Hello, and welcome to the pilot episode of Community Stories.
I'm your host, Melissa Kay.
I have the pleasure to begin our new show talking with veterans in our area to share their
stories with you.
First, you'll hear a story from Mike Poll, known as Gunner.
We were introduced at the Heroes Cafe this summer.
We had to meet up again to record the rest of his story as he left me with quite the cliffhanger.
The next interview is with Tim Halverson and the last is with Darryl Hainline.
Now sit back and enjoy your community stories with me, your host, Melissa Kay, and this
first interview with Gunner.
I'm with seven veteran groups, but I'm with the Fleet Reserve right now.
List off the seven veterans groups for me, if you would.
I'm with the Disabled American Veterans, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Fleet Reserve,
the Polish Legion of American Veterans, Amvets, the Allied Council of Portage County.
I think I'm missing one.
I didn't count either.
But I hold on to office in almost all of them.
So you do a lot for the veteran community.
So Tom said that you organized the December 7th ceremony.
Right.
Tell me about that.
Well December 7th is a, I'm trying to get the right word.
It's a day that definitely needs to be remembered.
And it kind of hits home.
I've been to Pearl Harbor three times.
I stood on the Missouri.
I was out on the Arizona.
A lot of people are still there, and they need to be remembered.
And so it's just something that I enjoy doing, setting it up.
This year I'll be the keynote speaker.
So I'm looking forward to it.
And what do you think is most important on that day to communicate to like our young
people who have no concept of war?
It's important that they dig into the history of Pearl Harbor.
Japan was fighting for what they believed.
And we were ultimately fighting for what we believed in, which was save the world from
charity.
And it's, they need to research it, find out how these men and women sacrificed so much
on Pearl Harbor Day to enable us to live free now.
And just because I also need to dig into history as well myself, that was the start of World
War II.
That was our start of World War II.
When we joined.
In December 8th, when President Roosevelt gave his infamy speech, and Congress voted
for our entry into the war.
So yeah, that was our entry into World War II.
You mentioned one of the associations that you're involved with, the Polish.
The Polish Legion of American Veterans.
Your name is awfully short to be Polish.
Now believe it or not, I am a Prussian, which is Poland.
Okay.
I've got a little bit of Prussian in me.
Prussia was Poland before World War I.
Okay.
The Polish Legion of American Veterans started in 1922 by guys that came from the states
to go serve in Europe before the United States entered that war.
So they went for training in Canada and then served in the Blue Army or the Polish Army
over there.
My wife's grandfather was one of them, and he was a charter member of the Polish Legion
post that I belonged to.
Are there very many members in our area?
In Wisconsin, unfortunately, I'd like to say yes, but it's not true.
My post is the biggest one in the state, and one of the bigger ones in the country.
I know we have a large Polish community over by like the SIDA area, don't we?
Right.
But we do not.
You don't necessarily have to be Polish to join.
Okay.
If you are an honorably discharged veteran, you can join the Polish Legion, okay.
So it's a nice, it's an historical group.
They're fighting to keep the heritage going, but like with a lot of organizations, it's
just the older ones and the younger ones don't seem to want to get involved.
And young people, veterans and people need to get involved.
That's what this country leans on, is community involved.
So get involved.
Well, I don't want to stop you from drinking your coffee, so maybe take a little break,
and then you want to share your story of why you joined the military with me?
Sure.
Okay.
Sure.
We got you in the room to put in this.
Hey, I'm a C-surf, you have a ration of rum, it's still on the watch.
Oh really?
Yes, that's how it is.
No, you want to know why I joined the Coast Guard?
Yeah.
When I was eight years old, my cup pack toured the old Coast Guard station in Milwaukee.
From that moment, I wanted to join the Coast Guard.
And that was what year?
Well, I was like nine years old, so that was 1962-ish.
Okay.
I always talked about it, because what happened is they got a search and rescue call,
and they launched the boats off the rails at that time.
Instead of having them in the water, they launched, and I said, man, that's neat.
