Erik Leeds

Man: That's pretty good, okay. We are rolling.

Evan: Okay, wonderful. I'll come and get you when we're done. Thank you so much.

Man: Sure.

Evan: Okay, so I am Evan Reedsom. I'm sitting here with,

Man: I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Evan: That's okay.

Man: I'd rather stop you now before, Never killed the phone.

Evan: Ah thank you, yeah.

Man: Okay now we are truly rolling.

Evan: All right, thanks again. Okay, take two. So I'm Evan Reedsom and I'm sitting here with Eric Leeds. Today's July 21st, 2016. And Eric, we're gonna have an interview, talk about your experience in the military. The basic kind of trajectory of the interview will be you know, 1:00your upbringing, pre-service, where you were from, what your upbringing was like, your exposure to the military. We're gonna talk about your time in the military and perhaps your time in Iraq or any service that you did. And then typically we ask about individual's transitions back into civilian life, but since you're still in the military, maybe we just talk to your transition back to stateside service and what that's like.

Eric: It's too easy here. (Evan laughing)

Evan: There is no, I mean that's a general structure but basically we'll take the conversation where you want. It's fairly organic. So I'll try to let you talk as much as you want and if I think of anything I'll ask questions, but it's basically just an opportunity for you to share your story with us. And as I just pointed out, we'll try to implement it in some high schools. So we can start by maybe tell me where you're from?

Eric: All right, I was initially born in Newport News, Virginia in '73. My dad was actually working in shipyard there on aircraft carriers. 2:00So, from there, every three years we'd move. Go to a different part of the country, 'cause my dad started transitioning into nuclear power plants and oil pipelines. So, went from Virginia to Jersey, to Utah, back to Jersey, PA, Montana, so we moved all over the place until about 1986 and we moved to Oley Pennsylvania. And it's kinda where my base has been ever since. In the Reading area of Pennsylvania. Fairly normal family. Played sports all year long, hunt, fish, tried to be outside as much as possible. Sister was kinda the same way. Yeah, it was a fairly white bread, normal upbringing. As far as military concerns, uncles were Navy, Marine Corps, my dad was air force. My 3:00grandfather, one grandfather was Army, one grandfather was Navy. So my initial step was, I thought the Air Force was kind of pussified, now I know better, but so I joined the Navy to do a technical skill. So in '91 I active duty enlisted. Was in for four years in Newport News, ironically, where I was born, got stationed there on a pre-commissioned air craft carrier. So I got to see it go from almost done to its first actual deployment to a war zone, so, which is pretty neat. Got out for four years to get my degree, 'cause the Navy paid for it. And then came back in the Guard in 2001 and got commissioned as a lieutenant. Teach in the Reading school district and have been balancing 4:00teaching and military ever since.

Evan: Wow, okay. So, I wanna jump back a little bit. What, you said you have one sibling, a sister?

Eric: Yes.

Evan: And then was there, you said like your family, you had uncles and your father served, was their an expectation of service?

Eric: No, there never was an expectation, it was just, it was always put out there, hey I gotta, ya know, my uncles and my dad were more Vietnam era, well they were Vietnam era. But there was never an expectation for it. It was this is what we did, it helped us out, we learned skills, we met people, and that's how I looked at it. I went in to learn a skill, 'cause I was an electrician, which I knew would pay off if I decided to go that route when I got off of active duty. And I knew I could get my college paid for. So, I got to do my service, learn a skill, have a good time, see the world, if I took that after retirement, great. If I got out, I did what I needed to do 5:00from there. But no, there was never an expectation that that was what I was going to have to do.

Evan: So you said in high school you played sports. You kinda had like traditional, what I would call a traditional Pennsylvania upbringing, where you go hiking or hunting and fishing and you do sports. With this last part you talked about like electricity. Electricity what you did in the Navy?

Eric: Yes.

Evan: Was that something you were interested in in high school as well?

Eric: I was always into, it was kinda weird 'cause I was on a academic track, but I was also on the construction side, architectural design, drafting, 'cause both those things interested me. Just the hands on aspect. So, yeah, I mean, I took the math and science for the electrical, which was really interesting. And then I got to apply it as an electrician 'cause you're running cables, making things work, fixing things as they break. So I, that really, it was neat because it was something that you could see, feel and touch, but there was still an academic side to it so, you weren't completely seen as a knuckle-dragger. So, so, that's why I went with the electrical route.

Evan: So, in '91 did you say?

Eric: Yes.

Evan: You joined the Navy.

Eric: Yes.

Evan: And your MOS for that was what?

Eric: Well it was electrician's mate, so I was an electrician. Yeah, a Navy electrician.

Evan: And what did that entail? What's that mean?

Eric: It's neat, the Navy's pretty neat for when they say you're an electrician, you will do everything from change a light bulb to rewind an electric motor, to fix elevators to work on hydraulics, pneumatics, fuel things, catapults for the aircraft for the aircraft carriers. Anything that had to do with power up to a certain point, you could work on. Like we weren't allowed to go work anything near the reactor, but we could work on sub, sub or distribution stations off the reactor. We could do everything up to and including all the radars and 7:00things like that, but not work on a radar. So anything imaginable that ran on power was what you could be exposed to work on. And depending upon your boat, you would either get specialized or generalized. Technically I was a specialized when I was on the aircraft carrier, 'cause we dealt mostly with aircraft lighting on the outside of the ship, flood lighting, and power stations. If you're on a smaller boat, you have to know how to fix everything, because there might only be three electricians, where we had 60. So,

Evan: So, all of your time was spent with aircraft carriers?

Eric: Yes, and I got to, I actually worked on deck, so during flight operations we would always be out in case something happened. So we could fix it right away.

Evan: And was that, when you said your father worked with ships, was that something that he was doing similarly, what you said, was he a civilian?

Eric: He was actually a civilian when he was working on the boats and he worked, he was an x-ray technician so he would, high pressure 8:00piping off of the reactors and things like that. Which is what he did on the civilian side when he transitioned into building nuclear power plants. He would x-ray the high pressure lines off of the reactors. 'Cause it's transitioned from his air force job, he used to do landing gear and turbines. He would inspect those.

Evan: So where do you go to school for that? Like where's basic training at for--

Eric: Um, basic training, I went to Orlando. So that doesn't seem very cool. Seems kinda cheesy but, it is, it's just hot, sticky, rains every day at three. So, I did Navy bootcamp in Orlando, which was eight weeks, and then my technical school was in Great Lakes, Illinois and that was a six months school. So and that's just above Chicago. That's a training base as well.

Evan: Is that a major base there for the Navy?

Eric: It's a training base. It's not quite as big as it used to be after some of the downsizing, but that was one of the bigger training 9:00bases at the time, yes.

Evan: And so basic training you said was eight weeks. And how long was the schooling?

Eric: Six months. And that was five days a week, eight hours a day. So it was a pretty intensive school. Because they trained you to fix everything and understand everything that would go along with a electrical degree, or an associates almost is what it was.

Evan: And at this time, this is active, this is active duty?

Eric: This is active duty, yep.

Evan: And enlisted side.

Eric: Enlisted.

Evan: Okay.

Eric: And then from Great Lakes I got stationed at Newport News on U.S.S. George Washington CVN73

Evan: And you did your entire four tour there? Or your entire--

Eric: My, yeah, the three and a half years I had left, I did on that ship from pre-commissioning through sea trials, all the way to when we went over to the Adriatic and Bosnia and the Arabian Peninsula and all that whole area in '94. We spent quite a bit of time in that area.

Evan: Okay, well, and I wanna talk about that. I mean, I'm curious, when you enlisted was there a concern, were you cognizant of the first Gulf War?

