capital lights never went on until I think it was VJ day that the lights finally went on. But no, that’s the way it was. Now it was very very sad, you know, I would hear of a friend’s husband who had been killed, and uh… But it was �a way of life and people made sacrifices. You know there were…we had food stamps. Even in the Navy we had food stamps. When we kept house ourselves, you know, you couldn’t get very much meat or butter and there were gasoline stamps but we didn’t have a car anyhow, there was no point in having one because you can’t get gasoline enough. And you saved tin cans, 40:00 and um, I don’t know, it’s just what you did. [laughs] You were at war. And uh, people accepted that. Interviewer: Was there a strong sense amongst you and your colleagues that you were fighting something pretty evil, that you knew that this was— Mary Jean: Oh yes, oh yes. Absolutely. Interviewer: Could you talk about that a little bit? Mary Jean: Uh, well there was a huge sense of patriotism in the country I mean everybody was pulling together. Uh, you know and it was hard for our generation when the Vietnam War came along and people weren’t you know, as patriotic, because we were. All of us and our parents were, the whole country was pulling together. And you know, you’d go somewhere and people would see you in uniform and they’d greet you, and they’d be pleased to see you in uniform. 41:00 Uh, it was neat! Um, it was a hard time, but it was an exciting time for a young person, it really was. I, uh, I was very fortunate that I didn’t run off and get married and that I had this experience. I was a maturing experience and it was a very exciting experience too. Interviewer: You know we look at, uh, as historians, we look at some of the posters and news items about people like Hitler and the Japanese and all that, um, they’re almost cartoon-like characters, whereas…these people were trying to knock off half the world and were literally…did you have a sense that…I guess what I’m trying to get at, Mary Jean, is beyond the propaganda element, did you have a, even at that young age, a sense that this was a real evil out there that had to be stopped? Mary Jean: 42:00 Oh yes. Yes, but you know the interesting…uh, Germany and Italy too, you know, they were the bad guys, there was evil, but we didn’t know at that time what Hitler really was doing. I mean, that evil didn’t come out until it was almost all over. My goodness, if we had known then, you talk about experiencing evil. No, we had no idea that he was purging the Jews. Terrible [shakes head], terrible. Interviewer: Um, who were…I don’t expect names per say, but if you do remember names, it’s great, I know a lot of people came and went through the code room, uh, admirals and captains and whatever, I mean, do you remember any incidents when individuals came in who either impressed you or you noticed, or…? �Mary Jean: There were some that sent messages. Admiral Halsey 43:00 was one. Uh, he sent the most colorful messages! I mean, we could hardly wait to get a message from Admiral Halsey! [laughs] “Bull Halsey” they called him. Uh, Admiral King, I think, came through once, but no, the really high-ups were cloistered. [laughs] Uh, there were a lot of captains around and… Interviewer: Well let’s talk about messages then, I mean, why did you have such a reaction to Admiral Halsey? I mean, I know a little bit about him, but— Mary Jean: Well, well, he used swear words and you know, they were colorful! [laughs] He was a character, he was. [laughs] Interviewer: So, what were the nature of some of those colorful messages, I mean, he was trying to get some kind of equipment or trying to get something done? Mary Jean: Yeah, if something hadn’t arrived that he’d asked for, you know “Get” [laughs] yeah, very strong, angry messages. “Do something!” [laughs] 44:00 Interviewer: But to you all this was actually a high point of the day because it was entertaining! Mary Jean: [laughs] Yeah. Interviewer: That’s great. Mary Jean: Uh, the messages would come out in little strips. It was a little bit like Western Union used to be, it’d come out in little strips and then you’d paste the strips on paper, yellow paper, that looked just like the old Western Union messages, they didn’t come out like a Xerox machine or anything, you had to paste them on the sheets of yellow paper. Interviewer: Now these are the messages that had already been decoded? Mary Jean: Yes. Interviewer: OK Mary Jean: When they came in. Interviewer: Well let’s go through the process that the code comes through, on one of these machines you were describing… Mary Jean: Yeah, every day, you received the code for the day. 45:00 And you set the machines. The machines had, I don’t know, 3 or 4 wheels in them and the wheels had to be set in a certain way. And everybody in the whole Navy was supposed to set their wheels that way that day. And then when the machines…when the messages came in, if they had set the right code for �the right day, uh, then you type it in your machine and it would come out all right. Now if they did something wrong, well, then, you have a problem. Interviewer: You go to the dog house? Mary Jean: [Laughs] That’s right. But yes, they’d come in and then you’d type them in. And they come out in these little strips. Interviewer: Um, the other part I want to talk about is bumming rides, hitchhiking if you will, on airplanes, I think people would like to hear about this. Mary Jean: Well, it had some perks to it, 46:00 you know, uh, it wasn’t all work. Um, my girlfriends and I used to go out to the naval air station when we had time off and sit around see if we could get a ride to somewhere. And I remember one very specifically, four of us…no three of us, had uh, leave. Two weeks leave. And we decided to go to Cuba, which was off-limits to civilians. So we went out to the Anacostia naval air station and told them that we were heading in that direction, and was anybody going in our direction? We waited and waited and waited and finally there was a plane going to Albany, Georgia. And we thought, oh let’s get on that one and at least we’d be on our way. 47:00 So we get into this plane with this pilot and we wind up at this little naval air station in Albany, Georgia. Nowhere! And there we are! The commanding officer there says, “What am I going to do with you girls?” [laughs] We were stuck there! Nobody was going anywhere. And finally—we stayed overnight there—finally the commanding officer says, “Well, I’ve got to get my air time in for my flight pay this month.” He said, “I’ll fly you to,” uh, uh, where was it? I want to say Pensacola but that’s not right. Anyhow, a place in Florida where the naval air transport came in. So he flew us there and then we sat around there to get a flight to Cuba. And uh, 48:00 finally they came through with two seats. And there were three of us. And they said, “well,” you know, “we’ve just got two seats. But,” they said, “I think we could get you another seat on an Army plane that’s going to Miami.” [laughs] In fact, the NATs plane was going to Miami too, not Cuba. So we drew straws and Boo got the Army flight. And we said goodbye and she said, “Now I’ll meet you at Miami and this pink hotel,” she gave us the name of it. The Flamingo or something. And I guess she had quite an experience, she went off over hill and dale to this Army air station and they loaded her in this bomber! [laughs] Can you imagine? And they flew 49:00 into Miami. We were in a nice airliner, you know. [laughs] And we did connect down there, we found each other and then we were able to get on Naval Air Transport into Havana. And we had a wonderful vacation. There were…the Nationale Hotel there, which is the big hotel in Havana, was being used for R & R for Army and Navy, people who were coming back from combat. So we had a lot of male playmates while we were down there! [laughs] And then we came back. That was our most exciting adventure but we did a lot of other things, bumming flights. �Interviewer: Uh, we’re going to conclude, I think with, you went to Conoco Base in Virginia, is that right, 50:00 right after that, and then you got the place in Chevy Chase, and then you met Dick, ok. And then we’re going to get to the wedding and eventually how you got out of the Navy [garbled].mMary Jean, if you could tell us about Chevy Chase, the house in Chevy Chase, and um, the dinner party that you had. Mary Jean: Well, uh, the four of us who were living together, we had rented a house in Arlington for a while, and then the people who owned the house came back, uh, so we had to get out, and then we rented a house in Chevy Chase. And a lot of 51:00 people were renting out their houses to service people and then they would live in the upstairs rooms, which is what this couple did in Chevy Chase. So we had this house in Chevy Chase, and uh, one of the girls that I lived with, Motsy, was dating an officer from the Naval Air Station at Anacostia, he was a ship service officer, and he called her one day and he said, uh, “I’ve got some butter and I’ve got some steaks,” and believe me, that’s a big deal during the war. He said, “And I have a friend. And uh, we’d like to come over and play bridge with two of you and two of you can cook the dinner.” Well, sure, come ahead, you know. So they came, and Alice and I, who were home-ecs, you see, 52:00 were the cooks, and the other two girls played bridge and the friend turned out to be Dick Brooks, who later became my husband. But that is how we met. Well, at that time, you were always meeting new people and the first thing you said to anybody you met was “where are you from?” And he said, “Grand Rapids, Michigan,” and we all broke up because both Alice and I were from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and we thought he’d been put up to it to make a joke but it turned out he really was from Grand Rapids, of all things. So they were at our house for that evening and afterwards the girls all said to me, he’s going to call you, Mary Jean, and I don’t know why they thought that but sure enough, he did, 53:00 and we had two or three dates, and I wrote my mother a letter, um, telling her I’d met a man from Grand Rapids and his name was Dick Brooks. And in the next letter comes his whole family history! [laughs] It turns out Dick’s aunt was in my mother’s bridge club! [laughs] But our paths had never crossed in Grand Rapids. Well, shortly after that, Dick called, and he said, um, “I can get a plane to fly to Grand Rapids for Sunday dinner on Sunday would you and Alice like to go along?” Well, he didn’t have to ask twice, I’ll tell you that and we all said, “yes, yes, we’d love to go.” So he got his friend, Gus Elwell, as a co-pilot and we all flew home to Grand Rapids and came into the old airport and all our families were there. 54:00 Alice’s family and my parents and Dick’s mother and Dick’s best friend and his wife. We had a wonderful day and then flew back to Washington. And I know Dick’s best friend and his wife said afterwards, “she’s the one!” [laughs] How they knew, I don’t know, but sure enough, one thing led to another and a few months later we were married. Interviewer: Let’s go into the situation, uh, at the end of the war, uh, you were still in the military. �Mary Jean: I was still in the military when we got married. Yes. Interviewer: Ok. Mary Jean: The war was over. Interviewer: Ok, so for people who don’t understand, how did you get out of the military? Mary Jean: Well, at that time, a woman could get out, uh, if she was married. In fact, she had to get out. But, at that time also, 55:00 the war was over and they were releasing people, but uh, they were released in the order of the number of months or years they were in. Uh, it just happened because I got married, I got out a little earlier than other people. But I was and Dick was too, still officially in the Navy on terminal leave, which means, you know, accrued vacation time when we were married, so we were able to go to Bermuda on our honeymoon on the Navy. We went on a Naval Air Transport plane for nothing because we were still in the Navy at that moment. Interviewer: Well, let’s sum up here, just for a moment, and, one of the questions I usually ask, uh, different people that I interview how do you feel about World War II and its effect on you as a person. 56:00 your experience during Mary Jean: Well, the skills I learned weren’t anything that could be transferred to civilian life other than I matured uh, I learned to problem solve, um, I gained a lot of self-confidence, and I had an exciting experience, it’s, it’s, um, something that uh, I wouldn’t have missed for anything and I found a husband. [laughs] Interviewer: That is wonderful. Mary Jean: Forgot the party. Interviewer: Oh…ok, go ahead. The party. Mary Jean: I forgot to tell about the party we had after I had met Dick. The four of us girls decide to have a party for our watch, all the people that worked 57:00 with us. So Dick and his friend flew to Chincoteague and got a bunch of raw oysters for the party and we girls, not being very big drinkers, didn’t know quite what to fix, so we looked in the cookbook and we found a recipe for artillery punch, in The Joy of Cooking. Well, artillery punch had a fifth of everything in it. It was absolutely lethal. [laughs] And everybody was getting just smashed and Dick and his friend were there and Dick’s friend, Gus Elwell, finally picked up the punch bowl, poured it all down the sink, and said, “this party is over!” [laughs] Interviewer: Well, I want to thank you very much, this interview is over not because we’re all loaded or anything but I would like to have just a shot of me next to Mary Jean. [Pause] Thank you so much. �Mary Jean: Oh! It was fun. 58:12 � 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 Brooks, Mary Jean (Interview transcript and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brooks, Mary Jean Description An account of the resource Mary Jean Brooks was in the WAVES during World War II. She trained at Smith College in communications. She worked in the Naval Department building in Washington, D.C., encoding and decoding messages sent to and from naval bases and ships. She delivered some messages herself to different government offices and to the White House. 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 Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Naval Reserve. Women’s Reserve Women 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 2007-05-22 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BrooksM 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/f0365145a3fca9572adea4a8c5cbf93b.mp4 9b701abe0a4605c8ddfebfc9238e7261 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d5b147a1fd3b303d6520594bc634aa91.pdf 0c7222c03fe04298b9bb05871f5984f8 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Ed Brooks Length: 32:06 (00:15) Background Information • Ed was born in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan in 1940 • He had 2 brothers, his father was a farmer and his mother a housewife • Ed went to Hoover elementary school and then a larger school in the city after 8th grade • He played baseball and basketball in high school and graduated in 1959 • After graduation Ed worked at a gas station for a while and then decided to enlist in the Army in 1962 (8:40) Training • Ed was sent to Fort Knox in Kentucky for basic training in October of 1962 • He trained and worked in the motor pool, repairing jeeps and trucks (10:40) Korea • Ed was sent to Korea on a troop ship and was very sick the first 3 days of the trip • In Korea, there was very hot weather and the smell was terrible • There were a few civilians that they worked with and some of them spoke English • Ed spent 1 year in Korea and thought the food was great there • He worked driving jeeps and other vehicles and was never in any combat • Ed later took another troop ship back to the US and landed in San Francisco a month later • He was discharged in San Francisco after serving for 2 years (16:45) Back in US �• One year after being discharged Ed got married back home in Mt. Pleasant • He continued working at the gas station and now has 3 children and 4 grandchildren • He recently broke his hip working and was recovering at the Masonic Home at the time of the interview � 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 Brooks, Richard (Interview outline and video) ca. 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brooks, Richard Description An account of the resource Richard Brooks was born in Canton Township, Michigan. His father died when he was two years old, and his mother later remarried and the family moved to Grand Rapids. He graduated from Central High School in 1933 and joined the Navy in 1940 to become a pilot. Richard went to Pensacola, Florida to conduct flight training and went on to be stationed in Naval Air Station Coco Solo in Panama. While there, he flew future President Gerald Ford across the Panama Canal so he could make it back to his ship. Later in the war, he was sent to the Pacific and stationed in the Philippines where he flew hundreds of hours of missions doing both Black-Cat operations and Air-Sea Rescue. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (Interviewer) 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. Navy World War, 1939-1945--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 2005 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BrooksR0033V 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/8d41f1529990ebe7a1c87f211fd32cbb.mp4 bb9ecae6e3798081217cde8c35245373 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/074b5649bbff6f2c1ebba5d06947ecf6.pdf cd7493a30b137c7d179ff0852e8fc9e1 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Sarah Brooks (14:25) (00:20) Introduction • Born in August 1926. • Her father was a baker. • Attended school in Covert, Michigan. • Had to leave school in the 10th grade to care for her ailing mother. • Moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1943. • All of her brothers and sisters had to have jobs when they were growing up. • She was married in 1959. (06:25) Volunteering • Asked by some ladies in her Auxiliary to help at the Veterans Home in Grand Rapids. • She would organize fund drives for different organizations, such as Toys for Tots and the Veterans Home. • She always complains that the politicians never appreciate the homeless veterans. • She believes that people should only volunteer and give if it’s from their heart. • Has been the chairperson for a gift shop sponsored by the American Legion. (14:25) Memories and other Volunteer Opportunities • At one time she remembers one of the men being quiet when she kept going into his room, and then she asked what was going on and he asked her when she was coming to bed with a big smile on his face. She remembers that as one of her favorite memories. • Every November, the women veterans and widows have a luncheon and a speaker. • The men go on trips to the local casinos. • The men also get to go to local events such as the theatre and musical events. • The Adopt a Vet program helps men who do not have any family connect to a special person in the community. • They found a grave labeled “Unknown Colored Soldier.” She began working on a committee and had him exhumed. He was from the Civil War, and was taken to Battle Creek, Michigan. They had men dressed in authentic Civil War Uniforms for his reburial. • Leader of the Juniors of the American Legion, which was a group for family members of the Legion. Her granddaughter became the first black president of the juniors in the state of Michigan. • She also helps in the naturalization process in Grand Rapids Michigan. She hands out flags while the new citizens are naturalized. • Received the Sojourner Truth Award. � 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 Brooks, Sarah (Interview outline and video), 2006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brooks, Sarah Description An account of the resource Sarah Brooks is a long-time volunteer at the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans. In her interview, she discusses her volunteer work there, and some of her experiences with the veterans. 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 Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Women 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 2006-08-21 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BrooksS 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/fa5a04de5e86e71a122fa763c7b74f63.jpg bf1b860512cf55e4227c6d9f0c1e2a5c 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 BrooksWilliam Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Brooks, William Description An account of the resource William Brooks, Board of Trustees 1997-1998, University Foundation 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/2213db81397ee2eb4cf7e0e23c3168f0.pdf 8dc7095808548125a92dbb644e0233cd PDF Text Text • §~@@~l?3 §[b[g) tf@W ~@[}:{] 0~ 'OB RY OF1 RO VI "\"Ht. \.I ' \ 1 i' 1 \fH3t I \:;r: �- • j - - - · - ~ ~@@ ~ [?2 •I~ lb [Q) lJ@W ~@C=O •~ �) B R O O MF I E L D T O WN S H I P MA S T E R P L AN Isabella County, Michigan Public Review Draft September 1986 Official Adoption January 1987 Prepared by EAST CENTRAL MICHIGAN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT REGION and the BROOMFIELD TOWNSHIP PLANNING COMMISSION l Cf90 �B R O O MF I E L D T O WN S H I P B O A R D Donald Wagester, Supervisor Doris Ratcliffe, Clerk Margie McArthur, Treasurer Charles Anderson, Trustee Harris Diehl, Trustee B R u O MF I E L D T O WN S H I P P L AN N I NG Pete Ratcliffe, Chairman Steven Woodruff, Secretary Ray Ferrigan Maynard Strong Donald Wages ter C O MMI S S I O N �B R O O MF 1 E L D T O WN S H 1 P T A B L E 1. 11. 111. IV. V. VI. VII. Vlll. 0 F MA S T E R P L AN CONTENTS INTRODUCTION A. Purpose and Enabling Legislation B. Administrative Structure C. Townsnip History PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS A. Regional Setting B. Existing Land Use C. Population Characteristics D. Housing E. Local Economy F. Transportation l 2 4 7 9 9 14 16 16 19 ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS A. Topography and Surface Features B. Soils C. Climate U. Surface Water Resources E. Groundwater Resources 22 COMMUNITY FACILITIES 35 TOWNSHIP DEVELOPMENT GOALS A. Community Attitudes B. Goals and Objectives 38 40 TOWNSHIP DEVELOPMENT PLAN A. General Concepts tl. Land Use Plan C. Community Facilities D. Transportation Plan 45 46 47 50 52 IMPLEMENTATION A. General Considerations B. Farmland and Open Space Preservation C. Light Industrial Development D. Wastewater Treatment Facilities E. Legal Implementation Tools f. Shor t•Terri1 Action Recommendations G. Continued Planning 55 56 57 58 APPENDIX A. Plan ~eview and Adoption B. Community Survey 62 23 23 29 29 30 39 59 59 60 61 �I. A. Purpose ~ INTRODUCTION Enabling Legislation The purpose of this planning study for Broomfield Township is to prepare a master plan that is consistent with the following goals: 1. Meet the requirements for a Township master plan pursuant to the Township Planning Act, Act 168 of 1959 as amended. The Act requires that a plan ' ' . include: a. A land use plan classifying and allocating land for agricultural, residential, commercial, industrial, and other uses; b. General location of roads, waterways, flood prevention structures, public works and public utilities; c. Recommendations for rehabilitation of blighted districts and changes in ways, grounds, open space, and other facilities; and d. Recommendations for implementation. 2. Provide a means for Broomfield Township residents to participate in the planning process. 3. Provide the Township's decision-makers with a broad framework that will assist them in making routine decisions and that will identify both the limitations and opportunities facing the Township. 4. Develop an understanding of citizen desires and community conditions to be reflected in the Township's long-term development goals. 5. Identify potentially innovative and sound ways for improving the environment of Broomfield Township in a manner cons is tent with community goals. 6. Prepare a plan that, in the future, could serve as a legal basis for a Township zoning ordinance pursuant to Act 184 of 1945, as amended, the Township Rural Zoning Act. That act provides for a plan that aims to: - Promote the public health, safety and general welfare; - Encourage use of lands in accordance with their character; - Limit improper use of land; - Conserve na tura 1 resource; - Meet needs for food, fiber, natural resources, residences, recreation, industry, trade, service, and other uses of land; 1 .__ .-~ -~ . ; �- Insure land uses in appropriate locations and relationships; - Avoid overcrowding of population; - Provide adequate light and air; - Lessen congestion on public roads and streets; - Reduce hazards to life and property; - Facilitate provisions for transportation sewage disposal, safe and adequate water supply, education, recreation and other public requirements; and to Conserve the expenditure of funds for public improvements and services to conform with the most advantageous uses of land, resources, and properties. B. Administrative Structure The basic administrative structure for Broomfield Township planning functions is depicted in Figure 1-1. As specified by the Township Planning Act (Act 168 of 1959), an appointed five-member Planning Commission acts as an advisory body to the elected Township Board. Broomfield Township does not currently have its own zoning, but is instead under the jurisdiction of the Isabella County Zcming Ordinance with administration by Isabella County personnel. 2 �Figure I-1 ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE FOR BROOMFIELD TOWNSHIP PLANNING AND ZONING Board of Trustees Supervisor+ 4 members elected Township Planning Commission Isabella County 5 members appointed _ _ _ __ Planning Commission I I I I Township C o u n t y - - - - - - - - County Master Plan Zoning Ordinance 3 Zoning Administrator �C. Township History The first white settlers to arrive in what is now Broom.field Township were John Hutchinson and William Broom.field. Apparently, these two men met in Detroit shortly after coming to the United States. They then moved on to establish homesteads in the western part of the township. As an interesting note, historical accounts indicate that William Broom.field's family name was originally spelled "Bruim.feln," but apparently this was changed to the current spelling very shortly after he arrived in the U.S. Broomfield Township was originally organized by the Michigan Legislature in 1866. At this time, Broom.field and Hutchinson drew straws to decide on a supervisor and a name for the new township. The results of this early "election" are obvious. Economic development of the township probably started in the early 1860's after these first settlers arrived. Like many other Michigan communities, lumbering and farming were the major industries of the period. During this time, a large sawmill was built at Bundy on the Chippewa River, and timber was floated downstream. However, the mill lasted but a few years. When the mill was abandoned, the early village of Bundy disappeared from the map. The mill produced about 75 million feet of logs during its brief existence. In the other aspects of early community life, the first schoolhouse was built in Section 31, and Betsy Ruxton became the first teacher. The first quarterly meeting was held at this schoolhouse by Rev. F. B. Bangs in 1866. The first sermon was preached by a Rev. Aldrich at William Broom.field's house. The first marriage that took place in the township was between Ithel Eldred and Mary Parrot. During the early development of the township, the Houghton Lake and Ionia State Road ran north and south through the western part of the township. 4 This �was the main (and only) road that the settlers relied on to travel to Ionia, about SO miles south, to get their mail and supplies. Portions of the old road grade can still be seen in some farmers' fields. The Big Rapids and Mt. Pleasant road extended east and west across the northern portion of the township. This route is now known as River Road. Broomfield Township was also served by a railroad at one time, extending from Remus in Mecosta County, across Bundy, and over to Weidman. That track was abandened in the early 1940's. Some of the earliest public improvements that took place in the township were directed toward construction of a cemetery. Land in Section 15 was cleared for this purpose by C. G. Quinn in 1884. The first township hall, measuring 24 by 40 feet, was built on the southwest corner of the cemetery in 1898. The cemetery vault was added much later, in 1936. During 1916-17, a bridge was built on the road connecting Section 2 of Broomfield Township and Section 35 of Sherman Township for $2,720. Today, Lake Isabella covers the old roadway. In 1948, the township purchased land on the west side of Hall's Lake for $2,000 to develop a public park. Other improvements, such as restrooms, fencing, and a well, were added in 1955 and 1957. Following a special election in 1949, it was decided to build a basement and move the old township hall onto it. Highway Department widened M-20. In the early 1970's, the State This made it necessary to tear down the old township hall and . build the present structure. Another community building in the township that has remained stable over the years is the Lutheran Church. The old church building that stood in Section 11 was torn down in 1971 when the present structure was built in Section 13. However, the cemetery in Section 11 is still maintained, as is another small cemetery in Section 26. 5 �It is also of historical interest to note the elected supervisors who have served Broomfield Township over the years. These officials and their terms of offices are listed below: William Broomfield L. C. Griffith William Broomfield L. C. Griffith John Hutchinson William Broomfield Henry D. Wright Harry P. Wilcox William Hummel George W. Ruthruff F. S. Maxon William Hummel H. D. Wright E. E. Wolfe H. D. Wright Theodore Hummel William Sellers Fred Woodruff John Hutchinson Russell Galer Harold Lapham Don Woodruff Roger Galer Ralph Strong Wayne Cole Elmer Frazier Don Wagester 1868-76 1877-78 1879 1880 1881 1882-84 1893-95 1895-97 1897-1900 1900-01 1901-03 1903-07 1907-12 1912-15 1915-21 1921-24 1924-33 1933-42 1942-47 1947-57 1957 1957-61 1961-68 1968-72 1972 1973-1976 1977-present Broomfield Township has continued to grow and change over the years. The township now includes a large mobile home park, the Lake Isabella development, Randell Manufacturing Company, and several large farms. These more recent developments along with other aspects of current conditions in the township are detailed in the following chapter. Note: The Broomfield Township Planning Commission wishes to thank Mr. Dan Mitchell for his assistance in preparing the preceding historical information. 6 �l- et: ....J 0... V) 0... ct: -....J :CIV) :z: ct: 3>- 011-Z ::::, O'I 0 r--.u CX) r-1 ct: ....J W....J :c LiJ t- ca ct: LL.. V) oz LiJ 0:C -1- t- u~ ::::,o Cl CX: 0 LL.. 0::: 0... 0... LiJ ct: 0::: ::E �B R O O MF I E L D II. T O WN S H I P MA S T E R PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS 7 P LAN �. : : • 0 H I ••,. •• •;•,. •••,. • 0 ,..J ~c., ~w ...... I •• • •! • •. ~ •. t5 H Pr. .•• '! ~ u H H 1• .. •• • ..... . ••. .• •I • a •• •• • ,• •••• ~I .. .••• • .,...... • .•i . i I ~ •. 6 •. ••I ..,,-t ! !: • • .... • .. . • .•• I I j I ·:i~ .- .... ••• I I • !O •.• : • • -; •. lo .• .•.•.. ••! \ • . •. •••· I ! C • C Q Q . •• •• .~_;:.._µ~4-~-t,1-•?r·: . . . . I ! •• ! • I I ••I • • .•. . . .•. .. ~ I ~-lJ • I I I ~ • ~-u • · I ,I .. ~ ~ ; . •.. I . • i •:! u •Q I le 18 h• •• I ~;-i ... •• 0 . .:; I •• l 0 12-· • ,; •.• ~~.•• :I ,. •! . •.' • •. ! • . 0 ,. • • NIDOIM ;: I . i I I I !l ..... .. .• ••• •. • .. • .i • : l • ; I 0 I I I - ._._,_.. • • I a I : I ; ! •• �A. Regional Setting Broomfield Township (Figure II-1) is a rural community located in westernmost Isabella County. It is bounded by Sherman Township to the north, Rolland Township to the sou th, Deerfield Township to the east, and Mecosta County to the west. A major east-west highway, M-20, bisects the township. The nearest major trade centers are Mt. Pleasant (12 miles east) and Big Rapids (25 miles west). This location places the township 160 miles from Detroit, 70 miles from Grand Rapids, and 80 miles from Lansing. The township possesses a scenic rural environment that ranges from gently rolling farmlands to steep, wooded hills. Agricultural and forested areas dominate the landscape, but several major lakes and streams are present as well. The largest water body is Lake Isabella, which is surrounded by a planned residential and resort development. Existing development in the township cons is ts uiainly of cultivated agricultural lands, and dispersed residential housing. However, more intensive residential development has occurred in the Lake Isabella area and in a mobile home park. In addition, a light industrial firm, Randell Manufacturing, is located within the township. These features, along with other aspects of current land use and development, are discussed in the following section. B. Existing !:!!!!. ~ The general composition and pat tern of land uses as they exist in Broomfield Township today is shown in Figure II-2. land use categories are provided in Table II-1. Tabulations of the various From the existing land use map, it may be readily seen that agricultural and wooded lands dominate the township. The land use map and tabulations in this section will provide a source of useful information for residents, govermnent officials, private 9 �business, and others interested in the development of Broomfield Township. Land uses have been divided into the following major categories for discussion purposes: l. Forested Lands make up nearly 40 percent of the township's total acreage. This category includes both managed and unmanaged wooded areas that are used for recreation, wildlife habitat, and timber production. The township's forested lands also provide attractive sites for residences on large lo ts. 2. Agricultural Lands are those areas with existing farming operations for food and fiber production. Farmlands account for over 9,000 acres, just slightly more than 39 percent, of the township's land area. 3. Intensive Residential uses are areas where housing is clustered in some manner with homes placed on lots generally less than one acre in size. In Broomfield Township, intensive residential uses are presently limited to the Lake Isabella development and the mobile home park in Section 24. These uses occupy just slightly more than one percent of the township. 