Interviewed by Ally DiGiovanni and Ryan Rizzo
I was born in Pennsylvania in 1961. One of six kids — the oldest boy. We moved around Pennsylvania and lived there for 10 years. When I was 18, I joined the army. I just wanted to get away from what I was doing. I wanted a fresh start in life, you know. I was a cook back then, but I wasn't going to be a cook my whole life.
My first duty station was Korea. While stationed in Korea, I went up to the DMZ line. It was a one year tour; it was a good one. I liked everything about it. You know, you became more of a man out there. We had to be on our feet, know where we was going, and be ready to fight.
Korea was nothing like it is now. Back then it was a real shock. When you see the movies, with the rice patties, you think it’s just fake. No, that's for real.
War over there was still for real.
After Korea, I was transferred to Fort Hood where I served for three and a half years. I became a buck sergeant over there, quick too — under a year and a half. I later joined the 1067 National Guard unit. They asked me if I wanted to go to Iraq. I said, “Sure, why not?”
I served in Iraq for about one year. It wasn’t bad, you know. We had bombs falling in our camp every day, but after a while, we just got used to it. I mean, I'm not saying it was right, cuz we were still supposed to go into the shelters. But we just kept walking. We wouldn't think twice about it.
Don't get me wrong, being in the military was rough. When I first joined, we started with 190 people. The unit graduated at 90. We had 3 suicide attempts, 3 AWOL attempts. It was a lot of training. Some people couldn't cut it. Or didn't want to cut it. But if you could hang, you learned a lot.
They put me in the gas chamber for the first time; they ran us to the gas chamber so we’d be out of breath. They put two 6’8 guys at the door so you couldn't get out. My first time in, we went nuts. I cut my wrist hitting the glass. We moved those 6’8 guys out of the way, and everyone got out. But the next time we went into the gas chambers, I just walked in and walked out. I started to understand what they were trying to teach us. It teaches you skills. Y'all don't learn that stuff out in the world.
It taught me how to deal with people, too. It taught me to have respect for all people — people of different colors, races, men, women, different countries. You know you have to serve with everybody.
It taught me to have respect for my country, too. People always complain about this country. You know, in Iraq, we couldn't drink any water. Every 10 feet was a ski sled, a palette of water. They had burn pits, and they was burning everything over there. When I first got to Korea, there was a 12 o'clock curfew for everybody in the country. Can you imagine living like that? You learn a lot by being in other people’s countries. You see how other people live, and you learn to respect your own country.
Some of my proudest moments was serving in Iraq, serving in Fort Dix. Just serving. Got 5 army commendations, 5 army achievement medals, 6 good conduct medals, service ribbons, Pennsylvania ribbons. Have over 21 ribbons. My family will tell you I was gonna serve since I was 6; I was watching John Wayne movies since I was 5. I always wanted to be in the military.
It's just that sometimes, it's just that simple for me. Sometimes, things are just that fast. In war, you just can't think about what you're doing. You have to react that fast, too, and you learn which way you should react and which way you shouldn’t react. Same way in the civilian world.
That’s life, and that's what I learned in the military.
When I got out of the service, returning to civilian life was easy for me. I’m a cook by trade, anyway, so adapting back to the civilian world is nothing for me. I've done it quite a couple of times. Just came back home with my kids.
I’m proudest of my kids. I have three — two girls and a boy. My oldest is 19, she’ll be 20 this year. My boy is 18, he’ll be 19 this year. My baby is 16. And I’m a grandfather of five months. That was a surprise. The good thing about my daughter is she got so much family. My mom and brothers and sisters will do anything for my kids. So she has a lot to fall back on.
My family’s the most important thing to me right now. I want to see my grandkids know who their grandpop is. That's what's gonna keep me going through what I’m going through now. They think I have cancer so I gotta figure out a plan with that. I said, “Doc, just do what you gotta do.” That how I am. Just get it done, cuz they keep prolonging how they want to deal with this, and they can't agree themselves, so that makes it difficult on me, sitting in the room every day thinking about it.
But I want them to know that I have a strong will to live. Cuz when you lose life, you learn to value it more. I was in a car accident two years ago, two days before Christmas. I was coming down 82, hit a patch of ice, went down a mountain. The truck landed in between the mountains. Couldn’t see it from the top, couldn’t see it from the bottom. My army training saved me again. I kicked out the window, climbed out the truck, climbed down the hill. It was steep, too. I’m not exaggerating this. You ever ask my kids, they'll tell you. My face was pretty swollen. They said it looked like a pumpkin.
So, I’m grateful for life. You know, cuz god, if he wanted to take me, he had a couple of chances. I could tell you stories all day. But my goal is to live, and if I live five years, I wouldn't have to work another day in my life.
I just want to travel. You know when you go someplace like the art museum, and you spend an hour with a group or something, and time’s up but you just started seeing the stuff you wanted to see? Well, I want to rent an RV. Not a big one, a medium sized one. And just travel. Everywhere in the US. You know, I been around the world, but I wanna see the United States. I haven’t even seen all of Pennsylvania. They got museums down here by the stadium, do you know that? There's a black art museum. I haven’t seen it yet, and I’m still trying to get there.
I just wanna see things and just enjoy them. Once I know that my kids are OK. And if there's a place I like and I wanna stay for a year, I’ll stay. If I wanna stay for a week, I’ll stay. That’s what I wanna do. I wanna go all the way out to California and then come back. Split the country in half — one half this way, the other half come back.
That’s what I wanna do with that, and that’s what I wanna do with the rest of my life.
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