Eric: Oh I was a, was I just finishing up? I'm trying to think if I was right at the beginning of my senior year, yep, 90, 90. So it would have been the end of my junior year when the first Gulf War occurred. And I had already technically enlisted at that time. 'Cause I enlisted when I was 17, a year early. So I, fully aware of it, just didn't bother me. I was gonna be on a big boat someplace I figured, so,

Evan: And so you enlisted while it was going on. And then '94, during your tour, or your enlistment, you went to the Bosnia region.

Eric: Yeah we went between the Adriatic, through the Suez Canal up into what's that the Gulf of Oman? I think it is. Through the Straits of 11:00Hormuz and all that stuff. We did that four times? Because of the unpleasantness that was going on there. But because the carrier, except for a sub is the fastest, most effective thing on the ocean. Between the airplanes and it's just general speed. You can get back and forth really fast. So we were doing a lot of, lot of stuff over there. Not what your normal electrician knows, but working on the flight deck, you see airplanes go off armed and come back empty. You figure something happened.

Evan: Was that a fast pace in terms of both your experience on the ship, but also maybe the number of sorties that they're flying. I mean is that a pretty--

Eric: Yeah, I mean I know, nobody knew how fast the carrier was until we had to go there, and we got there pretty quick. We outran everything except for the subs that were with us. And they would throw half the planes off at dusk-ish, and they would all come back empty 12:00at around midnight-ish, most nights. They'd come back. It wasn't every day. But we'd spend a couple days in the Adriatic area, go through the Persian Gulf, which is a slow process, 'cause it's one way. Super long, super slow, and a carrier's big.

Evan: So, what's that like in terms of your daily life on a ship? I mean obviously there's the part of it that's more of the combat role once you arrive in theater, but even in the travel process of it. I mean can you describe that a little bit?

Eric: Yeah it was actually kinda, it was kinda neat. It was like a regular work day, we worked 12 hour shifts, day shift and night shift. And you go wait in line, eat breakfast, go wait in line, eat lunch. You know, typical military line stuff. But you'd just go up to your shop, and we pretty much knew what we had to work on that day 'cause everything has a scheduled maintenance plan whether it's a monthly, 13:00daily, quarterly, something like that, so you know what you have to work on. And whatever's going on for that day can dictate what you can work on either during the day or at night. And then there's always the stuff that breaks. And then that would get prioritized so, it was just like going to work every day. Just get your coffee, go up to your shop. Check out the schedule, see what we're working on, get your parts and go, it was, it was just like going to work every day. Even when we were in the combat zones it was like going to work every day. Just if the planes were out, we were responsible for stuff, you know, some of the flood lighting and the landing lights, make sure that stuff were up. But when the planes weren't flying, it was just a regular work day. Even if we were in the Adriatic or the Persian Gulf, didn't matter it's just fix stuff, check stuff.

Evan: Is, obviously there's a massive ship that we're talking about, but I mean do you have to worry about getting sick? Is there something 14:00like motion sickness that you get, or sea sickness?

Eric: We never did. I mean you can tell if a carrier's moving. Like if you sit, 'cause ours was 1100 feet long, the flight deck. So if you sat on the fan tail, which is the rear, and looked at the front, you could actually see the front going up and down. But we were only ever in I think one bad storm where the boat actually rocked back and forth really bad. But on a boat that big, you don't feel it as much. Just because it's huge. And you're looking at 6000 people on a boat underway.

Evan: And then how were the rooms? I've always--

Eric: Oh we didn't have rooms, it'd be a, it's basically, there sections, sections are blocked off sections with just bunk beds. And lockers locked on 'em. But you're not in a room. Enlisted guys didn't get rooms. Lower enlisted guys. So you were in basically it was like an open bay. Like if you're, the guys that are Army, and with my Army side, it's open bay essentially, bunk beds, three high.

Evan: And then you said 12 hours a work day. Is that five days a week or?

Eric: Seven days a week. Seven days a week at sea, yep. So your 12 hour day, seven days a week when you're out in the ocean. In port it was, like 7:30 to 4:30. Get weekends off, ever other weekend you'd have to work a day. Not a big deal, was pretty easy.

Evan: You know, I'm interested in that to talk about, the difference between these two. We can stick on, right now that that, the tour that you did take. How long is that? How long is a Navy tour typically?

Eric: Six months.

Evan: Six months.

Eric: And usually you stop in different ports. Like we were there for the 50th anniversary of D Day, so we took part in that a little bit. And traditionally in the Navy every month or so, every three weeks to a month, you'll get to go into a port for a couple days and see the 16:00sights and hang out, but our last two and a half months, we didn't pull into any ports. We just back and forth doing other things. But got to go to Israel, couple of the Greek islands. France, England.

Evan: This was separate from your other--

Eric: Prior.

Evan: Prior to that?

Eric: It was prior to going over to the Adriatic and all that stuff. That was the fun stuff before we got called up to go help out with the other things.

Evan: And were you cognizant of, you know, as you jump up on these ports, that you were training, that this was in preparation, not for the specific conflict, but there was a seriousness to it when you were out at sea?

Eric: Oh yeah, we had full, we actually had full access to CNN and all that stuff at the time. So, we had ship news, which was closed circuit stuff, they just give you an update, but we also had cable TV. So they just turn the satellite and we could watch CNN and know what 17:00was going on around the world. It wasn't like some of the older guys, didn't have any ideas what was happening. We had it. Not as good access as kids do now with the internet, but whatever we could see on CNN that's what was happening.

Evan: And so when you're over there in '94, 12 hours on, 12 hours off, seven days a week seems like a pretty vigorous routine. I mean what do you do to keep yourself mentally, physically kind of,

Eric: I would run, 'cause I'm big into running. So I would go down on the hanger deck usually and run for half hour, 45 minutes. We had, there were small gyms all over the ship. So you could go lift hop on a treadmill. At the time Sega was big, so we had little Sega football tournaments that we'd play. We'd play cards. You could keep yourself occupied enough not to get in trouble or bored.

Evan: And when you're on these missions I mean, no access to mail?

Eric: Yeah, we'd have good old traditional paper mail. So they'd fly a plane in every day, you know, it's called the COD. The COD would fly in with sacks of mail. And then we'd just take it and they actually have a post office on the ship. So we'd go down to the post office and they figure out your departments and all that, go down and pick up your mail for the day. Same as sending it out.

Evan: The ship sounds like it's like a town.

Eric: It is, it had, you know you have a normal post office, you have a bank, so if you need to cash checks, do things like get loans, try to get your funding sorted out, they had a little tiny store, so you could go down and buy little tiny, if you needed quick uniform items or if you wanted your chips, if you wanted smokes or dip or anything like that, you could run down and grab stuff like that.

Evan: And what's group look like? So an aircraft carrier, are there other ships with you?

Eric: Yeah there's uh, I have a picture at home of it, I can't remember the designations, but the carrier is the main, there's usually one 19:00or two subs that are the fast attacks not boomers, then you'll have a couple supply type ships, one or two frigate types and maybe a destroyer. I wanna say there's like 10 or 11 ships when it's all said and done. But some of them support other things. Like some of the tenders will support other parts of the group, and the subs'll be part of it. But they might do their own thing too. Yeah, it's called a battle group.

Evan: Okay. And these are pretty much, are these primarily in '94 like what are those F16s?

Eric: At the time it was, we still had F14s, we had the A6 Intruders which are pretty cool still. And the 18s were coming on line a lot more. But we still had, we had all three of those aircraft, plus the, it's called Sea Stallion helicopter. We had those. And the AWACS planes. So, a pretty good contingent aircraft on a carrier.

Evan: And so on this carrier, I get it, it's kinda seven days a week, 12 hours a day, you have your job to do. Are there other duties that you have to fulfill in case something goes wrong? You know what I mean?