And that's all I talked about, and that's why I joined.
Wow.
And I ended up doing more than 20 years.
I was a weapons specialist, Gunner's mate.
My job was weapons and explosives.
But in the Coast Guard, you do a lot of other things.
I was a boarding officer.
I was a search and rescue coordinator.
I was pollution investigator.
I boarded ships for navigation, laws and stuff.
I did all sorts of things.
So it was a rewarding career.
I wanted to stay in 30 years, but at that time, if you could not get promoted, you were discharged.
And I was in a job in a rating that was very small.
I couldn't get promoted, so they kind of forced me.
Otherwise, I would have stayed.
But my cousin is in the Coast Guard now.
He's also a Gunner's mate, followed me.
And he's just recently put on E8 or senior chief Gunner's mate.
So he's gone a lot farther than I did.
But everything's different today.
Say it's a different time.
It's different time.
So there's more Gunner's mates in the fleet.
So he was able to get promoted better.
Is there anyone else in your family in the military?
But for you?
My brother was Air Force.
My sister was Army.
I had uncles in the Navy.
I had uncles in the Army.
My uncles that were Army were World War II, all of them.
They were my mom's brothers.
Let's see.
There's a military lineage, but I'm the only coastie in the family.
I tried to talk my son into it, but he said, Dad's ship sank.
I said, Flange don't crash.
He was Air Force.
So no, he joined the Air Force, which is fine.
So when you were a coastie, is that it?
A coastie.
OK.
Did you ever come across any pirates?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
This was in the Caribbean when pirates
would want to take somebody's yachting or something.
They weren't doing like the Somali pirates.
They just wanted the boat.
Yeah, we came across, I believe it was once
that we came across pirates.
It was a very enjoyable career.
I saw stuff a kid from Wisconsin would never see.
Wildlife especially.
We did a boarding on a fishing boat off New England.
We could not get to the fishing bay initially,
because there was a baby sperm whale calf right next to us.
Oh, my.
And of course, he was bigger than both that we were on.
And our boat was 25 feet.
He was a little bigger than that.
And a baby?
And that was a baby.
And I told everyone, but in a boat,
do not touch that well.
I mean, I could reach over to the side and touch.
I just do not touch that well.
Mom is not far.
She's down feeding.
She comes up.
It's not going to be pretty.
You be swimming.
Oh, it definitely.
So, yeah, I mean, the stuff we saw,
I actually wrote over a tidal wave.
It was an earthquake in Ecuador.
This is when I was on the Pacific.
And they came out with the tsunami warning, plain language,
a tsunami bearing whatever degrees anticipated time,
the whole nine yards anticipated height.
So the captain turned the ship into that direction
by the time it got to push.
We expected, you know, 80, 90 feet,
ship rolled up over about eight feet right back down again.
You could see it though.
I mean, you could see the ridge,
but it was only like eight feet tall.
Well, that's a relief.
But I can say I wrote a tsunami.
Yes, yes, you know.
I was in the bearing sea, the Atlantic Caribbean.
I went through a Panama Canal.
So I had a great fabulous career.
So have you seen every continent?
I've been to Europe, all of North America.
I've seen South America.
If I had stayed a little longer,
I would have been to the Orient on one of my ships.
So I've seen quite a bit.
I saw Africa when we went through the Straits of Gibraltar.
So I saw Africa.
We didn't go there, but I saw it.
And so I've been in the Mediterranean.
These were, that was a cadet cruise
that we did training future officers.
But it was just a fabulous career.
I did not want to leave.
I didn't, but I couldn't stay any either.
So, but I always try to tell kids,
what are you going to do tomorrow when you get older?
Think of the Coast Guard.
You're giving back, you're saving lives.
I slept on 35 plums of marijuana for seven days.
Wow.
Yep.
Welcome back to Community Stories on WFHR.
We're glad you're here for the rest of the story.
I'm Melissa Kay, and I'm here with Mike Oll,
who's known as Gunner.
And Gunner, when we left off your story,
you left me on quite a cliffhanger there.