4. Rural Residential development cons is ts of single-family ho,nes that occur in a dispersed fashion throughout the township, generally on large lots along section-line roads. These uses claim about one percent of the township. 5. Industrial land use in the township is presently limited to the Randell Manufacturing facility in Section 1. 6. Water bodies include the lakes and streams within the township, and occupy about 800 acres. These include Lake Isabella, Hall's Lake, Woodruff Lake, Big and Little Eldred Lakes, and Long Pond. township are Squaw Creek and Pony Creek. The major streams in the Small portions of Indian Creek and the South Branch of the Chippewa River also flow through the township. 10 �7. • -i Roads~ Rights-of-Way consist of M-20 and the county roads sening the township. These land uses devoted to transportation make up 575 acres, or 2.5 percent, of the total acreage. 8. Public~ Quasi-Public. Public lands and facilities include the Township Hall, parks, and cemetery. Land areas and buildings which are used by a limited number of persons but are not specifically commercial are termed "quasi-public" uses. These include churches, cemeteries, civic and fraternal organizations, and similar activities. Public and quasi-public uses now occupy about 20 acres in the township. 9. Vacant Lands include non-cultivated fields and abandoned farms. Areas in this category comprise about 11.6 percent, or 2,657 acres of the township. 10. Other minor uses include all land uses not otherwise classified in one of the previous categories. These include oil and brine wells, similar extractive operations, and barren land. located in the township. Gas storage fields are also These offer the potential for future development in meeting the state's demand for energy resources. Oil and gas fields in Broomfield Township and the surrounding area are shown in Figure II-2B. Areas classified as "minor uses" make up only about one percent of the township. 11 �FIGURE r II-2 • THIS MAP SHOWS THE MAJOR LAND USES IN GENERAL FORM ONLY. IT DOES NOT ATTE~T TO SHOW THE LOCATION OF EVERY PARCEL 0~ LAND USE IN THE TOWNSHIP. AGRICULTURAL LAND---------1111 NON-AGRICULTURAL FIEWS and ABANDONED FARM LAND m FORESTED L A N D - - - - - - - - ~ ~ WETLANDS------------JU LAKES RIVERS and STREAMS~ BARREN or EXTRACTIVE (includes J5cioa oil and brine wells) -----t2£.21 SUBDIVIDED L A N D - - - - - - - - ~ ... TOWNSHIP PROPERTY--------JE] CEMETARY---------.....;rn TRAILER PARK----------~ •~ INDUSTRIAL-----------+- BRCXMFIELD TOWNSHIP ISABELLA COUNIY �..,._ I 0 +,, \ - ~ o;._, \ ?; ~,4 r a \ -H-:---h-~~~,.,.,~-t--H,i"l\'!~rl---=:;-t-..--,--, iV j ! Ii •f I ; I -I ., t 'I I. t;) i~ J-· ~---~-~--.l~o--+-•--.--1~}-~ ~- U) \-0- h - - - + - ~ " ' - T - - t - - -~t - z -~------'-.~-= _,,__._-t i co N - ~ -. - + - • ,•• ~ h -..--~-~ I"' !• 1 i l-· • 1 0 0 I ..... ..... l. '2 - ~ 1 ~ 4- i -~ -..:. J. '< '9 4'"< ~.,,;, '3 ~ -:t.J ..:.:. ~ 9 ""t' ~ ~ ~ '2 ~:S - ~ V\ ..J \) (i_ 1 I .. . .\ ,. G. �TABLE II-1 Broomfield Township Existing Land _!!!! Land Use Acres Percent of Total Forested 9,158 39.7% Agricultural 9,047 39 .3% Vacant 2,667 11. 6% Water 800 3.5¾ Roads 57 5 2.5% Intensive Residential 300 1.3% Rural Residential 240 1.0% Public/Quasi-Public 20 0.09% Indus trial 12 0.05% 221 1.0% 0 ther Minor Uses 23,040 TOTAL 13 100% �C. Population Characteristics Historical population data for Broomfield Township is shown in Table 11-2. The trends show that the townships experienced very little significant change in population size during 1940-70, and even showed a moderate decline during 1940-50 when the overall Isabella County population was growing steadily. This trend is commonly seen in rural areas with agriculture as their principal economic activity. Considered in terms of the trends for larger farms and the general urbanization of the United States through the 1960's, there was no real opportunity for major population growth in the township. It was 1970 before the township could roughly match its 1940 population of slightly over 700. This changed dramatically from 1970-80 when the township population gre\,1 by over 70 percent, Isabella County growth~• ~ ~ three times the overall The main reason for this is the movement of former urban dwellers to rural areas like Broomfield Township. The population projections shown in Table 11-2 indicate that the township can expect fairly strong population growth over the next 20 to 25 years. These figures show the population expanding by almost 32 percent during 1985-2010. In contrast, Isabella County as a whole is expected to grow by only about 10 percent during the same period, and growth in the City of Mt. Pleasant is expected to negligible. As part of a national trend, more growth will continue to shift to rural areas like Broomfield Township where people will commute into urban areas such as Mt. Pleasant and Big Rapids for employment. The detailed population characteristics (Table II-3) indicate that Broomfield Township has a larger proportion of school-age and younger children than the county and state averages. As a whole, the township residents are a 14 �Table II-2 His tori cal Population Data Broomfield Township City of l'1 t. Pleasant Isabella County 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 738 8,413 25,982 616 11,393 28,964 672 14,875 35,348 727 20,524 44,594 1,246 23,746 54,110 -Population Projections Broomfield Township City of Mt. Pleasant Isabella County Sources: 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 · 2010 1,292 23,047 59,702 1,384 23,204 57,300 1,551 21,677 59,899 1,625 22,333 62,399 1,669 22,801 64,200 1,703 23,111 65,599 Historical data from U.S. Census Bureau Projections developed by ECMPOR staff and Michigan Department of Management and Budget 15 �bit younger in comparison to the rest of the state and neighboring townships such as Sherman. The lower median age for Isabella County is mainly a re f lection of the large student population in Mt. Pleasant. The median income data show that township resident~ are a bit less af f luent when compared to the rest of the county and state. However, these income levels are very strong in comparison to neighboring townships such as Sherman or Rolland. These latter comparisons probably give a better indication of local conditions in western Isabella County. D. Housing An adequate and structurally sound housing stock is essential to a growing community. Table 11-4. Housing data for Broomfield Township is summarized in This information shows the dramatic increase in housing stock that took place during 1970-80 concurrently with the township's population grow th. The median housing value of $37,700 is strong both by Isabella County and statewide standards. In addition, housing values in the township follow a fa i rly narrow range. Only about 5 percent of the units are valued below $20 ,000 and only 7 percent exceed $50,000. Thus, the median value provides a good representation of typical housing value. The data also show that most homes (85 percent) in the township are owner-occupied. The housing stock is generally in good condition with only about 19 percent of the existing units built before 1939. Units lacking complete plumbing or experiencing overcrowding are quite scarce. ~. Local Economy Employment within the township is mainly associated with agriculture, small private businesses, and Randell Manufacturing, the single light 16 �Table II-3 Population Characteristics~~ Age!_ Under 5 18 yrs. & older 65 yrs. & older Median age Females Michigan 7.4 70.3 9.8 28.8 yrs. 51.2 Isabella Co. 6.6 75.2 7.1 22.7 yrs. 51.8 Race Isabella Co. White Non-white Spanish origin* 52,326 1,332 662 Broomfield ~ Sherman~ 9.6 65.9 7.1 26. 3 yrs. 50.7 6.8 68.0 12.0 30.9 yrs. 49.6 Broomfield ~ l, 225 21 6 *recorded as white Income Median (household) Median ( faini ly) Source: Michigan Isabel la Co. Broomfield Twp. Sherman ~ $ 19,224 $ 15,002 $ 14,492 $ l3 ,068 22,108 18,318 16,217 14,128 Bureau of the Census, 1980 Census 17 �Table 11-4 Housing Characteristics Housing Uni ts 1970 1980 Increase Median Value 21.4% $ 39,500 Michigan Isabella Co. 12,447 16,167 46.0% 37,500 252 489 73.4% 37,700 Broomfield Twp. Occupied Uni ts Owner Renter Median Rent Michigan Isabel la Co. Persons/Household $197 2.8 10,752 5,292 179 2.9 349 64 147 3.0 Broomfield Twp. Other Occupied Unit Characteristics Broomfield Township Number of Uni ts % of Uni ts 5 1. 27. Overcrowding (more than a person per room) 19 4.6% Houses less than $20,000 value 21 5.1% Houses ~50,00U or more value 29 7.0¼ Built 1939 or earlier 80 19 .4:7. 232 56. 2% Lacking Complete Plumbing Built 1970-1980 18 �') industry. In a survey of township residents conducted by the Planning Commission, 47 percent of the respondents worked in Mt. Pleasant and 11 percent worked in the township. The remainder of the residents who were surveyed commuted to Midland, Alma, Big Rapids, Lansing, Shepherd, or elsewhere for employment. F. Transportation Broomfield Township's existing road systems and classifications are shown in Figures II-3 and II-4. The township is served by 19 miles of paved roads, 14 miles of primary gravel roads, and 34 miles of secondary gravel roads. The major access route is State Highway M-20, which runs east and west through the center of the township. The major north-south route is Coldwater Road, which provides access to the rural community of Weidman and other major paved local roads. Local public bus service is provided by the Isabella County Transportation Commission. No railroads presently serve the township. The closest general aviation airport is located in Mt. Pleasant. The Tri-City Airport, in Saginaw County, is the nearest passenger airport. There is also one private airstrip in Section 36, located off Millbrook Road in the southeast corner of the township. Another private airport serving the Lake Isabella development is located just north of the township in neighboring Sherman Township. A proposed expansion of this airport would extend the facility into the northeast part of Broomfield Township. 19 �ll4 Cl) ~ ~ l""I C E-4 I H H ..:l ~ CJ) ),I 1-1 Cl) ; I I + i a I ~~ ! H ~ ••••••••••••• • •• • •• •• • I I I.I.I ..J l ,.. ~ ~ I ,c •,.. ,.. ~"' "li1 N 0 ~... ~ ~~ •"' •"' g t; C..'l 0 .. !. .• I •• ............... •• ••: ••• •• • ....... .. ...• • • •• ci .... w 0 •• • •• •• •• I I I -············: L .• I : I ··i···~·~l : I i• l �B R O O M F I E L D T O WN S H I P MA S T E R III. ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS 22 P L AN �flllIHAlllr PAVED JIOADS- - - - SIPJCONDAJllr PAVED JIOADS _ __ HIJWllr GllAVEL JIOADS; _ __ S!CONDAJllr c.RAVEL JIOADS=m=;:q PIUVATE a0ADS ..... ,_.,--.._.. a TOWNSHIP BOOIIOARlr-----. I I &UIIDIVIDED wrs 3'F~\•;,_{,,,;,,·.,.,t,J IM>OSTRJ ~ GOLF COIIRSII K>LH ~ I s'I 11 FIGURE II-4 I lAKE ISABELIA BROO\fFIELD TOWNSHIP ISABELLA COUNIY �A. Topography~ Surface Features The surface features of Broomfield Township are of glacial origin and the entire township is deeply covered with glacial drift materials. There is considerable variation in relief with elevations rangin~ from 890 feet to over 1200 feet. Bundy Hill, located in Section 8, is the highest point in the Township (and in Isabella County) at 1270 feet above sea level. variable topography includes many hills, valleys, and plains. The highly Most of the land is fairly level but, in contrast, several very high, isolated hills such as Bundy Hill are found. rolling. The slope of the land varies from gently to strongly Internal drainage is predominantly good because water moves freely through the light textured soils and sub-surface materials. In the context of planning, slope must be considered as a potentially serious constraint to land development. Even though Broomfield Township has a highly variable topography, the vast majority of the township is free from developmental constraints due to steep slopes. Major ridge lines are shown on the general Environmental Features map, Figure III-5. B. Soils The Isabella County Soil Conservation Service has developed detailed soils data for all of Isabella County. This information was published as a County Soil Survey in November, 1985. It should be noted that for detailed site planning of any kind, on-site investigation and testing of soil conditions is necessary prior to any development or construction. l. Major~ Associations There are three major soil associations in Broomfield Township (Figure III-1). A description of these three soil associations follows: Remus-Spinks Association: Nearly level to gently rolling, well drained loamy . 23 �and sandy soils; on moraines and outwash plains. association are used mainly as cropland. pasture and woodland. The soils in this They are also well suited for use as The soils in this association have high potential for use as septic tank absorption fields and building sites. Coloma-Pinnebog Association: Nearly level to hilly, somewhat excessively drained and very poorly drained sandy and mucky soils; on outwash plains and in upland drains and depressions. In most areas, the soils in this association have a cover of natural vegetation, commonly trees. used mainly as recreation areas and as wildlife habitat. used as cropland and pastureland. residences and hunting camps. The soils are In places, they are Additional uses in the Township include The Coloma soils have limited potential for septic tank absorption fields due to their poor filtering capacity. soils do, however, have good potential for use as building sites. Coloma The Pinnebog soils have low potential for both these uses due to ponding, wetness and low strength. Coloma-Remus Association: Nearly level to steep, somewhat excessively drained and well drained sandy and loamy soils; on moraines, till plains and kames. In most areas the soils in this association have a cover of natural vegetation, commonly trees. These soils are used mainly as recreation areas and wildlife habitat, and for residences. In places they are used as cropland with corn being the most commonly grown crop. as pasture. These soils are suited for use Poor filtering capacity of the Coloma soils may limit the use of these soils for septic tank absorption fields in some areas. Areas of this association where slope is less than 18 percent are well suited for building sites. 24 �2. Prime Farmland Soils Prime farmland is one of several kinds of important farmland defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It is of major importance in meeting the nation's short and long-range needs for food and fiber. The availability of high-quality farmland is limited, and the wise use of prime farmland must be encouraged. Prime farmland soils are defined by the USDA as those best suited to producing food, feed, forage, fiber, and oilseed crops. Such soils have properties that are favorable for the economic production of sustained high yields of crops. These soils need only to be trea t 'e d and managed using acceptable farming methods. The moisture supply must be adequate, and the growing season must be sufficiently long. Prime farmland soils produce the highest yields with minimal inputs of energy and economic resources, and farming these soils results in the least damage to the environment. Prime farmland soils may presen_tly be in use as cropland, pasture, or woodland, or they may be in other uses. They are either used for producing food or fiber, or they are available for these uses. Urban or built-up land and water areas cannot be considered prime farmland. The Soil Conservation Service has identified the soils that make up potentially prime farmland in Broomfield Township (Figure 111-2). More precise locations of these are shown on the detailed soil maps in the County Soil Survey previously mentioned. The detailed Soil Survey data supplements the more generalized soils information contained in this document. Therefore, the Isabella County Soil Survey (USDA, 1985) is incorporated as part of the Broomfield Township Master Plan by this reference. The suitability of the soil for various land uses and development activities will be a key issue in the formulation of a long-range land use 25 �plan for the township. In this context, the soil survey data will again be addressed in subsequent sections of this plan. 26 �FIGURE Source: III~l B~OOMFIELD GENERAL SOILS )iAP USDA Soil Conservation Service. TOWNSHIP Isabella County, Michigan Jo 1 l Remus-Spinks Association: Nearly level to gently rolling, well drained loamy and sandy soils; on moraines and outwash plaina. 10 Coloma-Pinnebog Association: Nearly level to hilly, somewhat excessively drained and very poorly drained sandy and mucky soils; on outwash plains and in upland drains and depressions. 11 Coloma-Remus Association: Nearly level to steep, somewhat excessively drained and well drained sandy and loamy soils; on moraines, till plains, and kames. �-i E'l!I ~ 0 ,-J ~ N I H H H i H ~ 0 ~ 8 H it 0 ex: ~ • I'.&, 'f f - .............. . • • •• • • •• • • • •• • I .•• • • �0 C. Climate The inland location of Broomfield Township, away from the Great Lakes, substantially reduces the lake influence on this area's climate. The most notable lake influence occurs when the prevailing southwesterly winds bring increassed cloudiness during the fall and winter, moderating temperatures during cold outbreaks. The prevailing wind is southwesterly at 11 miles per hour. The following climatic data have been collected from Mt. Pleasant, 11 miles .to the east. Temperature data show that January is the coldest month with an average daily maximum of 29.S'F, while July is the warmest with an average daily maximum of 83.6'F. Precipitation is generally well distributed throughout the year with the crop season, May-October, receiving an average of 18.3 inches or 61 percent of the average annual total. September, with 3.34 inches is the wettest month while February, with a 1.2 inch average is the driest. The average snowfal 1 at Mt. Pleasant is 33 .1 inches. Mt. Pleasant averages 81 days per season with one inch or more of snow on the ground, but this varies greatly from year to year. Local observations indicate that Broomfield Township, because of its higher elevation, experiences slightly different climatic conditions than does Mt. Pleasant. Tempera tu res tend to be cooler, snow stays later in the spring, and accumulations are greater during the winter. D. Surface Water Resources Major water bodies are shown in Figure III-5. con ta ins portions of two major drainage basins. Broomfield Township Roughly the northeast quarter of the township, including the Lake Isabella area, drains to the South Branch of the Chippewa River. within this basin. Two tributaries, Indian Creek and Squaw Creek are The remainder of the township drains to the Pine River via its tributary of Pony Creek. 29 �As previously mentioned, Broomfield Township also contains several lakes. The largest of these is Lake Isabella, occupying about 750 surface acres in parts of both Broomfield and neighboring Sherman Township. The lake occupies a natural basin surrounded by a wide area of sandy soils. The impoundment was developed by construction of a 3,000 foot wide dam on the South Branch of the Chippewa River. The other major lake from a recreational standpoint is Hall's Lake, consisting of 56 acres in the southwest part of the township. Other small water bodies include Big and Little Eldred Lakes, Woodruff Lake, and Long Pond. Overall, the quality of Broomfield Township's surface water resources is quite good. However, it must be noted that any land-disturbing activities and intensive land uses have the potential for water quality degradation through erosion, sedimentation, and nutrient enrichment. Therefore, attention must be given to siting future development so that the high quality of the township's lakes and streams is maintained. These concerns will be addressed in the overall context of preparing a long-range land use plan for the township. E. Groundwater Resources Groundwater is a significant and sensitive natural resource. About half the population of the United States depends on groundwater for part or all of its drinking water supply. In Broomfield Township, the population is served by individual residential wells. Identification of the general availability and quality of groundwater may be broken down into two areas: in glacial deposits. 1) groundwater in bedrock, and 2) groundwater To address the first area, the general availability and quality of groundwater in the bedrock strata for Isabella County and the East Central Region is illustrated in Figure 111-3. 30 �Well yields from bedrock units can vary greatly within the county due to changes in permeability, thickness, lateral extent, and recharge potential. General availability is highest in sandstone bedrock units and lowest in shale uni ts. Groundwater in glacial deposits also varies greatly with depth and areal distribution. The general availability is illustrated in Figure III-4. It may be seen that the largest groundwater supplies are found in the glacial outwash and moraine areas in the western portions of the county including Broomfield Township, where wells are capable of producing more than 500 gallons perminute (gpm). The quality of groundwater in surface deposits is variable and subject to con taraina tion from surface and bedrock sources. Mining activities in the Township, such as oil and gas well drilling, can allow vertical migration of brine water from bedrock into surface deposits. Surface activities can also cause local occurrences of groundwater contamination. For example, the disposal or storage of solid and hazardous waste, filling stations, and various industries all have the potential for degrading groundwater supplies in glacial deposits. Due to the widespread nature of groundwater contamination problems, some couimunities have recently started developing local regulations for groundwater protection. Some of these regulations have been put into effect through zoning; others have taken the form of more specialized ordinances. In general, all the existing approaches use fairly straight forward land use, health, and police power regulations. The effectiveness of the controls is largely untested as yet, but it is likely that the next few years will see the development of more sophisticated and comprehensive programs as more communities recognize the need for action at the local level. 31 �GENERAL AVAILABILITY AND QUALITY OF GROUNO'NATER IN THE BEDROCK @ L.EGEND • rn lmJ WELL WELL YIELD L.ESS THAN IC GPM l"iT1 WELL YIELD FROM 10 TO IC OGPM ~ I WITH WELL DIAMETER GR~ATER ~ WATER IN THE BEDROCK USUALLY THAN 6 INCHES • NOT[ THAT 1.OCAI. l[DIIOC• A''[CTING IOTM wAT[II ,oo YIELD FROM' 100 TO GPM WITH WELL DIAMETER ~REATtA THAN &INCHES ~":i HAS A DISSOLVED SOLIDS CONTENT GREATER THAN 1000 PPM CONDI IONS CAN VAIIT Tl(l.0 ANO OUAI.ITT . o, SOUIICI: G[NIIIAI. AVAIi.Aili.i TY AN') OUAI.ITT GIIOUNOWAT[Jt IN THI HDIIOC• O[POSITS AICHIGAN l'T , . 11 . TW(NTE:11, WATlll IIUOUIICU DIVISION, U $ . Gf:O1.OGICAI.- SUIIV['T. o, FIGURE III-3 �GENERAL AVAILABILITY OF GROUNDWATER IN THE GLACIAL DEPOSITS --,----~ r----r-- ! m 1 •osco••o• i l_l__ -----1 N I I I AIIENAC l_ _f \ r---- I I _..s I L-- I _ __l LEGEND • WELL YIELD FROM 100 TO 500 GPM WITH WELL DIAMETER GREATER THAN 8 INCHES WELL YIELD LESS THAN IOGPM WELL YIELD FROM 10 TO IOOGPM WITH WELL DIAMETER GREATER THAN 6 INCHES • WELL YIELD GREATER THAN 500 GPM WITH WELL DIAMETER GREATER THAN IQ INCHES NOTt TH&~ LOC&l.1.Y HIGHf;lt Yltl.DS M&T H OIT&INED AND TM&T THIS 1.EGENO IIEPRCSENTS ONI.T THE GENElt&I. TIICNO W&TElt Tl[LD IN THE GL&C:IAI. Dt,OSITS. o, o, SOU"CE: OENtll&I. AV&IU.IIUTY GIIOUNDW&T[II IN THE GL&C:IAL 0[,0SITS IN UIC:HIGAN IY , . 11. TWtNfflt, WATtlt RtSOUltCU DIVISION, U.I. ltOLOGICAL SUIIVtY. FIGURE 111-4 �C/l .; ~i II . A ~ H E-4 ~z ~ ~ ~ •UI w ei ... i ... .. 2! -i ~~ !!Q ~ 13 H • 0 u, I H H H ~c.., H ~ > ~ :• I • ••; ••• .s.:.· ~J : I : I : ••• •• .. • +·· l I I I L_ ..i .. •• ..:••··~··· ..• ...... , • • ~• I I I -~,A I l I I �B R O O M F I E L D T O WN S H I P M A S T E R IV. COMMUNITY FACILITIES 35 P L AN �Co,amuni ty facilities in Broomfield Township are presently minima 1 due to the rural, low-density nature of the population and the proximity of larger cities such as Mt. Pleasant and Big Rapids, and smaller rural towns such as Weidman and Remus. IV-1. Existing facilities and service areas are shown in Figure The dominant facility is the Broomfield Township Hall at the corner of M-20 and Rolland Road. The building is used for township government functions as well as for 4-H meetings and as a pre-school facility. Largely as a result of the major school district consolidations that took place during the l960's, there are no public school facilities operating in the township. Most of the township is served by the Chippewa Hills Districts, while a small portion of the southernmost part of the township is included in the Montabella District. Police protection is provided to township residents through the Isabella County Sheriff Department and a Township Constable. three fire departments. The township is served by The Sherman-Nottawa Fire Department serves roughly the northeast quarter of the township, the Wheatland-Remus F.D. serves the northwest quarter, and the Blanchard -Millbrook F.D. covers the southern half. Two township parks comprise the other physical facilities that are available to residents. public lake access. A park at Hall's Lake provides a picnic area and The other park, adjacent to the Township Hall, offers a picnic area, ball field, and playground equipment. There are no public water or sewer systems in the township. Residents and existing industry are now served by individual wells and septic systems, and these arrangements currently appear to be adequate. However, if expansion of residential development, commerce, and industry is desired by the township, some public utilities may be necessary in the future. These needs will be addressed in formulating the township's long-range development plan. 36 �. BROO MF\EL D \. l4 N.-R 6 ·u··· JJ.a W. ,~,,~ FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT BOUNDAIUES: BROOMFIELD TWP. COMMUNITY FACILITIES •••••••••••• l WHEATLAND-REMUS FD 2 SHEBMAN-NOTTAWA FD 3 BLANCHAllD-ROLLAND FD FIGURE IV-1 SCHOOL DISTRICT BOUNDARY 111111111111111111111111u11• �B R O O M F I E L D T O WN S H I P MA S T E R V. P LAN TOWNSHIP DEVELOPMENT GOALS Prepared by the East Central Michigan Planning and Development Region and the Broomfield Township Planning Commission 38 �V. A. TOWNSHIP DEVELOPMENT GOALS Community Attitudes Determining the desires and concerns of Broomfield Township's residents is perhaps the most important part of the planning process. If a plan is to be successful, then it must reflect the current desires of the citizens so that they can help realize its implementation. required for obtaining input from the community. Therefore, some mechanism is This can be accomplished through public meetings, scientific surveys, newspaper response forms, or q ues tionna. ires. In September 1985, the Planning Commission distributed questionnaires to 300 households in the Township, or about 73 percent of all the households according to the 1980 Census. There were 276 responses, representing about 67 percent of the Township and providing a 92 percent response rate for the survey. The questionnaire form and the distribution of responses are shown in the Appendix. The intent of this section of the plan is to . highlight the more significant aspects of the survey. The very high response rate should provide a good indication of community attitutes regarding future development and related planning issues. A brief profile of the responses reveals the fol lowing at ti tu des and cha rac te ris tics: 1. Nearly 89 percent of the respondents were homeowners, and a majority of these viewed their neighborhoods as predominantly farming areas. 2. The respondents felt very positively about the quality of life in Broomfield Town~hip. Nearly all felt tnat the Township is a desirable place to live, that it is safe, and that it is a good place to raise children. In addition, the gr-eat majority of respondents (90 to 94 percent) felt that the Township is a good place to retire, that their neighborhoods are attractive and peaceful, and that there is a spirit of neighborliness in the community. 3. Nearly all of the respondents thought that it is desirable to maintain the rural atmosphere of the Township and that agricultural lands should be preserved. 39 �4. Almost 78 percent of those surveyed thought that light industry in the Township should be expanded. 5. In general, development development respondents 6. In regard to various public services, most residents felt that the present levels of general road maintenance, snow removal, stormwater drainage, police, and fire protection are good to adequate. 7. Of the various additional comments provided, needs for road improvements and more recreation facilities were mentioned most frequently. 8. Some citizens also expressed their concerns regarding the storage of junk cars, general property maintenance arid esthetics, and commercial signs. most residents are in favor of of the Township in the future, must be carefully controlled. indicated support for Township some additional growth and but also feel that any new Specifically, 84 percent of the zoning. In summary, Broomfield Township's residents have indicated that they are generally quite satisfied with the quality of life in their community, and they want to preserve the qualities that make the Township an attractive place to live. The residents are willing to accomodate additional growth, but they want future development to occur in a logical and orderly manner. This Master Plan is in te oded to ac comp lis h just that. B. Goa ls ~ Objectives This section presents the goals and objectives that have been prepared to serve as a guide for the future development of Broomfield Township within a long-range (10 to 15 year) planning context. about future conditions in the Township. The goals are broad state1nents In a sense, their genera 1 nature represents little more than an overall attitude toward growth and development. The objectives suggest more specific courses of action that should be taken to accomplish the goals. The Township Planning Commission, as appointed representatives of the community, has the responsibility to prepare and adopt a set of goals that reflect the values and desires of the residents. The following goals and objectives have been prepared by the Planning Commission as a statement of the direction the Township should take as the 40 �Master Plan is implemented. These goals will also serve as a guide for the Township Board and Planning Co1umission as they evaluate development proposals, land use issues, and public improvement projects. In the absence of specific statements in the plan regarding a particular situation, the Township Board and Planning Commission should always ask: "Is the proposed action consistent with the adopted goals and objectives of the Township?" I. General Development Goal: To maintain the present rural atmosphere of the Township to the maximum extent possible. Objectives: 11. A. Preserve the "neighborly" feeling and "quiet living" qualities desired by Township residents. B. Preserve the qualities that make Broomfield Township an attractive place to live while also adequately providing for the future expansion of residential, commercial, and industrial development. Natural Resources and the Environment Goal: To provide for the wise use of the Township's land and water resources to maintain a high quality environment for all residents. Objectives: A. Provide for sound management and adequate protection of the Township's lakes, streams, and wetlands to maintain and improve the quality of the Township's water resources. B. Manage the Township's wooded areas for timber production, recreation, wildlife habitat, erosion control, and noise and dust mitigation. C. Provide visual relief in the form of natural settings and landscapes. D. Prevent the indiscriminate development of fragile environmental areas. E. Prevent groundwater contamination and overuse by giving careful at tent ion to the siting of ind us trial, commercial, and residential development. 41 �III. Agricultural Lands Goal: To preserve the Township's important farmlands for food and fiber production Objectives: IV. A. Maintain the agricultural sector of the local economy in a healthy and productive condition. B. Protect important farmlands from residential encroachment and conversion to non-farm uses. Residential Development Goal: To provide for residential development in such a manner that both the housing and the neighborhoods are safe, healthy, and attractive, while also providing a wide choice and adequate supply of dwelling units. 0 bj e c V. ti ve s : A. Reserve sufficient land for dispersed and more intensive residential uses in convenient, economical, and environmentally sound locations. B. Direct residential growth in a manner that will conserve land, prevent p~tterns of incompatible land uses, and develop a harmonious bl~nd of housing types. C. Uirect future intensive residential growth into logical neighborhood units that will permit the timely and economical development of utilities, road improvements, and other public services in a manner consistent with the Township's financial resources. Commercial Development Goal: To encourage sound commercial development in convenient and logical locations. Objectives: A. Encourage the development of a functional commercial use cluster, as opposed to strip development. B. Provide convenient and attractive shopping opportunities with adequate access and off-street parking. C. Maintain opportunities for commercial ventures with a reasonable assurance of economic stability. 