Eric: Yeah, one of the things, you know, it's on a rotational schedule. You might have what's called a trouble call watch. You'd walk around with a bag of tools and anything electrical that would get messed up, you would get a call to go down there. We had different load center watches where you'd have to go down occasionally to watch the gauges and all this stuff on the load centers, especially the ones off the catapults, like critical equipment. If you got qualified high enough, which some of our, some of the junior enlisted guys like myself did, you could go down and you would be down with the reactor officers and you would do a watch down there on your component areas, like the electrical systems of the ship. And there was machinists that were down there, some of the welders, because welders actually take care 21:00of the plumbing system. So we would be down there, and it's like a centralized office and one of the reactor officers would also be over there. So you'd all kinda sit down in this area, in the bottom of the boat and watch gauges and take phone calls.

Evan: And how many floors is this? You talk about at the bottom of the boat.

Eric: We were, we weren't at the bottom bottom of the boat, but I mean we were, I think it's two, one or two decks below maybe the main deck. So it's the deck below the hanger deck. So I think it's two or three decks below the hanger deck. So to give some perspective, if you think of an aircraft carrier, the flight deck to the top of the aircraft warning lights is about 200 feet. From the flight deck to the water is 80 feet about. And then below that is, I don't wanna say, but I'm gonna say like another 80 feet below the water.

Evan: And this is all divided up in decks.

Eric: And it's all sectioned off, yeah. And a lot of that, you know when you think of a boat, they do it for compartmentalizing for like a battle situation or they can lock 'em down so they don't take on as much water. So that's the premise behind having the deck systems and the ballistic water doors.

Evan: You're not a claustrophobic person? That seems like somewhat of a,

Eric: No, I mean carriers are big. I was on a sub and that was tiny. But carrier's so big you don't think about it. Even when you're down really low in a bilge or something replacing a pump, it's still a pretty good size hole you're in.

Evan: So you do maybe, you said a six month tour, to go out there, is like a month approximately to get there? Or less than that?

Eric: Oh it's a lot less than that.

Evan: Is that right?

Eric: To go from Virginia to England, I don't even know if I'm supposed to say how long it took. But I know how long it took us. We got 23:00there in three and a half days. Not bad for a boat. Going across the Atlantic, but yeah it was three and a half days.

Evan: Okay so the majority of your six months then, is actually in the theater there, doing your mission or participating in some mission.

Eric: Yeah, yeah.

Evan: And then maybe you could speak if you're familiar with a little bit more of what was going on in Bosnia at the time?

Eric: At the time I was pretty ignorant of what was going on in Bosnia. I mean I understood a little bit of it, but I was 19 years old, didn't really give a shit what was going on. I mean,

Evan: Was it still going on when you left? When your tour was over was it still active?

Eric: And it's funny 'cause I know more now about what was going on before, than what I did then. And there's still issues in the Bosnia area. It's not as, I mean obviously the genocides aren't occurring but there's still issues. And a lot of that comes from you know, the 24:00Baltic area, it's called and you got the Gat region which is Georgia, Turkey, Armenia, that whole area kind of, just has issues because of its proximity to Russia and being part of Russia from before that. Which is funny 'cause 20 some odd years later, I know all kinds of stuff about the history of that, but when I was there, I didn't give a shit. It's like I'm here to fix your stuff. Which is kind of ironic, but yeah, I didn't know a lot about what was going on, unless I saw it on CNN.

Evan: And do you think that, that lack of awareness, was that common?

Eric: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I think the average age on an aircraft carrier is 20, when you look at it. Between your crew, most of the crew is kids essentially. You have some senior officers, but it's, the Navy's different than the Army. Officers are less, I mean your pilots are all obviously officers, but there's not nearly as many officers on a Navy vessel as you would think. It's mostly enlisted guys 25:00running the boat. They'll take their orders and then go work their magic, completely, it's a lot different than the Army.

Evan: Well yeah, I was gonna say, in terms of your job is there a lot of autonomy in that sense then?

Eric: There was. I mean we saw our Navy lieutenant so it's equal to an Army captain, he was around a lot because he just liked being around equipment, fixing things and looking around. So we would see him more often than not. And I say that, we'd probably see him once a week. He would just come and check on us, but we didn't have a lieutenant or junior officer that was just in charge of us. He was in charge of a department, but we never really saw him. Unless he was lost, which was pretty common. They get lost all the time, it's a joke about 26:00officers. Yeah so we would do our own schedules and do what we had to have fixed. And we would just report to them what we did. We actually for the shop I worked in, had more interaction with the air boss, which is the equivalent of a full bird colonel. 'Cause that was his flight deck and he wanted to make sure everything on it worked. So we actually reported to him every day out at sea.

Evan: And I mean for someone who doesn't know the job that well, in terms of like your responsibilities, was it always a text book kind of solution, or is there somewhat kind of an ingenuity that you have to think on your feet and fix things that you wouldn't anticipate?

Eric: Oh it was a little bit of both. Yeah, I mean some things are text book. You know, you have to do, this process is how you're going to fix this. But, you're also 10,000 miles out at sea. You can't run to the hardware store and get something, so you had to use some ingenuity 27:00to fix it, and the neat thing about an aircraft carrier is you could have the ingenuity and you think okay, I need this, this and this, well, we have a full machine shop. So you could draw up rough blueprints of what you needed made, go down, talk to the machinists, and they'd put it in their queue. And they'd fix it for ya. Or if you needed something welded, you know hey, put in a work order, the welders would come up and preheat whatever needed to be preheated, fix it, boom boom boom, and then you can go back in and fix your stuff. So, there was some ingenuity. You know the military does have its textbook things you could have to do, but if you don't have parts on hand, you have to figure out how to fix it. Which was also pretty cool sometimes.

Evan: I'm curious, my own curiosity here, was this all Navy on the boat? Are there civilians?

Eric: There were some civilians and they were tech specialists mostly for weapons and radar stuff. Commo gear. Marines are always on boats. 28:00Especially the big ones, so we had probably the equivalent of a heavy platoon of Marines, and they were there not for ship security, I mean they say they're for shop security, but maybe half of 'em are ship security, half, but it's like mini QRF. Navy Seals, EOD, occasionally we would get air force on. We did some joint exercises with the 101st Airborne, just for equipment balance, seeing what you could haul, what you could store for future operations, for mobility stuff. At time it seemed pretty progressive. 'Cause I brought it up in some of my Army courses. They were like really, we did that? I'm like yeah, they bring on small howitzers, jeeps, the first Humvees they bring on to see what they can carry, 'cause a Chinook'll land on it pretty easily. So they'd have a couple Chinooks, some Humvees, couple cannons and some Army cats. And see how fast, it was like rapid deployment stuff.

Evan: So yeah, could you explain so we're clear. I mean you said QRF?

Eric: Quick Reaction Force.

Evan: So is that Marines on the boat?

Eric: Mm hm, yeah. So if something bad happens these guys (snaps fingers) can get there pretty quickly.

Evan: They had their own,

Eric: They have their own area. Stay out, don't go in it. If you go down there expect to get punched in the face. Unless you get invited, don't go down there. Same thing with EOD and Seals. Don't go in their area, they will punch you in the face and throw you in the ocean.

Evan: And all that stuff, all that equipment that you go the, they bring that in on helicopter, or do they load it up before you even,

Eric: Helicopters, they helicopter it in.

Evan: Hmm, wow.

Eric: Yep.

Evan: So you go, this is in '94 that you did a tour?

Eric: Yeah.

Evan: Okay, so this is toward the end of your,

Eric: Yeah, 'cause I got out in '95, yeah.

Evan: Okay, so you did this tour and then came back to New Jersey?