You were sitting on quite a few tons of marijuana.
Can you pick up your story from there?
We seized the motor vessel, Litzfield 1,
and which had 35 tons of marijuana on board.
It had 11 crew members.
They were all arrested.
We towed the vessel back to our own port of Newcastle, New Hampshire,
and turned it over to DEA.
And it took them 12 hours to offload it,
because they found it booby-trapped.
Oh, my.
And they wouldn't tell me with what?
Because of my specialty that I worked on in the service, I suppose.
But they never told me, but I surmised it was explosives,
because it took them 12 hours to offload it.
So most of the crew was deported back to their home country,
Colombia, and the camp that in first mate were imprisoned here.
So which is actually better for them to be imprisoned
in the states than it is in Colombia?
Probably a little better facility.
It's slightly better facility, so.
But it was quite the time, quite the time.
And so at that point, you were deployed where?
We were in the North Atlantic.
We were probably, I'd say, we were off the Carolinas about 700 miles out
when we seized the boat.
Do you have any idea where they were headed?
Main.
They were headed to Main.
That's where the track line ended.
And the vessel was in such a state that the boat was actually sinking
while we were on it.
Oh, wow.
We had to keep it de-watered.
So at least we would stay safe, but apparently their plan was
to offload the drugs, get in the nice brand new.
They had a brand new Sears fishing boat on board,
like 14 foot aluminum fishing boat, brand new engine.
They would get back into that and get into main that way
and the ship would sink out at sea.
That's what we were able, at least, to put together.
So what year was this, roughly?
1984.
84.
So what did you do after that?
Well, after all that, we, of course,
I did more patrols on that particular ship.
We did some other seizures and some fishing
code violations, too.
And from there, I transferred to another ship
at the Coast Guard Academy.
Same class of ship I was on.
But it was just happened to be stationed at the Academy.
And there, too, we did a lot of drug boardings,
made a bunch of seizures, did a lot of fisheries,
enforcement, all sorts of things like that.
Did a lot of search and rescue.
What were the fishery enforcements like?
We were checking the, we would check US fishermen
to make sure they were fishing under the applicable rules
and regulations.
In other words, their nets couldn't
be under two by two inch squares.
That we had gauges for all that.
We can measure to make sure they were right.
The cod ends, which is the very end
that does the actual catching, had
to be a specific size net.
Yeah, just to make sure they're
fishing within the regulations.
Not catching things they're not
supposed to.
Right, right.
American fishermen could keep a certain amount of lobster
that might get caught in a net.
So we would check for what they call buried lobster.
What that is is a female lobster with eggs on it.
They look like little blueberries.
OK.
And sometimes you get a fisherman, he'll scrub,
try to scrub all of them off.
And there's thousands of them.
And you can tell when number one, when you flip the lobster
over, if it's a female or not.
And if you tickle the abdomen area, just a little,
she can go nuts.
And that means she was one indication
that she was scrubbed because it's irritated.
OK.
Well, not only that, you can't get all the eggs off.
So you move some of the scaling away.
And you'll always find one or two eggs.
Sorry.
That's a violation.
Because you want to keep those lobsters with their eggs
in the water, so we have more lobsters.
Right.
Right.
Although there was one boarding I did,
I reached into the lobster tank.
And I pulled the lobster out, and my hands never met.
Oh, wow.
This lobster, in my thoughts, this thing was 100 years old.
I mean, the claws had two sets of bands on it
plus two wedges in each claw to prevent the lobster
from trying to open the closet.
And he was still able to move them a little bit.
So this was like a monster lobster.
This was a huge male lobster.
Oh, it was gigantic.
And the ship yelled, bring it back.
The fisherman told me, if I remember correctly,
that he wasn't going to sell that,
he was going to give it to a restaurant.
And they could put it on display in a tank, a live tank.
So my knowledge that never was sold, eaten or nothing.
But that was years ago.
Wow.
But that was the main mission from all the ships I was on.
