2:55 | Carlene Knoll-Arambula recalls a valuable teamwork lesson learned during Navy bootcamp. Provided by Bob Stevens, the Veterans' Forum.
Mr. Boyce discusses working with many Kurds and Iraqi civilians for about a year following the end of the first Gulf War.
After rejoining the Army as an MP, Ed Fulghum returned to Korea where he guarded inspection teams. His next assignment, back in the States, was in a Military Government company, which was trained to rebuild and reset devastated areas. He decide that the Military Police was a career dead end, so he returned to the infantry.
The post-Vietnam period was not a great time to be a Marine. Jim Teixeira remembers how no money was available for training or much of anything. Then he got a chance to go to Ranger School and he jumped at it. It turned out to be the best training he ever received and it led to the regular commission he wanted.
John Le Moyne never had a bad assignment. That's the way he looked at it, anyway, and it had a lot to do with the excellent leaders he encountered throughout his career. They helped him crack the code on how to win the trust of soldiers.
When Max Della Pia retired as a full Colonel, the governor of his state gave him a brevet promotion to Brigadier General in the Air National Guard. It didn't mean much but at least it was better than being kicked out! He was very fond of the Air Force Band and he recalls the time they played a request for him.
As Operation Desert Shield gave way to Operation Desert Storm, the Pentagon needed someone like a fighter pilot to brief the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense on biological and chemical warfare in language they could understand. So, Tom Fleming became the "bugs and gas guy."
The plan was complicated, with a lot of moving parts, but there was high confidence that the team would be able to rescue the hostages in Iran. Pilot Roland Guidry describes how a combination of fixed wing aircraft and helicopters would deliver the Delta Force and the Rangers and then extract them along with the hostages. Part 3 of 4.
Somewhere along the line, Army test pilot Bob Stewart had filled out an application to NASA and they called him. He went to Houston for a week of testing and an interview as a mission specialist.
Education is something that Paul Berry eagerly embraced in the Army. It got him cushy jobs and kept him out of dirty ones. Especially valuable was the esoteric science known as typing. He also absorbed all the medical knowledge and skills that he could.
After the Challenger tragedy, NASA mission specialist Bob Stewart returned to the Army where they made him a general. He worked at the Strategic Defense Command, a legacy of Ronald Reagan's SDI program. At some point the Army wanted him in Washington DC, at which point he promoted himself to ski bum.
Of all the wars we've been in, Desert Storm was the one in which we did everything right. Paul Berry explains why he believes this is so.
When Roland Guidry was given the command of the 8th Special Operations Squadron, he had to prove himself because he was not from a special ops background, per se. He did just fine. The missions he'd flown in Vietnam were perfect preparation. He says it takes a certain type of low key individual to excel at that type work.
It had been a long and tortuous process for Keith Nightingale and the rest of the joint task force but Operation Eagle Claw was ready. All the moving parts were primed and all that needed was for President Carter to give the word to go. Pt 4 of 4.
Paul Berry worked hard to get into college. He made it but, once he was there, it wasn't working out for him. He didn't want to go home so he joined the Army. At basic training he learned responsibility and camaraderie and he was the fastest runner in the group.
He considered it the finest education available. Geoff Farrell went to West Point, where he soaked up all the history and knowledge available there. He was assigned to Europe, where he patrolled the German border as Soviet Communism was dying. There was a brief period of jubilation when the wall came down, then they heard about Saddam Hussein.
After the tragic events at Desert One, planning began for another rescue mission. Parallel with this was the decision to create a permanent and robust special operations structure. Keith Nightingale was right in the middle of this difficult effort which involved all the services.
Max Della Pia was sixteen years old and speaking at a Rotary luncheon about his desire to attend the Air Force Academy. A man came up to him afterward and ridiculed his speech. He never forgot that guy but he did go to the Academy and have a long career as a pilot and commander.
It was going to be just four years. Shawn Patrick wanted to check a box in his life that his father and grandfather had checked with military service. He joined the Marines because they're supposed to be the best. During his first Marine Expeditionary cruise he was dispatched to Somalia.
Keith Nightingale recalls the sometimes uncomfortable fallout from the aborted Iran hostage rescue attempt. There were congressional briefings to give, an investigation to face and a special operations structure to build up. This wasn't made any more pleasant by the conflicting personalities involved.
The 514th Ambulance Company got orders for Desert Storm. Medic and driver Paul Berry was ready to go. His experience there would be very different from his experiences in his Army career after he returned.
When a humanitarian disaster began to unfold in Somalia, Presidents Bush and Clinton committed US troops to stop the fighting among the warlords and enable aid to be delivered. Olin Rossman of the 10th Mountain Division was not originally slated to go, but his platoon was tapped at the last minute. (Caution: strong language)
In the aftermath of the Grenada invasion, peacekeeping forces from all around the Caribbean were assembled to help keep order. Keith Nightingale's battalion was spread all around the island involved in various missions and the locals in all these enclaves helped their liberators celebrate Thanksgiving. Part 3 of 4.
He nearly left the Air Force Academy to go to law school but an instructor talked him out of it. Max Della Pia graduated and became a C-130 pilot but he left the service after five years and became an attorney. He was practicing his new profession when the Gulf War broke out and he felt the call back to service.
In the years following the Vietnam era, Don Cope served in multiple places around the world for the Air Force, running aircraft maintenance operations and teaching. After he left the service, he continued doing the same in the private sector.
Operation Eagle Claw was a pivotal moment in Special Operations history. Unconventional warfare had been ignored after the Vietnam War and three veterans of that conflict, who were also deeply involved with the attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran, reveal the inside story of the planning and tragic outcome. George Ferkes, Roland Guidry and Keith Nightingale each offer a unique perspective on the events.
Bill Greinke was a new lieutenant being groomed for captain, a needed commodity in Vietnam. He was serving in Berlin, surrounded by Russians and East Germans and he had no problem driving his Camaro right through them.
When he got to the pool part of the Recon tryout, Shawn Patrick was the only prospect left. He refused to give in, stayed in the water and kept fighting and was rewarded with a slot at Amphibious Reconnaissance School. It was tough but he made it through and joined the Recon Marines.
The first job for squad leader Olin Rossman was patrolling a road that linked his unit's base with the Mogadishu airport. Then his platoon began to rotate through that task, serving as a quick reaction force, and also providing convoy security. Some more up-to-date night optical devices would have helped a lot. (Caution: strong language.)
As an MP in Cold War Berlin, Gary Howard witnessed the stark divide of East and West. His job was mostly regular police work but there were occasional incidents, like the time one of the MP's tried to smuggle his girlfriend out of East Berlin.
The war damage had been cleaned up on the free side of the Berlin Wall but the other side looked pretty bad, according to radar technician George Carrigan. His unit operated and maintained the ground control radar and control towers at the air base in Erding. He recalls when a secret U2 reconnaissance plane made an emergency landing.