Eric: Newport News, Virginia. Well, Norfolk at the time, came back to Norfolk. Think I had six or eight months left on my enlistment. 30:00Couldn't get promoted, was passed over twice. Which was a unique thing in the Navy, you test, you paper test for your rank. And you compete against every electrician in the Navy, so whatever the slots are that are available, is your, is where you're gonna fall. And you can pass your test, you can get an A on it. But if there's only two slots and they take the top two guys, that's it. So making rank was kinda tough in the Navy. And transferring around got really hard in the 90s 'cause they downsizing. So they wanted me to do another four years on the same boat doing the same thing. Got the ass of that, said, ya know, I like Virginia, kinda like the boat, but I need a change. And they wouldn't do anything for me. They wouldn't even change my rate. I wanted to become CB and they wouldn't do it.

Evan: What's a CB?

Eric: A CB is the construction side, it's the land side of the Navy. And I wanted to move over and be an electrician for that. But they 31:00wouldn't do it. So, got out, moved back to Pennsylvania, went to Kutztown, for free.

Evan: In '95 you went to Kutztown?

Eric: Yeah in '95 I started at Kutztown.

Evan: And you went there for what?

Eric: Went there four years and got a degree that seemed good at the time, but I got an elementary ed degree, I have never taught elementary education, 'cause those little kids scared me, they broke me. So then I went right to, taught a year in a vo tech, in Oley, and then for the last 16 years I've taught middle school in the Reading school district.

Evan: So the four years you spent at Kutztown,

Eric: Four years I spent at Kutztown, and I was out of the military at the time, altogether. Out altogether. So I had almost a five year break in service before I came back in.

Evan: And you had like a G.I. Bill from the Navy.

Eric: Yep, yeah, the G.I. Bill paid for my entire degree, which was really nice.

Evan: And you said initially, that was one of the,

Eric: That was one of the selling points, yeah. 'Cause I knew I could either get it, I could get my college degree at any time. I could get 32:00it when I was 38 or I could get it when I was 23 or 25, whenever I went. Didn't matter, I knew it was always there.

Evan: So then you did your four years, was it '99 approximately?

Eric: Yep, graduated in '99, yep.

Evan: And then you said you did sample a little bit of the elementary school?

Eric: For student teaching, yes, student teaching I sampled elementary, realized I didn't care for it. And one of my first jobs was a long term substitute teaching ninth grade vocational education. 'Cause I came from a construction background, I was an electrician in the Navy, so they hired me right away as a long term sub, and taught ninth grade.

Evan: And what did that entail when you say vocational training, I mean the stuff you're talking about, you teach a variety of subjects?

Eric: Yeah, I actually taught a variety of things, 'cause the ninth grade program is an introductory program so I taught welding, electrical, masonry, carpentry, some of the automotive stuff. So we did autobody automotive. And everything was like, it was like a week 33:00long course that you do with students. So every week they would get a new topic and you'd just do the basics with them. So if one week was plumbing, you'd break out PVC and copper and go through the purple goop make things stick, or you 'em to weld a little bit or solder. You know, get scrap metal and teach 'em how to use the grinders for machining. Whack away with nails and hammers some of the saws. You know, you just expose it to 'em, so that way when they get to 10th grade, if they still wanted to look at one of the hard trades, or an automotive trade, they had idea of kind of what it would entail and so they could make an educated guess or decision when they went to 10th grade.

Evan: And did you find that those skills transferred? I mean obviously the training you had in electricity transferred, but I wonder if the discipline, I mean we all have all these military values that we talk about in terms of codes of conduct and stuff, did you find that helped you be a better educator?

Eric: I think just being well rounded helped me. I mean, everything you mentioned, you know, code of conduct and things like that are big into it, I just think you know, learning how to work with different people, learning how to work on different things, just being a more rounded individual, makes me a better teacher. Ya know, I know the kids at school make fun of me 'cause I'm a white guy, but I know more about what happens downtown than they do, and they live there. You know, I'm not afraid to go downtown and go to a restaurant, go to a bar, go to a concert. I'll go down there, I don't care, because I've been in some really shitty places that make Reading look like a five star hotel. It's just on how you interact with people and deal with 'em. And I think that's, my approach to teaching is more that way, it's more being able to interact with them, than being a dictator. Do this, do this, do this, ya know? Figure out what's really, figure out the kids 35:00and then go from there. Which is kinda how I went through the, still do, go through the military, figure people out, what do they need, what are their expectations? What are they coming with? And then work your plan from there.

Evan: So at the time, did they know? I mean, we'll talk about, I know right now, you're teaching at Reading, when you did the long term sub, did they know you were a veteran?

Eric: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 'Cause I, trying to think, no I was still out then. The kids knew. Yeah, I mentioned that I was in the Navy, this is where I learned my rough welding, my rough, you know you kinda learn just from watching people how to do stuff. So I said, yeah, this is how I learned. And I've always pushed it. 'Cause one of the guys, the other shop teacher across the hall, he was Marine Corps. So we were always pushing, well making fun of each other 'cause I was in the Navy, he was in the Marines, but always pushing the kids that the military's a great option. You can keep going with the trade you picked in any branch of service and right away have you know, an 36:00insurance, place to stay, college fund and keep building on your trade, and maybe retire from that, and then you're a master electrician let's say, or pipe fitter, and you can start your own business as a, with no overhead, no nothing. I mean you come with all that experience and you've had a pay check for the last 10 or 12 years. So yeah, we've, I pushed it a lot.

Evan: And that was a practical option for that district Oley?

Eric: Yeah the vo tech actually serviced the entire county, except for Reading school district and Muhlenberg school district.

Evan: So this is 2000 that you're doing the vo tech?

Eric: Yep, 2000 and then 2000, the end of 2000 was when I got hired at, in the Reading school district. And I started there as an industrial arts slash shop teacher.

Evan: And that was in middle school?

Eric: Yep, sixth, seventh and eighth grade.

Evan: Okay, and then you said you re-enlisted though, when did that happen?

Eric: 2000, January of, December, January of that year. So it's either right at the end of 2000 or beginning of 2001 I went joined Pennsylvania National Guard with the intent of becoming an officer. So 'cause I missed the comradery. I missed some of the structure. I just missed the lifestyle side of it. Navy wasn't an option 'cause I saw how reserve officers were treated in the Navy and it wasn't very good. Always admired my friends that were in the Army. They also have, I knew they had maintenance and everything like that, 'cause I became a maintenance officer, so coming into something I kinda knew, and as an officer, I saw good officers and bad officers. And I saw 38:00what could be done as a good officer. Hoping I could be one of those, I wanted to come in and make sure that guys that were in enlisted could get treated right, got pointed in the right direction. And that was my goal and I think I've been pretty good at it so far. But yeah, I came back, that time frame. I got commissioned in 2002 'cause I did the, the long program for commissioning. They have an eight week program and then the year long program. And because of school, college courses and things like that, I couldn't do the eight week. So I took the year to get commissioned. And in 2002 I became a Second Lieutenant.

Evan: So it seems like once you joined the Navy, You don't have to redo basic training then?

Eric: No, I didn't. They started making some guys do it. But because I did officer candidate school, and because I did it on the traditional side, did drill weekends and stuff, there wasn't a problem with me picking things up. Because I'd be able, I'd have time to do 39:00it. And we've had guys come right out of the Navy, 'cause talk about later, I was commander of the Officer Candidate School until recently. So certain guys that were from the Navy actually sometimes did better because they paid better attention because they didn't know the Army stuff, so they would pay better attention. Which is kinda what I did 'cause I knew I'd get lost if I didn't pay attention.

Evan: And all that time in service transfers?

Eric: Yes, yep, yep.

Evan: So where does that, you said it's OCS, Officer Candidate School?

Eric: Yes.

Evan: Where does that take place? It's a long, long,

Eric: Yeah, all the, everything in Pennsylvania takes place in Fort Indiantown Gap. And most states have some form of an Officer Candidate School so the states have a capability to commission their own guys. Takes place at Fort Indiantown Gap, they have, all the instructors are 40:00from Pennsylvania. They're all officers or senior enlisted guys. And they're all there to try to make, make and assess officers. And it's not a given. You don't have, not everybody makes it.