After that ship, I went to St. Louis, Missouri, for the rivers.
It was the old Coast Guard Second District.
It covered 22 states from Pittsburgh to Denver,
from Minneapolis to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
And I was what they called a district gunner there.
I was on admiral staff.
My job was to train and qualify reservists
and active duty on weapons and law enforcement.
So a lot of the reserves I trained
ended up going to the first Gulf War.
But I traveled up between all those states and stuff.
And that was my primary mission, was to train.
And I tried to volunteer for the Gulf War, the first Gulf War.
But they said-
Did you were how old then?
Oh, I don't know.
I don't know.
No.
OK.
I'd say I was probably 36.
OK.
That-
And after St. Louis, I went to my final ship in Florida.
And there, we pretty much all we did was a drug enforcement.
And migrant enforcement.
My ship took hundreds back to Haiti.
And also, we took the first bunch of Haitians
that didn't want to go back from Guantanamo Bay.
They were going to-
they threatened to riot if they went.
But we did it anyway.
And I knew the language.
And in Haiti, I guess, I was considered a giant.
So I could get away with giving direction to the migrants.
And believe me, those weren't the first migrants I ever
handled.
Back in 81, 82 was my first experience
with Haitian migrants on board a ship.
So yeah, it was-
We were busy.
We were busy.
On that ship, too, there was a blockade of Haiti
at that time.
And we had boarded a small island freighter.
And we could not check the rest of the ship out
and they were headed into Haiti.
And there was an embargo on Haiti.
So we couldn't check the rest of the boat out.
And so we ended up-
he refused to let us see the rest of the boat.
And he was headed into Haitian waters.
So we actually got permission.
We came off of there.
We talked to the State Department.
And went back to board him.
But before we did that, we fired at him
to get him to turn around.
Oh.
And then we never could get back on board,
but we chased him back into the Bahamas.
Now, we couldn't go into the Bahamas,
even though we worked with the Bahamian Navy Coast Guard.
We couldn't go in there and board him.
So the Bahamas did.
They took him.
And he had a lot of contraband for Haiti in his load.
So we fired at him.
And it was just one of our jobs.
And we were operating under a Coast Guard
and Navy regulations at the time.
So then after your time in Florida with the Coast Guard.
I retired from my last ship July 1, 96, officially.
And I was hired by Portis County Sheriff's Department.
Oh, OK.
It was a jail officer for them for 10 and a half years.
And the VA finally found me basically unemployable
because of my disabilities from the service.
So I was kind of forced to retire from that.
OK.
So I've been retired since 2007 from that job.
But now you're involved with a lot of?
I'm involved with a lot of veterans groups.
I command the Polish Legion of American Veterans.
State Commander for the Polish Legion of American Veterans.
Second Vice Commander.
I'm a Secretary for the Fleet Reserve Association.
Advisor to the new VFW and point.
All sorts of different things.
Yeah.
Keeps you busy, huh?
He keeps me very busy.
And next year will be my last year of M.C.ing Memorial Day
and Veterans Day.
So I've done that for 20 plus years.
So I'm going to step down next year.
Yeah.
Well, and I know we talked before earlier
about what you would say to young people who are thinking
about joining the military.
But again, what would you say to them or for veterans
to join these organizations?
Veterans need to join a veterans group, OK?
The biggest reason is it's not what's in it for them.
It's what's in it for us.
Your name is on a roster.
I don't care if you join one.
Don't do like I did and join seven.
But join one.
Your name is on a roster.
Congress sees those rosters.
That's a vote in Congress for our benefits,
which we are losing daily.
And if a young person is willing to join the military,
talk to some veteran.
Sure, it's going to be a little different
from when they were in to today.
But of course, I'm partial to the Coast Guard.
You have to be a little smart.
And I don't mean it to say that you
have to be dumb to join the other ones,
but you have to have smarts in you
to join the Coast Guard.
All right, my last thing I heard,
it's a two year, two and a half year waiting list
to get in the Coast Guard.
Wow.
It's very selective.
The training you get is great.
