Jeff Ewing, Army Ranger, Sergeant, Madisonville, KY, 1980 - 1984

Ewing was assigned to the 1st Ranger Battalion, Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia.
I went down to the recruiter I asked him, what’s the toughest thing you’ve got to offer? He said, well, I’ve got an Airborne Ranger slot right here and I said well what do they do? He said, well, they jump out of airplanes and eat snakes. I said good! Sign me up!

“We were at one of my sergeant’s houses for dinner,” relates Ewing. It was just a regular Saturday night. At that time there were only two Ranger battalions and one of them had to always be on call, which meant you had to be wheels up in 18 hours to go anywhere in the world for any situation.

Late that night we get the phone call, we had no idea because a lot of times we get the call and it’d just be routine training to see how quickly we get everything together and wheels off the ground. That peculiar night however we all felt something was going on. To be honest I never had even heard of Grenada. They called us out, put us in a aircraft hanger, gave us the operation, had the briefings, started handing out ammo to everybody and told us what the scenario was, with the students being held hostage. The different locations and exactly what the plans were.

We flew out of Hunter Army Airfield that night and I was in the third aircraft and we were scheduled to go in at 800 feet where we were going to do a combat jump. It was supposed to be a night jump, but the first two aircraft had some sort of mechanical issues so they had to double back around and get in the tail end of the stick so we became the first bird going in. We went in at Point Salines and the reconnaissance planes saw that the Russian nationals and the Cubans had some Chinese anti-aircraft weapons on the side of the hill facing right toward the airfield.

So they told us to take off our reserves and said that we’re going in at 500 feet! Well, that’s almost unheard of, going in without a reserve parachute, so that’s what we did. I was loaded to the gills! I had so much ammo on me and everyone was obviously nervous, not knowing what to expect because there hadn’t been a flare up since Viet Nam. The Beirut bombing was a few days before and we actually thought that was where we were going at first and of course we found out we were going into Grenada to rescue the medical students.

When the doors opened, around five O’ Clock in the morning, the sun was coming up and I was so ready to get out of that aircraft. As soon as we came out the plane started taking hits, they were shooting at us. We hit the ground and everybody gathered up and our main objective then was to clear the runway for the main party to come in and then secure the true blue campus down at the end of the runway. The resistance had dozers, concertina wire and all kinds of heavy equipment on the runway to keep planes from landing. So, we as a unit start clearing the runway. We took some casualties then and at the time that was really hard seeing that you knew, in fact I was actually assigned to put a couple of them in body bags at the time. So that was an eye opening experience, but we got the runway cleared, went in and got the students out.

It was definitely an experience that I’ll never forget.

Jess McGary, SSgt., Air Force, Nortonville, KY, 1951 - 1955

Staff Sergeant Jess McGary, of Nortonville, and served in the Air Force from July 1951 till July 1955. He and his unit was part of the occupation force after World War II that helped with the reconstruction of bombed out cities after the war. He also was part of the advance party that opened Ramstein Air Base, the now Headquarters for United States Forces Europe. He served in Germany for 3 years and during that time held several jobs including teletype Operator, senior administrator in the orderly room for the 4th Communications Squadron, handling payroll and acting from time to time as the First Sergeant. He returned to the states and was stationed at Hamilton AFB, north of San Francisco, California for the last five months of his enlistment.

Jesse Huff, Army National Guard, Lt. Col, Madisonville, KY, 1987 - Current

Huff currently serves as the Army National Guard’s Preventive Medicine Officer for the state of Kentucky assigned to Frankfort at Boone National Guard Center attached to the medical detachment at the Wendell Ford Regional Training Center at Greenville, KY.

He began his career as a Combat Medic on the enlisted side of the house for a couple of years until he was asked if he’d like to become a commissioned officer. He agreed and went through route in order to be commissioned officer into the medical service corp.

He was assigned as commander of the 1163rd Air Support Medical Company in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom Four from 2003-2004.

Probably the most important thing to me, remarks Huff, is when I was in command in Afghanistan I took my unit overseas, we accomplished our mission and I brought everybody back! There was no letters to the parents, relatives or wives. This was one of my biggest concerns if somebody was on a mission, that they might not come back.

Jewell Larmouth, Army, Corporal, Madisonville, KY, 1943 -1946

During World War II Larmouth was assigned to 100th Division, 398th Inf Regiment, 3rd Battalion. He and his unit were in many battles during the last years of the war. They first saw combat in November of 1944.

