Welcome to Community Stories on WFHR.
I'm your host, Melissa Kaye.
This week in our Veteran series, you're going to meet the new principal at Lincoln High
School, Rod Watson.
He's also a captain in the 105th Calvary Regiment in the National Guard.
He's in military intelligence as part of the 32nd Infantry Brigade.
Lincoln Watson shares about his time in Iraq as a military truck driver among other duties
during the early 2000s.
We'll learn about his journey and adventures he had overseas, where he found that our
shared humanity is much more powerful than our differences, even if we don't speak the
same language.
Later in the show, you'll hear a familiar voice you know from these airwaves when I get
to sit down with our very own Tom Heiser.
But I'll save that introduction for later.
First, here's LHS principal and captain in the National Guard, Rod Watson.
Welcome to Community Stories.
I have with me today a Rod Watson, who is a member of the National Guard.
Rod, would you please introduce yourself and tell me your position in the National Guard?
Sure.
So, my name is Rod Watson on the principal at Lincoln High School.
But in the military world, I'm captain Watson for the 105th National Guard or one of the
fifth Calvary Regiment in the National Guard.
So, my job there is military intelligence.
My job is to tell the boss what the back guys are going to do tomorrow, so we can get
ready today.
And so, I'm part of the 32nd Infantry Brigade in Drill and Madison right now.
Okay.
What prompted you to get involved in the military?
I first joined in 1999.
I wanted to pay for college and I was jealous of a cousin who went in the Navy and came
out bigger than me.
So, I thought paying for college, you know, if you come from like a lower middle class
family and you really want to go to college, it's not a reach.
You're going to be paying debt for rest of your life.
And so, I thought service in the military would be with my goals of duty, but I also thought
the college loan repayment and the one you give for veterans grant, things would be
very helpful.
So, I joined the Army Reserve in Illinois as a truck driver.
I served six years as a listed soldier, including a year and a half to a year plus to
a year in Iraq.
And then when I got down with that contract, I let it expire and had a nine-year break
in service.
And then I just missed being part of the military culture.
So, I re-enlisted this time to commission here in Wisconsin in 2015.
Nicole there was to become an officer and then I picked the branch of military intelligence.
So, just basically, the military provides a lot of opportunities for you.
You get a lot of benefits and also you get to have an interesting life.
You do all kinds of things that are beyond the pale of like the ordinary.
I think that makes life more interesting and rich and challenging.
The benefits are substantial, but then the sense of duty and the fact that you're giving
back to the country gives you so much is really fulfilling.
And so, let's jump back a little bit.
You were a truck driver when you first joined up.
Can you tell me anything about your time in Iraq?
Yeah.
I went to Iraq in March 2003 and so this, we're right behind the initial push, but as a truck
driver, I'm not part of the infantry and the Marines that broke the Iraqi Army were the
ones that came right after that when these were still smoking.
And then we occupied that country and as a truck driver, my main job was to move our
water purification units around and then he supplies and so remembering those skills
because I'm a history teacher by trade at this point.
So, I just drove trucks in training and on the weekends and not very well.
And so, learning how to do that in Iraq where there's no traffic laws and lots of rabbit
dogs and people don't pay attention to traffic at all and you don't run them over and
like it and you're getting shot at like everything's different.
And the trucks at that point were old.
So, if you think of your memory, think of footage of like the early part of the Iraq
war, you're looking at like Ducin F and five ton trucks that are surviving for the Vietnam
war and they don't have a ton of horsepower.
They're all stick shift and fun to drive.
None of them are uparmored so snipers are very effective against them.
And so, we didn't have a lot of that yet, but we're vulnerable and not very well trained.
We had no communication in the vehicles.
There's no radios.
So, like now if you get in a military vehicle, you have multiple forms of communication.
You have computer programs and radios, then you just, you get nothing except your horn.
So we just, remember the original stories from 2003, people got lost a lot and people
get ambushed a lot.
And that's why we just didn't have that training, but yes, we convoyed from Kuwait into
Iraq in March, 2003, and then occupied a base north west of Tikrit, where Stan was
in hometown was.
And that base was called F.O.B. Spiker, named after a soldier who had been prisoned
war there.
A lot.
And so, I basically stayed there for a year, running a water point and moving supplies.
I also went to Kirkuk and helped with the water point there for a while and just did
a lot of missions back and forth from Kuwait or a modern amount to resupply the area and
then in late April of 2004, we came home.
Hmm.
So do you feel like over that time there that you got better at the truck driving?
I think moderately so, I was, I was strangely a smaller part of my job than I thought, and
it would be more of a part of the water purification part of it and then just basic
soldering.
Well, water is important.
It is, but maybe less anything because we didn't drink it.
Oh.
And so we had, I mean, this is a time, if you think back to the early 2000s in late
1990s, this is when water bottles took over the world.
Right.
And so if you were in the early 90s, you'd never seen water in your life, right?
And then by the late 90s, everywhere in these plastic bottles are a minus, right?
So in 2003, when we went into Iraq, we went with the purpose of providing drinking water.
We ended up providing bathing water.