I mean, you look at what we do.
We do do a lot more than the other branches.
You have age and navigation.
You have maritime law enforcement,
which is drugs or fisheries or treaties.
You know, you have, I think there's
like eight different missions for the Coast Guard.
So it's a diverse outfit.
I did serve in quite a bit of those diverse things.
The only thing I didn't do was put a buoy in a water.
But I did everything else.
I was a search or rescue coordinator
on Lake Michigan.
I did the drug boardings, the fisheries boarding.
I did oil pollution investigation, oil spills, chemical
spills, I boarded foreign ships
to make sure they were following the navigable rules
and regulations coming into the Great Lakes.
So I did a lot of those different missions,
except like I said, I never put a buoy in a water
for navigation.
But I had fun.
And I encouraged people to research all the branches.
My son was Air Force.
My sister was Army.
My brother was Air Force.
My cousin is in the Coast Guard now.
And he's a gunner's mate like I was.
So research a branch.
Again, I'm parcel of the Coast Guard.
It can be very rewarding, especially
when you pull somebody out of the water.
So or you take 35 tons of pot off the street.
So and I've seen thousands of pounds of others drug.
So research it, talk to somebody, and take it.
You'll enjoy it.
You had an amazing life.
I think I have.
I think I've been lucky.
I've been, I was hit twice with bullet fire,
washed over the side of a ship.
But I've had a life.
Well, thank you for sharing your story with us, Mike.
No problem.
My pleasure.
Gunner.
That's all right.
Thank you for tuning in.
Here's your next community story.
Well, hi, Tim.
Thank you for sitting down with me today.
Share with me your name and the organizations you're involved with.
Tim Halverson, I'm involved with the local VFW club, Home Depot.
I work with the National Guard Army here in town, kind of like a community
liaison for them to get them involved in stuff in the communities.
Nice.
And then you also work with through Home Depot helping veterans
with home modifications?
It's called Team Depot.
It's a program that's funded by the Home Depot Foundation.
They go on solicit donations from different organizations and stuff
like that.
And then we find projects to do for veterans in an area
that need modification, safety modifications to their home,
wheelchair ramps.
If they get put in wheelchair, we'll go build a wheelchair ramp.
If they can't get their time put in a ramp in, we'll put a woodwood in for them.
Oh, wonderful.
And I know that you're going to have other opportunities to talk about that.
So let's focus on your story.
Tell me how you got involved in the military and why.
My family is very strong military.
My two uncles were in the military.
My father was in the National Guard.
My oldest brother, he was a career military person 20 plus years.
So I naturally wanted to join the military.
And how old were you?
Actually, I was 16 when my parents signed me older.
Really?
Yeah, 16 when I joined us called Delayed Entry Program with Dept.
So on weekends, I go up to Johnston City and we train with the Army
reserves when they have their drill weekend while still in high school.
So then what happened after high school?
Pretty much three days after I graduated across stage,
it was on a plain downhill path to Texas to go to basic training.
So from there, what did you pick a career path?
Did one choose you?
Yep, actually I picked my first time in and have picked up
a Lakeville vehicle mechanic out of Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
Went there to the Department of Training and re-entered my knee.
So I got out for three years and made a choice.
I'm going right back in once I got my knee fixed.
So next time I went in, Krueger Rodden asked me what I wanted to do.
And he had just rolled out the M1 Abrams tanks.
It's like, I want to be a tanker.
So you spent time on a tank troop?
Tank platoon is what it's called, yeah.
And were you maintenance on that?
No, I was actually a driver, loader, gunner,
I just a tank commander at my last duty station.
And then when he came back to Fort Riley, Kansas,
I got picked up at Brigade Headquarters there.
That was my last duty station, who was in Fort Riley.
Got picked up at Brigade Headquarters to be the S2 military intelligence
to be their track driver for him per se,
driver on open field and stuff like that.
And then from there, pretty much I re-enlisted for three more years.
Got a year off to go to school, got my paramedic degree,
and came flight medic and paramedic arrest my life.