Evan: For a variety of reasons they might not make it?

Eric: They might not make it for academic reasons, leadership reasons, you might not even get accepted into the program because you can't pass a background check. Maybe you have too many speeding tickets. Failed a drug test. Yeah, there's a number, number of reasons you can't make it. But a lot of it gets down to academic failure or leadership failures, why you don't make it. But you're constantly being assessed.

Evan: And do you think you were a non-traditional candidate or do you think?

Eric: Yeah, I was non-traditional. One, because I was, I'd been out for a couple years, I was Navy, and I was doing the long program, so 41:00that was a little non-traditional, but age-wise, there's no, when you look at it from that standpoint, you can up until the last year I think the age changed, you could be anywhere from 22 to 40 and go through the program. And I think they just changed the age to 37 or 38 now.

Evan: And you went for electricity again or some version of that?

Eric: No, 'cause the Army doesn't have electricians and as an officer you can't specialize in one certain tiny area, so I went with what I knew, and I went with maintenance. So, and that can take any form, you know, wheels, trucks, generators, and it just so happened the company that I got assigned to after I got commissioned did wheels, trucks, generators, you name it, they were working on it. And that's where I started my life as a lieutenant in a maintenance company.

Evan: So, then assume at the vo tech, you were well equipped. You said you taught all different kinds of subjects--

Eric: Yeah it's funny 'cause actually one of the kids that wound up in my platoon a couple years later was a student at the vo tech that I 42:00taught at. And a couple, one of the girls I coached in track was in my company. It was kinda scary 'cause I tried to get as far away as possible from the Oley Valley when I did my Army stuff, and then run into kids that I had in school. But you know, it's the Army, it's inevitable. But yeah, it was, because we had our own machine shop, we had carpenters, fabric workers. Because it was a pretty big maintenance company, so we could fix just about anything.

Evan: So, can you explain a little bit of what the National Guard, what that looks like in terms of your responsibilities? It's not like an active duty, where you're on every day right?

Eric: No, and it's funny because that is the misconception. They say one weekend a month and you're good to go. I learned pretty quickly that as an officer, if you're not talking to your commander once a week, or at least once every other week, 'cause that was a little before email was big, you're messing up. Because he needs shit done. He can't do it himself 'cause he's normally a guy too. He's got a job and the 43:00Army, the National Guard does have full time staff, but there's things that you know, they can't necessarily always do so, yeah, you're doing stuff at least once a week. Maybe twice a week depending upon what your responsibility level is. And as a lieutenant it wasn't too bad. It was usually just once a week. And then a meeting before drill, and then the weekend. It wasn't too tough. Maybe a couple things to do in between, but nothing hard.

Evan: And where were you stationed at? So I know Fort Indiantown Gap you might go there, was that your home base?

Eric: Yeah, the home base was there. Because that's, the maintenance facility that my company was at was actually part of the company. It was kind of a weird situation, but yeah, everything was right at Fort Indiantown Gap. The machine shops, all the welding, everything was right there. So they just, when the soldiers would come for a drill weekend, they would essentially just walk across the parking lot, go rebuild a motor, go build a truck bed, do whatever they had to do. So, it was pretty convenient. Wasn't until 2005 when that changed so, 44:00That's when I got--

Evan: Uh, that's when what?

Eric: That's when I got deployed so,

Evan: And I wanna get to that in one moment. I'm just curious if you could speak on, as a lieutenant, as a young lieutenant, a young officer, what is your responsibility? Are you working with a platoon level?

Eric: Yeah, it's strictly platoon level and when you first get there, it's just trying to figure out what you're doing. Because you've been trained, but you don't know what the hell you're doing because you have E6s, E7s, warrant officers that are very good at what they do and they don't want you there, helping them. So once you get all that personality stuff figured out, you're just kind of checking on their training, making sure the training that is supposed to happen is happening. I was always big on knowing what my guys were doing. And not, 45:00that's not to say, I'm not spying on 'em, I would go out and work on a truck. I would got out and figure out how to uncage brakes on an 18 wheeler, because I wanted to know what they were doing so if the commander asked me a question about something technical and one of the guys wasn't there, I could speak reasonably intelligently to it. And I think that helped build a better rapport with my guys 'cause I wouldn't sit around like some of the other lieutenants and drink coffee and make paper airplanes and do stupid shit. I would be out with them, doing their work. Come back go hey, we need to, because it also helped me refine timing for, like if the old man said we need to do this, this and this. I'm like well this takes this long, so we need a little more time for this. Maybe my platoon can swing in later today so they can finish up whatever we're doing, we'll come in and we can take care of that. So it kinda helped with that aspect of it. 'Cause you're just a manager. Officers are just managers, managers of time, managers of paperwork. At least, unless your infantry. If you're a 46:00combat arms guy it's slightly different. But when you're on the support side, you're more of a manager. You're making sure that the training they need is getting done, whatever your soldiers need, you get them. You're there to make their life easier and make sure that they can get trained. So, and then you tie in personal issues. You're there as, you know, if they wanna talk to somebody, so you can bring it up the chain, you're always there to talk to 'em.

Evan: And you spoke a little bit about this earlier. Was there a major shift in terms of cultures from the Navy to the Army?

Eric: Yeah it's funny 'cause in the Navy once you hit E7, your uniform changes and your expectation for doing any work changes. Like you are, you are strictly a supervisor. You won't eat with your guys anymore, you have a special mess, you get your own room now, you're 47:00special. And people saw that as like wow, you're awesome. And they're called chiefs, chief petty officer. Chief's god, 'cause it's hard to get. It's really hard to get. All right, I remember I was petty officer third class, E4. I could tell an E6, an O1, an O2 to go fuck themselves. Because I was a technical expert, get out of my way, this is what I'm doing. I'd probably get yelled at for being insubordinate, but you had that kind of power. Switch over to the Army, you got the E4 mafia and they just run around kinda clueless. They know what's going on, but they have no responsibility. They don't have quite the responsibility. The biggest thing I saw, surprised the shit out of me, is when we went to the field. I figured all the E7s and above would disappear, all the officers would disappear. Nah everybody's just rolling their shit out in the dirt like everybody else. I'm like oh. They're not special here. So it was that, and I think 48:00that kinda, the way the Navy's set up works for the Navy, the way the Army's set up, works for the Army. As far as the rank structure. Some of it probably has to do with numbers and responsibility and things like that, but you're with your people all the time. Which works for me, 'cause that's the way I liked it. Wasn't until recently they made me an office jockey and I didn't like it anymore. But yeah, that was, didn't bother me a bit. It was just surprisingly, that culture that in the Army E7 will do whatever they have to do. Or in the Navy an E7 would look at you and tell you you better figure this out, 'cause I'm not coming out to help you.

Evan: And basically there are a similar number of steps? With the Army and the Navy?

Eric: Yeah, I mean,

Evan: E9 I guess, right? Is the highest?

Eric: It's the same, it's just how they view them. And I'm not saying all chiefs. 'Cause I have a lot of friends that are still chiefs and 49:00they do a lot of work, but they're technical experts. They're not out there, grunts. E7s in the Army are also technical experts, but they're gonna work. It's just, it's just a mindset to how they, it's just how they're set up.

Evan: So this is all 2002 you said you get your commission, you receive your commission?

Eric: Yeah, yep.

Eric: And that's as a second lieutenant?

Eric: Yep.