42 �VI. Industrial Development Goal: To promote orderly light industrial development and expansion. Objectives: VI I. A. Increase local industrial employment opportunities. B. Develop a more stable and diversified economic base. C. Increase the industrial tax base of the Township. D. Encourage the development of an industrial park in a convenient, efficient, and fully improved location that provides good access and prevents conflicts with incompatible uses. E. Cooperate with existing industries in expansion plans to the maximum extent possible. F. Cooperate with county and regional industrial development agencies in promoting industrial development in the area. Transportation Goal: To develop a safe and efficient transportation system for all users. Objectives: VI II. A. Uevelop a coordinated and economical plan for improving local roads. B. Reduce conflicts among motor vehicles, non-motorized vehicles, and pedestrians. C. Utilize local roads and road improvements to direct future development into designated growth areas. Government~ Planning Goal: The Township should strive to improve the quality and efficiency of its services, and to promote cooperation and coordination with other uni ts of government. Objectives: A. Provide services at the lowest possible cost to the maximum number of residents. B. Continually monitor development trends and conditions to maintain a healthy and pleasant community. 43 �C. Periodically update and amend the Township Master Plan as conditions warrant. D. Develop and adopt additional land use controls, as necessary, which serve to improve the quality of life in Broomfield Township. 44 �... B R O O M F I E L D T O WN S H I P VI. MA S T E R P L AN TOWNSHIP DEVELOPMENT PLAN Prepared by the East Central Michigan Planning and Development Region and the Broomfield Township Planning Commission 45 �VI. A. TOWNSHIP DEVELOPMENT PLAN General Concepts The Broomfield Township Master Plan is a general plan for future development. It is intended to guide future growth into a development pattern that is logical, economical, esthetically pleasing, and environmentally sound. The basic concept that has directed the Plan's development is the desire to retain the rural atmosphere and natural resources that make Broomfield Township an attractive place to live while, at the same time, adequately providing for future growth. The Plan is designed to encourage a reasonable amount of new residential, commercial, and industrial development in a flexible, but controlled manner. Before the Township's long-range plan is presented in detail, the major concepts involved are outlined as follows: 1. A projected population of 1,700 is used for long-range planning purposes. This figure is a reasonable estimate of what the Township population will be within a reasonable time period. 2. The Plan advocates the preservation of the Township's farmlands for food and fiber production, and discourages the conversion of these lands to non-farm uses. 3. The Plan also seeks to retain much of the Township's wooded areas and natural features for recreation, forestry, wildlife, and esthetics. 4. Intensive residential development will be directed into designated growth areas so that public utilities and other services can be provided in a cost-effective manner. 5. Additional dispersed rural residential development will also be accommodated in a manner that is attractive, environmentally sound, and compatible with other land uses. 6. The Plan encourages the orderly growth of light industry in Section l near the existing Randell Manufacturing facility. 7. The Plan envisions the development of wastewater treatment facilities that will serve the intensive residential and light industrial growth areas. 8. So~e additional small-scale retail and service trade businesses might be desirable if they are developed in a manner consistent with the Township Development Goals (Section V). Also, there is the potential for development of recreationally oriented commercial enterprises that would 46 �capitalize on the Township's land and water resources. 9. Transportation will rely on M-20 for east-west traffic, while Coldwater Road will be the major north-south route. With these general planning concepts providing the framework, the Broomfield Township Master Plan is now presented in detail as it addresses the following elements: B. Land Use, Community Facilities, and Transportation. Land Use Plan The future directions for Broomfield Township's land use and environment are mainly shaped by the need to preserve existing farmlands and significant natural features, and by the Township's desire to retain a rural character. Beyond this, it is necessary to define the major land use categories and identify potential locations for residential, commercial, and industrial uses. The major land uses anticipated by this plan are described in the following discussion. Appropriate locations for these uses are shown on the Future Land Use Map (Figure V1- l) • l. Agricultural Areas These are areas of the Township which will be reserved primarily for farms and farming operations. As shown in the Future Land Use Map, these areas essentially include all the existing farmlands. In addition, these areas will accommodate limited single-family home development on relatively large lots (one acre or more) with frontage on section-line roads. It is the intention of the Plan that this type of rural residential development will occur in a dispersed fashion on soils that are not being farmed, or that are not well-suited to farming. The Agricultural Areas will provide for a controlled mixture of farms and country home sites where supporting services and facilities will not be required. The development policy implication of this land use category 47 �is that families desiring rural living can have that option, but not at ) the eocpense of farmland or farming operations. ~he Township expects the agricultural industry to dominate the character of these areae for the forseeable future. 2. Conservation Areas include much of the Township's forested lands, wetlands, and scenic natural features. The major uses envisioned for these areas are forestry and wood lot management, farming, recreation, and wildlife habitat. Hunting clubs and other recreation/conservation uses requiring large acreages will be included i~ this categor,-. areas will al30 accommodate rt The Consenaticn limited amount of dispersed, rural residential development on l~rge lots and with frontage on public roads. This type of development will ~ot require utilities or othar urban. services. Ey the action of the Connty Zoning Commission, they have zoned an area in cur towr.ship presviously designated as ~G-1 in the Master Plan to AG-2. F~ture zoning should consider this to remain AG-1 or~ aes1gnation that wil l refl~ct the forest co~servation area that it is, wit11 revisions to reflect current changes i n that ar~a eince 1986. 3. i ntensive Residential Areas will provide locations where compact residential forme such as plar.ned uni t developments, clustered housing, subdivisions, and mobile home J arks can be built. ~he main areas intended for this designation are the platted lots within the Lake Isabella project. Public util ities, especially wasterwater treatment, will be required for this type of development because of smaller lot sizes and higher densities. ~dditional uses will include parks, playgrounds, and related lake resort• oriented recreation f acilities. Tourist accomodations represent another potential use. By the action of the County Zoning Commission, they have zoned it to a Lake Residential (LR) wit h recent variance requirements in Broomfield Township only before building permits will be issued. 4. RESIDENTIAL CORRIDOR AREAS provide for dispersed residential development �on large lots with frontage on the Township's main paved roads. The areas specifically designated for this type of ·development are the Coldwater Road corridor and M-20 east of Coldwater Road. The Residential Corridor category acknowledges development patterns that are currently established in the Township end provides for their controlled expansion within a limited growth area. Futthermore, this category provides a transition zone between the I ntensive Residential areas and the areas designated for Agriculture end Conservation. 5. Light Industrial Area Il: keeping with the Township's D~velopmed Goals, ~n area has been designated f or future expan6io~ of light industry. The logical l ocation for additional industry is in Section 1, adjacent to the Rand•ll Manufacturir.g facility. acce s s to the site. Coldwater Road, a : ounty primary road, provides paved In addition, this area is in th~ vici:1ity of the pro- posed int~r.sive residential areas. This will permit an economical tie-in with anticipated wastewater treatment facilities. The Township's overall direction is toward the development of a full improved industrial park with convenient access and adequate utilities. By the action of the County Zoning Commission, they have classified a 15 acr~ parcel in Section 36 from AG-3 to I-1. They also changed the East 1/2 of Section 36 to an R-1 zoning and le f t the balance of the Section as AG-3. 6. Col!IITlercial Areas. Commercial development in Broomfield Township is presently very limited, consisiting of som~ small parcels near the Intersection of H-20 and Coldwater Road in Section 24. The exisiting businesses include an eating 'llld drinking t>6tablishment, and a convenience store. I n the future, some additional small, neighborhood-scale retail and service business could be accommodated in this general area since it provides a central location and good road access. Major shopping, however, .,_,ill continue to be done outside the township due to its proximity to a major trade center i n Mt. Pleasant. An alternative location for new commercial development is proposed in the vicinity of the intensiYe resider.tial area at Lake Isabella. :49= �Co1111ereial establishments in this area should provide convenience shopping and services to the neighborhood. Additional commercial opportunities might exist in this ar@a for businesses int ended to serve wat~r-baaed recreation activities, such as boating and fishing. Tourist aceo1111odations represent yet another busir.ess opportunity. C. Community Facilitieso The dellB.Ild for libraries, churches, medical clinics, and other community facilities cannot be precisely estimated. However, they are the types of facilities and services a community needs in order to offer a ufe and well-balanced place to live. As such, new facilities should be accommodated in a permissive, but controlled manner. Specifically, they should be conveniently located close to the intensive residential neighborhood areas. Gommunity facilities are not extensively developed in Broomfield Township. In the future, many facilities are services are expected to continue to be based outside the ·l 'ownehip. A major exception to this approach is the need for wastewater•·treatment facilities that has been previously meutioned. Thia issue will be discussed in morta detail in subseqeent sectione of this report. In general, this Master Plan er.visions the availability of community facilities as described in the following discussiono Existing and planned facilities are shown in Figure VI-2. 1. Health Services will continue to be located outside the township. Central Michigan Community Hospital will be the major inpatient and acute care facility. 2. POLICE and FIRE protection will continue to be provided by departments based outside the Township. As noted in the discussionof community attitudes (Section V), residents are generally satisfied with the present levels of services, and there is no strong support for creating police or fire departments within the Township. 3. Public School facilities will likewise be found outside the Township in the Chippewa Hills and Montabella districtso It is unlikely that Broomfield Township will acquire a subbicient number of school-age children within the -50- �planning period to justify an elementary school, especially considering the current trends toward smaller families and declining- school enrollllents. 4. Public Facilities include the Township Hall, parks, !lild cemetery. changes are expected in these !or the planning period. No major The closest public library is located in Weidman, and this arrangement is expected to ccntinue. Quasi-public facilitits in the Township include the Zion Lutheran Church ai:.d cemetery, and these are expected to remain stable for the long range period. By the action of the County Zoning Commission, they classifieti property surrounding Hall's Lake to LR (Lake Residential), it was pr~viously zoLed nG-3. This zoning extends !or 660 1 outward from the ordinary high water marks around the lake. ihere is a further cha~ge to R-1 zoning of land that joins the LR l a 1d en all four sides. This zoning of land that j0ins tr.e LR land on all four sides, this designation seems to ignore the existing AG-3 and \Jetlands. 5. r ublic Water and Sewer facilities are currently unavailable in the Township,. however, the lack of a co11111ur.ity wasterwater treatment system limits the high density resicential develof ment planned for the Lake Isabella area. Clear)y,, creative \,atewater treatment and disposal sy15te11s muet be studied to accomodate the desires of the cc~ity. Erooafield Town~hip i~ in a faTorable position t o proTide waetewater t~~atment in the near fUture. As preTiously ~entioned, a wasterwater system should logically be designed to service both the designated int dnsive residential and llght i~dustrial growth areas. Along these lines, construction of two stabilization lagoon cells intended to serve the Lake Isabella area began in Section I in the mid-19?0's. The facility was issued a discharge permit by the Michigan Department oi Natural Resources, but the syst~m never becuie operationalo However, there is now the opportunity to complete this system with the cooperation of Broomfield :ownship, Sherman Township, Isabella County, ana 'lhe priTate aector. This will be discussed in the "implemantation'' section of this plan. Since the completion o! the Macter plan in 1986, both Broomfield Township and the Connty Pla.,ning Commission have approved the zoning of the Lake Isabella industrial district as a Planned Unit District (PUD). -51- �D. Transportation Plan Broomfield To~nehip's Transportation system will continue to rely upon the etate and county roadsl. Major corridors will be M-20 for east-wwet access, a.l'ld Cold\Jater Road for the North-South traffic. Data obtained by the Michigan Department of Transportation in 1985 show average daily traffic volumee of 4,4oo 9 for M-20 near Wyman Road. Traffic counts for local roads are not currently available, but are expected to be obtained in the near tuture by the Isabella. Count:, Road Colllllli&Bion. Improvement of the Township road syetem is a goal stated earlier (section V). certain roads. As development occurs, it well be -necessary to upgrade These improvements will allow development to occur in a coordinated, controlled and less congested • annero Several recommended road improTements are listed below and shown in Figure VI-2. 1. Coldwater Road: Widening in the wicinity of Lake Isabella and t~e light industrial area to provide acceleration ar.d deceleration lanes. 2. Rolland Road: Extend pavement north to River Road. 3. River Road: Extend pavement ....-est to Roalland Road. In other as,ects ,)f transportation systems, public bus service is expe cted to continue to be provided to the Township through the Isabella County Transpcrtation Commission. Two priv~te air strips are presently located i"l. +:he Township, one in s~ctior. 1 and the othel" i i . .Saction :-;6. tfo chsnges arf: currently planned in either of these facilities. 52 �•• • •• •• •• • • •••••• •• I •• • • • • • •• I BROOMFIELD TOWNSHIP FUTURE LAND USE MAP D AGRICULTURAL AND RURAL RESIDENTIAL ~ CDNSERVATION -..... .-~,.• INTENSIVE RESIDENTIAL COMMERCIAL W;@'A LIGHT INDUSTRIAL B RESIDENTIAL CORRIDOR •• •• • • • • • • • • • ••• •• : • • fl • • • • • • • • •• •• •• • •• •• •• •• .....••·····••1. ····· .' ·:• ........ ~~ • • .• .• :• •• •••• •• • • • • • • ••• •• • • •• • • • • • • 1:• j J I _____ .......i____ _ I~ U ~-F: J M~-~-.:-------- E FIGURE VI-1 �BROOMFlfLD ·u· .. ~ BROOMFIELD TOWNSHIP COMM!JNITY FACILITIES AND TRANSPORTATION MAP FIGUP..E VI-2 W. \. 14 -N.-R E, /5'4,tH\t C ~ • PROPOSED WA8TEWA'fER FACILITY F1ll PROTECTION DISTRICT BOUNDARIES: ••••••••••••FD l WEATLANI>-REMUS 2 SHEBMAN-NOTTAYA FD 3 ~~~\tOLLAND FD •--_,. •- MA.JOB. ACCESS CORRIDORS --- PROPOSED ROAD IMPROVEMENTS �B R O O M F I E L D T O WN S H I P M A S T E R VII. IMPLEMENTATION 55 P L AN �VII. A. IMPLEMENTATION General Considerations To successfully implement any plan, it is essential that the plan itself be a realistic reflection of te character and aspirations of the community. If a plan has these characteristics, then it has already become part of the implementation process because it describes a future environment that is realistically available. Broomfield Township's plan does not envision dramatic change. In fact, the plan seeks to protect the resources and character that are associated with the Township's quality of life, while also adequately providing for future growth and development. The preparation and adoption of this Master Plan places Broomfield Township in a good position to direct future development. The plan is intended to be a viable working document that provides Township decision makers with a clearly stated set of goals and objectives for the Township's future. Therefore, the text and accompanying maps in this document should be consulted whenever a land use issue needs to be resolved. however, the plan retains a high degree of flexibility. At the same time, Furthermore, the plan avoids any attempt to portray the future in narrow terms. As such, the Broomfield Township Plan is written to anticipate change. However, simply having a plan is not enough - it must be put into effect. In this regard, the key consideration is public education. It is essential that the Township Board, Planning Commission, and the public understand the objectives of this plan. Plan implementation requires the continuous efforts of the Township's decision makers and the support of the public. Toward this end, the Planning Commission should take the initiative for promoting its activities to government bodies and the public. 56 �Beyond these broad considerations, there are a number of specific steps that need to be taken to successfully implement this plan. These are discussed in the following sections. B. Farmland~ Open Space Preservation It is a goal of the Township to preserve its important farmlands for food and fiber production, and to discourage the conversion of prime agricultural lands to non-farm uses. To complement this policy, agricultural property owners should be encouraged to enroll their land in the state's Farmland and Open Space Preservation Program, commonly referred to as Act 116. This program provides property owners with tax advantages for agreeing to continue to use their property for agriculture for a given period of time. To be eligible for the program, a farm must be a minimum size of 40 acres. Farms between 5 and 40 acres may also qualify, provided that they have a gross annual income of $200 per tillable acres. Specialty farms which meet the requirements of the Michigan Department of Agriculture may also qualify if their gross income is $2,000 or more. Agreements under the program run for a minimum of ten years and entitle the landowner to several benefits. Parcels enrolled in the Act 116 progralll are exempted from special assessments for sewers, water, or street lights. Property owners may also claim the amount by which property taxes on the enrolled acreage exceed seven percent of their household income on their state income tax. Statewide, the Act 116 program has been a fairly successful tool for minimizing farmland conversion. Since the program's inception in 1974, 17,500 property owners have enrolled approximately 3,550,000 acres. In Broomfield Township, only a very small portion - about 8 percent - of the total farmland acreage is currently enrolled under Act 116. 57 Farmland �preservation goals would be greatly enhanced if a substantially greater proportion of the Township's agricultural lands were enrolled in the program. It is not necessary for all farmlands to be enrolled to achieve the agricultural preservation goal. For example, other planning studies have found that enrollment of roughly 50 percent of the total farmland in a township effectively prevents most non-farm development pressure on adjacent lands. In a similar manner, lands may be enrolled under the "Open Space" portion of the Act 116 program to preserve natural and scenic resources. Designation under this status would be appropriate for some of the Township's prime forest lands and other significant natural features. c. Light Industrial Development Industries have rather unique location and design requirements in the sense that capital outlays for plants and equipment easily run into the millions of dollars. For this reason alone, industrial firms want reasonable guarantees that their investments will be justified. The community that can offer these assurances will have a head start in attracting new firms and expanding existing ones. Broomfield Township has already taken positive steps in this direction by clearly stating its industrial development policies and by designating a logical service area for future industrial growth. Additional efforts to enhance industrial development opportunities will involve community infrastructure improvements, such as roads and sewers. Also, the Township should work closely with agencies such as Middle Michigan Development Corporation to actively ·promote the Township's assets and attract new industry to the area. 58 �D. Wastewater Treatment Facilities As previously stated, Broolllfield Township has designated the Lake Isabella area for future intensive residential development. However, on-site wastewater treatment techniques (septic systems) will not alone support the total growth desired for this area. Other means of wastewater treatment must be introduced to the community if development is to take place as envisioned by the Township. Broomfield Township now has the opportunity to move forward to the construction of a wastewater stabilization lagoon facility to serve the Lake Isabella residential area and the proposed light industrial site. The proposed service area would also include the rest of the Lake Isabella project that is located in Sherman Township. Engineering studies were being conducted for the facility as this Master Plan was being prepared. The successful completion of this project will require the cooperative efforts of Broomfield Township, Sherman Township, Isabella county, and private development interests. E. Legal Implementation Tools Zoning is the primary legal tool for plan implementation. While a master plan provides the guiding policies and concepts, a zoning ordinance spec i fically regulates the use of land and buildings. In short, zoning translates the plan into legally enforceable regulations. Broomfield Township does not presently have its own zoning ordinance, but is instead under the jurisdiction of the Isabella County Zoning Ordinance. County zoning has a number of advantages in its favor. For example, county zoning tends to consolidate ordinance administration and enforcement along with the closely related functions of building inspection and building code enforcement. County zoning has the added benefit of providing the services of 59 �the County Prosecutor's office in matters of zoning violations or litigation. On the other hand, a township zoning ordinance could be more specifically tailored to plan implementation and local needs. In the survey of community attitudes conducted by the Broomfield Township Planning Commission, 84 percent of the respondents indicated support for township zoning. Local zoning would, however, shift the responsibility for administration and enforcement to the Township. These factors will need to be weighed by the Township officials before any decision is made. The preparation and adoption of a local zoning ordinance will, however, remain an option that is open to Broomfield Township, depending on local needs and preferences. F. Short-Term Action Recommendations There are a number of actions that the Planning Commission, Township Board, and interested citizens can initiate immediately. and can be accomplished rather quickly. Some are short-range Others, may take much longer to complete or should be done on a continual basis. However, all these steps should be started now in order to accomplish the long-range objectives of the Master Plan. 1. The Planning Commission should begin a comprehensive review and analysis of the Isabella County Zoning Ordinance as it pertains to Broomfield Township. Special attention should be given to identifying ways the ordinance may help implement this Plan and areas where there may be conflicts. 2. The Planning Commission should carefully review all proposed Township zoning changes that are presented to the Isabella County Planning Commission. 3. The Township should pursue sewer system grants and other appropriate funding sources for the construction of needed facilities. 4. The Township should initiate a detailed study of commercial needs, including seasonal tourist-oriented and year-round investment potentials. S. The Township should prepare and implement a Capital Improvement Program, including a schedule for mprovements to the road system and other community infrastructure. 60 �F. Continued Planning The completion of this Master Plan does not signal the end of the planning process; in fact, it is the beginning. This plan is a set of guidelines for Township officials and the public to use in directing and regulating future growth. Due to the changing nature of the marketplace and society in general, future growth may take many forms that no one can accurately predict. To keep pace with changing development trends, the Planning Commission should thoroughly review the Master Plan every ~ree to five years and make changes a$ necessary to keep the Plan current and viable. Planning provides a rational problem-solving approach to the complex issues that face communities. In this respect, it must be emphasized that it is the regular activity of planning, not the resulting documents, that is most important. As a continuation of this Master Plan, t~ere will be a need for other functional plans and studies. The Township should draft and adopt plans and policies for parks and recreation, public facilities, and other areas of capital improvements. These plans will, in turn, expand the scope of this Master Plan and help keep Broomfield Township a healthy and attractive place to live. 61 � 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 Wyckoff Planning and Zoning Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Planning & Zoning Center (Lansing, Mich.) (Organization) Wyckoff, Mark A. Description An account of the resource Municipal master plans and zoning ordinances from across the state of Michigan, spanning from the 1960s to the early 2020s. The bulk of the collection was compiled by urban planner Mark Wyckoff over the course of his career as the founder and principal planner of the Planning and Zoning Center in Lansing, Michigan. Some additions have been made to the collection by municipalities since it was transferred to Grand Valley State University. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Michigan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960/2023 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/870">Planning and Zoning Center Collection (RHC-240)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/">No Copyright - United States</a> Subject The topic of the resource Michigan Comprehensive plan publications Master plan reports Zoning--Michigan Zoning--Maps Maps Land use--planning 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 RHC-240 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 Broomfield-Twp_Master-Plan_1987 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource East Central Michigan Planning and Development Region Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-01 Title A name given to the resource Broomfield Township Master Plan Description An account of the resource The Broomfield Township Master Plan was prepared by the East Central Michigan Planning and Development Region and the Broomfield Township Planning Commission and was adopted in January 1987. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Broomfield Township Planning Commission (consultant) Subject The topic of the resource Master plan reports Broomfield Township (Mich.) Isabella County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/870">Planning and Zoning Center Collection (RHC-240)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/">No Copyright - United States</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/c622ec55afea46d4d515f5afe8a52a0b.jpg a63508675606ceaefa24a0c0db7abafc 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. PS3511.O95 B75 1905 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_Bindings0230 Title A name given to the resource Brother Billy Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Barry, Etheldred B. (Designer) Description An account of the resource Binding of Brother Billy, by Frances Margaret Fox, published by L. C. Page & Company (Cosy Corner Series), 1905. 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 1905 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/8e4d5800755d5819455d7f3409ca4a13.pdf 1ec5ce5cd15a9411eafefd1de3e7bc03 PDF Text Text BROTHER HOOD SERVICE CONDUCTED BY TEMPL:C: B'NAI ISRAEL YOUTH GROUP �Lighting of Candles Eli - Eli Choir RESPONSIVE READINGPsalm 97 The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice, let the many isles be glad. ) Clouds and darkness surround Him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. His lightnings illumine the world; the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. The heavens tell of His righteousness, and all the peoples behold His glory. Zion hears and is glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoice, because of Your judgments, 0 Lord. For You, 0 Lord, are most high over all the earth; You are exalted far above all other gods. The Lord loves those who hate evil; He preserves the souls of His faithful ones; He delivers them from the hand of the wickedo , Barchu et adonai hamvorach. Praise ye the Lord to \Jhom all praise is due • Baruch adonai hamvorach leolam vaed. Praised be the Lord to 'whom all praise is due for ever and ever Reader The General Assembly: Considering that the Charter of the United Nations is based on the Page 1 �principles of the dignity and equality of all human beings and seeks ••.• to achieve international co-operation in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion, Considering that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights ••• Considering that all are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection against any discrimination . Considering that any doctrine of racial differentiation or superiority is scientifically false, morally objectionable, socially unjust and dangerous • ..• Convinced also that racial discrimination harms not only those who are its objects but also those who practice it, Solemnly affirms the necessity of speedily eliminating racial discrimination throu~hout the world • • . and of securing understanding of and respect for the dignity of the human person . RESi-ONSIVE l~DING Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us all? God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them . Our tradition says that God created only one man, who is the ancestor of all men: to teach us that whoever destroys a single human soul has destroyed an entire world; And whoever sustains a single human soul has sustained an en tire world .. And man was created one for the sake of peace among mankind: that none mieht say to his fellow: 11My father was greater than your father. u I call heaven and earth to wtiness: Gentile or Jew, man or woman, man-sorvant or maid-servant - all according to hi.s deeds does the holy spirit rest upon a man . Page 2 �All Reading Lord our God, we pray for the coming of the day when all Your children will live together in peace and friendship; uhen oppression, discrimination and prejudice will be relics of the past, and all mankind will be filled with Your spirit, as it has been said: .,Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earthl'' May that day be soon, 0 Lord: the day foreseen by our prophets and sar es, the day for which the people of Israel have longed during the course of a hundred generations; when all mankind will recognise that it is one brotherhood; when we shall be one and acknowledge that You are the Father of us all; the day proclaimed by the prophet: 11 In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of Hosts has bless0d, saying, 'Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel IJ.y heritage.'" Shema yisrael adonai Elohaynu adonai echad Hear O Israel, the Lord o~r God the Lord is One. Baruch shaym kevod malchuto le-o-lam va-ed Ue praise His name, Whose glorious Kingdom is for ever and ever All Reading And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be like frontlets bgtween your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house, and upon your gates. That you may remember and do all my commandments, and b~ holy unto your uod. I the Lord am your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I the Lora am your God. Page 3 �Less of Me Choir All Reading We solemnly aff irm the truth of Israel's faith: there is One God in heaven and earth. His pow0r and wisdom are manifest in nature, His love and justice in the life of mankind. We see God's guiding hand most clearly when we look back upon the history of our own people. Delivered from ~gyptian bondage, bound to God by the covenant a t uinai, inspired by prophets and instructed by sages, we survived oppression and exile, overcoming time and again the forces that would have cestroyed us. · Rsader We were beset by the weaknesses and faults common to all humanity; yet it ha s been our glory to testify to the unity of God, to hold up before the world an example of courage, and to keep alive in dark ages a vision of humaneness and brotherhood. Let us therefore continue to labour for the day when all men will recognise God's unity and obey His Law. Then shall the nations live together in brotherhood and peace, and all will sing with one accord: All Singing Mi clamocha ba-e-lim adonai mi camocha needor bakodesh. oseh feleh. Norah tehilot Who is like You, 0 Lord, among the gods men worship? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in splendour, doing wonders? ~ Adonai yimloch leolam vaed. t) The Lord shall reign for ever and everl Reader Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders toil in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, its watchman stays awake in vain. 11 Page 4 �May it be Your will, 0 Lord our God, to cause love and brotherhood, peace and friendship to dwell among us, to diract us in Your world with good companions and good intentions, to give us hope in the future, and to plant eternity in our hearts: That we may rise in the morning to find our hearts waiting to obey Your will. We praise You, 0 Lord, Guardian of Israel, whose truth gives light to all the world. SILENT PRAYER May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable unto Thee, 0 Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Song "Sabbath Prayet' Scripture Reading 11 Birthday Blessings" Kiddush (Union Prayer book Page 93) Sermon Choir Hineh Mah Tov adoration Kaddish f Shalom Chaverim (,\ Benediction Page 5 Le t Us Ag.ore � 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 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-08_BI_Brotherhood_Service_Youth_Group Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Temple B'nai Israel Youth Group Title A name given to the resource Brotherhood Service Description An account of the resource Program for the Brotherhood Service of Temple B'nai Israel Youth Group, undated. Subject The topic of the resource Jews--United States Muskegon (Mich.) 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 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/f5c002b8b03b9f0aee089c0d3d988d45.jpg 5868ec83995f6770b01855ba129c2a0d 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 BroughtenCindy Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Broughten, Cindy Description An account of the resource Cindy Broughten Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History 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/db5ac88da74b7d2c1a6728e6b1cc69c8.mp4 8f367e23914a052da2e84d0da6759d34 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3c00452deb47b0df4d1adf923e3ae556.pdf 7c1dcae3eec02bae1d8c23a22641943d PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: Vietnam Interviewee’s Name: Carleton Brown Length of Interview: 1:13:54 Interviewed by: James Smither Transcribed by: Hokulani Buhlman Interviewer: We’re talking today with Carleton Brown of Grand Rapids, Michigan and the interviewer is James Smither of the Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project. Okay Carl, start us off with some background and to begin with: where and when were you born? I was born in New Haven, Connecticut. My dad was in the Navy, he was in medical school at Yale, and so I started out being in the Navy when I was born actually. (0:57) Interviewer: And what year were you born? 1944. Interviewer: M’kay. October 28th, 1944. Interviewer: Alright. Now, did your father have a career in the Navy? He did. He went to medical school and he became a flight surgeon, and I think he had at least 30 years in before he retired. Interviewer: Okay. So that means that as a Navy kid, or a Navy brat, you would have moved around a lot? Yup, Navy brat. We moved around a lot—I went to 13 schools before I graduated from highschool. �Interviewer: Alright, and tell me a little bit about your high school education: where did you go to high school and where did you graduate from? 9th grade was in Beaufort, South Carolina; 10th grade they sent me to St. Peter’s Episcopal school for boys in Peekskill, New York. 135 spoiled brats and me (Carleton laughs) that was a lot of fun; and then 11th grade was at Terry Parker Highschool in Arlington near Jacksonville, Florida; And then Manchester Highschool Central in Manchester, New Hampshire is where I graduated from high school. (2:01) Interviewer: Okay, now were all of these switches based on your father moving around or were there other reasons for you to go to the (Interviewer is cut off.) A large part of it, plus getting a better, maybe—the school system in Jacksonville wasn’t very good, it was facing disaccreditation so they sent me to New Hampshire. To graduate from a school in New Hampshire. Interviewer: Okay. And why New Hampshire? Well my grandparents lived in Manchester, New Hampshire and I had gone to school in the first grade in Manchester, New Hampshire. My dad was stationed in Turkey and my mother was homeschooling me, and that wasn’t really working out in the first grade, so they put me on a plane and I flew to Manchester, New Hampshire and started first grade at Pearl Street Elementary School in Manchester. Interviewer: Alright, now you also had a stint in San Diego when you were a kid, right? I never really lived in San Diego. We lived in Hawaii for a while. Interviewer: Hawaii, that was my next guess. My dad was stationed at Hickam, and I met my wife—we were kids—at the housing area just north of Hickam. I went to her ninth birthday party and kinda kept track of her through my mom and her mom. Oddly enough her name was Brown then, before we were married, so she just continued on with the same name Brown. She often complains she was looking for a more interesting last name, but got stuck with brown again. Interviewer: At least people can spell it! That’s right! I always say when they ask me what my last name is I say: Brown, like the color. �Interviewer: Alright, okay, so you wind up graduating from highschool in Manchester, New Hampshire in what year? That would have been in 1963 I believe. ‘62 or ‘63. Hm. Interviewer: And from there where did you go to college? I went to the University of Florida. Interviewer: And how did you wind up going there? Well, I wanted to go to a New England school but I didn’t really have the education that would allow me to do that, so I did well on the SATs and applied to the University of Florida where I had some friends going to school and they took me. Interviewer: Okay, and when you got to Florida what did you major in? Well the first couple years you’re kind of, like, lookin’ for a major. I tried the pre-med route and so forth and so on, but I wound up in Journalism and Communications as my undergraduate degree. (4:48) Interviewer: Alright. And then while you’re in school, by the time you’re getting close to graduating the draft is ramping up and Vietnam is starting. I was safe. I was a 2S. No fears of the draft. Interviewer: And 2S, what does that stand for? It means you have a deferment as a student. Interviewer: You have a student deferment? Okay, alright. How, then, did you wind up in the service? On my way back to the fraternity house I stopped at a—they had a booth where they were looking for pilots, Navy pilots. I went up to the guys there and said I’d be interested in being a pilot in the Navy, and I have really thick glasses so obviously that wasn’t gonna work out, and he told me “Well, I don’t think you’re gonna be a pilot, but you can go to the Student Union and take a test.” So I took a test at the Student Union and then I kinda forgot about it. A couple �weeks later I was on my way back to the fraternity house and when I walked in somebody said “Hey Brown, you’re going to Vietnam! Grab your rifle and get on the bus!” and I said “Wait a minute, what’s going on?” and they had opened my letter and put it on the bulletin board. That I was heading off to war. So I was a bit concerned about that, but you know I had to go and have a physical and all of that. Interviewer: Now were you at that point in your fourth year of college? Yeah about into the fourth year. Well into the fourth year. Interviewer: Because a student deferment normally lasts for four years. So it may be that the draft board was all ready to get you. Yeah, I changed majors a few times. I think I was actually a student at the University of Florida for almost 5 ½ years. Interviewer: That would do it. Once you get (cuts off) That kind of pushed the edge there. So, anyway I found out I did well on that test I had taken and the guy said that the recruiters, since I had taken the test before I got the letter, if I wanted to I could enlist in the Navy and perhaps go to OCS. So that’s the route I took. Interviewer: Okay, that’s Officer Candidate School. You have to remember our audience doesn’t necessarily know all the acronyms. Sorry about that. Interviewer: It’s okay. So, was there a Navy recruiter on campus, or what do you do? I think I made a phone call and set up a meeting to go talk to him. And he knew that I had gotten a score on the test that allowed me to, perhaps, go that route for enlistment instead of going to Vietnam with a draft notice. (7:32) Interviewer: Okay, and does the timing of the test matter, when you took it? Yeah. I had to have taken the test before I got my draft notice. Interviewer: What year was this, when this first happened? �It was in 1966. Interviewer: So in ‘66 you have a lot of people who get draft notices and expect to go into the Army or something, and they’ll try to get into the Navy or the Airforce, so you had a lot of people trying to enlist at that point. I’m sure. Interviewer: So that would probably affect why they would pay attention to that kind of thing. That’s right. Interviewer: But anyway: you had done it right, and so… I was fortunate. Interviewer: Did they let you finish your degree first? Yup, I got to finish my studies and get my degree and then in April of that next year I went to Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. Interviewer: Now, were you married or engaged yet, or does that come later in the story? Not married at that point. Not really thinking about it very much. Went to OCS, took about four months, and then I went to communications school for a couple of months. And then got my little MGB and headed for California. (8:42) Interviewer: Well back up a little bit, talk about OCS. What did that actually consist of? Well, OCS was very interesting. There were 11 of us in our section and we got to be pretty good buddies. You learned how to eat the Navy way, which is really fast. (Carleton laughs.) As much as you can get in your mouth at a time and then off you move. The first month or two is move move move, they really push you along and go through the stuff, go to classes, march. A lot of marching. I was very interested in learning more about the Navy—I had kind of been in the Navy all my life with my dad and different bases, and he taught me a lot of very interesting things about how to do well in the Navy. I think part of the main one was he taught me that Chiefs were in charge of the Navy, and if you wanted to get along or do well in the Navy you had to remember that the Chiefs were in charge. �Interviewer: The Chiefs being Chief Petty Officers. Chief Petty Officers. Interviewer: The noncommissioned officers. That’s right. And I always kept that in my mind and it served me well. Interviewer: How much spit and polish was there in the OCS? There was a lot of spit and polish. You had to keep your boonies really well shined, I was the only one in our group who knew how to spit-shine a boonie, so I had to teach the other guys how to. Interviewer: What is a boonie? Boonies are your boots. They’re not real high boots, but they become your best friends. (Laughs) Interviewer: Right. And your peacoat. You had to have a nice warm peacoat. (10:30) Interviewer: So you knew how to spit shine and… That’s right. I had to show them how it takes a little bit of time and patience to get that shine that when you look at it, it looks like a mirror finish. Interviewer: And then, what do the classes consist of? Well, we had different classes in, like, tactics and seamanship. Navigation. A lot of the different things that you would run into when you got aboard a ship. There were yard patrol craft that we went out and sailed around on—I guess that’s Narragansett Bay? And learned some things about Navy procedures and communications and that was, it was a really full four months of that kind of activity. Interviewer: Now one thing you mentioned before we started the session was that your OCS class was kind of unusually small. �Right. Interviewer: And so, how does that affect the dynamic of those four months? If you’re this small and other classes are larger? Well, there’s a lot of things that have to get done in terms of, like, cleaning up things and putting things in different places, and so the class ahead of you, when they come in, they kinda like, use you to do all of that. And the class ahead of us was over a hundred men and we were only 11 so we got worn pretty thin. But by the time we graduated the class behind us was quite large so we had a lot of resources and assets, and even though it's only a month it seems like a long time. Interviewer: Okay, so when did you finish the OCS part? That would have been in July of ‘67. Interviewer: And then the next step was? Communications school. Interviewer: Okay was that in Newport or somewhere else? That was in Newport. Interviewer: Okay. So it was just a hop-skip-and a jump from our OCS spaces there. Interviewer: What are you actually being taught in Communications school? Well they teach us some of the basics about naval communications including Cryptography and things like that. They call it a Romeo-8 which has little discs and spins so you can decrypt and encrypt messages and those kinds of things. Plus basic stuff like semaphore and [in the Navy] when you talk with radio-telephone procedures, how to use proper radio-telephone procedure techniques. Spelling the Alpha Bravo Charlie letters and things like that. (13:20) Interviewer: Now was communications going to be your specialization, or? Looked like it, yup, at that point. �Interviewer: And then how long did that school last? It was a couple of months. Interviewer: Now when you’re in that school, or in OCS for that matter, do you get much of a chance to go off base or do you just stay on the base the whole time? Yeah, you can get off base. You get some… OCS, of course, after you’re in for a little while, maybe about three weeks to a month then you can get off on the weekends, and at comms school it was just during the day. There was a flag football team and things like that. Interviewer: And would you go into Newport? Mmhm. Washington Square. Interviewer: And how did the people in the community treat the Navy people? Um. You know, I didn’t interface with a lot of civilians in the community but it didn’t seem like there was any problem with that. I think it’s likely that the OCS and all the Navy stuff is probably a pretty good industry for that community. (14:25) Interviewer: So there weren’t signs on the lawn saying “No sailors allowed” or anything. No, no. Interviewer: Not like Norfolk or someplace like that. No, I didn’t see any signs against the military. Interviewer: Okay, I was curious there. Now would you go into Boston or would you stay around Newport? I went into Boston a few times, I had friends into New Hampshire, so we got up into New Hampshire. Sometimes my OCS buddies would go with me or we’d go to maybe University Connecticut for a football game or up into Manchester and meet up with my grandparents, so there was some time like that. Interviewer: And when you finished Communications school what was the next step from there? �Then I got orders to an aircraft carrier in California and I had a little bit of time off, spent some time with my parents in Florida, and then drove to California. Interviewer: Okay. Now, had you received your Commission yet or does that [happen] kinda after you get out to California? You get your Commission after OCS and before comms school, so I was a red-hot ensign by then. Interviewer: So now you’re at [the] Yorktown aircraft carrier. Right. Interviewer: So, how are you treated when you get there and what happens when you arrive at the ship? Well, I found out where to go and they told me where to put my stuff. They weren’t paying a lot of attention to me at that point because they were getting ready for an extended tour to Vietnam, and so everybody was kind of preparing for that. We did have some conferences we had to go to and things to get ready for the journey, and one of the things they had to do was talk about radiotelephone procedures, and since I had just graduated from Communications school they said “Okay, well, you’re in charge. We want you to conduct the radio-telephone procedures.” So I had to try and teach these guys that knew a whole lot more than me about radio-telephone procedures what the proper techniques were, like for instance you don’t say Roger-Wilco, over and out---that’s not right. But that’s what everybody says. Things like that, we did that in San Diego and everybody was pretty happy with knowing what the rules were but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gonna use them. (16:50) Interviewer: So how long did you spend in port before you went out? Well I got there in real early December 1967 and I needed to get my clothes cleaned and get going, so I called my mother and she gave me her friend’s number in Newport Beach that I had known when I was a child, when I was a kid. So I called her and she said “come on down” and I went down there, and after she fed me a couple times and cleaned my clothes I said, “Didn’t you have a daughter about my age?” and so she gave me Betsy’s address, my wife-to-be, and I drove up to Westwood, LA and knocked on her apartment door and her roommate Judy answered. And I said “Well, Judy, is Betsy here?” and Judy said, “No, there’s no Betsy here.” and she turned and said “Betty, do you know a Betsy?” I said oh wait, maybe it’s Betty I’m looking for. So �Betty came and uh, unfortunately Betty—or Betsy—had a date that night but I took Judy out and learned a bit about her. And I made a date with Betsy for the following weekend so that was in about the middle of December and anyway we had a strong relationship and I proposed to her. Christmas Eve I asked her father for his daughter’s hand in marriage and then the ship left before New Years for 8 months. Interviewer: Okay So that was a fast month, I can’t believe it all happened in one month. Interviewer: Well, you’re about the age where sometimes things can move that fast. That’s right, that’s right. Interviewer: And it seems to have worked because she’s listening in from the booth right now, so. Okay, now when you ship out do you go straight across the Pacific or did you put in any ports along the way? (19:14) Well we had an interesting time. When we went out—the ship goes down to San Diego and the aircraft come aboard and then we go out—it just turns out we were following the Enterprise across, and it turns out there was a Soviet attack submarine that was shadowing the Enterprise and we were allowed to use our Anti-submarine warfare technology, that was pretty sophisticated at the time, to track that submarine that was watching the Enterprise. So the aircraft would go out and drop sonobuoys in patterns and we would try to locate the submarine, sometimes we could and sometimes we couldn’t, but it was the first time they let us overtly prosecute to try and find that submarine. And the Enterprise went into pearl before we did, and then we were in pearl for awhile, and then she left before we did and we did some more of that on the way out to Japan. It was pretty exciting cause the whole progress of all of that is done in what they call the Flag Operation Center which is right next to the CIC, Combat Information Center. Combat is dark but the Flag Operation Center is lit so pilots come through and they had these big, big boards that they move back and forth with all the little planes and everything. You can move them around to try and give the pilots some idea where they should go to find the submarine and track it down. So it was really very interesting for me as my first real experience in the Navy doing anything like that, and it was quite an adventure. And then when we got on our way to Japan, the North Koreans took the Pueblo, then we got diverted up into the sea of Japan and we were part of the operation that was watching Wonson Harbor and deciding what to do about the fact that Pueblo had been captured. My boss was a communications guy and he set up these special circuits and we got messages about that, like contingency plans? and I pulled those, they were top-secret plans that had to have a disclosure �sheet on top. After you looked at them you had to sign the disclosure sheet saying that you had access to these things. So they came in and I put them on the board and took them to the Chief of Staff and he asked me “Well, what are those messages?” and I said “Well, they’re contingency plans” and he said “Well, I don’t wanna read ‘em go show them to the Admiral.” so I took them to the Admiral and I said “These are the contingency plans, Chief of Staff said I should bring them to you.” and he said “Well, what is it?” and I said “Well, it’s what we’re gonna do in case we’re gonna do something with the Pueblo.” and he said “Well I don’t wanna read that stuff, go take it to somebody else.” So I went around trying to get somebody else to read these contingency plans which included some things maybe the Yorktown would be doing, in that contingency, and nobody would read it! So I put it in a safe and locked it away and hoped that nothing would ever happen where we would need those things. And it was kind of stressful because I was the only guy that read those things, and you know, anything could happen. (22:53) Interviewer: But as it was that situation did get defused, so we didn’t invade North Korea or anything like that. That’s right, but I think they made the Pueblo into a museum and maybe if we get a little more peaceful with North Korea we’ll be able to check out that museum someday. Interviewer: Mhm. Okay, alright, so you go to Japan. Now do you go on shore in Japan or do you just stay on the ship? Yup. We went to Yokosuka and did some shore leave there, a little bit of time. And then the Yorktown had a problem with its prop and they took it down to Sasebo and put it in drydock and changed the prop out, so we got to see Sasebo which is an interesting town, southern Japan, very different from Tokyo that’s for sure. Interviewer: How did the Japanese people seem to view the American sailors? Pretty positively. We had good liberty in Japan, everybody was pretty happy with Americans. Interviewer: You didn’t have too many seamen acting up in the bars or anything like that? Not too much. No. Most of that was in the Philippines I guess. Interviewer: Yeah that’s a different world. So, from Japan now, do you head to the coast of Vietnam or what comes next? Right, we went to the Philippines, Olongapo, and then over to Yankee station. (24:23) �Interviewer: Okay, Yankee Station. Explain what Yankee Station was. The Yankee Station was really just kind of an area near Hanoi and Haiphong where a lot of the action was taking place in terms of US planes bombing Haiphong and Hanoi, and that was what the serious war was. Interviewer: And so now this is 1968, now that this is happening. And this is the period of—the Tet Offensive started January 30th, and intense levels of fighting go on for about a year after that, so there’s a lot of action going on both in South Vietnam and in bombing raids up north. So was the Yankee Station area sort of in international waters? I believe it was. There was always the threat of submarines there, although it's not very deep we’re still worried about the possibility of that coming into play, so our job on Yorktown was to keep track of all the surface combatants and to be sure to be ready to react to any kind of submarine activity that might have come in, but I don’t think there ever was, so my knowledge, any submarine activity. Interviewer: Now would planes from Yorktown go and hit targets on the mainland? No, they mainly monitored surface combatants and checked for submarines. They were always doing anti-submarine. And they had equipment on the Yorktown, sonar equipment and that kind of equipment plus we delivered the mail. It was probably the main good thing we did was keep the mail going, so the mail came into the Yorktown and then planes, carriers—CODs, we called them CODs. I don’t remember what that stands for but they would deliver the mail out to others and there were underway replenishments, and destroyers would come alongside and things would be transferred and replenished. Interviewer: So you’re doing what is essentially—you have screening duties or whatever, escort duties and other carriers are the ones that have the strike forces. That’s right. Interviewer: But then you fill these other kinds of jobs and duties because you’ve got a big ship that can hold a lot of stuff, planes can land there and take off. That’s right. The Yorktown was a CVS, not a CVA, so that little distinction put her into more of a anti-submarine role. Interviewer: Okay. (27:01) �I was aboard the Yorktown when she had her 25th birthday. They took a picture of the men out on the deck, 25 years, and Hilo went around and took pictures. It was a big day for the Yorktown which saw service in World War Two. Interviewer: Because it was a replacement for the original one that was lost at Midway. Yeah. Interviewer: So what was daily life like for you on the Yorktown? It was fairly routine. I had a room with two other guys and showers were always a little bit tough. If you took more than a 10 second shower, they always had a problem getting enough fresh water. The food was pretty good, we used to say about the Yorktown that she wasn’t a looker but she was a feeder, so we got pretty good grub on the Yorktown. I never complained and I never got seasick, so that was good. Interviewer: And then your duty station? Was in the Flag Operation Center, and they had a watch section, you had like 4 hours of watch and then they had a routine and different people would come in and go off and you’d have to show them what was going on and bring them up to date, then the next person, the next crew would come in. I stood watch—there were two officers that stood watch in the Flag Operation Center. Interviewer: And how many enlisted did you have with you? Probably a good 50 enlisted men, connected with the staff and its operation. Interviewer: Alright, [and then] you talked before about how the Chiefs run the show, how did you apply that knowledge when you went into your assignment there? Well, as an ensign and a JG, not so much. But I still paid attention because it’s pretty obvious if you watch what’s going on that Chiefs are running things in the Navy. Interviewer: Because, I guess, at that point you’re not giving orders. Normally there would be someone superior to you on duty with you and so you just have particular jobs and things that you do. That’s right. �(29:27) Interviewer: Now… [about] how long did you spend off the coast of Vietnam? Well, several weeks from time to time, and then we would go back to the Philippeans. We did take a tour [where we] got around to Singapore once and that was an interesting trip. Got off the ship enough to get into looking at Malaysia a bit. That was an interesting country and people were happy to see us. We went to a big fancy hotel there in Singapore, can’t remember the name of it, but anyway we did see some sights there. And then back on line. Interviewer: Now, when you would go into a port, did officers take turns with shore patrol or was that all enlisted men? Pretty much enlisted men did shore patrol. Interviewer: So that wasn’t part of what you had to do, look for them? No. Interviewer: Now aside from the Pueblo incident, were there any other things that happened that kind of stood out in your experience there, took you out of the routine? On that tour, not really. The following tour on the Kearsarge was really much the same, still the same kind of operations: anti submarine warfare operations. But then we got into a SEATO exercise, which included ships from the Philippines and Japan and a lot of other countries. Interviewer: So that's the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. In the south China sea. And it was during that exercise that I was on duty, I was on midwatch. It’s about 1:30 in the morning and one of our Destroyers, the Destroyer that went across with us, part of our carrier group, was in this exercise with the Melbourne which was an Australian aircraft carrier. During the night they went into plane operations, which was the normal thing, and Frankie Evans was the Destroyer working with the Melbourne. Frankie Evans was a forward of the Melbourne in a screen position and the Melbourne asked her to take plane-guard duty, which was a very normal thing, because when you’re conducting aircraft operations you wanna have a Destroyer close behind you in case a plane goes in the water because the Destroyer can get to that plane a lot faster than the Carrier could possibly turn around and get to them. So taking plane guard is a normal safety precaution but the skipper, Evans, didn’t handle the ship properly and when he came around the Melbourne cut it in two. And 65 guys on the bow of that ship went down in about 5 minutes. And it’s pretty �deep there, it’s the Marianas Trench, so it was a real bad accident. And I was in the Flag Operations Center and I heard somebody in CIC laughing and I thought “Well what’s going on?” and I opened the curtain and the guy pulled the message off the teletype and says “Look, Mr. Brown, it says here the Evans is in two parts.” I said “What could that mean?” he says “I don’t know!” Well, it turned out there had been a collision at sea and in about five minutes the Flag Operations Center was full of officers. Really, that was a bad, bad event and I remember the next day I was on watch for about 7 ½ hours before I got out. When I got out I went out on the flight deck and the Evans was about, hmm, 1000 yards off and you could see where the front had been cut off. It looked just like somebody took a pair of scissors and cut that ship in half. (34:02) Interviewer: But the main part—the ship was still afloat otherwise? The stern was still afloat. Interviewer: So is it designed so that it could do that thing or? I guess they had pretty-good, water-tight integrity. They kept the hatches locked and she stayed afloat, the stern half. There were some strange stories: one seaman who was asleep in the superstructure landed on the deck of the Melbourne when the accident occured, he woke up and he had no idea where he was. The crew, [the men] on the Melbourne did a remarkable job rescuing people in the water and reacting right away to save as many people as they could. Interviewer: So some people on the bow were in that section that ended up in the water rather than going down with a piece of the ship. Right. Interviewer: That’s jumped a little bit ahead in your story here, so we’ll go back, so you do your Yankee station patrol with the Yorktown and then does the Yorktown after a certain number of months go all the way back to the States or? Back to San Diego, back to Long Beach, we got back to Long Beach in July and in August I had a wedding with my wife, Betsy. August 10th, then we went on a little honeymoon, so that was a long 8-month engagement but most of that was when I was on a ship. Interviewer: You were on a ship, out of trouble anyway. Well, we wrote to each other every day. �Interviewer: So being on the mail ship was a good thing. A blessing, right. (35:47) Interviewer: So, now normally when a ship comes back to port would you have an extended period back in the states before going out again? Yeah. If you’re on the ship’s crew it would probably be a couple years before your ship would be deployed back to Vietnam or somewhere else on an extended timeframe, but I was on this Admiral staff and you get about 4 months and they put you on a different ship, this time the Kearsarge, CVS 33, and then back to Vietnam. Back to deployment. Interviewer: Now were you assigned to the Admiral staff after you got back on the Yorktown or were you already attached to that Admiral? Same Admiral staff, just moves from one ship. They move their flag from one ship to another. Interviewer: And can you name which Admiral that was? On the Yorktown, Admiral Weymouth was our Admiral. He was a very distinguished Admiral, fighter pilot in World War II I guess and then Admiral Jerome H. King took over as Commander ASW Group-1 when we were on the Kearsarge. Interviewer: So basically you’re with the unit, but on the Admiral’s staff. Essentially the Admiral switches but the staff stays the same. That’s right. Interviewer: Okay. And some other staff members, but for the most part we stayed the same. Interviewer: Okay. Now at this point