Wow.
So let's go back just a little bit.
Tell me what it was like being part of a tank crew.
Oh, it's really great because there's four people on it.
You got to know the ins and outs of everybody on that tank.
I mean, they were your family.
I mean, brothers, fathers.
I mean, we ate together, slept together.
I mean, we slept right on a tank when we were deployed.
Those are pretty tight quarters.
Oh, yeah.
You get creative.
How do you just want to sleep?
There was sometimes I never came out of the driver's hole for weeks.
Except to go to the bathroom.
That was at eight down there.
Wow.
And can you tell me where you served?
Pretty much.
I was at El Paso, Texas, Fort Riley, Kansas, Fort Knox, Kentucky.
We've got deployed over to South Korea and in a few temporary deployments here in
there.
OK.
Can you tell me a little bit about your time in South Korea as far as like the culture?
Oh, that was my best duty station in South Korea because there's no training area over
there.
You train any economy.
We take the tanks right down the interstates, right downtown.
Oh, yeah.
That was fun.
So did you get to eat like local food?
Yep.
Lots of times because once we got out in the field, people really love to sell there.
So we'd actually park right in our driveway.
We need to bring us up dinner at night.
They bring us breakfast.
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
How was the food different there versus what you would get to eat on military rations?
Very simple foods, but very tasteful.
I mean, a lot of flavor to them, which is very simple, rice and meat.
Spicy?
Oh, yeah.
Do you like spicy foods?
Oh, I love spicy foods.
So they worked out well for you.
What about the rest of your platoon?
Oh, yeah.
They did.
Yep.
That's good.
So then you said that you went to school then for paramedic.
Paramedic.
Yeah.
Tell me about that.
It's always been a lifelong dream of mine.
My uncle was involved in a fire department out in Vesper all his life.
And he was a first responder.
And as a boy scout, I love the first aid part of it.
And even for when paramedic school has a combat life saver in the military.
So I was able to start IVs, stitch up people.
I mean, I got that training to in the military.
And I wanted to be a paramedic when I got out of the military, so.
So what did you do with that now?
Actually, I'm retired from that now.
OK.
But I did it for 32 years.
I was on.
When I came back out of the military, I got hired on over to Foam to Hinges, the ambulance
service.
You just had the funeral home here in town.
Worked for them for 15 years.
Then I went from Hinges.
I went to Nicosa, an area ambulance service.
And in the meantime, I was the paramedic supervisor up at the St. Clair's Hospital up in West
and I opened up up there.
Did that for 12 years and got out of that?
And my hips went bad and I retired from being a paramedic.
Did you find that career in any way similar to the family atmosphere of the military?
Oh, yeah.
The closets, the carotter.
Yep.
You're partner.
You get to know your partner very well because you run with them all the time.
Same thing in the ER.
He had certain nurses, paramedics who did the same shift all the time.
Yeah, it's a team, team oriented.
Have you noticed the, I don't want to say lack of volunteering, but I know a lot of
fire departments are struggling to get volunteers and with different things like that.
What have you noticed about that?
I've noticed a big drawdown in that.
I understand people's time is their time, but you have to be willing to take a hit on
that too and also help out in the community.
I mean, that's why I do what I do.
I like to give back.
And do you think that that's an important value that, do you have, do you know why that
that's not why we're having that drawdown?
I think people are, I blame some of this back to the pandemic when we got locked in.
People didn't want to go above and beyond anymore because there's nothing to do and just
kind of stuck.
Okay.
Do you think that there's something that can prompt people to get more into the need
to give back?
That's the public awareness.
That's why I try to get out there as much as you can to and promote this volunteering.
I mean, I alone too.
I got off a little subject.
I got my own little home business that I do laser engraving.
I donate so much to these benefits and stuff like that.
And it's like, I want more people to kind of see that and follow suit.
It's like, let's help out out in the community, get that awareness back out there, promote
it.
Lead by example.
Yep.
Do you find that volunteering and giving back does a lot for you?