Evan: And While you're getting that training, are you with a unit or you're just going--

Eric: No, I was assigned to a unit, 'cause I had to be assigned to a unit when I first came back in the guard, but I was never ever gonna be part of that unit. And they knew that, I explained that before I went, there was actually a unit on River Road. They knew my intentions and I said, is this gonna cause any problems? Like nah, we're cool with it. So that was really good from my standpoint. 'Cause they knew I wasn't gonna be part of it. There's different routes to go in the National Guard to do that. You can actually come in the guard and not 50:00have a unit, but if you don't finish OCS, you will be put in a unit, probably not of your choosing. So, you don't get as, you don't get quite as many options if you come in without having a slight base for a unit.

Evan: So you finished with this in 2002. And then you said 2005 you activated?

Eric: 2005, there's a whole, the whole goodness in Pennsylvania's being deployed. So they need a maintenance platoon. They need a track vehicle platoon. I'm not even the track platoon leader. I was platoon leader for another platoon. But the other two guys were incompetent. So I drew the short straw, wasn't real happy about it. But all the guys I was going with were great. And we wound up going down to 51:00Mississippi as just a platoon and got attached to a company that was a hodgepodge of platoons from around the country. Which is a recipe for disaster. We were with, ya know, second brigade for Pennsylvania. Now there was battalions that were from other states, but my particular company that I got put with as a maintenance company was a hodgepodge from Tennessee, Ohio and Pennsylvania. And even the Tennessee units weren't from the same unit. They were from different parts of the state. The irony being if they would have just deployed my unit, they would have had all of those components there for them. But whatever rocket scientist came up with this plan, that's what they did.

Evan: So yeah there's that saying, right? There's not the right way or the wrong way, there's the Army way. Is there a reason why they did that or just--

Eric: That wasn't even,

Evan: way it worked out.

Eric: They, I think somebody was testing modularity. Because they were saying you guys are component, there's lots of debate, it's mind 52:00numbing to try to figure it out. They said you're composite, you're component repair companies, we should be able to pull it out and do whatever we need to. But that was never the basis for how a component repair company was made. It just so happened that you could take a platoon of track mechanics, a platoon of wheel mechanics, armor, motor pool guys, and a headquarters and smash it together because, you got your platoon sergeant, your lieutenants, your warrants for each one. Does it work on paper? Sure. But you have no homogenous happiness that's gonna happen there. And that's kinda what happened.

Evan: So you go to Mississippi,

Eric: Mississippi for, we were in Mississippi for four months 'cause we were a little late getting there. Month in California for desert training. Good old Fort Irwin. And then flew to Kuwait, and then a year in Iraq.

Evan: So the four months in Mississippi, what do you do there for four months?

Eric: You do, they call it, there's different train up exercises, so depending upon what kind of unit you're in, like the tanks have to go to gunnery ranges to validate the tanks, and the gunners to make sure they know what they're doing. Same with the field artillery guys. Support units, you're not going there to learn how to fix anything, you're just going there to have your time wasted in my opinion. 'Cause you don't need four months to do a lot of these things, there's better ways to do it. And they do know that now. But, at the time it was just, you know, a lot of times we would just sit around for four or five hours until somebody thought of something for us to do. So you might go out to a convoy lane to learn how to do a convoy in the woods, which don't exist in Iraq. Or maybe you would do something useful that day, and they would take you through what's called a mount site which is like a little mini city to learn how to maybe inspect people, 54:00talk to people and do things like that. But that was, it was four months in Mississippi doing things like that. You know, there were units that were doing legitimate things, because that's where the gunnery ranges were. The rail head for all the equipment was close by, so it was convenient. Support units had a little bit less of a good time because there's not, you're not really training doing your jobs. You're doing random stuff.

Evan: And then you did a month in, out by Death Valley, is that where Fort Irwin is?

Eric: It's in southern California, not too far, it's half way between Vegas and L.A.. And that that's all desert training. It's just basically doing similar things, but in the desert. So, but there at least the guys could work on equipment, because they were running missions every day. So they would get attached. Like my guys got spread out to a couple different little places on support teams so they 55:00could look at the equipment every day. Which was useful. So my guys actually got to spin wrenches while we were there. And it's also while I was there that I started getting transitioned into a staff job that I didn't know was coming my way. Because I showed a propensity to not be an idiot.

Evan: So can you explain what you mean by that when you say staff job?

Eric: There's uh, you don't work with your guys anymore. You get put in an office and you start, you don't worry about the individual, you worry about more big picture stuff. Luckily when I got finally deployed, I was on the same base as my guys. And I was co-located pretty close to 'em. So I could still check on 'em every day. But I wound up doing support operations as a lieutenant, usually that's like a captain's job. But basically what I did is I got a truck platoon and it was kinda like the movie Air America, if you need it we'll get it. Or if you want it, we'll get it. If you need trucks to run your mission, okay I get you trucks. Can you get me security and we would run 56:00all over the middle of Iraq, all over the place. Worked civilians, air force, special forces, Marine Corps, Army, and kinda running, you know, there was regular missions where you gotta go to different bases once or twice a week. I'd run those and any mission in between that would come up, special or otherwise. If I could help 'em out I would. If I knew how to get the equipment that they needed, I could make a couple phone calls, and we could get shit, stuff sorted out.

Evan: And you were a first lieutenant at this time?

Eric: I was a first lieutenant, yeah.

Evan: And so when you leave California, what base do you go to in Iraq?

Eric: We were in Ramadi, the city of Ramadi in 2005. According to Time Magazine the most dangerous place in the world so, so I spent a year there.

Evan: And this is northwest of Baghdad?

Eric: Yeah, yep, it's right where the Tigris and the Euphrates come together-ish. Used to be really nice. Not any more.

Evan: And this is the time when car bombs are becoming popular, correct?

Eric: Oh yeah, yeah.

Evan: IEDs?

Eric: Yeah, lost a couple friends that way.

Evan: Car bombs or?

Eric: Well, no, just the IEDs in general blowing up. Blowing up Humvees, blowing up Brads, Bradleys.

Evan: And Bradleys are a track vehicle?

Eric: Bradley track, yeah. With the 25 mm bushmaster on top, the one with the fast gun. Yeah, they go up pretty fast. But yeah, IEDs and car bombs, and truck bombs were big where we were. They would fill dump trucks with explosives, pack 'em with dirt to hide 'em. So they were tough to pick up.

Evan: What month do you get there?

Eric: I got there a week, late June, late June 'cause we, I celebrated the fourth of July by myself in a tent. Yep, so I got there late June of 2005. And I as in Ramadi for 11 months. And then I got shipped to Kuwait to do retrograde equipment. So they bring the equipment 58:00back, luckily I got to bring most of my platoon with me and all we did was we'd service the vehicles, make sure they were spick and span and, and that was all, that was the brigade's vehicles that were coming back. We'd put 'em on a boat and bring 'em home.

Evan: And what's Ramadi like in terms of base life? Is this like Mosul's pretty big, Anaconda's up there, Victory's pretty big.

Eric: It's a moderate, it's not a huge base. It's not like an Anaconda or like when you get down to Kuwait, those bases. It's a moderate size base. It was actually an Iraqi base. River on one side, highway on the other. Desert-ish, kind of on a triangle. And it was a rough neighborhood. Really really rough neighborhood. Somebody didn't get killed every day, but it was almost every other day somebody was 59:00getting killed, either getting blown up or snipered.

Evan: From your base or from--

Eric: From our base, yeah. They would shoot into the base. They would mortar, mortars every day would come in.

Evan: And that's a Sunni area? Is that why?

Eric: They just didn't like the Americans being there. And it was weird because we talked to the Marines that had been there and they said the year prior, they used to go out in thin skin humvees and they would have lunch at some of the stands. And then this really weird transition happened late 2004, early 2005 where it just got really really bad and violent in that area. They didn't care for the Americans at all, at all. By the time we left it had settled down a little bit. We can get into the politics of the National Guard and the Army, or National Guard versus regular Army, but after we left, we know it got bad again. 'Cause regular Army came in, and they do things a little 60:00different. National Guard guys are more people persons. 'Cause we come with, ya know, we left our job yesterday, we'd like to go back to our job. Whereas regular Army, fuck you guys, this is our job, blow shit up and break stuff.