had you been promoted yet, are you of Lieutenant Junior grade? I made Lieutenant Junior grade. You had to be an ensign for a year at that point before you got promoted to JG—Junior Grade. Interviewer: And did you get that promotion before you left? �Yes. (37:37) Interviewer: Cause you’ve got a picture of your wife helping pin the bars on. That’s right. Interviewer: Okay, now with the Kearsarge was it essentially a repeat of the same kind of thing you were doing on the Yorktown? Very similar, yes. Interviewer: And aside from that incident with the Evans, what other things kind of stand out for you from that tour? You know nothing really stood out. It was a lot of watch standing and making sure everybody knew what was going on in terms of what ships were where, and the pilots would come through and we would show them the best scenarios we could about what was going on in the surface activity, and if there [was] any submarine activity. Interviewer: And now, did the Soviets or the Chinese or anybody else shadow you at all or have their own boats out there, I mean there were Soviet trawlers and things that we hear about. I remember we got overflown by bears at one point, that was kind of exciting. Because when they—when those Russian bombers come by—-they can get really close. You can even see—I have this imagination that I could see people on those planes. I mean, it’s an amazing thing that they would come by that close and I think they’re kinda trying to scare you a little bit. Interviewer: So aircraft, but not necessarily any other vessels. No, no, I don’t recall any collisions at sea or anything like that. Sometimes when you’re going through the harbors you have to be careful of the junks cause there’s a lot of maneuvering you have to do to get around smaller boats and ships, in and out of harbors, that’s about it. Interviewer: Now with these carriers, did you ever put into Cam Ranh Bay or a Vietnamese port? Or always other places? Nope, nope, carriers didn’t go in there. �Interviewer: And then you said you got to Singapore, did you go to Hong Kong or Taiwan or anywhere? Yup, we went to Hong Kong. We took a trip to Hong Kong and that was very interesting. We got all the way up to where red China started, like a little gate there. (40:10) Interviewer: Some people tell stories about going into the harbor at Hong Kong and having a bunch of women coming out and painting their ship. Now was that for smaller boats? Probably not an aircraft carrier. I guess so? I guess so. Interviewer: But you didn’t see anything like that that you recall. No, I don’t recall. It did seem like there was some commerce going on though between boats in the harbor and some of the ships. Probably groceries and vegetables. It was always nice to get some fresh vegetables. Interviewer: Right. Now, when you go into a port like that do you get any information in terms of what you should do and don’t do, or any miscellaneous warnings? Oh yeah, there’s a list of… what do they call it… I can’t remember what they call it, but a list of places that they don’t recommend you visit which are usually the best places. You kinda look forward to getting that list cause you can find out where the action is. (Laughs) Interviewer: Well, I mean there’s the kinds of places where you can get yourself into a lot of trouble, as opposed to the kinds of places that are nice and expensive and fancy and they don’t want a bunch of drunken Americans running around. Right. Interviewer: So would your list include both kinds of things or what did they emphasize? They emphasized the first where “these are dangerous spots”, not recommended. Interviewer: You also [talked] about going to the Philippines, how was going to the Philippines different from going to Hong Kong or Singapore? �Well, the Philippines of course, they had a really good Navy exchange. It was the place to go to buy a tape recorder, a Sony tape recorder. It’s not as clean a place as Hong Kong, so you have to be a little careful about what you get involved in, where you go. Interviewer: Yeah, I’ve had interesting stories from enlisted men about going. Olongapo was an interesting place. There’s a bridge from between the brace and you get into Olongapo, there’s a bridge and there are boats in the water and sometimes there’s attractive young ladies on the boats and people would like to throw money in the water and they would dive down in to get the money. It was all kind of a circus thing. Interviewer: So how long was the tour on the Kearsarge? Well it would have been another 8-month tour but I requested some other duty, and I got that extra duty. I felt like maybe I could see some of the rest of the world rather than, it looked like to me, I would be on the Kearsarge for another 8 months and then the staff would move to another carrier and we’d go back. So my three years in the Navy would include three tours to Vietnam, and that seemed like a bit much to me. So I thought, one of the things I was responsible for was the registered documents, it’s called an RPS Custodian. So I’d have to go with a bag and get new key lists and things, and then turn in the old key lists, and do all of that for the registered publications which were classified, sensitive information, so I was at the center once and I asked him “Where are all the registered publication places?” and he said “Well, they’re all over the world! They’re in Scotland, Germany, Spain.” I said, “Wow, that sounds like a pretty interesting thing. I'd like to get involved in that.” maybe see some of the rest of the world. And so I went back and I looked up the instructions and I thought maybe I’d just put in for a tour of duty with the security group, because the naval security group are the ones that handle all of that. Then I thought what do I have to offer the security group? I really don’t have anything. Maybe if I spoke Russian, that would be something that they need, based on my reading. So I put in for a Russian language school, and sure enough I got orders to Russian Language School and then a tour of duty with the security group, which is odd because usually things don’t go the way you plan them. So my wife and I went to the Presidio of Monterey, and the Presidio is an army language school. We took Russian for a year and she did better than I did. She was a very good student, but we would have these sessions where you would do a conversation in Russian and we would practice doing them with each other, so we got pretty good at Russian. Interviewer: So how did she wind up in the Russian language school? Well if they had room you could ask for your wife to go, and there was enough room for her to go. �Interviewer: Okay. Now did she—because, did you have some kind of security clearance for yourself, for the duty you had, or was that required? Yes. Interviewer: And was she required to have clearance of some kind? Nope, she wasn’t. She wasn’t. Fortunately she didn’t have to have a security clearance to learn Russian, so. (46:06) Interviewer: Okay, so she’s there. So she’s helping you along with the Russian, now did they just use immersion or how did they teach you? It’s immersion. They had wonderful instructors; many of these instructors were older, had gotten out of Russian before the revolution, so they’re pretty old. But very, very American people, very pro-american and they’re interesting to have as instructors. They had all kinds of interesting stories to tell about living in Russia with the czar before communism, so that was a very interesting experience and part of learning Russian, they take you through Russian history, which has gotta be one of the toughest things to try and learn. Especially if you’re learning it in Russian, it’s kind of an ordeal because America has been around for what? 300 years? And Russian history goes for thousands of years, it’s just a crazy thing. Interviewer: Yeah. I did a few classes in grad school. Did you? Interviewer: Yeah, very interesting stuff. Very interesting stuff. Interviewer: So how long was language [school], you said a year? A year. Interviewer: And how much time do you have left in your enlistment at this point? Well, when you take these schools you get more time, you have to commit to more time. Interviewer: So you would have been in four years but now it's gonna be 5 and something? �Yes. Interviewer: So you spend a year there and then, do you live on the base, do they have facilities for you? Fort Ord in California, yup. Their facilities. (47:57) Interviewer: And so, what were those like? They were pretty nice. It was a little… like a duplex. And it was furnished with army furniture and it was comfortable enough, and one of the things you had to do was keep everything very clean. They liked it to be very clean—it was clean when you got it, by golly it had to be really clean when you left. Interviewer: Right. Now, you were able to afford to have your wife be in school rather than working in some place? Yeah, the expenses weren’t great at that point, because you got your housing provided and we were fortunate in that respect. Interviewer: So after you complete your year of language school, what assignment do you get? Well, I put in for Scotland. Edzell, Scotland. And we had a couple there in Edzell that were our sponsors, and we wrote letters back and forth and we were all excited about moving to Scotland, but then two weeks before we were set to go my orders changed and they decided to send us to Bremerhaven, Germany instead. We were really disappointed, you know? I thought Scotland was gonna be a lot of fun. So we went to Bremerhaven, Germany and that was nice, we had a nice place. My son was born just before we went to Germany and then while we were in Germany my wife decided to have twins, so we had three young children there and Bremerhaven was a good place to have your kids. And I was doing watches, 8 hour watches; after we were there for about 6 months I thought it’d be nice to go visit the people that we were gonna live with over in Scotland, so we wrote to them and they said come on over, so we put the car on the ferry and went to Harlech and drove up to Edzell, Scotland and met them and it was… it was pretty remote. It was really remote. And drove back to Germany and I think we were both pretty thankful that we got sent to Bremerhaven instead. Interviewer: Because Bremerhaven is a good-sized port city and you’re close to Hamburg. �Close to Hamburg and Bremen. We went to Bremen a few times. Get on the train and go to Bremen. And I was standing watches—we had about six -hour watches in about 4 and ½ days, so you did your watches and then you got like 3 ½ days off, so Betsy would have got a babysitter and we’d load up the car and I’d meet her at the end of the watch and we’d drive to Amsterdam or Vienna, make different trips out of that. We didn’t do that every time, but every once and awhile. Stockholm and Sweden. So we had like three days off and I’m back and then I’m back to work. So we saw a little bit of Europe doing that. Interviewer: Now when you would travel around Europe, would people take a look at you and know that you were American military, or that you were…? Yeah… Yeah, pretty much. I always remember I stopped in a little cafeteria in Cologne once and I sat at a table by myself, but it was fairly crowded and pretty soon there were a bunch of people at the table. And I was listening to them talk, and I said a couple of things, and then somebody said something to me and in German and I said to him “Please don’t speak so quickly, I’m an American and my German isn’t that good.” and they all went [wide-eyed] cause they didn’t know there was an American sitting at the table. So I felt pretty good about that, that I could hide in there with them. (52:37) Interviewer: And what time frame are we talking about, when were you in Bremerhaven? Uh [1970 to 1972]. Interviewer: Now, did any sort of echoes of the American anti-war movement make it over to Germany that you ever observed? Not that I observed personally. They had some, what was it, the Red Army Faction? Interviewer: Red Brigades. Yeah, Red Army Faction at some point, I think the Red Brigades is Italy, but yeah. Down in Frankfurt and stuff, and so when you went through checkpoints or whatever they took things and checked under your car to make sure there weren’t any bombs tied to the bottom of your car and stuff like that. It was some anxious times with that business. Interviewer: Now, did you have any kind of unusual alerts or situations, or things that had happened while you were in Bremerhaven that kind of broke up the routine? �No, not really. When I was on watch at one point we used to listen to all these conversations all over the world, that’s what the base in Bremerhaven did. We got communications that Sri Lanka had been—there was a revolution or something, they took over. Big government change, so the guy in charge of that communications brought me a message form that was standard policy when there was an unwarranted regime change like that. Flash message and it all looked good to me, and I signed it off and they sent it. That Flash message goes to the President of the United States, [so it’s] a tense moment, you know? And so it went off and then the next day I got called back in and the Skipper of the base—Skipper the security group—called me in and he said “You know, before you send a message to the President, you gotta give me a call.” There wasn’t any protocol to do that so I hadn’t, but you know, it was something to consider. Interviewer: So, I guess describe then a little bit more what your functions are, or what’s happening at that base. Well, the main thing they did there was—ya know, I don’t know how much of this is classified anymore. Seems like it was so long ago that it shouldn’t be classified, but we were listening to Russian communications and trying to figure out what was going on. When they got certain kinds of communications of a routine nature they could predict when the Russians were gonna launch an ICBM, so they started paying a lot of attention to all kinds of communication in order to be able to predict what was going on. Interviewer: So, I guess, how would you wind up being the one to send the communication about Sri Lanka to Washington? You’d think there might be a different route that would send that. Well, you know, I guess it’s if you get the communications and you’re supposed to do something with it, that’s what you do but I was the Operations Watch Officer, so there were like a hundred and forty men on watch at any one time and there were morse code operations, there were teletype operations, lots of different communications operations going on all the time, 24-hours a day. So every once and awhile something would happen. (56:33) Interviewer: Anything else you wanna bring in about the time in Bremerhaven beyond that? No. We managed—my section, alpha section—managed to beat the day-workers and win the Captain’s Cup Volleyball Championship and that was a significant achievement because the dayworkers always won that thing. �Interviewer: Now when you finish the tour in Bremerhaven, do you still have time left on your enlistment? No, I was done at that point. Had served my 5 years and 3 months, and I think I was… I don’t know the term for it, but I think I was riffed. Which means they didn’t need me anymore. Interviewer: So what rank were you at the time? A lieutenant. Interviewer: And so at that point, actually in the draw-down of the size of the armed forces as Vietnam was winding down. Yeah, so a lot of Army officers lost their rank and so they’re doing that in the Navy to a certain degree. Now could you have stayed in the Navy at a lower rank, or were you just—-? No. No, not really. I might have been able to petition for another job or something, but you know I’d have to figure that out. I was kind of ready to move on to something else, so I thought at that point that going back to school would be a good thing. Interviewer: Now did you opt to stay in the Reserves, or did you have a Reserve obligation anyway? No, no I opted to stay in the Reserves. Went back to school and went to the Reserves Center and found a job at the Reserves Center. Interviewer: Now where did you go to school next, then? I went back to the University of Florida, and I got my Masters in International Management and Comparative Government. That took about a year and then during that time I learned a few things about the best way to go with a degree, so I thought “You know, maybe I need something a little more productive” in terms of what you’re gonna work for and what I wanted to do. So I moved to Phoenix, went to Thunderbird, it’s an international business school. You [can have] a degree in International Management to International Economics, and I did some German there too. And that took another year in Phoenix. Then I was at the Reserve Center there too doing my two days a month. (59:30) Interviewer: Now was the government paying for your education at this point? I was on the… yes. �Interviewer: Sort of the officer’s version of the GI Bill? Well I don’t think there’s a version. It was the GI Bill. Yup. I was taking advantage of my GI Bill opportunity. Interviewer: Okay, and you had little kids at home, so was your wife just taking care of them at that point, or did she get a job somewhere? She managed to go to class and do some classes at Thunderbird as well. I don’t think—She didn’t get a degree there but… yeah, those kids were a lot of fun. Interviewer: Now having gone and gotten that degree, what did you do with it? Well, I looked for a job and I wound up at Baxter Traven0l in Chicago, so we moved to Chicago and I was part of the Baxter Travenol team there. Interviewer: And what kind of company was that? Medical products. They made kidney dialyzers, [that] was like the main thing, and so I got involved in planning the production of kidney dialyzers all over the world and the amount of kidney dialyzers we would make in the United States and send to different countries like Israel and Japan, and coordinating that activity. It was a very interesting job. (1:01:00) Interviewer: And then, how did you wind up in Michigan? Well from Baxter I got a job at Stryker down in Kalamazoo, and then I moved from Stryker, I moved up to Amway Cooperation and I did the Germany and Switzerland distributors for Amway. Interviewer: To think back to the military career a little bit, how would you characterize the morale in the Navy units you served with? Pretty good. Pretty good, the Navy had a lot of opportunities and I think a lot of people took advantage of them. I think the Navy was pretty good service—for me it was and I think most people were pretty positive about it. Interviewer: Now, I’m not sure to what extent you’d even get to know the enlisted men, but I mean, the Navy was a place where a lot of people enlisted to stay out of the Army or the �Marine Corps. Did you have a sense some of the crew or the enlisted men you were working with were people who were there because there was a Draft on? You know, there might have been a little bit of that. I think people that got into the Navy or were in the Navy felt like they were probably a little better off than having gone to Vietnam and serving in-country. That was pretty hazardous. I had a fraternity brother and before I joined the Navy we talked about being buddies and joining the Navy together. I kinda lucked out and went the OCS, Officer Candidate School route and he went in with the Marines, and he became a corpsman with the Marines. And then he went in-country in Vietnam and I got several letters from him. You know, the letters would come from Vietnam, somehow they would go to the United States then go back to the ship, so it was before cell phones. He would tell me about his adventures and what he was doing, and it made your heart point to read those letters. I think he was fortunate to live through it, I’m sure he saved a lot of lives and was a great person to have on patrol as a corpsman. And then he’s since had a distinguished career since he left the Navy, left the Marines. Well actually, he was never in the Marines. He was a Navy Corpsman. Interviewer: Yeah, he was a Navy Corpsman who served with the Marines. Cause the Marines don’t have medics. Now when I read those things it’s kind of a double thing. You know you wonder “Wow, man, this guy’s really doing something good. He’s contributing.” but on the other hand woah is that dangerous. War can be tough. (1:03:51) Interviewer: Now did you notice any kind of racial tensions or issues on the big ships or on the bases? Not that I recall. Not that I recall. It was… there were, you know, people from different ethnic groups and it seemed like the Navy was pretty good about assimilating. When I was in Bremerhaven, Admiral Zumwalt came out with what they call Z-grams, which I think tried to get people to talk about things and open up, and so on the midwatch I kind of instituted rap sessions, with the Chief’s permission of course. We would get a few people that had a little bit of extra time and get together and talk about problems and what could be done about them, and you know I always believed in a sense of participation and being able to speak your problems out and talking about them as being the first part of getting things resolved, so we kept talking. That was—you know I don’t know where the Navy is with that kind of stuff today, but that was a little bit new back then. Interviewer: I ask the questions in part because of certain stereotypes about the US military, especially in the Vietnam era, and they can have to do with morale, they can have �to do with race, and the other issue that comes up is drug use. Was that noticeable at all within the Navy? No, I didn't notice any drug use. Did not. Interviewer: It would be probably hard to have a whole lot of that on the ships like that. Right, right. I think you heard stories about some people having problems with alcoholism, and on a ship alcohol, in the US Navy, is strictly prohibited but that didn’t mean some people didn’t keep bottles in their bottom desk drawer. But I never saw anybody that had the kind of misbehavior. Interviewer: So for you, how do you think that your time in the navy affected you, or what did you take out of it? Well, I love the Navy. I had a good time in the Navy and I did my job as best I could and I think I contributed to the success of our missions and my different assignments and I look back on the Navy as having been a very wonderful experience. Interviewer: Now how long did you stay in the Reserves? Well I retired in like 1995, so I had about… I think I had about a total of 28 years in. Interviewer: And what rank did you finish at? I retired at Commander 05. Interviewer: And then aside from the sort of two days a month kind of thing, the Reserve service, did you have any other longer stints of training of any kind, or summer trips? Sure, you know we did our two weeks every summer. At least once a year you were supposed to do two weeks and I had some good [times]. I was the commanding officer of the Naval Station Guam out of Muskegon, Michigan, it was a great unit, great people. I had active duty for training and we went to Guam for 17 days, and that was an interesting experience. My job there was to inventory the fire engines on the island. The fire chief was retiring and that was one of the things they had to go was check out all the fire engines, so my wife and I rented a car and during those 17 days we didn’t have a very pressured schedule, we’d just drive around and we’d find one of these fire stations and just kinda come in on them without them knowing about it, that made it more interesting and I’d show them my papers and say I’m inventorying the fire engine. Well you know they got the stock numbers painted right on the side so you’d check it off on the list, �then go sit down with those guys and they’d tell you about their fire station and what they were doing and where the best food was close by, they were always good at that so it was an interesting 17 days on Guam. And some other good active duty; probably the most interesting ones I did were to the pentagon. I was a reserve unit attached to the pentagon, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, and that was on the ring floor and those people at the pentagon were doing some pretty interesting stuff. For awhile they were working on the U.S. maritime strategy and gosh they had some great guys working on it, trying to figure out what the best way was to confront the Russians if they came out of the baffles, so they put together this strategy that I think helped end the Cold War really. We had to do research into lots of different libraries there at the Pentagon, and that was kind of interesting to see, I spent some time looking at the minutes from the joint Chief of Staff’s meetings at the Pentagon and, you know, Ronald Reagan was in there and I’m reading these things like wow! you know, This is interesting history! Puting that and he would ask me questions like “Did you see anything about how he felt about the Soviet Union? I want more quotes about the evil empire.” stuff like that. (1:10:25) Interviewer: Wow, now when the Gulf War happened, did that have any ripple effects where you were? Not really. Some people got more involved than I did. I know we had to go through sensitivity training, there was a lot of that going on, where we had to be correct in our performance with other people and that kinda got pushed up there. Interviewer: And then at that point is that in dealing with women or people of different races, or? I think mostly with women. The Navy started bringing women into more action roles, so. Interviewer: So did you have women in your unit at Bremerhaven, for instance? No. Interviewer: Were there some on the base that were not in your unit? I don’t believe so. Actually, it was an Army base with a little Navy unit. Interviewer: Okay, so you’re kind of a very specialized group there. Okay, but in the Reserve Units then, you’re getting more women coming into those? �Yes, yes. There’s always, you know, jokes. But you don’t tell jokes because jokes lead to bad feelings. Interviewer: So that was some of the sensitivity training? Yes. Interviewer: I mean, did, as far as you could tell, any of the women have a hard time adjusting or did people not treat them very well? You know, I think it’s hard for women to come into an all men’s situation and it takes some strength of character. And fortunately a lot of them have pretty strong characters and that’s good. As a society I think it’s wonderful to have the female brain as part of our society, like Israel, and respect that contribution to society. You know, it’s gotta be hard on a ship. I never really have experienced official duty aboard on a deployment or something like that with women as part of the operation, but it seems to be working. The exception proves the rule: every once and awhile there’s some kind of a scandal here or a scandal there but gosh I think the Navy’s done a really good job assimilating women into the service. Interviewer: Significantly increases the talent pool. Absolutely! Absolutely. Interviewer: I mean, modern warfare now, so much of it is technical anyway. That’s right! Interviewer: Physical strength is less of an issue. That’s right. That’s right Jim. Interviewer: Alright. Now, let’s see, you had made a set of notes and so forth before coming in here, do you think there’s anything that you were going to talk about that you’ve left out? Gosh, I can’t really… Interviewer: Take a look. �We’ve talked about a lot of good stuff. Um. (Carleton checks his notes.) Not really, I think we’ve pretty much covered everything. My son is in the Reserves now and so the Navy continues. Interviewer: Alright. Well then, I would like to close this by thanking you for taking the time to come and share the story today. Sure Jim, it was fun. (1:13:54) � 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 BrownC2290V Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brown, Carleton J. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-12 Title A name given to the resource Brown, Carleton (Interview transcript and video), 2018 Description An account of the resource Carleton Brown was born on October 28, 1944 in New Haven, Connecticut. He graduated high school in 1963. He then began classes the University of Florida for a degree in journalism and communications before enlisting in the Navy in 1966, narrowly dodging the draft. Brown attended Navy Officer Candidate School and Navy Communications School in Newport, Rhode Island. After that, he was assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown out of California. In December 1967, he was shipped out and headed for Japan. His first experiences at sea were tracking a Soviet attack submarine which was shadowing the USS Enterprise and was later diverted to the Sea of Japan after the capture of the USS Pueblo by the North Koreans. In 1968, he was transferred to the Gulf of Tonkin and Yankee Station, near Hanoi, where his duties were to keep watch on all vessels near the Station, remain alert for any enemy submarine activity, and send out mail to the front. Brown also recalled having to keep watch after the HMAS Melbourne and USS Evans collided in the South China Sea in June of 1969. He was soon promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade and transferred to the USS Kearsarge on which he conducted many of the same duties as he had on the Yorktown. He also periodically went ashore in places like Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. Brown then applied to learn Russian at the Presidio of Monterey Army Language School, was assigned to a Navy Security Group, and transferred to Bremerhaven, Germany, in 1970. In Germany, he and his wife raised three children and traveled around Europe while also attending to his Navy watch duties. As a part of his duties, Brown tapped into Russian communications in order to predict where and when Soviet forces were operating in the area. After his tour in Germany, the Navy no longer required his services, so he left the service, resumed his university education, but remained in the Navy Reserves. Back at the University of Florida, and then at the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona, Brown acquired his master’s degree in international management and comparative government. He then went to work for Baxter International Healthcare Company in Chicago before going to work for the Stryker and Amway Corporations out of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Brown remained in the Navy Reserves for twenty-eight years before retiring in 1995. 