Oh, it does.
That's what keeps me going every day.
Well, I have to say you don't look old enough to be retired, so it must be doing something
real good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm semi-retired.
So let's, let's talk a little bit about the organizations you're involved with here.
Yep.
Local BFW club.
I'm not as active as I want to be because their meetings are at a bad time for me.
But I do help model on the backside.
We help them with projects out at the post house out there.
We just read their kitchen while back.
We did a bunch of landscaping for them.
I do help model go to like their broth fires or hand out their poppies and stuff like
that.
Eventually someday when I do slow down, I'll get more and more.
I want to get on the honor guard for the funerals and stuff like that once I do slow down
a little bit.
And then for like national guard, I try to get these people all the kind of drill weekends
if they have available solvers.
I got a project going on.
I'll see if I get a few young solvers over to help me with the projects because some
of these kids have never handled a power tool in their life.
So I try to, they always send me the young and experienced ones and they work side by
side with us.
Because you're just giving them that life experience and teaching them how to do these
things.
That's really me.
And then there were other ones.
Team deep, of course, that one I do with that through the store, that's all volunteer
time for me, the writing, the grants, doing the projects, coordinate everything.
That's all volunteer time for me.
I don't get paid for any of that through the store.
And then I try to recruit store associates to help me out in the projects, community
volunteers, stuff like that to get them out there too.
Do you have a lot of people turn out to be community volunteers?
Do they need to have experience with power tools?
No, no experience at all.
I got a good crew from the store.
Myself, I've been a handy man all my life.
John Butler, he's a contractor at one time.
I have a local contractor.
Words in company.
He helps me a lot.
And he's a general contractor too.
So he shows these young people what to do.
So is there any advice that you would want to give to young people who are considering
maybe joining the military or looking for opportunities to volunteer in the community?
What would you say to them?
Do it.
Just do it.
If you're entertaining a military career, do it.
The best thing that could ever happen to someone makes you a coming adult real quick and
it's well worth it.
For the life experience.
Yep, the travel.
Same thing with the volunteering, just go out and do it once you do it, you get hooked.
Was there anything else you want to share with our listeners?
No, I appreciate the time.
And if you ever need to want to help on a project, come see me at the store.
All right.
How can people find you then?
Just come see.
Come to Home Depot.
Yep, just ask for 10.
Everybody knows me.
Back indoors and windows, but just walk in and start and say, hey, I'm here to see Tim
Halverson.
You know if that's where I'm at.
Well, thank you for joining me today.
Thank you.
It was a pleasure to meet you.
You bet you too.
Thank you for tuning in.
Here's your next community story.
Hello, Darrell.
Thank you for sitting down with me today.
Please introduce yourself and tell me about the military organizations you're involved
in.
My name is Darrell Hanline.
I'm the commander of chapter 55 of Discivil American Veterans here in Wisconsin Rapids.
I also am a district to executive committee member and as well, I'm also involved in the
benefits protection team leader program.
Okay.
When did you join the military?
January 13, 2003.
Okay.
Oh, that's what I went to training.
So I joined and entered the delayed enlistment program in October of 2002.
I don't remember the exact day.
That's all right.
What prompted you to join the military?
A number of things.
One, I knew a war was coming and my grandfather served in the Army Air Corps during World War
II.
He was a pilot and I thought it was kind of a family honor thing.
There is also the fact that I knew the job I currently had was basically dead end and
I saw that I could get a little bit of education out of that.
Unfortunately, that did not pay out for me, but I think the cosmos had other plans for
me.
That's sometimes that's how that works out.
So which branch did you join?
Army.
Army.
Any particular reason?
They didn't require swimming.
It's a good answer.
It was the only branch of the time that did not require swimming.
Really?
I don't swim well.
I sink.
Okay.
Well, you know, it's good to know your strengths.
And then after training, where did you serve?
I didn't actually get off of a trade-off base.
I got injured in training and then was medically discharged as a result of that.
So I only served seven months, 13 days.
Okay.