Evan: So what, you know and then in the Navy you were saying when you were on tour it was these 12 hour days, seven days a week. Is that a similar experience in Ramadi?

Eric: It depends on what you do. My mechanics, when they were out, they would just work a regular, regular day shift. Eight to four, eight to five, no watches for them really. And again, it'd all depend on what you did. I was kind of a one main show, I didn't have a staff. So there were certain times I'd go three or four days straight, like when they had the first presidential elections, I had trucks going different places, I had forklifts and cranes out doing different set up for concrete barriers and stations. So I had to be available when 61:00other trucks would come in, or somebody would call in. So I'd go three or four days at a time without sleeping. Try to always get my guys to sleep. My truck drivers. I'd make sure the drivers and all that stuff would get it, but whatever rotation was coming in, or whoever needed shit, I had to be available until it was over.

Evan: Much contact with your family?

Eric: Oh yeah I mean, I had, now 2005, you know, so I have internet. I could go over to the sat phones, call home. Time difference was always a thing, but yeah, if I needed to call home, I could call home. Email I had, I had email every day 'cause I had access to it 'cause of my work. So if my wife felt like talking to me, she would.

Evan: Were those things that you looked forward to doing or were those difficult? Or both?

Eric: It depended. It would depend what was going on. Sometimes it wasn't worth calling home, other times it was nice. You know, anybody 62:00that's been in for a while would tell ya the same thing. Sometimes it's just you don't feel like listening to shit. You have other worries right at the moment. But you feel obligated to call, let 'em know you're okay.

Evan: So you get a break at some point?

Eric: Yeah I like,

Evan: To go home?

Eric: I took a break, I decided to come home. Got a 10 day break. A lot of my guys didn't wanna come home because they didn't wanna upset the routine because they had little kids, so they'd go to Kutter for a couple days, but they still got a break. You always had the option for a break about halfway through. And they usually tried to do it like between Thanksgiving and Christmas. 'Cause it's a lot of guys they're trying to transition in and out so, you just pick when you'd like to go and then they'd see if they could work it. Yeah, I came home for 10 days. And then went back.

Evan: And you say you were outside the wire a lot? You said like kinda daily you were--

Eric: I actually wasn't. I would go, and the way Ramadi was set up, there was a in and out, but you could get out of the base and nobody 63:00even knew you were out because of different ways in and out. But no, I was what they would call a fobbit. But I had access in and out to a couple special forces bases, some of the Iraqi bases, I would go out of there. Which doesn't seem like a lot, but when you're running around within a thousand meters of the city in a tiny little Toyota pickup truck, as a lone guy, you know, it was stupid but, had shit to do so, I did a lot of stuff by myself outside of the general security of the FOB.

Evan: And so you'd go out like and get material that you might need or go see somebody that--

Eric: Yeah I'd have to go talk to somebody, go find something, make sure this was doing this, doing that. I went out, you know, I had to go out every now and again either go hang out with the Marines or go talk to some of the Army envoys on a different post or go talk to my 64:00commander someplace. So you know, once or twice a month, I was in an official convoy.

Evan: And these are in up-armored Humvees at this point?

Eric: At that point yeah.

Evan: I mean besides the pickup trucks you mentioned, but I mean traditionally the convoys are armored?

Eric: Yeah, even if they, we had some of the initial bolt-on kits, if anybody knows what the bolt-ons were. It was basically armor that was designed for the truck, but it was bolted on. It wasn't part of the truck originally. And then we started getting some of the better trucks that the actual cabs were armor. It wasn't this Mad Max looking stuff.

Evan: And so you said that that's a pretty hot area though.

Eric: It was, it was bad, yeah, it was pretty bad, yeah.

Evan: And primarily IEDs?

Eric: Yep, IEDs daily. Like if you watched the one show on National Geographic, the IED guys, those guys are out all the time. Clearing routes for people. And they, you know, you could hear 'em go off all the time. But they're good at it. They know how to make 'em. Yeah, 65:00they were good at it.

Evan: Were they doing like EFPs, did you see those there? They have like those Iranian kinda, right they'd puncture holes through the molten,

Eric: Oh yeah yeah yeah.

Evan: pods, right? That's how I've always heard of these.

Eric: Yeah they had the, there's more like the RPG has the really neat way that it cuts through the steel. And those were shooting at you. But the way they were doing the shape charges, they weren't quite as big into the shape charges. They were using the old expended 155 rounds. Those were some of the bigger ones. The EF, yeah the shape charges they weren't quite using as much, they were just going for volume of an explosion.

Evan: And most of these, I mean, up-armored Humvees you don't have to worry about small arms fire, right? That's not a concern?

Eric: Anything under a 50 cal. yeah it's not a big deal. But the Humvees were terrible for IEDs. They weren't always catastrophic for the 66:00crew, but a lot of times they were. Even a Bradley. I saw a lot of catastrophic shit for Bradleys.

Evan: And is this something that you are responsible for trying to fix? I mean some of these obviously,

Eric: My guys would go out, my guys would go out and get some of the stuff. My track drivers. It's called an M88, it's a recovery vehicle. If that unit couldn't go get it, my guys would go get it. 'Cause that was our secondary mission was to go get that shit. So I know my guys saw a lot of bad stuff. They saw a lot of bad stuff. 'Cause they had to, usually one of the requirements was you had to clean it out before they would put it on a truck. Because they didn't want it going south with all that shit still inside of it. So a lot of times they'd have to hose it out.

Evan: Oof.

Eric: Yep.

Evan: And was there a particular time that was worse in terms of attacks? Is there lulls, or like you know, seasonal kind of attacks? Was 67:00it pretty steady the whole time?

Eric: Usually winter wasn't as bad. Summer it would get worse. But usually winter wasn't too bad. It was more in the summer time. And the rainy season wasn't as bad either, 'cause nobody could drive anywhere. 'Cause the road just turned to muck and mire. But summer was usually the worst time.

Evan: So then you're there till May or June of the next year?

Eric: June of the next year, yep, then I went to Kuwait.

Evan: 2006.

Eric: Yeah and then I went to Kuwait for a month. Yeah, so I spent, end of May I went to Kuwait for a month, which was a complete change for everybody that went there for retrograde. 'Cause it was like going from that shit hole to like we were allowed to wear civilian clothes, and we'd go eat, we were let, you know, there was volleyball courts, guys are fishing on the pier, there's an Olympic pool. We're all like, what the fuck is this? And after two weeks of that we're like, oh, okay. Do our job, go there. But yeah Kuwait was a completely 68:00different, completely different set up.

Evan: Did you do a convoy down there or did you fly down?

Eric: I flew. Trying to think, yeah, most of my guys flew down.

Evan: And that was one month there?

Eric: One month there and then back to Shelby Mississippi.

Evan: And how long were you at Shelby, Mississippi?

Eric: Day and a half. There was no, no turn around.

Evan: That seems really fast, there was no demobilization? Did they talk to,

Eric: I was there for a day and a half. We flew in 'cause we were the last guys to get out of the country. Our plane got in, most of the brigade was already gone. They'd been there for about a week and a half, two weeks. We were there for a day and a half, two days. And next thing you know, I'm in Harrisburg airport. That was my demote.