Toward the end of the war, Patton’s 10th Armor Division was coming down to assist Larmouth's unit around Heilbronn, Germany where they were advancing on a hydroelectric plant, so they wouldn’t be cut off.

The war was tough, but we were tough too! After we captured the plant I was outside and all of a sudden I saw a bunch of Germans and they had a white flag. I motioned for them to double-time and come on. There were about 30 of them. I got them in between buildings myself and then I got help because our people were inside, but there wasn’t anybody with me when they surrendered. I got the others to help me guard them and it wasn’t long before the Germans started shelling them, trying to kill them, but they couldn’t get their shells in between the buildings. One of our Lieutenants said, Larmouth, I don’t know how you got these people to surrender, but I’m going to take credit for it. I told him, I don’t care if you take credit or not, I got them. It didn’t make any difference to me because all the rest of the men knew he didn’t do it.

Jim Burton, Army Air Corp, Corporal, Madisonville, KY, 1944 – 1946

Burton was a Cryptographic Technician during World War II. He served most of his time in Burma supporting the operation where they were flying missions from there over the “Hump.” The Hump was the name given by Allied pilots in the Second World War to the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains over which they flew military transport aircraft from India to China to resupply the Chinese war effort of Chiang Kai-shek and the units of the United States Army Air Forces based in China. No message went out in plain language, everything was coded and decoded.

At the end of World War II he was assigned to the Army Airwaves Communications Systems at Kunming, China, where he was on one of the last planes out.

The war was over and they’d taken the Japanese out of Shanghai and all of those coastal cities. So, they were going to take us back from Kunming to Shanghai. So we get on this C-47. It’s a cargo plane and there are no seats on it and right up behind the pilot’s cabin there’s some aluminum seats and we just sat there. They got ready to start that C-47 and it wouldn’t start. Now remember, everybody else is gone, we were there by ourselves. They were, however, smart enough to leave a mechanic with the plane!

Well, the first thing I know he took a window out and crawled out onto the wing of that airplane, took a flap up and started beating the fire out of that engine head! Well, what it was is that the engine had stopped right on the breaking point and the batteries didn’t have enough power to move that cylinder off of dead center to get it to start. Well, he beat on it and beat on it till he got that one started and he went over on the other side and got it started and so we were late leaving Kunming, China and it was getting dark, so we landed on one of these fields they used during the war. We got to Shanghai the next day and they put us up at this horse track there where we lived until it was time for us to go to Tokyo and then back to the states.

Since the war was over Chiang Kai-shek decided he was going to have this huge parade. So he brings his armies in and there were probably over 100,000 people on the infield of this racetrack and I was up in the stands. From where I was I could see him and his wife. Well, they had their ceremony and they started moving those Chinese soldiers out of there and there were thousands of them lying on the ground dead because they had starved to death while they were having that shindig.

Jim Knue, Navy, Petty Officer Third Class, Hanson, KY, 1956 – 1962

Knue was a Radar Operator assigned to VW-11 on the east coast of the United States. It was a search radar plane that defended the Atlantic coast of the United States.

They would fly and pick up airplanes that were coming toward the United States and if they were “friend” they’d let it pass and if it was “foe” they had to determine who it was very quickly. After gathering airspeed, direction or travel, height and so on they would pass that information onto jet fighters that were out on patrol and they would intercept the aircraft and determine who they were.

On one mission we were getting ready to take off when they radioed back to the hanger and asked if anybody already had their time in, if so they didn’t have to go, because they had two or three that had to go and practice, so that was me. When the plane was returning their landing gear clipped the tops of trees and the plane crashed and we lost the whole crew. I miss them all! One guy just got back from his wedding and another from his one of his parents funeral, were a close crew, just like family.

Jim Pearson, MSgt., Air Force, Madisonville, KK, 1971-1995

Master Sergeant Jim Pearson who served in the Air Force for 24 years as a photojournalist assigned to Aerospace Audiovisual service, which later became today's Combat Camera. Enlisting right out of high School in June of 1971 he spent his first few years assigned to Eglin Air Force Base as a photographer until he received his first overseas assignment to South Korea in 1973.