Is that why the schooling didn't pan out?
It's schooling didn't pan out.
I got into the VA after I got out and worked through some stuff, tried vocational rehabilitation
that fell through, tried a number of other reasons to try and find a path forward until
I got involved with DAV.
Okay.
Now tell me about DAV.
The similar reconvenerant veterans is a veteran service organization that caters specifically
to veterans who were injured while in active duty.
We have legislative programs.
We have a transportation program.
We help with veterans to get benefits.
It's our service officer program.
There's a few other things that we do that I'm drawing a blank on right now.
That's okay.
All the more reason for people to contact you if they have more questions.
And if I have don't have an answer, I am willing to call people who do have answers
and I know those people.
And those are good contacts to have.
Is this a nationwide organization?
Yes.
And then you serve a portion of Wisconsin or how does that work?
I serve the southwest corner of the Wisconsin area.
I'm also the chapter commander for Wisconsin Rapids as well.
Which encompasses Wisconsin Rapids, Nicosa, Port Edward's, part of Adams County.
And I think a little bit of Babcock and Pitsville area.
Part of Pitsville also goes to Marshville chapter, though, too.
Okay.
So tell me a situation that a veteran would find themselves in where they would want to reach
out to you.
Whether it's immediately after service or during or later on.
If they feel they've been had some sort of injury, well in service and they want to have
a claim or they feel that they're already disabled having a connect service connected disability
and they want to join the DAV.
They can check out DAV.org or they can contact me.
That's not a problem.
They can guide them through any of that process as they see fit.
I know that there are a lot of veterans when they get out, they don't know where to go.
A lot of us when we find out about benefits that are available to us, we're informed by
other veterans.
And that's a very good resource, but that shouldn't maybe be the only one.
Exactly.
So based on your experience, would you recommend others to join the military?
When I went in, I was actually, when after I got in, I wanted to go career.
When I did the order of the structure, it felt right and I just saw a really good path
for me.
It felt right.
Part of it was the tank.
Tanks are nice.
Well, when you got a big $2,500 jet engine in there, I mean, yeah, they go fast.
Well, a 68 ton full battle route can get up to 65 miles an hour.
So yeah, I liked the tank and I wanted to go for a career, unfortunately, that didn't
pan out for me.
But like I said, I have a belief that I was meant to be a part of DAV.
Do you feel that you've made connections throughout the veteran organizations that
you've been a part of since then that haven't reached your life?
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
And for people who are on the outskirts of these organizations, what would you say to
them to try to bring them in?
Give it a try.
You have a voice in the chapter.
You have a voice in your district.
You have a voice in state.
If you're a member of DAV, you absolutely have a voice.
As the chapter commander, I will always say that I'm the lowest on the totem pole.
I represent the interest in the will of the chapter.
That's it.
No more.
And the camaraderie that the family atmosphere.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Definitely.
The meetings are fun.
Not always, but I try to introduce a little bit of levity.
You seem like you have a funny bone.
It's quite a few of them.
I hit one earlier.
Well, is there anything else that you would want to share with our community about your
story?
It's not really about me, though.
It's about my brothers and sisters out there.
It's about making sure that the promise that was given to us is upheld.
There are too many of us that are left on the sidelines for whatever reason, and that bothers
me.
And I'd like to see them get what they deserve, and DAV helps with that.
Well said.
How can they get in touch with you?
Do you have a phone number, email address?
I have the phone number of 715-2529197.
I also have an email address of DCHainline at Yahoo.com, either those will work.
If I do not respond to you immediately, it's because I'm a little too busy for my
own good.
But I will get back to them.
I pretty much answer every phone call I can because I don't know if it's a veteran.
So it's one of those things where it's important to help out my brothers and sisters.
Well, thank you for sitting down and taking the time to share your story with our community
Darryl.
I'm from, thank you for allowing me to get DAV a little more notability in the area.
That's what we like to do, local radio.
Thank you for joining us for community stories.
I'm your host Melissa K.
Join us next week for more stories from your community.