Evan: So did you get a sense, I mean that's really fast of course in your experience. You said that your men, this is a bad area that you're at, it's a dangerous area, they saw some stuff that you know, they'd rather not see, I mean, did they get, you felt that they got the, were they able to talk to people about that? Was that something that--

Eric: Yeah, I actually had a, again because I, I got really tight with my guys while I was over there. So I know one guy, right away, he was an EMT in the real world, he used to go to as many as he could get to, he would always go do the Med Det any time something bad would happen. He saw too much bad stuff. He wound up having a lot of issues when he came home. Went to the VA and got help. Talked to him last year. He's, he's since retired, but he's doing a lot better. Good friend last year killed himself. He couldn't deal with it. But I was 70:00friends with both him and his wife, and his wife didn't really know at the time, how bad it was. 'Cause when we came back, most of us were pretty good. And he was even pretty good when he got back, but as time went on, it just wore on him. And he wound up shooting himself last year. Yeah, everybody else is reasonably normal. And if they, you know VA, it's much better now. And that's one of the things I talk about with my wife a lot, back then there was no support. Because they didn't know. The National Guard hadn't been deployed in mass like that, so there wasn't the support channels. They didn't have the offices, the phone numbers, and all that and now they do. It's pretty easy to get help if you want it. Like even in Reading, there's a VA office down there right now. New clinic, but most of your bigger cities now have a 71:00clinic or you're within an hour of one. Same with all the phone numbers for hotlines to call. It's a lot easier now to get help if you need it.

Evan: So you said you were there for a month in Kuwait, you get to Mississippi, pretty much go right to Harrisburg,

Evan: Go right home.

Evan: And then what happens? You just take some time off?

Eric: Well, I got home and mentioned I'm a teacher. Oddly enough my wife planned a trip to Australia like a week and a half later, for a month. So I was back on an airplane, flying half way across the world to hang out with her family. Which was weird. Very weird, just because I was not in that mindset to go on a vacation to another strange land. I mean it worked out, it was okay. Told everybody I was Canadian, we didn't wanna upset anybody by telling 'em I was an American. Especially telling 'em I was in the Army. As long as nobody 72:00looked at my passport we were good to go. Came home, I actually had still, still had a month off and I went back to school right after that. So I didn't, 'cause I think by law I had 90 days or 120 days, I didn't take 'em, I went right back to work. I figured it would be easier to just go back to work instead of sitting at home staring at the wall. I mean, sure I'd have played with the dog, and gone running or riding, but I didn't see any need to sit at home.

Evan: Wow, so two months after being in Ramadi, you were in Reading teaching?

Eric: Yeah, and that was one of the other running jokes. It was probably safer being in Ramadi than it was going back to work. At least there I had a gun.

Evan: So you're doing industrial arts at this time still?

Eric: Yeah yeah, came back and I was still an industrial arts teacher, yep. And it was fun, it was still fun.

Evan: And a fairly smooth, I mean within reason, a fairly smooth adjustment?

Eric: Yeah, I actually didn't have any big issues really. Came back it was, district still sucked. Liked my job though, I liked doing the construction and the drafting and design so that made it palatable.

Evan: And then this is 2006?

Eric: 2006, yeah.

Evan: In September you're starting that school year.

Eric: Yeah.

Evan: So you've been there now since then, still teaching. You're no longer teaching industrial arts, is that correct?

Eric: That's right, when did Carrie start, four years ago? So four years ago they got rid of industrial arts and home economics because the kids weren't doing so good in math and reading and it was actually kind of expensive to have a tech ed program so they shut 'em down, they got rid of 'em. Luckily I had a science background. So I took over and for the last four years I've been teaching seventh grade science.

Evan: And what science is that?

Eric: It's life science. Which is okay, it's actually not my area, I was actually earth and space. So it naturally it made sense to have me teach biology. So, it's not as fun anymore.

Evan: Not as fun as the industrial tech.

Eric: No, no, I mean I like science, but it's nowhere near as fun or engaging as industrial arts. 'Cause the kids see it as a class. They have to take it, they don't care about it. Where as IA was something fun, we can make stuff. Now it's just another stupid class they have to go to.

Evan: So you're still in, right? I mean you came back and you started teaching again, but while you started teaching again, you also started doing your responsibilities in the military again?

Eric: Yeah, a couple months, couple months, five, about five months after we came back, I actually became the commander of the maintenance 75:00unit that I was with. So I took over command of that. Which was cool. It's usually one of your goals when you get commissioned, you're like hey, being a company commander, pretty cool. Got lucky, I got to take over the same company. Different missions, different roles that we took on at that time, so that was pretty neat 'cause we got to go to a couple different places in the U.S. to do stuff as far as maintenance was concerned so I got to learn a lot that way. When that finished up, had to find a new job. 'Cause you can't stay there forever. So I took over, went over and started teaching Officer Candidate School. Just as instructor, platoon trainer. And a couple years after that happened, they liked what I was doing and they let me become the commander of the Officer Candidate School. So for two and a half years I got to do that. So, again, Pennsylvania had a good program, so we actually started getting people from all over the country, 76:00Texas, Oklahoma, Utah. Started making a name for ourselves, so we were getting, getting noticed, so that was fun. Getting to meet different people from around the country. And it's funny 'cause even now I still talk to some of my students that are now officers as well from Oklahoma, Nevada, down south. Pretty cool. And in September of this year I got transferred finally, the death of all deaths for every officer is you no longer get to work with people. You get to go ride a desk. So I got moved to the state headquarters. Working in, it's called the G4. So it's maintenance, maintenance for the state, maintenance and logistics for the state.

Eric: Still at?

Eric: Still Fort Indiantown Gap. Yeah. Because it's one of the centralized places. It's close to Harrisburg, it's, it's where everything happens on this side of the state for the most part. Unless you're going down to Philly.

Evan: And is that the foreseeable future? In terms of, do you imagine your trajectory in terms of the military career?

Eric: I'm still working on that. This January I'll have an official 20. Because of the break in service, some of the time doesn't count toward retirement so this January I have 20, but right now I'm enrolled in a senior leader course, command general staff college. So that's gonna carry me through until next spring. And then we'll see from there if joint force headquarters is the place for me, or if I can go back to more of a mainstream unit where there's actually people to talk to and stuff to do. I'm just not an office guy. Just never have been. I mean I like the aspects of some of the stuff they do, but it's, it's slow. It's just a very slow pace and a lot of it's in front of a computer. You don't, you just don't get to interact with people a lot unless you're getting yelled at at a meeting. Which is not my 78:00thing. 'Cause the people in my meetings now are all generals and full bird colonels so,

Evan: Wow.

Eric: Yeah, it's not as much fun if you're screwing up.

Evan: Yeah, I can imagine.

Eric: Which is fun to watch. As long as it's not directed at you, it's great.

Evan: Well, I think you know, we did that arc that we set out and talked about. Is there anything else you'd like to add that we didn't touch upon? Anything that you think about, or anything you, ya know, Maybe, do you think it's a success? Your journey so far? You talked about you went in the Navy because there were some things that you could imagine it could do for you. Have you found it to be, fulfill those?

Eric: Actually it has. I mean as an officer I think I have done a pretty good job with the soldiers that I have met, worked with, mentored. I mean there might be a few guys that think I'm an asshole, but that's fine, I don't care. But I think I've had a pretty decent impact thus 79:00far. I mean hell, just from the Officer Candidate side alone I had the opportunity to train 200 officers from around the country. To have my hand in them not being a complete asshole. Ya know, to see what a person can be like as an officer and as a person. I think, I think that's been pretty successful. Being a better person myself, how to talk to people, how to interact, how to not be quite as judgmental all the time right off the bat I think probably has saved my life a couple times. Not just in the military, but I mean just like walking on the street. Yeah, I think it's worked out pretty good for me. And if I stay you know, next jump is lieutenant colonel. Maybe, maybe not. See 80:00what influence I can have at that level. Teaching, teaching's teaching. It's not as much fun as it used to be, but ya know, pays the bills.

Evan: Well, I wanna thank you so much.

Eric: Oh thank you.

Evan: I really appreciate it. This has been a wonderful experience. So thanks.

Eric: I was honored you asked me.

Evan: Oh wonderful. Appreciate it.

Eric: Thanks.