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 Other veterans & civilians—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 application/pdf video/mp4 Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/023a954d64c51af65a6ee6f7f4b2c258.mp4 beaf1c53f1187d8a6ea2b459feb3d994 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4c09bbe501aa86699e85beeadec43078.pdf 0b9ecb99a57c017981e705cf6dcb56d2 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Oral History Interview Veteran: Dale Brown Interview Length: (40:51) Interviewed by James Smither Transcribed by Chloe Dingens Interviewer: We're talking today with Dale Brown of St. Johns, Michigan and the interviewer is James Smither of the Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project. Okay Dale can you start us off with some background and to begin with where and when were you born? I was born in Lansing, Michigan on February 26, 1948. Interviewer: Okay did you grow up in Lansing or did you move around? I did, I grew up in Lansing, pretty much stayed in that area all my life. Interviewer: Okay and what did your family do for a living while you were growing up? My father was a plasterer and my mother was a homemaker there was, she had to be… there was fourteen of us kids. Interviewer: Wow. And where were you in that sequence? I was the third oldest. Interviewer: Okay and then when did you finish high school? I finished high school in 1966, graduated from Grand Ledge High School. (1:00) Interviewer: Okay and what did you want to do then once you got out of high school? Well, I went to work with General Motors, and I didn't really have a lot of plans at that time but the- the Vietnam War was going, had been going for quite some time. And I thought that I might be called to duty there, was on, in the draft and I chose to enlist in the Air Force to- to get out ofout of Lansing and get, well do what I needed to do. �Interviewer: Okay. Which was serve the country. Interviewer: Alright now why did you choose the Air Force rather than another branch? I thought if I was gonna be going to Vietnam I’d rather have a choice of where I was gonna to be, rather than being put out on a point somewhere and exposed to constant fire, I wanted to choose my- my path. Interviewer: Okay so you were just kind of aware enough of what was going on in Vietnam to have that as kind of conscious decision. Okay now at the time you were enlisting in the Air Force were they very picky about who they took, or did you just show up and get in? (2:08) Yeah, you had to take tests and qualify and I- I managed to get in there, I know now today it’s even more strict, it's very difficult to get in. I- I wouldn't have got in based on today's standards. Interviewer: Alright because it was a- a kind of a popular decision to make and there were people who were trying to get in at certain points and couldn't. Yeah. Interviewer: And you're a little, so when do you actually enlist then? I enlisted in May of ’67. Interviewer: Okay and then having done that, what, where do they send you first for training? First went to Lackland Air Force Base, that's where they train all the recruits for the Air Force pretty much. Interviewer: That’s San Antonio, Texas? San Antonio. �Interviewer: Alright. That’s my first duty station. Interviewer: Okay now what- what did the training actually consist of? A lot of physical training, mental training, and educational training, learning what you're supposed to be doing within the Air Force and how you fit in there. But the main thing was the physical and the, to get you in with the unit, to get you acclimated to that. (3:19) Interviewer: Okay and how much for spit and polish stuff was there? Quite a bit, a lot- a lot of situations where we had to be very, very clean, we had inspections and the sergeants wasn't happy with the things so he- he made us do the whole floor over again and we, I think we used toilet paper to buff it. He was pretty- pretty adamant that the place was a filthy mess, it really wasn't but that's what they did. Interviewer: Okay, now to what extent did you understand what they were doing at the time? I just knew I was there to do what they told me to do, and that's what I tried to do. Interviewer: Okay and how easy or hard was it for you to adjust to being in the military? (4:11) It was- it was a little problematic because I, you know I just lost my father a year before and so I didn't really, I just knew that I was gonna, I was gonna do this whatever it took. I saw too many guys that weren't able to- to do it and I knew that I could do that. Interviewer: Alright now among the- the class or the group that you're training with what proportion of them finished on schedule? I think probably ninety percent. �Interviewer: Okay. Yeah, it was about ten percent that- that fell out for various reasons. Interviewer: Okay and were you in pretty good shape physically when you went in? Actually I was- I was kind of light but I was in better shape when I got out of basic training. Interviewer: Alright and how long did the basic training last? I think, I believe it was about six weeks. (5:06) Interviewer: Okay now at that point what do they do with you? I went home, came home for a leave and then had to report to my next duty station which was my technical school. Interviewer: Okay. For advanced training. Interviewer: And was that back at Lackland or somewhere else? That was, I went to Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois. Interviewer: Okay and what spec- kind of training did you get there? I got training on on B-52s and KC-135 aircraft, hydraulic training. I was trained in hydraulics. Interviewer: Okay and can you describe for layout because most people know what a B-52 is, but what's a KC-135? That's a, it's like a Boeing 707 but it's a- it's a refueling plane and it's like a big flying gas station. Interviewer: Right okay and about how long do you stay there? I’m trying to think, I think I was there a couple months. Interviewer: Okay now when you're there do you just stay on the base or is there? Yes. �Interviewer: Okay. I was able to come home on weekends sometimes. (6:06) Interviewer: But that was, that's like Rantoul, Illinois. Yes. Interviewer: So, there's not a whole lot there? Nope not a whole lot at least I was aware of, but I was always the guy that wanted to be home, you know whenever I could because the family was important. Interviewer: Yeah, alright so that, you go through that and then what kind of guys were training along with you? Did you notice much about them or where they were from or anything else? I didn't really get to a whole lot of involvement, I just, you know we just partnered up and- and worked together and I don't, I didn't really get a chance to talk a lot with them about their various backgrounds and stuff because we were all focused on our training and getting through it and getting out of there. Interviewer: Okay and in the basic and in the technical training here was pretty much everybody white or did you have some black guys or Hispanics in the mix? Yeah, we had, yeah some of everything, yeah. Interviewer: Okay alright so you get through this next stage and that, did they send you for further training or do they go to a base now? Then they shipped me to K.I. Sawyer Air Base. Interviewer: Okay and where is that? That’s in Marquette, Michigan or up in that area. �Interviewer: Okay Actually Gwinn, Michigan. Interviewer: Okay and was that a Strategic Air Command then or? (7:14) Yes, it was, yep. Interviewer: Okay and now do you actually get to apply your training once you get there? Absolutely yeah. Interviewer: So, what was going on while you were there? That is a, was a nuclear base, so they had nuclear ready B-52s all the time. We were doing, they were doing a lot of takeoffs and landings and different things that they were doing, and we were responsible for the maintenance of the hydraulic systems and that's what we did. It- it got a little bit difficult in the wintertime because cold weather affects hydraulics pretty much and Lake Superior and if you go out and recycle the component, why you generally would warm it up and things would go away, so, but that being on alert, a Strategic Air Command Base which was always ready for nuclear war. They didn't mess around with that stuff if- if you couldn't stop the leak, they would pull it off and put another one on. (8:15) Interviewer: Alright now during what time frame were you at Sawyer? I was there in ‘67 until, actually ‘67 until I went to Vietnam but there was a- a short period in there, in 1968, September I went to- to Guam to support the Vietnam. Interviewer: Okay. And I worked P52 models over there, they were D models, we had H models I think at our base, K.I. Sawyer. �Interviewer: Okay and was there any practical difference in terms of what you had to do with them? Same thing as maintenance it was just, it was the intensity of it all you know working twelve hours a day and around the clock, they were doing around the clock bombings. Interviewer: Alright now while you're at- at Sawyer there, you get there in- in ‘67 and so forth you go on and before they send you over to- to Guam for that spell, how much attention did you pay to sort of news of the war and that kind of thing or did you just focus on your job? I didn't think much about Vietnam at that time because I was you know focused on where I was at and what I was doing there. (9:18) Interviewer: Was there an expectation that you'd eventually rotate over to Vietnam or did you think you were gonna stay in Michigan the whole time? I- I- I wasn't sure, when I went to Guam, I thought you know I was, that was gonna be my duty and so I came back from there and the night I got back the guys told me that I had orders from Vietnam, it was kind of a shock. I’d kind of like catch my breath there, you know. Interviewer: Right. Just come back from overseas duty. Interviewer: Okay tell me a little bit about sort of what- what your daily life or routine was like while you're at Sawyer? Reporting to duty every morning and doing whatever hydraulic repair work needed to be done, if there was components that needed to be rebuilt, we'd rebuild them. And if there's components that need to be taken care of on the aircraft, we go out and change them, a lot of brakes and the �B-52 had a hydraulic controlled fire pack for the rear gun, and we had to maintain that also. But all the components of the hydraulic systems on the aircraft was a daily thing and that's what we usually did. (10:22) Interviewer: And was this largely a day job for you or were there night shifts at times? No, I worked just strictly days there. Interviewer: Okay now during the time you were there did they ever have any kind of alerts or things where they kind of change the routine on you either as a drill or? They- they had alerts yeah. Interviewer: Okay. They call those quite frequently and you had to be there, you couldn't be somewhere else and I- I messed that up once, you know. I came home on a weekend and they called me, told me there’s an alert and I didn't get back and I got- got in a little bit of trouble with that. Interviewer: Well, it takes a little while to get up to Marquette from… Yeah. Interviewer: …Lansing so yeah that could certainly happen, but I mean that you know because they can't announce ahead of time that they're gonna have an alert or whatever so. No, no I- I had stand by duty that weekend and I knew it, but I came home, and they called the alert, so I didn't get back. (11:17) Interviewer: Alright and so what’s- what's the penalty for that? Well it could have been court martial. Interviewer: Okay. �But my sergeant was understanding, he knew that at that time I was headed for Vietnam. So, he, I think he kind of gave me a break. Interviewer: Okay so that was late enough, and I guess that's the old question what are they going to do? Send me to Vietnam? Yeah. Interviewer: And you’re already going. Alright yeah, what- what kind of people were- were on the crew you were working with? You had a lot of lifers or were they mostly young guys like you? In- in, at K.I. Sawyer? Interviewer: Yeah. Mostly young guys we had long-term guys that were the shop chiefs, you know they were in charge of that. So, there's probably two or three of the higher-ranking NCOs. Interviewer: Okay but then… Mostly it was us younger guys who were doing all the work. Interviewer: Okay now the orders for Vietnam came was that normally just individually? They weren't sending groups together. (12:13) Right. Interviewer: Okay. Yeah, it came individual. Interviewer: Okay so you got your call and now how do, what's the process for now getting you out to Vietnam, right. So, let's talk a little bit more about Guam first. You get sent out to Guam, what was that base like and what was your life like while you were there? �It was tropical and I had, I remember going down the side of the, we’d go down the side of the mountain when we had a little time off, take a bus down to the side of the mountain to the beach and we could enjoy the beach and that was nice and although I did get hit with Portuguese Man 0’War while I was there, that kind of woke me up. But yeah, that was a daily routine of maintenance of the aircraft and that's pretty much where I was at, there was a, two Japanese soldiers came out of the jungle and surrendered from World War II while I was there, and I thought that was interesting. And just the- the daily constant routine of watching these aircraft go take off and you know you can watch them take off at the end of the runway but you couldn't see that they got up okay because it was like 400 feet up, and they would- they would a lot of times would drop down a little bit and then they'd come back up, you’d see them come back up over the horizon so you knew they made it, so far as coming, coming up, taking off. (13:37) Interviewer: Kind of like launching them off of an oversized aircraft carrier? Yeah, yeah that's what it looked like yeah. Interviewer: Okay that did you, were you aware of any of them not coming back? Yes, yeah. Interviewer: So, was that and how would you find out about that or? That was just word came down through the, through the guys in charge, you know, “we lost this one or that one.” Interviewer: Now was that a regular occurrence or just occasional? Occasional I think, yeah. Interviewer: Okay well how long were you actually there? I was there four months. �Interviewer: Okay that's a substantial chunk of time so that's the latter part of ’68 or? Yes, from September to, I came, I flew back New Year’s Eve. Interviewer: Okay, alright now at that point now you were assuming that your overseas was essentially done? (14:21) Well, I hadn't even given it a thought, I just… Interviewer: Okay. You know, I was just kind of shocked when these guys told me that. I thought they were kidding with me. Interviewer: Alright so you've gone- you've done your four months in Guam, you get back, okay you're going to Vietnam, and then how long was it before you actually went over to Vietnam? Well, I got back right after the first of the year and then in March I had to go down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to train for the F-100. Interviewer: Okay so it's not, yeah because the B-52s weren't based in- in Vietnam. No. Interviewer: To begin with, they were elsewhere in Guam or Thailand or whatever, okay and so now just describe the new aircraft you're working on. The F-100 is a fighter plane and it's a lot smaller than a B-52, so everything is just kind of downsized, it's more compact, you know it's a little tighter working area, things like that, yeah, it's just learning the systems you know where they're at. (15:16) �Interviewer: Okay now were you still doing mainly hydraulics, or did you add more things? Just hydraulics yeah, never left hydraulics. Interviewer: Alright okay and so then about how long do you stay there? I think I was there about four weeks for training then they- they let me come home for about a month and I went, and then I went over May 1st. Interviewer: Okay and then how do they physically get you out to Vietnam? I flew on a flying lot called Flying Tiger Airlines; it was Continental Airlines the plane I went on. But I flew from- from Lansing to Seattle, and then from Seattle to Vietnam. Interviewer: Okay and from Seattle did you go by Alaska or something like that or did you just go straight over? I think they stopped, did they go through Japan or Alaska or some place? They made- they made a stop somewhere along the way. Interviewer: Yeah. I can't remember where it was now. (16:10) Interviewer: Yeah, there was a standard northern route that would take you to Anchorage and then Japan. Yeah, yeah. Interviewer: And then down, sort of one of the ones a lot of people took. What was the mood like on the plane? Oh, it was just kind of subdued I guess, you know we all knew we were going, we're just waiting to get there. Everybody had a full, lot of anxiety I suppose about what you're gonna be going �into. But I kind of felt like I had this tour in Guam, so I was kind of comfortable with where I was going but that changes. Interviewer: Yeah, now were the- where there men from different branches of the service together on that plane? I thought that, I think these were all Air Force. Interviewer: Okay alright and then where do you land in Vietnam? We landed in Cam Ranh Bay. Interviewer: Okay and what was your first impression of Vietnam when you got there? Hot, stifling. Interviewer: Did you land during the day or night? During the day, yeah. Interviewer: Okay and was there anything going on when you landed or was it quiet? (17:07) There was something going on before we landed, we took a big drop in the altitude real quick and that was, I didn't think it was gonna make it. The plane kept going down finally it came, it got itself righted and brought it up and- and we landed okay, but there wasn't anything going on there, just the busyness of everybody moving here and there and the terminal I went into and there's full of Vietnamese people and they were all squatted on benches and stuff, it just kind of seemed to be kind of a surreal looking place to be. Interviewer: Okay so there's a lot of Vietnamese just on the base in Cam Ranh Bay when you get there? Yeah. Interviewer: Okay and then what did they do with you once you land? �I was there about an hour maybe two and they got me on a C-130 and flew me up to Tuy Hoa my base. Interviewer: Now where in Vietnam is that? It's about 160 miles northeast of Saigon. Interviewer: Okay. Right on the South China Sea. Interviewer: Alright and then what unit do you join when you get there? I joined the 31st, I was assigned to the 31st Field Maintenance Squadron which was part of the 31st Tactical Fighter Wing. Interviewer: Okay and they have F-100s there? Yes. (18:19) Interviewer: Okay so you actually got to work on what they trained you for. Absolutely yeah and more. Interviewer: Okay alright now describe first of all I guess a little bit just the- the base facility, kind of what was there and what kind of what did you live in and that kind of thing. It was a very, very nice base to be on, I mean if you had to be in Vietnam that was a good one to be on. And it was, they had by the time I got there they had- they had these metal hooches for us to stay in and I can’t remember how many guys would stay in those, 40/ 80 but they were all sectioned off. And then we had bunkers in between those to, in case there was an incoming. So, yeah but there was you know, you- you could walk to wherever you wanted to go, or you could catch a bus eventually, you know they had buses running all the time with the locals driving �those. So, we'd kind of depend on those to get up to the flight line to go to work and everything but we had movie theater, they had a lot of amenities there that you know most people don't have. (19:23) Interviewer: Yeah, I mean were the barracks air conditioned or? No. Interviewer: Okay, so they're not have that, quite that far. No, no. Interviewer: Alright and they, I mean about how- how many planes do you think were based there while you were there? I don't know, I really don't know I know it was probably well over a hundred Interviewer: Okay so substantial base, aside from the F-100s what else do they have there? They had C-130s which were rescue planes, they had, eventually they brought in some AC-119 gunships when I was about ten months in the country, they brought those in. And we had various helicopters and different Army spotter planes, we had O-2 our- our forward air controllers flew O-2 Bird Dogs, so we maintained those also, a little push-pull assessment, it's kind of like working on a model airplane. (20:19) Interviewer: Right, okay now when you get in there what kind of reception or welcome do you get when you show up? It was just kind of you know, there’s just another guy here you know, just they just kind of would tell you what you- what you need to know. You ask them and they tell you, the thing that surprised me was when I got there, I was talking to one of the guys and I asked him what base he �came from and he said, “home base,” and I didn't recognize that as an Air Force Base and he told me he was from the New York Air National Guard. And there was, at that time we were replacing his unit that had been there for a year and it was the New York Air National Guard and the- the 188th Tactical Fighter Squadron out of New Mexico, which is another guard unit, so those two units were there. Interviewer: Yeah, and actually most of it, there were not a whole lot of- of Guard or Reserve Units necessarily went to Vietnam. That just surprised me. Interviewer: Yeah. I didn't know that they had them there. (21:14) Interviewer: Yeah, but there were some certain places and I think it depend on what- what they could do. Yeah. Interviewer: But mostly they relied on draftees. Alright now how busy was the base while you were there? It was very busy, yeah if the- if the skies were clear, it was busy constantly, there's constantly aircraft coming and going, taking off, landing. The only time it was curtailed any is during inclement weather when we had monsoons and heavy rains and stuff, they couldn't get up there, but most all the time it was real busy. Interviewer: Okay and from where your perspective did you have much of a sense of what was going on in the larger war at that point? �No, you know I knew that we were flying air support for people and I knew that we had infantry taking care of our perimeter you know, kind of keeping us secure so we could help them out. You just see, you know you'd see flares going up at night and you could see tracers and stuff like that, so you knew there was some things going on but that never really got real close to us that I could see. They did hit the base with rocket and mortar attack I think seven days after I left. (22:32) Interviewer: Okay but while you were there, there weren't any… While I was there, I don't remember any- any incoming rounds, although we did have some sniper fire that one of our aircraft was out on a trim pad at night and they- they took on some sniper fire. So, that ended that nighttime stuff out on the permitter. Interviewer: Alright so on the whole then it was- it was a fairly quiet tour as far as things went, it was busy, did you have a sense of what kind of losses the air units were taking? What kind of losses? Interviewer: Yeah, I mean where you lose, were some of the fighters not coming back? Oh yeah, yeah, I- I know several that were, didn't make it back. And we actually we lost one of our own guys, one of the guys in my shop got shot by our guys, he's working on an aircraft and they touched off a round in the next group that went over, failing to get the trigger lock on and took this guy on the side, didn't kill him but I never found out other than the fact that he did survive how he's doing today, always wondered about him. (23:41) Interviewer: Now were there problems with accidents or faulty maintenance or things or was? �Yeah, you'd have those I mean that's just, that's part of war you know when you're in a situation like that where you're trying to get things going as rapidly as you can and people you know make mistakes after a while. Interviewer: Okay how would you, now what kind of group or set of men do you get to know while you're there, just people doing your particular thing or more than that? Most of the guys in my shop and then my, all the guys in my hooch and they were from different career fields too, so I had a guy did parachutes there and guys that were in charge of power equipment, and jet engine guys, and you know just everybody, all the maintenance people were, they were- they weren't all separated, they were all grouped together in the hooches. Interviewer: Okay how would you characterize the morale of the men that you knew there? (24:36) I think it was pretty good, yeah for the most part we did pretty good with it. We were all determined to do the very best we could do to make sure that this pilot got to where he was going and getting back and you know we knew that that kind of depends on us, you know it just depends on us to do that. Interviewer: Okay. And the guys were very good about what they did. Interviewer: Okay now there are a lot of stereotypes about Vietnam that don't always fit reality all that well and sometimes they do, one of them has to do with- with just drug use. Were you aware of that going on, on the base and to what extent? Yeah, yeah, I- I was introduced to marijuana while I was there, and I’d never smoked that before so that was my induction over there. But yeah, there wasn't, it wasn't, I don't think it was a real rampant amount of guys, I mean there were some guys you know doing it obviously, but I saw it �in the people that came to work on the base, the Vietnamese men that were working there. One of them was, he was in charge of a crew of ladies that he was- he was always plastered. (25:42) Interviewer: Now it was like marijuana use and stuff like that, I mean was that kind of the, have the same role sort of as drinking beer or whatever as sort of stress buster? I- I suppose it probably was but I- I- I didn't do that I just drank beer most of the time. Interviewer: Yeah, I mean basically you didn't have a lot of people showing up to work stoned or drunk or anything like that? No, no we did have I think it happened to every one of us pretty much that I can think of one day, you know a guy would miss duty because he was drinking and we had one guy show up on a night shift who was, he was definitely trashed and he was going- he was going home the next day, so we just laid him out on the bench and told him to chill out and we'll take care of it, you know. Interviewer: So, you're really not in a situation where any of that kind of stuff affects your job performance. No. Interviewer: Yeah, you're doing that, okay another issue has to do with race relations I mean do you have like black guys in your crew and? (26:36) Yeah, yeah, we did have yeah. Interviewer: And was there, I mean did they kind of segregate themselves from everybody else or anything like that? �I don't think so I think some- some may have tried to do that but there was- there was some that that did that, and they were attacking people at night, you know getting guys and beating them up. But that's- that halted after a while and we had- we had black soldiers in our- in our unit, you know in our hooch, it's some of my best friends, you know but we all worked together. We were there for the same, well we were there for the same purposes, but I know that stuff went on, you know. Interviewer: So, it's going on, you know somewhere on the base but not necessarily among the guys in your particular unit? You know there's always people that have that in them you know from wherever they come, from their culture or whatever, whether they be white or black they've got this stereotype of people and they just think that's the way it is you know. (27:36) Interviewer: And that was a point in time when there was a lot of tension at home already and the Black Power Movement was going. Yeah. Interviewer: And so, some of them are coming over and they bring a certain amount of that stuff with them too. Okay but again was that stuff that was kind of around the margins and not really affecting the actual work you did? Yeah, I didn't- I didn't really see that much. Interviewer: Okay now did you stay on the base pretty much your whole time or did you go anywhere else or do anything else? I made- I made two trips into the village, once to go to an orphanage or twice to go to an orphanage, three trips I must have made, to go to an orphanage and then one trip to go see a lady. �Interviewer: Okay. And that didn’t- that didn't work out too good so. Interviewer: What- did the base have a relationship with the orphanage or? (28:26) Yes, yeah, yeah that was through the chaplain I think, he had that going on so we, you know we'd go in there take the kids some candy and stuff, visit with them. Interviewer: And what impression did you have of the Vietnamese civilians who came andand worked on the base? For the most part they were good, you know there was a couple that I didn't trust and that's just the way it was, you know. I wouldn't let him shave me with a straight razor. And I caught one guy stealing our alarm clocks and that was not a good thing. Interviewer: Okay now did you have hooch maids cleaning for you or things like that? Just Vietnamese ladies. Interviewer: Yeah Yeah. Interviewer: And they, did people like that did they do your laundry and that kind of thing? They did our laundry yeah, yeah and I was in charge of paying the gal that did ours, so she'd come to me all the time. Interviewer: Okay did some of the men sort of try to take advantage of the situation or the women who worked there? Oh yeah, I’m sure yeah. (29:30) �Interviewer: Not, but not something that created much of any actual disturbance or? No they did it, you know on the sly, you know or secretly and so you know you just don’t know when that's gonna happen because you got people coming and going all the time. You know it’s kind of hard to- to work that situation out if you're gonna be doing something like that with somebody. Interviewer: And do they have a system where the Vietnamese all had to go off the base at night and then come back in the morning and check in? Yeah, they checked them out like a big cattle trucks, big semi with a flatbed trailer and they had sidewalls on it they'd haul them all out there, bring them all in. Interviewer: Okay now did you have any sense that there was much by way Vietcong activity out in the regions outside the base or did you not really hear about that? Well, when I’d see the flares go up at night and you know you see tracers and you’d see helicopter gunships out there, you knew something was going on. So, you know that kind of heightened your sense of awareness there. Interviewer: Yeah. (30:28) And with us being in the Air Force we didn't have access to our weapons, they had them locked up and they said they'd give them to us if they were being overrun and that- that never made me feel comfortable. Interviewer: Right. That's a bad time to be distributing weapons. �Interviewer: Okay now as far as you know did they, did the base get you know probed by sappers or anything like that while you were there? Not while I was there, prior to me getting there, there were. Interviewer: Okay and then did you get an R&R while you were there? I did. Interviewer: Where'd you go? I went to Australia. Interviewer: Okay now did you pick that or was that what was available? I picked it. Interviewer: Okay. But you had to have ten- ten months in country before you could go. Interviewer: Okay where did- where did you go in Australia? I went to Sydney, yeah me and two other guys from Michigan that were my good buddies, so we all went together. Interviewer: Okay and what's the appeal of going to Australia rather than Hong Kong or someplace? Oh just to see like American women. Interviewer: Or Australian ones, anyway. You know, and you know we actually I, we thought it was summertime over there, but it really wasn't, it was winter there when we went in March, I think it was. So, it was kind of, the idea of going down the beach kind of went away, it was kind of chilly. (31:43) Interviewer: Okay. �But we did experience some good things there. Interviewer: Yeah, how did the Australians treat the American servicemen over there? Very good, very good they were very warm and welcoming, yeah. Interviewer: Okay now the time you're over there or for that matter before that when you were still out on Sawyer how aware were you of the anti-war movement that was going on back at home? I was pretty well aware of it. Especially when I got back, and that Kent State thing happened a few days afterwards. Interviewer: But then but while you were there or before you went, I mean did you have a reaction or a response to that or? About the anti-war stuff? Interviewer: Yeah. I didn't really care; it wasn't my job, you know my job was to do what I do and whatever they want to do that's their business as long as they don’t infringe on my right to do my job. Interviewer: Right, alright now over the course of the year that you- you spent in Vietnam are there any particular incidents or things that kind of stand out in your memory? Yeah, the- the- the guy- the guy in my shop that got shot, that- that stands up. And- and the, I had one incident where I was down the intake of an air F-100 changing a pump and that's fourteen feet down in there kind of confined space and I heard this- this air motor start up outside and that's an indication they're getting ready to rotate the engine so that made be real excitable, you can imagine I come flying out of there. I asked that crew chief what was going on, he says, “oh I’m just testing this thing out.” I said, “man,” I said, “I’m down in intake,” I said, “I don’t want you testing that out but that doesn't make me feel real comfortable at all.” So, we had an �agreement that he wouldn't do that anymore but that was a- that was kind of a big, big deal. And then the- the aircraft that would crash you know we'd have a lot of crash nose gear, one plane crashed off the coast and they brought the remains back in, it was just a mess, you know. And you know you knew- you knew that you lost guys then that just kind of put a little bit of a, little cast a little shadow over the whole thing. (33:57) Interviewer: Yeah, so you're reminded you really are in a war. Yeah, a place where people would die. Interviewer: Between that and then the occasional fireworks outside and then the rest of that. Now yourself, did you basically feel pretty safe the, most of the time you were there? Most of the time I guess I probably didn’t think about it, but when I had moments to reflect especially at night with those flares going off at night, illumination flares, and impending, you know something may happen and we have no way of defending ourselves that was not very good. Interviewer: Yeah, how much understanding did you have of why we were in Vietnam in the first place? Not a whole lot, I just figured they were there to stop communism and that's what they were doing, and that's what I was willing to do. Interviewer: Okay and over the course of the year that you were there do you have any sense of how the war was going? I mean did you think we were winning, or could you not tell? You know it kind of comes and goes, there wasn't a lot of information like that you know that we were doing this or doing that. I just pretty much focused on the daily task you know, so. �Interviewer: Okay and as your year kind of starts to wind out are you counting the days ‘til you get to leave or? (35:05) Yeah. Interviewer: Okay and then what's the process then for getting you back out of Vietnam? You have to get a… I’m trying think of what they call that, get your- your flight information that you have your flight call, you know and then you just, they fly you back down to Cam Ranh and you get on the plane and you fly out of there and… Interviewer: Okay and what's the mood on the plane when you take off? Real tense but after we got out over the water, you know and got away, up and away there was a big cheer let out. Interviewer: Alright and where do you land in the states when you get back? We landed in Seattle. Interviewer: Okay and then what kind of reception do they have for you when you get there? Well, they actually held us on the plane for about 45 minutes in Seattle. Interviewer: Okay. (35:54) And I don't know what that was about, but it was you know a little disturbing because I had a plane to catch to get to- to Detroit and then to, or not Detroit, to Chicago and then Lansing. So, I was concerned I was gonna miss that but just being able to sit on the airplane and look out and see all that green it was wonderful, but we wanted to get out and smell it you know. �Interviewer: Now were you actually at- at the SeaTac Airport or were you at an air base or? (36:19) Yeah, at, I think it was McChord Airbase. Interviewer: Yep, okay but then from there you would have had to get over to SeaTac or something. Right. Interviewer: To then fly, but you actually had plane reservations already set to get you home? I think I did, yeah, yeah. Interviewer: Okay now was there a lot of, did you have to do much out processing at the McChord or do they just send you away. I