He was assigned to Patrick AFB, Florida in 1974 until in 1977 he was selected by the Air Force for advance photojournalism training at Syracuse University. Upon graduation, a year later he was assigned to Detachment 3, of the Aerospace Audiovisual Service, (AAVS) at Rhein Main Air Base in West Germany.

During his tour of duty at Rhein Main he covered President Jimmy Carter's visit to the Berlin Wall, the Iran Hostage Release, his first backseat aerial assignment in a Norwegian F-104 to photograph the first cold weather testing of the then new F-16 fighters, plus he covered many other noteworthy events around Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East.

In 1981 he was assigned to the 1352nd, located with Headquarters Aerospace Audiovisual Service at Norton AFB, CA. He continued photographing worldwide military activities in Europe and the Far East from his Norton location until he was reassigned to Detachment 7, 1363rd AAVS, at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. During his tour there he covered various activities throughout the theater of operations including exercises in South Korea and Thailand and deployed in support of Operation Desert Storm.

He returned to Norton AFB where he was then assigned as the NCOIC of the Electronic Imaging Center until he retired in August of 1995. His unit was the forerunners that utilized and evaluated the very first digital cameras that are the mainstay of today's photographer.

Jim Stinson, Quartermaster Third Class, Navy, Madisonville, KY, 1944 - 1946

Stinson served in the Navy from September 1944 till July 1946 as a Quartermaster Third Class. His job was to steer the ship and he also worked as a signalman. He served on board the tanker USS Kaskaskia (AO-27), which refueled ships in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Near the end of the war he recalls the kamikaze planes flying overhead and while he was handing 20mm rounds to the gunner of one of the guns on the ship. Two days after the signing of the surrender by Japan he recalls his ship sailing into Tokyo Bay to refuel ships and watching the wreckage of ships and bodies float by in the water. As a young man of 19 he remembers how strange it felt walking the streets of Tokyo, two days after the war ended, in a country at that time that was going to conquer the U.S.

Jimmie Arnold, Navy, Seaman Second Class, Madisonville, KY, 1945 – 1946

Arnold volunteered for the Navy when he was 17 and after basic training he was assigned to the USS Nehenta Bay, which was a Casablanca class escort carrier. His primary duty was an assistant cook, which he considered a good job because he got liberty just about every night when they were in port, but everyone had battle stations.

He recalls once a plane returned from a mission over Japan after bombing a train yard and he was part of detail that had to clean the bottom of the plane because it got so low that the mud from the explosions was all over the bottom of it.

He also recalls one time a zero was coming in on their ship and he was manning his battle station, a 20mm gun.
Zeros come into the ship when the sun is coming up of the morning. They’ll try and come down and dive into the side of the ship where the sun’s behind them and they’re harder to spot. I was shooting at him, but there’s no telling how many other guns were shooting at him on that side of the ship, he got really close. So close I could see his face! He was on fire of course and didn’t get to the ship because we got him before he made it.

John Stevens Jr., Corporal, Army Air Corp, Hanson, KY, 1942 – 1945

Stevens was assigned to the 1st Troop Carrier Command. The US Army Air Forces troop carrier mission officially came into existence on April 30, 1942 when the 50th Transport Wing, a unit that had activated at Wright Field, Ohio January 14, 1941, transferred out of the Air Service Command into a new unit named the Air Transport Command.

Originally assigned to the Air Corps Maintenance Command, which became the Air Service Command in October 1941, the wing's primary mission was to transport aircraft parts and other technical supplies from the Air Corps depot at Wright Field to air bases throughout the United States, as far north as Alaska and as far south as the Canal Zone.

When the Army began developing airborne forces, they were given the responsibility for providing aircraft and crews to transport the fledgling paratroopers to their drop zones for training before heading over to the war zones.

They’d haul about 200 paratroopers at a time on C-47s and C-54s for training and one of his responsibilities was to cut the cords loose on them.

John Thorpe, Air Force, Sergeant, Mortons Gap, KY, 1969 – 1972

Thorpe got his basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. From there he was assigned to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi for schooling. They liked him so well that they asked him to stay on and he went to work at the base headquarters. Then in 1971 he was assigned to the 51st Security Police Squadron at Osan Air Base, South Korea, as an administrative Clerk.

He did make one trip to the DMZ during his tour but said you didn’t get too close because there was the Army on one side and the North Koreans on the other. His unit was always on alert because the North Koreans were always trying to sneak into the south. One of the ways they caught the infiltrators was because of the money. They didn’t understand the values of it or how to use it. He feels that he learned a lot during his service. Grew up and learned a lot of responsibility.

Keith Brown, Army, Corporal, Hanson, KY, 1944 – 1946

In May of 1945, Brown headed to the Pacific where he was assigned to the 37th Inf. Division in Okinawa. When he was finally discharged he was a member of the 2nd Bomber Squadron, and the Army Air Force, in the Philippines.

On Okinawa they’d take us out on patrol for a week and bring us back a week. I just got back that day after dark. Somebody came in there that night, that was guarding a bridge somewhere, and one of their guys got sick and they were asking for someone to replace him. I told them I just got back that day, but if they couldn’t find somebody, I would. I wasn’t going to refuse to go. Well, he went out and then came back a little later and said, get your stuff and let’s go.

Up on the bank from where we were, it was higher than the road, the bridge we were on, and I don’t know, there were four or five of us. Two hours of guard each. I thought there’d be more than one at a time, but there wasn’t. Those minutes passed like hours. It was dark and you could hardly see several feet in front of you. It was lightening every now and then and you could see the high grass and bamboo around us and the machine gun setup and of course I had a rifle, M1 across my lap.

The sergeant told me if I heard anything I didn’t know what it was to call him, I heard a lot of things that I didn’t know what they were. Those minutes passed like hours. When my two hours were over, I laid right down there and went to sleep and it didn’t bother me at all.
If I had been out there in daylight and looked over the situation it would have been different, but to go out in the middle of the night and not knowing the surroundings it was hard. I wasn’t going to refuse to go and have someone go in my place and possibly get killed.

He feels, after doing some research later in life, that his unit was one of the ones slated to be among the invasion force which would have gone into Japan. He said that the plans estimated that if that had happened that 500,000 men could have lost their lives in that campaign. To this day he feels that the two atomic bombs on Japan in August of 1945 saved his life and the lives of a lot other Americans and Japanese.

Larry Wilson, Army, Sergeant, Madisonville, KY, 1959 – 1962

Wilson was an aircraft helicopter maintenance mechanic while assigned to the 30th Transportation Company at the Flugerhorst Concern near Hanau Germany. His main job was to work on helicopters. He had a four or five man crew that he was responsible for and they repaired helicopters. After they fixed one, the maintenance officer and he would take it for a ride, so he really wanted to do a good job. So for about two years he was in a repaired helicopter about 3 or 4 times a week and he really did like to fix them properly. Having to fly them after fixing them, gave him a lot of incentive.

An interesting story was during my time at Ft. Eustis Virginia when I was in the Transportation Command. We practiced towing barges with helicopters. We’d hook a cable on and try pulling them through the water. We also practiced lifting jeeps. Well, we had a lot of jeeps that had all their wheels spread out, because they’d hit the ground too hard! They were not drivable any more.

One of the funniest instances I remember was also at Ft. Eustis. I never worked on a helicopter with jet engines. I was pre-jet engine in the helicopter age. Our helicopters at that time were the H-21s, which sometimes folks called the flying bananas. It had a prop on each end and they were terrifically underpowered and we were going to North Carolina to support a Marine operation.

We knew the helicopters were underpowered and it was a hot summer and helicopters don’t have a lot of lift when it’s hot. Well we had the helicopter loaded up with some of our guys and equipment and we’d run down the runway trying to get it off the ground and we couldn’t. So we’d taxi back and put out some of the equipment and couple guys and then run down the runway and try to get off the ground. We finally got it light enough where we could get it off the ground so we could go to North Carolina. That was kind of funny. I can say this about jet engines; without them we wouldn’t have helicopters today, they just weren't not worth it.
I went to Murray for a couple years I just decided I couldn’t make it and I enlisted in the Army. After a couple years I decided the difference between me, as an enlisted man with no authority and an officer, was nothing more than a college diploma. They weren’t any smarter than I was, that’s for sure. So I decided after the Army to go back to Murray and I finished up my degree.

Lester Good, Sgt. Army, Madisonville, KY, 1968 - 1970

Good was an Army Sergeant and Squad Leader assigned to 26th Engineer Battalion under the Americal Division and was charged with finding and removing mines in the northern part of Viet Nam. He was on active duty from November of 1968 until October of 1970 and other than training spent his time in Viet Nam.