didn’t, no, no. Interviewer: Okay. I just got right out there and got over there, the airport and got on the plane and flew to Chicago. Interviewer: Okay now as you're going through the airports now are you encountering any protesters or things like that? I didn't- I didn't see a whole lot of that. Interviewer: Okay and were you going in uniform or in civilian clothes? I was in uniform. Interviewer: Okay so people don't look at you funny or anything like that you just… If they did, I didn't care. Interviewer: Okay. �And I don't think I was aware of it; you know I was- I was focused on where I was going and… Interviewer: Yeah. Who I was going to see. Interviewer: Different people report different things and for a lot of them is no big deal for some of them it is. (37:07) Yeah. Interviewer: Okay now at this point do you still have time left on your enlistment? Or are you just about done? Oh when I got back? Yeah, I had time left. Interviewer: Okay so you've got a leave home and then you have to report somewhere again? Yeah, excuse me, I had to come back to K.I. Sawyer. Interviewer: Okay and did you just go back to doing what you had done before you left? Yeah, pretty much yeah. Interviewer: Okay and did it seem at all different after having spent a year in Vietnam or could you just pick up where you left off? I didn't, I felt kind of confident in my abilities, you know what I was doing. Interviewer: Okay and then when do you complete your enlistment? I completed it in, I got discharged in December of 1970. Interviewer: Okay. They let me out early to go to school but on the discharge, it says convenience to the government so. �Interviewer: Yeah. I don't know exactly what all that means. (37:57) Interviewer: Alright and you mentioned that the- the Kent State incident had happened sort of shortly after you got back, I mean what did you learn about it or what kind of reaction was there where you were? Well, I, me personally I thought that that's good, you know they, if those guys were coming at them, they needed to shoot them. But you know I’ve since had a little change of heart so. Interviewer: I mean ideally you don’t shoot protesters. Yeah. Interviewer: Yeah okay. Unless they- unless they are threatening. Interviewer: Right. Yeah, that's kind of an overreaction. Interviewer: Yeah, but anyway, but it certainly it attracted a lot of attention. Yeah. Interviewer: And then the, and then did you follow news about the war after you were back? Oh yeah, yeah. Interviewer: And when it, basically things fell apart were you surprised, or did you see it coming or? �Yeah, I- I kind of saw that coming because they were just, they never really, I don't think they ever really let the- the Military fight the war you know it was being fought from Washington and that's- that's not a good place to be doing that. (38:59) Interviewer: Alright now you say, you went to school then after you got back? Yeah, I got discharged in December and I went to LCC, started going to LCC taking automotive classes. Interviewer: Okay so Lansing Community College. Yep. Interviewer: Okay and then did you go into automotive work after that or what did you do? I went- I went back to work at GM and continued to work in there and eventually I got into a- a mechanical job at GM in the engineering. Interviewer: Okay. So… Interviewer: Okay and then did you have college beyond the community college, or did you just develop your skills on the job? Just developed them on the job, well I took an apprenticeship through- through GM too. Interviewer: Alright. So, I continued that. Interviewer: Now to look back at your- your time on the serve- in the service what do you think you took out of that or how did that affect you? Well it- it helped me to learn how to work with people you know, how to be a part of, and you �know and rely on people. And so that's- that's one of the biggest things I think and that people, most people are- are trying to do the right thing, you know you just have to join up with them and hang in there. And yeah, that was, and it gave me the ability to know that I can- I can solve problems that come up, you know that I don't have to quit, I can always continue and try again, try differently, enlist the help of somebody else, you can use your resources you know, they're always available. (40:24) Interviewer: So, for you I mean it was largely a positive experience? Yeah. Interviewer: Yeah. Vietnam was good for me; the whole military thing was good for me because it gave me structure and discipline and I needed that. Interviewer: Alright well you actually tell your story very efficiently which is just as well since we’re on the clock this morning, so I just like to thank you for taking the time to talk to me today. You're welcome. Interviewer: Okay, yeah, okay. � 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 BrownD1673V Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brown, Dale Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-09 Title A name given to the resource Brown, Dale (Interview transcript and video), 2014 Description An account of the resource Dale Brown was born in Lansing, Michigan on February 26, 1948. After graduating high school in 1966 he worked for General Motors before deciding to enlist since he thought he might be drafted to Vietnam anyway. Brown enlisted in the Air Force in May 1967 and went to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for basic training. He then attended advanced training at Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois, where he was trained in hydraulics for B-52’s and KC-135 aircraft. After training, he was shipped to K.I. Sawyer Air Base in Gwinn, Michigan, where he worked on maintaining hydraulic systems. In 1968 Brown was sent to Guam for four months to maintain aircraft, and the night he got back to the base in Michigan, he heard that he had orders to go to Vietnam. He began training for the F-100 fighter plane in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in March 1969, and that May he was flown to Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam to be shipped out to Tuy Hoa Air Base. There, he was assigned to the 31st Field Maintenance Squadron which was part of the 31st Tactical Fighter Wing. He mostly stayed on the base the whole time except for a few trips into the surrounding village to volunteer at an orphanage. Brown and two of his comrades also from Michigan visited Sydney, Australia for R&R. While on base in Vietnam, was aware of fighting going on in the surrounding areas and would see flares go up at night, although he never experienced it himself. However, some of the aircraft they sent out never returned, and even within his shop there were accidents with one worker accidentally getting shot by his teammates. After a year in Vietnam, he was shipped back home and returned to K.I. Sawyer Air Base to finish his enlistment. He was discharged in December 1970, after which he began taking automotive classes at Lansing Community College and returned to work at General Motors. He believes his service was a positive experience that gave him structure and discipline, helped him learn how to work with and rely on people, and made him realize that he can persevere through any problems that he may face. Cam Ranh Bay 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 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 application/pdf video/mp4 Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/334f0a057931e737186e21c82b7e0f2c.jpg 0865ccbe7062fbbf729d9b7066444932 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 BrownJeff_Photo1 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Brown, Jeff Description An account of the resource Jeff Brown, Campus Activities 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/d5e36ba88db17a4a9106785ed740de09.jpg 0e9d037753261a94306f7eba64a13d63 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 BrownJeff_Photo2 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Brown, Jeff Description An account of the resource Jeff Brown, Campus Activities 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/a9199a9bace35fa10c01446af607d434.mp4 c26ba0edd3d03af7762d370353edba3a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b849133647b41551c2c096ebbbe1babe.pdf 0b8e50048355df6f465bbb06974de33c PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Vietnam War Dick Brown 2:46:39 Introduction (00:51)            Dick was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in December 1946 and lived in Rockford. He graduated from Rockford High School in 1965. At that point in history, people were being drafted left and right. Dick didn‟t want to go to college and he decided to take a year off and „find himself‟. However, Uncle Sam found him first and he received his draft notice in January 1966. Growing up, his father worked in a factory, but the family lived on a farm north of Rockford. He grew up in a small town and had a small town attitude about life. Prior to being drafted, he did not pay much attention to the news or about what was going on in Vietnam. (02:54) At the dinner table, he remembers talks about the war and his father told his sister to “pay attention, your brother may have to go.” When he got his draft notice, he went and took his physical. They told him that he would most likely be drawn up in April. On his way to his sister's house for Sunday dinner, he passed a billboard for the United States Marine Corps, and the next day he went down to the recruiting office and enlisted. (05:01) He enlisted for two years. Marine Corps Boot Camp (06:07)        A couple weeks later, he went to Detroit and met up with other recruits that were all going to boot camp. While there, he was given another physical and had to perform five chin-ups and five push-ups. When Dick got to boot camp, he learned that when the draftees were inducted, they were all lined up and counted off. Every fifth man was sent to the Marine Corps. He went to San Diego for his training. They were flown on a commercial plane to San Diego, and then they were loaded onto busses. Once they got to the Depot, a seemingly seven foot tall Tasmanian devil boarded the bus and started screaming. They proceeded off the bus and stood on the yellow footprints outside. (08:44) They arrived around 7pm and it did not get dark for another hour after they arrived. The men were sent around getting gear, their first haircut and standing in lines. �               When he sat in the barber chair he was warned to tell the barber about any warts or moles on his head or else he would lose them. Dick had no warning about what to expect when he got there. The training was physically tough, but was much tougher mentally. Being screamed at was new to him and took some getting used too as did being swore at and called all sorts of names. (10:48) Later in boot camp, the second or third day, the whole platoon had to sit in a class and they learned what the Drill Instructors could and couldn‟t do to you. After wards, they were marched behind the same building they received the class and Dick was called forward and hit in the Adam‟s apple and choked. They had just done what the recruits were told that they couldn‟t do to them. He also called him every name they weren‟t supposed to call them. (12:12) Halfway through boot camp, Dick was ready to volunteer for Vietnam as long as he didn‟t have to finish boot camp. Dick was told to never volunteer for anything. One day they were all asked if anyone wanted to be a truck driver, Dick said that he did. He was then told to go get a wheel barrow and bring it back. When he did, the DI sat in it and told him to bring him around base. By the time he got through boot camp, he was learning what they wanted him to learn. Physically, the training was not that hard, especially because he played football and was in good shape going in. (14:52) Recruits are not allowed to address themselves as I or me, but must always speak in the third person. „This recruit would like to do this…‟ They had to swing over a pool of water with a rope, and some of the men would be shoved in by the DI before the rope got back to them. Using telephone poles, the platoon had work together to lift them above their heads while lying on their backs. (16:32) They learned about teamwork and how to use it to accomplish their missions. At first, Dick thought the training was just a form of torture, later he learned why they did all those things and that they made sense. Training lasted for eight weeks. Dick thinks that since it was shortened, the DI‟s were extra nasty. (18:28) Secondary School (18:52)       During their sixth week in boot camp, they all took aptitude tests and Dick was chosen to be a truck driver. One of the men sent to the training was from New York City and he had never driven anything before. He was later sent to a different school. (20:26) This training consisted of two weeks of covered tactical driving and a week of auto mechanics. He was at Camp Pendleton for this training. After his truck driving school, he was sent home on a thirty day leave. He went home in late July or early August 1966. When he came home, he was proud of himself. His grandfather fought in World War I, and his father fought in World War II. He was ready to do his part. (22:23) Most of his classmates from high school were in college. �                  When he came back from leave, he went to ITR (Infantry Training Regiment). During this training they had to crawl through a dust pit underneath barbed wire, while machine guns were being fired over their heads, they originally used live ammunition until someone panicked and stood up. After that they began to use blanks. (24:23) They also went through gas training. Each man was given a gas mask and shuffled into a gas house. Behind the gas house were buckets of water that each mask was washed in. A platoon was around 80 men, and about 20 Marines were brought in the gas chamber at one time. Dick was in the second group to go in, and he was not sure what was going on. When he got up there, he picked a good mask and checked it to see if it worked. Once in there, they were told to take their masks off and sing the Marine Corps Hymn. (26:22) They were taught how to cross an artillery field, and when Dick‟s squad was crossing, they discovered that the DI‟s had planted explosives randomly around the field and they played over loudspeakers the whistling sound of an incoming artillery shell. Each man had to take cover or else he was „killed‟ and had to be carried by the rest of the squad. (28:26) Almost through the course, the incoming sound was played and they heard behind them a horrible screaming. One Marine had dove in a crater to avoid the blast and landed right on a rattlesnake. After that, no one wanted to jump in the holes. Dick doesn‟t remember any additional marksmanship training while in ITR. Back in boot camp, Dick shot well because he grew up hunting and shooting. Before his qualifying day, he was shooting expert. Come Friday on qualifying day he only shot marksman. Each Marine was given a shooting badge and the ones that didn‟t qualify were given a badge with a spear on it and were called „spear chuckers‟. (31:04) Four of the five men that got that award were black, and because of political correctness, they could not do that today. They also did a twenty mile march in ITR. For some reason, they always put the big guys in the front. This caused the line behind them to run to catch up. It was over 90 degrees that day. (32:41) After the march, they were trucked back to base. One major difference from boot camp was the instructors did not yell and scream at you. Also, you don‟t call the NCO‟s sir because they are not officers. After boot camp, they are Marines and they are regarded as such. (34:15) For their last exercise, they were given a hill with a flag on top. The hill was surrounded by troops and they were sent around on patrols. Ten guys got to dress up as Viet Cong and they would try to infiltrate as high up the hill as they could and steal the flag. Since Dick was a truck driver, he was on the perimeter but never sent on patrols. One of the Viet Cong was captured and refused to cooperate. A Marine stepped forward and bashed him on the knee with his rifle. He then cooperated. They also never got to the flag. Back at truck driving school, Dick trained on 5 ton short box trucks. In the third week the Marine from New York washed out. �Vietnam (38:11)                 After ITR, Dick was sent to Vietnam. On his last weekend in the states, they had a „junk on the bunk‟ inspection. This is an inspection of all their gear laid out on their beds. Their skivvies (underwear) had to be dyed green. Dick rushed to find a washer and was not able to find a dryer for his freshly dyed skivvies, so he folded them up and put them on his bunk while they were still wet. The inspection officer was a captain and he noticed that they were a darker shade of green than the bunk next to his. He grabbed them and found that they were wet. He told Dick that that was unacceptable and that he was confined to base for the rest of the weekend. He was being sent to Vietnam on Monday. (40:15) Dick and several others were confined to base but their sergeant let them sneak out and Dick went into town and called home before he was shipped out. They took a civilian plane from LAX to Okinawa. A sergeant came up and told them that the wounded in Vietnam needed blood. Dick went right away to donate some blood. (42:25) They had no training in Okinawa; it was just about a two hour layover. From there they flew on a military plane to Chu Lai. On the way over, Dick learned that he was the only truck driver and all the other men were grunts. On the base, trucks came and got the men from the plane and Dick was left all alone. Some time later, another truck pulled up and yelled for anyone with the 7th Motor Transport. He jumped in and they took off. (44:25) When he got there, he was issued an M-14 rifle, canteens, pistol belt and magazines. At one time they were all given new M-16‟s to test fire on a rifle range made from a rice patty. The M-16 was like a .22, it would shoot real fast but then jam. Dick chose to keep his M-14, because it did not jam. After being issued his gear, he was assigned to A Company. (46:46) He was told that they operated during the day, because during the day they owned the roads, but at night they belonged to Charlie (Viet Cong). The next day, he was given a „run‟ down south. He got up at 5:30am and had to eat and perform his pre-inspection checks. They assigned a supply sergeant to go with him and he ran from the docks to the base running gear. In spots they could only drive 5 mph and in some spots they could go 10 mph. (49:21) One problem with the roads was that the dykes on the rice patties were only 3-4 feet wider than the truck; they also had sharp turns and steep hills that slowed down travel. After making six to seven runs, Dick wasn‟t sure if he could make another one. He was told that he needed to make one more. He made the final run and he was running late when he noticed a jeep coming up the narrow road. It was carrying the officer in charge of the base and either Dick had to back up a half mile or the jeep did. They pulled up to Dick and he was told to pull over so they could get by. He pulled over and let them by and threw it in reverse and the wheels just spun. (53:04) When he was trying to get his truck out, he heard rifle fire in the rice paddy near him. He jumped out of his truck with his rifle, flak jacket and helmet about ten minutes before dark. He knew that once it got dark he was dead. He jumped back in his truck and �           prayed that he not be killed. He thought he was dead, and he then crawled under his truck and planned to kill them before they killed him. (56:03) Suddenly, while lying under his truck, he heard a noise behind his truck and he turned to fire at a pair of legs when he heard “There‟s nobody here corporal.” Dick jumped out and was yelling “I‟m Here, I‟m Here!” They brought the camp truck and had a squad of Marines with them. The VC saw them coming and also saw how many there was and just disappeared. (58:32) Dick eventually made it back to base, an hour and a half after dark. This was his second day in Vietnam. When he came up to the base, he was challenged by the guard and asked the password. He didn‟t even know his name at that point and they pulled him out of the truck and had someone from his unit come down to identify him before they let him in. (1:00:43) After he got in to base, he had to conduct his post op inspections. He was then called to the captain‟s office and asked why he didn‟t just stay at the docks until morning and make the last run. He said that he didn‟t know he had that option. (1:02:02) The next morning, another driver attempted to use his truck but he found that the air tanks had not been drained and the vehicle had a flat tire. Dick was called into the captain‟s office and was yelled at some more. Instead of explaining how things worked in country, the captain just called him names, screamed at him and told him to get out of his office. (1:04:58) As a punishment, he was told to sit on a machine gun for the convoys coming in and out. At the end of the month, he had a guard duty that lasted for thirty days. After that he was assigned perimeter duty. He was then made a machine gunner. Dick met a man from Muskegon, named Mad Dog. (1:07:36) On a convoy, Dick was sitting on the machine gun and Mad Dog was driving. At the village, all the people came running to the truck and Dick started pointing the gun at the crowd. When some kids came up to the truck, Mad Dog started barking and howling and scared the people away. Mad Dog later explained that when he first got to Vietnam he was on a convoy and a group of kids came up to his vehicle. One of the kids in the crowd had a hand grenade with the pin pulled and the spoon taped down. He dropped it in the gas tank and everybody just drifted away. Moments later the grenade blew up the truck. (1:09:20) Dick never found out if the story was true or not, but it opened his eyes. Mad Dog took Dick under his wing and taught him what to do in country. When Mad Dog rotated home, Dick lost his mentor. After that, Dick requested a transfer, which was denied. (1:11:34) The unit moved to Da Nang, and then Dick requested another transfer. This was more of a trade, but Dick was sent to B Company. B Company (1:12:22)   In his new unit, Dick was told that A Company was a real spit and polish company, but B Company was different. His lieutenant told him he didn‟t care how he did his job, just as long as he did it and he didn‟t get him in trouble. (1:13:38) He was also told that B Company operates more in the field running supplies to troops and bringing troops to the helicopters. �                   Dick fit in perfect there, and he met some great guys. Three guys were sent once to pick up alcohol for the officers club. One of the pallets was broken open and a couple of cases of rum found its way into the truck. (1:15:39) When it was discovered that two cases were missing, they checked the trucks. One major chased after them in a jeep and tried to pull them over. Once they got back to base, they tore all three trucks apart that were there. They never found any booze; the other Marines took it and hid it before it was found. (1:17:36) The major tried to hold a summary court marshal on Dick for the incident and had him confined to base. Since no evidence was found, they let him go. (1:19:21) In September, intelligence in Phu Bai gathered that a division of NVA were west of Hue, but it was late in the season and a monsoon was about to begin, so they could not launch an operation. For five days straight, their base got about three mortars every night, at different times. They never knew where they were coming from. One night, one landed not too far from their bunker about twenty yards away. (1:21:28) The next night, one landed in a bunker with clerks, which caused Dick to have nightmares about it later. After that, they started filling sand bags to cover the bunkers. During his convoy operations, Dick never ran into enemy resistance except for the occasional sniper. The snipers that he ran into were mostly farmers, and Dick felt that he would have been in more danger from them if they were throwing pitchforks because they were terrible shots. (1:24:31) When he was off duty, they would play basketball. Sometimes at night the base would play movies, one movie that they watched was John Wayne‟s “The Sands of Iwo Jima”. (1:26:33) They also had an enlisted men‟s club in Chu Lai but they weren‟t allowed to go to it. Once he snuck off base and went there. At the club, they were given a coupon good for one beer. Dick saved up his coupons, and was able to get six. (1:28:30) At Da Nang, Dick had his first offer for marijuana and had to trade two cartons of cigarettes to the barber and the next day he would bring two cartons of marijuana-filled cigarettes. Dick never went through with it and neither did any other member of B Company. (1:30:27) Some tensions did exist between the white and black Marines. When the race riots happened in Detroit, Dick was not able to sit with his friend Corporal Peterson, who was black. Peterson told the other black guys to leave Dick alone because he was a real nice guy. Dick got up and went and sat down with a table of all white men. That night, Peterson came and told Dick about the race riots and what was going on. (1:33:55) Corporal Peterson also told Dick about a letter that he had received from his brother back home. In it he learned that tanks had been deployed to Detroit to help control the riots. Dick had never seen a black person in real life before going into the Marine Corps. During his time there, Dick could not tell which locals were good and which ones were bad. They seemed like nice people, but he stayed away from them. He was told stories �              about a base barber that led an attack of Viet Cong on an American military base and he was found dead in the wire. (1:36:15) At the base, they had a field mess hall. Most of his time was spent on small bases. Da Nang was a large air base, but Dick was on a smaller base that had its own patrols and its own mess hall, supply buildings, but did not have hot water. They did have some solar heated water. (1:38:21) When they built their base in Phu Bai, they erected all the tents and put pallets down all over and nailed plywood on top of the pallets to keep them off the ground. They then put their cots on the plywood. Dick also made an outhouse that had four holes. He claims it was one of the only fourhole outhouses in South Vietnam. Barrels were placed under the holes with fuel oil in them, and they were burnt everyday. For showers, they cleaned four 55-gallon drums and filled them with water and hung them up with a spigot on the bottom that would release the water. During the summer months the water got hot, but in the winter the water would get around 70 degrees. (1:40:45) He kept in communication back home by writing letters. They had a MARS (Military Auxiliary Radio System) Station, which gave him a chance to call home, using shortwave radio waves to LA and then a Ham operator back to Michigan. After talking he would have to say „Over‟ and his parents would have to do the same. He was only able to do it once, and he only talked about 4H. (1:42:44) Dick never told his family about what had happened to him, except in one letter when he told his father a little about what happened on his first experience with his truck. He was able to take R&R in August of 1967; he went to Yokohama, Japan. He had been told about prostitutes, but he never knew anything about them. He finally met one and it cost him $200 and later another $100. (1:46:40) At that point, he only had one month to go before getting to go home. When he arrived back in Vietnam he rejoined his company in Phu Bai. Then they started getting hit with mortars at night. They set up bunkers, machine guns and land mines around the base in anticipation of an attack. The signal was two short blasts that meant incoming rounds such as mortars. One long blast signaled the Marines that the VC was coming through the fence. (1:48:42) Their base was never attacked while he was there, but three months after he got home the base was assaulted. Dick never had to transport casualties on his trucks, and he was glad for it. Most of the guys that did have to move the wounded were emotional distressed afterwards. (1:50:40) The last week he was there, Dick was in a convoy going to Khe Sanh that moved along Highway 1. Before they hit the hills and mountains, they stopped the convoy and said that an ambush was up ahead. Dick was ordered to park and stay overnight. They moved around the position and dug foxholes and set-up machine gun pits. He remembers being scared because he wasn‟t in the infantry. (1:52:35) The next day, 18-20 VC had been killed in the ambush and stacked along the side of the road. When Dick drove through there, he tried to count them all. An Ontos was leading the convoy, which is like a tank but the turret does not swivel and had six 105mm recoil-less rifles. (1:54:52) �  Dick made it back to his base after the convoy, and a week later got on a C-130 and flew down to Da Nang. After that they got over the mountains near Da Nang and the plane hit a downdraft and dropped about a hundred yards. He then was loaded onto a civilian airplane and flown to Japan, Alaska and then to Edwards Air Force Base in California. (1:56:50) Home in the States (1:57:09)           When he arrived back in the states, he learned that he was not a hero but looked at as a criminal by the American public. He went through the base and he was told that if he could afford it to fly home commercially and in civilian clothes. Since he didn‟t have any money he had to fly in his uniform and on military stand-by. While walking through the airport, men would cross in front of him and separate their wives and children from him when they walked by. (1:58:45) Dick flew into Chicago and met the same awkward welcome. When he flew into Grand Rapids, he took a taxi and gave the driver twenty dollars to drive him home to Rockford. He got out of the taxi carrying his sixty to seventy pound sea bag and saw his family up in the yard. Because of the weight of the bag, it looked like he was limping and his family thought he had been shot. (2:01:08) When he went into the house, his sister, who was a junior at Western Michigan University and home on break, was on her way out heading to the peace march in Washington D.C. At that point, he was just on leave and he had to report back to Paris Island, South Carolina. He was about to be promoted to corporal. (2:03:03) The next day he had to pick up a group of female recruits and bring them to church. The platoon sergeant knew he was going the wrong way, so she pulled a cord that blew a horn behind his head. He thought it was his air-lines, so he stopped and checked them out. He continued going and it happened again. This happened again and the platoon sergeant jumped down and started yelling at him. He doesn‟t like being yelled at by women and he told her to get back into the truck. (2:07:05) The platoon sergeant told the Navy Chaplain about the incident and he started to yell at Dick, so he just got back into his truck and left. When he got back, shore patrol was waiting for him and escorted him to the office where an officer was writing promotion warrants, he held up Dick‟s promotion and tore it up. He only had four months left in service at that point. (2:09:08) Later, when Dick got home, everyone was against the war. He went to college and was older than all the other students. He tried to fit in as best he could. While there, he also tried out for the baseball team. During the tryouts, he met a guy who thought the war was about the Vietnamese rice. (2:11:03) Dick was attending Grand Rapids Junior College, and he spent two years there. He was seven credit hours short of getting his associates degree when a class scheduling problem caused him to leave and get a job with the railroad. (2:13:01) Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (2:14:30) �             In 1975, Dick thought it was horrible that America pulled out of Vietnam and felt that he failed his country. Around that time he started having nightmares. When he was in Florida, shortly after leaving the Marine Corps, he was at a hamburger stand and a carload of black people drove by. A kid yelled for them to get back on their side of town, and Dick was appalled that they would be treated like that. Just a few months prior to that he was protecting black Marines and they were protecting him. (2:17:27) He tried to hide his problems from his wife because he did not want the image that was in the news about Vietnam vets going crazy and killing people. He lied to his wife and told her that the problems he was having were from him being worried about losing his job at the railroad. It was a high paying job and he worked as a district repairman plumber. (2:21:24) Dick also had nightmares about the mortar attack in Phu Bai; in his dream they blew the one long horn that signaled that the VC were coming through the line. He manned a machine gun and mowed dozens of people down. The next morning during the body count, Dick learned that all the people were kids under the age of ten. His nightmares started when he first got back, but they got worse after Vietnam fell. Another nightmare that he had was on campus at college; he had to walk right by a peace demonstration led by Jane Fonda. (2:23:45) As he walked by, she pointed him out and yelled “There goes one of those killers now.” She told him she could see the blood on his hands, and when he looked down his hands were dripping with blood. Because of these nightmares, he was given a 30% disability rating from the VA. (2:25:30) These went on until September 21, 1988. At that time his brother-in-law wanted a deck put on his house so Dick went to help him. He began to get sick and went home. When he finally fell asleep he was back in Vietnam. The nightmare was about the time his truck got stuck on the dyke the first day he was in country. The nightmare details his first several days in country. When he woke up, he was on the other side of the house bashing his head into the bathroom door. His kids had woken up and were scared because of what was going on. They rushed him to the hospital, and the doctor told him that he was having hallucinations due to having a high temperature. (2:31:10) They couldn‟t find anything wrong with him, so they sent him home and told his wife to draw a bath of cold water and have him sit in it if it happened again. After having many tests done, the doctors could not find the cause of his hallucinations. At one appointment he told the nurse about his nightmares and she asked if they were all related to Vietnam. She knew right away what was wrong, because her husband was in the 1st Cavalry and beat her often because of his experience. The nurse asked Dick‟s wife if he had beaten her, but he had not. They next made an appointment with the Vietnam Veterans of America. (2:34:10) His counselor had stepped on a land mine and had an artificial leg. He wanted Dick to start from the beginning and had him tell his story. Dick went to him everyday for a week and then went twice a week and gradually less and less. He learned to deal with PTSD, but there is no cure. �      He thought that he was cured and everything was going well until Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Dick called down to the VA again and they told him they were starting a group and they wanted him to come in. (2:37:15) Dick has been in counseling for twenty four years and continues to go to this day. Conflicts on TV such as Desert Storm and again on 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan caused him to slide backwards in his treatment. (2:39:18) Right now, the VA has said that Vietnam vets no longer need treatment, because they want to work with Iraq and Afghanistan vets. Dick read in the VFW magazine that some people are more susceptible to PTSD and that they are developing a test to give people prior to their military service. The people who have a high probability of having problems won‟t be allowed to enlist. (2:42:40) When he first got home, it took him about eighteen months before he could really communicate with his family and friends. The area of Rockford had changed so much since he left, and everyone had a different view on the events in Vietnam. (2:44:52) Dick feels that his PTSD was triggered by the protests and the poor treatment that he received from the American public when he got home. � 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 Brown, Richard "Dick" (Interview outline and video), 2013 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brown, Richard Description An account of the resource Dick was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in December 1946. He grew up in Rockford, Michigan and graduated from high school there in 1965. After facing a certainty of being drafted, he instead chose to enlist in the United States Marine Corps in 1966. After boot camp and ITR, he was made a truck driver and arrived in Vietnam with the 7th Motor Transport, which operated around Da Nang and Phu Bai in the northern part of South Vietnam. He served with two different companies carrying supplies to different units and bases, and toward the end of his tour went with a convoy into Khe Sanh. 