On the Patganga Peninsula, we were walking along and we were going over a river because we had to establish a bridge head. So I had part of my group go one way and part the other way, sweep up and meet to establish the bridge head.

Well, my mine sweeper was walking along and I saw his foot go into a hole. Stepping on a mine is not the problem, taking your foot off the mine is a problem. So I told him Oliver, freeze! He did what I hollered at him and I said, I think we have a problem. I think you’ve stepped on a mine and he used some choice expletives. So I told my demo man, OK Carl, let’s see what we can do to work a knife in-between his boot and the firing device. We did that and gathered some large stones and put them on top of the knife and then we just ran in opposite directions, so on that one I saved somebody. Of course on that same mission we lost Thomas Wharton.

Logan Calvert, Army, 1st. Lt., Madisonville, KY, 1970 – 1976 (National Guard)

While teaching at Madisonville High School Calvert decided to join the Kentucky Army National Guard and was assigned to the 123rd Armor Division. When he first went in he was a cook, which he says he really enjoyed. He then went to Officer Candidate School and was commissioned a 2nd Lt.

He did his basic and advanced infantry training at Ft. Knox. During his tour most of their training was done either locally or at Fort Hood, Washington.

Calvert recalls, I remember we were at Ft. Knox for training with our tanks and were being inspected by General Patton, not the one that was in the war but his son. My wife had come up to get me and just about the time he got to my tank the loud speaker said, Lt. Calvert, your wife has locked her keys in the car (with his daughter Whitney inside), you need to come to the PX. So I didn’t get to meet General Patton, that was kind of an exciting time, but the timing wasn’t real good.

Mac Perkins, Sgt, Army, Madisonville, KY, 1966 - 1969

Sergeant Mac Perkins, served in the Army from February 1966 until March 1969.

In October 1966 he made his way as a Radio Repairman to the 29th Artillery Searchlight outside Quinn Yan, Vietnam. His responsibility was to travel to other bases and forward locations to maintain and repair radio systems. He remembers the loss of several of his close friends during his tour of duty and that it was a terrifying time and one where he truly found the Lord. He said he knew the good Lord was going to take care of him, but he wanted to make sure. He said his grandfather prayed for his dad during World War II and his dad prayed for him during Vietnam.

He still recalls a time he and a friend had a close call. They were practicing with a grenade launcher and when they'd finished and headed back to the unit they passed a convoy headed up the road to where they just left. The convoy stopped and asked them if they had seen anything and they replied no. After they got back to the unit about 1/2 mile away and were heading to the mess hall they almost got run over by all the men running out of it headed to a firefight. A enemy patrol had been dug in and were waiting to ambush a larger group instead of the two of them. He really felt the Lord was watching over him.

Mel Wyatt, Army, Chief Warrant Officer 2, Madisonville, KY, 1969 - 1972

Wyatt was a Cobra Helicopter Pilot assigned to the 1st Squadron, 9th Calvary of the 1st Calvary Division in Viet Nam.

We were in combat most all the time. If you flew a Cobra helicopter it wasn’t going to just sit around. So we were pretty much always one of the front line units. We stayed in tents a lot and we were in places where they’d shoot rockets and mortars in at us at night time. One time our hooch we were living in, a number of us in one, received direct fire. It blew up and caught on fire and a number of us were wounded. Fortunately all of us made it back to flying status OK.

While I was there we probably lost about three Cobras and two or three light observation helicopters. On the Cobras, we lost both pilots, but on the light observation helicopters we could usually get them out, we lost a few but not a lot.

I got shot down once and was able to make a pretty good landing. They shot the hydraulics out and I was able to land. My scout, we flew together as a team, came in and provided cover for us till they could get us and the helicopter out.

I was fortunate that I got back.

Morris Yates, Army, Captain, Madisonville, KY, 1962 - 1964

Yates had just opened his dental practice when he was drafted into the Army. He was assigned to the dental surgery clinic for the 3rd Army at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina.

One of the biggest things we were involved in was during the Bay of Pigs. They sent all the Cubans from that to Ft. Jackson. We had them for about six months before they were sent on. I remember I was doing surgery on this giant of a fellow from Cuba and he said "Ruskies no antistaga." They didn’t give any anesthesia and we did of course. So I took out some teeth for him and he thanked me and gave me this lucky Cuban silver dollar. It turns out that he was the heavy weight boxing champion of Cuba. I found that out after I worked on him.

It was kind a rough really while the Cubans were there. They found one 2nd Lt., which had his neck broken, in a dumpster. They always thought it was some of the Cubans, but they never did find out who it was. It may have been or it may not have been.

Panfilo Amar, Staff Sergeant, Army, Madisonville, KY 1951 – 1959 Active,

Amar was living on Guam in when he entered the U.S. Army in 1951 and became a naturalized citizen. Continued on till 1959 when he left active duty. He enlisted in the Army Guard in 1975 and served until he retired in 1998 and he served in many roles during his time of service, however his military story began at the age of 16 in his home country of the Philippines. He was a guerrilla fighter. He shares that part of his story.

“On April 22, 1942 the Japanese invited my hometown of Tibiao Antique in the Penney Islands. I joined the guerrillas, because most of the people were collaborating with the Japanese. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, would turn you in for a price. I didn’t like that kind of thing. We fought the Japanese with pistols made out of water pipe and used firecracker power to make our ammunition. We also fought the Japanese with anything we could get our hands on, from bamboo spears to bamboo blow guns. We setup ambushes and never stayed in one area over 12 hours. We would also pickup their guns and swords after an ambush.

We lived off of fruits in the jungle and root crops planted by the mountain people. Often we would have no water and would drink coconut milk.

When the Japanese went through a town, they burned it. They would rape a woman, no matter how young or old they were and then kill them. I saw them take kids, pitch them in the air and then catch them on their bayonets. At that time the Japanese had no respect for anybody. When we caught the Japanese, we would usually do the same to them that they had done to us.

Once we were surrounded and a lot of my buddies got killed. I thought I’d be next and so I just lay down flat and pretended to be dead. A Japanese soldier came along and got me in the back with his bayonet and flipped me over; I just laid there. He thought I was dead and went on.
It was a rough life.”

Parvin Gibbs, SMSgt., Air Force, Madisonville, KY, 1953 - 1979

Senior Master Sergeant Parvin Gibbs served in the United States Air Force for 26 years. He enlisted in October of 1953 and his first duty assignment was to Germany. During his time in service his assignments carried him around the world including to The Pentagon. He flew Combat Support Missions over Viet Nam and Cambodia as part of the Airborne Command Control Center for the 7th Air Force in Thailand. Upon his retirement in 1979 he was a crew member on the Emergency Airborne Command Post as an operations NCO for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in support of the National Command Authorities.

Pat Ballard, Navy, Petty Officer Third Class, Madisonville, KY, 1988 – 1993

As a Hospital Corpsman, Ballard trained with the Marines for nine months and served in many positions throughout his time in service before ending up at Naval Air Station Memphis as a physical therapist assistant.

I was working respiratory in 1989 when I was stationed at Pensacola and the aircraft carrier, the Lexington, was out on night maneuvers when we get a call that they’d had an accident. Night maneuvers, somebody crashed, they were talking mass casualties. The commanding officer comes in and announces, "We’re bringing everybody in," because we didn’t know, there could have been hundreds dead. That was a scary feeling, not knowing what you’re going to encounter. Thank God there were only five. Five had perished and I saw the first one arrive in a body bag. He really wasn’t in the shape of a body. His eyes were those of a 21-22 year old kid and I’d never seen anything like that before. I was really lucky though because that was as bad as it ever got for me. That was a pretty scary time and thank God there was only five that passed.

In 1990 – 91 there were these rumblings of war. Saddam Hussein attacks Kuwait. When you are at a hospital everyone’s assigned to a Marine Corp unit and you’re going to be shipped off. Well, the commanding officer calls me into his office in the hospital at Memphis and says, you’ve been called up and your MASH unit is leaving in three days. You’re headed to Kuwait and I said, whoa, really!

It was kind of a double edge sword because I wanted to go and support my brothers and sisters over there and help out as much as I could, but I was a 22-year-old kid and I was scared! I’d never seen war, just played it when I was growing up, BB gun wars, playing Sergeant Rock, John Wayne an all that and here I am, I’ve got three days to get my affairs in order. So, yeah, it was a scary time. But two days later they stood us down. Gosh, the war was over just like that! For me, at the time, it was pretty scary. I thought I was going to war. But, I signed up to serve my country and if that’s what they asked me to do, then that’s what I was going to do.