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. Marine Corps Vietnam War, 1961-1975--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 2013-07-25 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BrownD1489V 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/48e811442248632b139b9956201a6a48.jpg cb3ab624ecfd34c5c74ab2acd8d646ab 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 BrownRuth Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Brown, Ruth Description An account of the resource Ruth Brown, Costume Designer, Performing Arts Center Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty 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/93ce904b687ac0052fb8a209661323c2.jpg a575d48f962faff24f70eb068bf745dc 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 BrownStan_Photo1 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Brown, Stan Description An account of the resource Stan Brown Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty 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/71177270f14bdfd2dd9a0c1727a3d3b9.jpg cfa10d535924e18f230fd5f4c0b6363c 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 BrownStan_Photo2 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Brown, Stan Description An account of the resource Stan Brown Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty 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/86d9bb96ccc49571b945a51bf20dbb45.mp4 856c282c5bc351d9c5befebfbc2f8739 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b49bdfc6e039b1a06dd1b1d1ba81df40.pdf 7c4b1276139131cabaf7862dd6a1b224 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans' History Project Dr. Robert Browne World War II 57 minutes 58 seconds (00:00:16) Early Life Pt. 1 -Born in Coldwater, Michigan on November 12, 1924 -Parents got divorced when he was two years old -Went to live with his paternal grandparents -Had a sister that was a year older than him -Lived in Coldwater from the age of two to the age of six -Moved to a farm with his grandparents -Father remarried and moved to the farm -Sister died at eleven years old due to a congenital kidney problem -Continued to live on the farm until he was about twelve years old -Moved to Lansing, Michigan to live with his mother and stepfather -Lived with them for about three, or four years -Went back to Coldwater for high school -After graduating from high school he enrolled at the University of Michigan (00:02:19) Overview of Service -Eventually enlisted in the Army Air Force -Became a pilot -Flew missions over the South Pacific during the war (00:02:30) Life after the War Pt. 1 -Returned to the University of Michigan in 1946 -Completed pre-dental school and went on to go through dental school -Graduated in 1952 -Worked in Kalamazoo, Michigan for five years practicing general dentistry -Returned to the University of Michigan and studied orthodontics for two years -Moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan and practiced orthodontics for twenty years -Got involved in business and became an investment financier -Started out as a hobby -Eventually grew to having a company with 7,000 employees -Sold off that company and started a smaller investment firm -Dealing with the New York Stock Exchange (00:04:12) Early Life Pt. 2 -Grandfather was a farmer, but also worked at a grocery store in Coldwater -Father and him worked on the farm -He did everything that he could as a ten and eleven year old -Milked cows, cleaned stables, gathered eggs, etc. -The work never bothered him (00:06:05) Enlisting in the Army Air Force -The Aviation Cadet Examining Board came to the University of Michigan looking for cadets �-This was in November, or December, 1942 -He enlisted in the Aviation Cadet Program -There were strict physical requirements that had to be met -Primary focus was on eyesight and how your body adjusted to high altitudes -Placed in a pressure chamber and exposed to pressure levels at 20,000 feet -He had never been in a plane prior to being in the service -Motivated to join because pilots were paid 50% more than ground troops -Passed the physical exam and was on his way to becoming a pilot (00:08:06) Basic Training -Went to Detroit and boarded a train bound for Miami Beach, Florida for basic training -Issued military clothing -Did drills -He got to be a drill leader which meant that he was given his own room -All of the men in training were roughly the same age -It was hard work (00:10:00) Pre-Flight Training -Sent to Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio for pre-flight training -Got the basics about navigation and aircraft recognition -Courses were taught by Jesuit priests -It was a good experience -Jogged through the streets of Cincinnati singing Army songs -Civilians would come out to watch them do their jogging -Incredibly supportive of the servicemen and servicewomen -Lasted a couple months -Had to be able to quickly recognize enemy aircraft and the number of aircraft present -Had to learn Morse code -Had to be able to send and receive a certain number of words each minute (00:12:47) Flight Training -Sent to San Antonio Aviation Center, Texas -Taught about aircraft engines -From San Antonio he was sent to Cimarron Field, Oklahoma for basic flight training -Note: In the interview he says "Kansas" but the actual location is Oklahoma -Training with PT-17s -Open cockpit and you had to wear a parachute in case you fell out -First time that he had ever been in an airplane -Trained by civilian flight instructors -There was one instructor to every five cadets -Learning how to fly -As he went into advanced flight training he was given the choice of single engine, or multi-engine -Felt that knowing how to fly multi-engine aircraft would be more useful as a civilian -Sent to advanced flight school and learned how to fly twin-engine aircraft -It was frustrating the first time that he had to land a plane on his own -Eventually mastered it, and after that it was easy �-Did "stage" landing -Learning how to land at marked off parts of the airfield -Training pilots how to land on island airstrips where space was limited -He could always hit the spot exactly because he had excellent vision -All of his training was complete by early 1944 -By then he felt totally prepared to fly overseas (00:20:25) Flying Missions in the South Pacific -Sent to New Guinea and was assigned to the 41st Squadron of the 317th Troop Carrier Group -Flew C-47 transport planes -Went to Hollandia, New Guinea by ship -Anytime after June 1944 -Sent up to the islands of Luzon and Leyte in the Philippines, then Okinawa -Leyte in November 1944, Luzon in March 1945, and Okinawa August 1945 -Carried supplies and dropped paratroopers in airborne operations -Took part in the Battle of Corregidor in February 1945 -Dropped paratroopers on the island -Dropped ammunition and supplies to the soldiers and marines fighting in the mountains -Flew vehicles to troops on the ground -Flew injured men to hospitals and to places where they could be taken to hospital ships -Could carry three jeeps for a vehicle drop -Crew was a pilot, co-pilot, radio operator, navigator, and a crew chief -Didn't always fly with the same men -Dropped napalm on Japanese positions in the mountains -Would be only about 1,500 feet off of the ground -Lost planes due to ground fire -Flew in groups of three, or four, for the napalm missions -One of the men shot down on one mission was his tent mate and a close friend -Initially rescued by U.S. troops, but ultimately died of his wounds -Co-pilot on that plane was also killed in action -Only needed four more hours of flight time then he was going home (00:27:38) Living Conditions Pt. 1, Contact with Home, and Protocol -While on Luzon in the Philippines they were stationed south of Clark Field -When he was overseas his only shelter was a tent -Had to sleep with mosquito netting covering him -Living conditions were hot and primitive -Had to deal with jungle rot, but you usually healed quickly from it -One of his duties as an officer was to censor outgoing mail -Hated to do that -Felt that it was an invasion of privacy and no one was comfortable with that -A lot of the enlisted men were much older than the officers -Awkward to be saluted and called "sir" by a man that was old enough to be your father -Issued "points" �-The points system was a way to track which soldiers were eligible to be sent home -Points were issued on length of service, rank, combat seen, and dependents -He wrote a lot of letters to his grandmother (00:34:13) Travel -Got R&R while he was overseas -When they were in the lower Philippines pilots would be sent to Sydney, Australia -He missed out on that because he hadn't seen enough action -When they were in the northern Philippines he got an R&R to an old, Filipino resort -Had a cottage, swimming pool, and a servant -Went up there with four other pilots -Spent most of the time relaxing and playing cards -Went to Manila and visited the University of Santo Tomas -Had been used as a major internment camp by the Japanese during the occupation -Met some young women and had dinner with their relatives -Opportunity to hear firsthand what it had been like under Japanese rule (00:38:00) Dangers of Flying -Didn't feel in danger every time that he flew a mission -There were a few times where he thought he was going to have ditch the plane due to weather -One instance was after the war when he was flying from Okinawa to Seoul, Korea -His mission was to deliver radio equipment to the airfield in Seoul -Clouds were so thick that he had to fly by instruments to get to the west coast of Korea -Eventually got under the clouds and followed the coast to the Han River -Picked up a radio relay from a B-25 that was giving landing instructions -Once he landed his plane only had fifteen minutes of gas left -Had to spend the night in Seoul to wait for a fuel resupply drop -The crew he flew with had just arrived from the United States (00:44:03) End of Service, Morale, & Living Conditions Pt. 2 -Discharged in March 1946 -Had flown almost every day during his deployment -Morale was good for the pilots, but not so good for the enlisted men -A lot of the enlisted men were frustrated about being overseas so long -On average, men in the Pacific were gone longer and dealing with worse conditions -He was overseas for about a year and a half -Got to see some USO Shows and some movies -The food was okay -Fed "bully beef" (corned beef) and hard tack (00:47:35) End of War, Post-War Service, & Coming Home -He was on Okinawa on Victory in Japan Day (August 15, 1945) �-Someone from headquarters came out shouting that Japan had surrendered -Had been expecting it after the atomic bombs were dropped -It was a huge relief, and there was a great celebration -He was kept overseas for a couple months after the war -Took a ship back to the United States -Stayed in old dormitories and had nice rooms for a change -There wasn't much to do in Okinawa after the war was over -There was a nearby community theatre that was used for USO Shows -Would take new pilots up for a flight to help them get used to the airplane -He flew by Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the war was over -Had expected to see destruction, and a lot of rubble -Wasn't prepared to see an entire city laid flat and devoid of life Note: Since Dr. Browne was in the service until March 1946 he was also most likely stationed at Kimpo Airfield, Korea and Tachikawa Airfield, Japan before being sent home -Taken to Oregon -Boarded a train in Oregon and went to Fort Sheridan, Illinois -Rather than be discharged he was placed in the Reserves -This was because pilots were too valuable to simply be discharged -He knew men that were called up for duty during the Korean War -He wasn't called up because he was pursuing his medical profession -At twenty nine years of age you could resign from the Reserves, which he did (00:54:50) Life after the War Pt. 2 -He was able to use the GI Bill in college which was a tremendous help -The GI Bill with his savings from the military freed him from working during college (00:56:11) Reflections on Service -Feels that he matured quite rapidly, moreso than he would have otherwise -Believes that a lot of that may have had to do with being a pilot with responsibilities -Had no trouble returning to civilian life after the war � 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 RHC-27_BrowneR1781V Title A name given to the resource Browne, Robert Warner (Interview outline and video), 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-06-16 Description An account of the resource Dr. Robert Browne was born in Coldwater, Michigan on November 12, 1924. He grew up in Coldwater and Lansing, Michigan and attended the University of Michigan prior to enlisting in the Aviation Cadet Program of the Army Air Force in November (or December) 1942. He received training in Miami Beach, Florida, Xavier University, Ohio, San Antonio Aviation Center, Texas, and Cimarron Field, Oklahoma. He completed training in early 1944 and was qualified to fly multi-engine planes. He was sent to Hollandia, New Guinea where he joined the 41st Squadron of the 317th Troop Carrier Group. He flew C-47 transport planes and participated in supply drops, airborne missions (particularly the dropping of the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment on Corregidor), and napalm bombing missions in the Philippines. He was stationed in Okinawa after the war ended in 1945 and was eventually sent home and placed in the Reserves in March 1946. In 1953 he retired from the Reserves. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Browne, Robert Warner Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Moore, Deb (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Air Corps Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image 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/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/398c29e137f6ac98be18fb21b05eccf3.jpg bc050b8a4dbd72a874ff3bb111d3ccbc 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 Concert & Event Posters Subject The topic of the resource Posters Events Michigan Universities & colleges--Michigan Description An account of the resource Division of Student Services provides programs, services, and environments that enhance the personal, social, and intellectual growth of undergraduate and graduate students at the University. Events including concerts were managed by the office of Student Life. Posters for music, speakers, poetry readings and other campuswide events are included. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Division of Student Services Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/106">Student Services concerts, events, and posters files, (GV028-06)</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 2017-07-17 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 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 GV028-06 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1963 – 1981 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 GV028-06_brownsville Title A name given to the resource Brownsville Station, April 29, 1973 Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Grand Valley State College Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities & colleges--Michigan Events Posters Description An account of the resource Brownsville station in the Grand Valley State College Field House, April 29, 1973 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg 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> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/106">Student Services concerts, events, and posters files, (GV028-06)</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image 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/5e80ee69ef712a4f112bc4bcf5477244.mp4 30939aaf18cd7d979b21ef5c88c4f704 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e8e53bdf1ad792dc8608871ef80622e5.pdf 648450292db4b289bcda02d23097fc5b PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Bruce Klein Date: 1984 [Barbara] … So, Bruce, those are the things I want to know. [Klein] So you want to know why I came to James? [Barbara] I wonder if I can do it on this shoulder. Yeah, why… you know what I mean, we’re not into big biographies, we’re into what James was. So, when phrasing your answer… you know what I mean? Hey, that looks nice. That looks nice. Now we got you. Make sure we have you focused. There. Anytime you want to start talking, you're really clear. [Klein] Okay. Why did I come to James? That's an interesting question. I think you have to do a little biography: I was at Virginia Tech. for five years teaching and before coming up here. And Virginia Tech. is like Michigan State and I didn't like that. I didn't like the movement towards one hundred, two hundred, three-hundredperson lectures and movement away from when I started there. It was a very personal place because I was the only faculty member. There were two of us. And by the time I left there were twelve of us with a PhD program and all of what that implied. And it's a long and funny story about how I got to James. I applied at Thomas Jefferson because I felt that any college for advertising in "The New Republic" couldn't be all bad. And they correctly sent me back a letter saying: "We're not interested in you; however, we've sent your material over to William James." And that was the year before William James… that was the year when James was being founded. So, I actually applied to William James before it existed. Ken Hunter was hired instead of me. And two years later – I think it was two years later – the circle came around and I was added to the staff. And it was really, in a lot of ways… coming to James was a reaction against a standard mega-versity type education. [Barbara] Okay, let me shift here. Okay. Now would you like to talk about… I just did something, sorry. Talk about the movement of computers. [Klein] Okay, I think… [Barbara] Let me change the shot just a little. [Klein] To talk about the movement of computers from James to CAS is… I think there were two reasons. One had to do James itself. And that was the students we �were attracting were less and less interested in a linear kind of thing that computing implies. And at the exact same time, a very powerful person on the Grand Valley campus, Don Vander Jack, saw finally that computing was going to be a very important curricula item and waged a campaign to move it. And we were vulnerable because of dying enrollments in that area. [Barbara] That's real clear. Okay. Let me just check focus here. Okay. [Klein] It was interesting. When I came, there was a core of about twenty students, I think, from roughly the first year or two of James that were really interested in computing. And when I left – or when it was suggested I apply for an open position in CAS by the Provost, let’s put it that way – there were probably fewer than ten. [Barbara] Because? Well, you already said. [Klein] I already said. I don't think we were attracting… I think the message of James was not the thing that was going to attract students interested in computing. And the students that were attracted to James were turned off by "you can't take the fourth course until you've taken the first three." I think there was some real problems with that. [Barbara] Real clear. From the position of both an insider and an outsider, I was never an outsider, you know what I mean, for James… [Klein] Yeah. [Barbara] Would you care to comment on its final demise? I mean, could it have been prevented? What should we have done differently? [Klein] I don't think anything could have been done, not in the context of Grand Valley. Grand Valley was going to make itself look like every other college in the state. Because I think, at that time, there were some serious enrollment patterns though James was doing just fine. If you want to look at James vis-à-vis Seidman, the enrollment in James was – to my recollection – just as good as the enrollment in Seidman. But I think the powers that be wanted Grand Valley to look like every other college in the state because they were taking enough flak for not being like every other college in the state. [Barbara] If you were to sum up James – the key to what we were trying to do or were doing – in a sentence, what would that sentence be? [Klein] Wow. That's a hard one, Barb. Well, something that my wife and I have been talking about a lot lately – and that's growth. Personal and intellectual. And I think �to my mind that's what James was more about than anything else. [Barbara] You're a great interviewee. You say it! � 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 William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</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> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education 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 Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng 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 GV016-16_GVSU_40_Klein Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Klein, Bruce Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Bruce Klein interview (video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Bruce Klein by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Bruce Klein was faculty member in William James College who worked at Grand Valley from 1977 to 2001 and later became Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Information Systems. In this interview, Bruce discusses his personal journey that led him to William James College and the movement of the computer program from WJC to the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS). This interview is part 1 of 1 for Bruce Klein. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Lectures and lecturing Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</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> 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 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/974c0caa421e15048f2179299cd20d60.jpg 5336b10ef65c9e7fca7a9a369f678cbb 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 Robert H. Merrill photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1909/1950 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-222 Description An account of the resource Photographs, negatives, and lantern slides digitized from the papers of engineer and archaeologist Robert H. Merrill. A Grand Rapids native, Merrill held an accomplished career as a civil engineer. He founded the company Spooner & Merrill, which held offices in Grand Rapids and Chicago. From 1919-1921, Merrill lived in China, working as Assistant Principal Engineer on a reconstruction of the Grand Canal - the oldest and longest canal system in the world. Merrill became fascinated by archaeology, and among other projects, he traveled to the Uxmal Pyramids in Yucatan, Mexico, with a research expedition from Tulane University. Merrill's photo collection includes images of his travels and projects, friends and family. 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 Merrill_EastmanAlbum_1_1909_049 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1909-07-10 Title A name given to the resource Bruce Mines Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of shoreline and pier at Bruce Mines, Ontario. Subject The topic of the resource Ontario Bruce Mines (Ont.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) 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/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 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/e5bafba73abc14b26a5c45788adc88d7.mp4 4fe3bf6446167ea8aff3665ad0b6d5ad https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/badc8ae4db41c67c22b2d6aab0b6278d.pdf 974aebe167d34bec588a7e8d5e0d5abe PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Jerry Bruinekool (24:05) (00:15) Background Information • Jerry was born on December 15, 1938 • He was in the Navy for three years and then in the reserve • Jerry was born in Michigan and went to school in Ada • He had several uncles and cousins that served during World War II • Jerry was only three when Pearl Harbor was attacked (01:30) Enlistment in the Navy January 1956 • Jerry felt that his life was going nowhere and needed a change • He chose the Navy because he thought it would have nicer living quarters and better food • He had been living with his parents and joined with a friend of his • Boot camp was rough for him and he did not like his commanding officer • Jerry received many demerits and had to do a lot of extra exercise • They did many push-ups, ran a lot, and got up every day at 6:00 am (04:50) Overseas • Jerry had been stationed at Great Lakes Naval Base in Chicago and then went to Virginia for five months • He was then station in Havana, Cuba and traveled to Puerto Rico and Saint Thomas • He was stationed in the Mediterranean twice and traveled to France, Italy, Portugal, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, and visited the Rock of Gibraltar • He had been working in a carpenter shop in Virginia fixing small wooden Navy boats • Jerry never saw any combat (07:40) Memorable Experiences • Jerry enjoyed experiencing the cultural differences at all the foreign ports he visited and seeing how other lived in different countries • There were many storms in the Caribbean during the hurricane season that he experienced • He met his wife during his second year in the service and wrote her many letters • To pass time many of the men played pool, basketball, cards, and went swimming (13:25) Friendships • Jerry got along with all the other men he worked with and most of his commanding officers • He had joined with a friend, but his friend had been held back during basic training for medical reasons �• Jerry is no longer in contact with any of the men he met in the Navy (16:00) Life after the Navy • Being discharged was a long process with all the medical examinations and paperwork • Jerry took some time off afterwards to relax • Once he began looking, it only took Jerry about a week to find a job, but it was hard for him to keep a job and he moved around a lot • He now thinks that he is lucky that he never had to fight in any war • He does not go to any reunions because they are too costly and has enough friends where he lives • Jerry believes that the Navy made him a better person and gave him some direction in life � 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 Bruinekool, Jerry (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bruinekool, Jerry Description An account of the resource Jerry Bruinekool was born in Michigan on December 15, 1938. Jerry enlisted in the Navy in January of 1956 because he felt that his life needed some direction. While in the Navy, Jerry traveled to Cuba, Puerto Rico, Saint Thomas, France, Italy, Portugal, and Greece. He enjoyed going to all the different foreign ports and seeing how other people lived. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource DeVries, Alex (Interviewer) Caledonia High School (Caledonia, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Navy Korean War, 1950-1953--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 2008-06-04 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BruinekoolJ 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/5679c71cc7a48e57b804f0a738e323ed.mp4 b9b557ea8e7f28ac16af2cd842b3fe20 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9295465bd2f2a024d74af1ccb84d693b.pdf fad8b0ef421529d316b8477e17f4c857 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Donald Brummel Length of interview (0:24:28) Pre-Enlistment • Childhood o Born and raised in Burnips, Michigan. (0:51) His family were farmers. (0:54) • His Job o He was 22 years old during Pearl Harbor and worked at Extruded Metals in Belding, Michigan for 2 years. (1:13) Enlistment/Training • Brummel was drafted in 1944. (2:00) He chose the Navy as his branch of service. (3:00) • Reports for training and is taken to Great Lakes Recruit Training Center, Illinois. (3:31) Did not recall much of his training (3:40). • Transferred to Camp Shoemaker, California for about 1 year. (4:40) • Underwent specialized training and worked at a bowling alley, a ship yard, and a cannery. (5:00) st 1 Duty Station • Sent to Okinawa via Merchant Marine ship. (5:48) Describes rough seas and Kamikaze planes. (6:30) He speaks of the views of the island from the ship. (7:30) • Jobs and Duties o Brummel drives ambulances and trucks. (8:00) Mentions knowledge of the fighting abroad. (9:00) Ambulance drive during the whole of his service. (9:53) o Talks of storms and field hospitals. (10:30) Also, the lack of women on the island, only male corpsman. (11:00) Took care of Sea Bees who worked on the island. (12:00) • Interactions o Spoke of contact with Japanese farmers and female workers, (12:20) and saw no children. (13:20) Camp was attacked in the night, no prisoners were to be taken. (14:00) o Worked with men from Pennsylvania, Detroit and Iowa. (15:00) The received no medical training and were only drivers. (16:00) o African American soldier drink medical alcohol. (16:30) Speaks of Navy food. (17:00) Stayed on Okinawa for about 1 year. (17:45) o End of the war. (18:00) 2nd Duty Station �• He was shipped to another station (location unknown) and was still driving ambulances on this post. (18:31) Discharged from this post and returned to Michigan. (19:28) Additional Experiences • Brummel married before entering the Navy and had 2 children. (20:07) • Outlines bad experiences, (20:51) including drinking rubbing alcohol. (22:00) • Discusses the effects of the Navy on him. (22:30) • Wishes he would have become a Sea Bee. (23:00) • Returns to farming and goes to university. (23:43) • Became a plumber after farming. (24:00) � 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 Brummel, Donald (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brummel, Donald Description An account of the resource Donald Brummel served in the US Navy between 1944 and 1946. He trained as a truck and ambulance driver and served as an ambulance driver on Okinawa, transporting Marines and Seabees wounded in action. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV 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. Navy World War, 1939-1945--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 2007-11-13 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BrummelD 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