And so, because the suppliers brought in all these bottles of water and Iraq didn't have
garbage.
They had human and animal waste, but they didn't have a culture where you have things
wrapped in lots of layers of plastic.
And so they had no garbage services.
They had no landfills, but then we come in with our MREs, you know, those aren't right.
All right.
And so then and then water bottles and then they had soda producers or two, they like
soda in Iraq.
And so, so they used to drink in lots of garbage.
But yeah, with the water, when you, we purify it through the military, it ends up tasting
quite chlorinated.
So you don't usually want to drink that, it doesn't taste that great.
It isn't as chlorinated as like pool water, but enough that it'll make your punty regular.
And so the, yeah, we didn't want to drink that much, ends up being the shower and the
cleaning water.
But it's still important to have purified water for showers and bathing.
It is.
Yeah.
That's why we kept a job.
I think Calabron, Ruthie, civilian contractors took over a lot of the work we left.
But the aquifer in Iraq is pretty far down, so we had to find a well so we get down below
the ground level.
And then we find that there's lots of equal line of water from animal waste and things.
So learning how to purify that and teaching Iraqis how to do that, because the rivers are
trickles compared to what they were when this was the center of the world, because it's
basically desert.
Yeah.
And so a lot of it's been damned up in Turkey.
And so like the Tiger Strange Freighties don't have the power they used to, and they're
the fertile crusts that's gone.
And so now it's just a desert and you're not farming your way out of that.
Right.
Now let's jump back a little bit.
You mentioned Emory's for our listeners who don't know what an MRE is.
We already, yeah, and it's, you should eat an Emory at least once in your life.
You know, as the others are up against, it's high calorie meal that, you know, one or
two of them will get you through a day.
There's lots of food package in there.
There is a little heater if you want for the main course, which could be like chili
beans or there's a little pizza don't eat that one.
There's like, there's a spinach one.
So you basically, you get lots of little pieces of food package and lots of sulfane and
plastic.
And then there's other amenities in there like toilet paper and Tabasco sauce.
And there's a spoon.
And then they just become currency.
So once you open them up, then you're like, I like the spinach and you like the skittles
and so we'll trade or maybe there's a guard duty shift on the line.
But Emory's, until you get a chow hall set up and actually supply lines, you're eating
those all the time and they get old real fast.
Did you eat any of the cultural food there while you were there?
Unfortunately.
So there was a week where my unit helped some, some Iraqis rebuild their field through
the invasion and through Saddam's regime have been destroyed pretty badly.
And so we helped them to fix their irrigation and what they can do with irrigation in Iraq
is just unbelievable.
They can move one little pile of dirt and suddenly the water's going in a completely
different way.
But their pumps weren't working and so we worked for a week helping these farmers and
to reward us to thank us, they killed their only chickens and served them to us.
We didn't really want to eat them.
They were in very healthy looking chickens who we did and then all of us spent the next
day in the port of bodies regretting our choices.
Oh no.
So their stomachs are stronger than ours and they're more used to bacteria than we are.
So yeah, we should eat their food because of that and then a lot of our food has pork
and Muslims don't want to eat that and so we couldn't trade off to the food.
Gotcha.
So since you have returned after your active duty service there, tell me about life
after that.
Well, I came back and it felt like everything was pretty easy after that.
If you can get through a year of living in that, it's where you can fly from this world
of that one.
By the way, you can go from a world where like our biggest concerns are what we're going
to have for dinner tonight or you know, we have concerns but they don't feel legitimate
when you go to a country like Iraq or like you don't know if you're going to make it
to tomorrow.
And it's a awful place to live.
It is so hot.
So we come, I come back and everything feels pretty easy as I get a teaching job right
away in Chicago suburbs and that within two years, I let my military contradict the
expires and I've intended for a career, I was using a stepping stone and that I just was
a teacher, got my advanced degrees and I'm getting masters in a doctorate through the Veterans
Grant in Illinois and then my wife convinced me to move to Wisconsin where she's from
to get an admin job in Shonto, Wisconsin and in Shonto, I missed the military life.
I met a couple of recruiters that came in and they can't remind me like people in their
late 30s have pretty good military lives too and so that's when I re-enlisted in the Wisconsin
National Guard and the National Guard is a far more professional organization than the
reserves.
Like reserve duty on the weekends when you're training, at least in my unit, we didn't
do anything.
Poverty is supposed to.
We didn't do anything.
And the National Guard views every minute of your time and so like you are training and
training and training so you know what you're doing when it matters and it's part of
this because you have the state mission and the federal mission because you do like disasters
and civil disturbances and things like I've deployed to protect the Capitol after the
insurrection of January 6th, I've deployed to help with the COVID missions.
I've done lots of small duties here and there that have helped me to be a stronger part
of the community where I didn't have to do that stuff in the reserves.
So I commissioned as an officer in 2017 and went through the ranks and I'm up to Captain
now.
And I got we just finished the JRTC cycle in Louisiana that's joined force readiness training
center.
It's the most challenging training anybody could do.
Did you enjoy it?
No.
No, if anybody says they enjoyed it, there's a line deal.
So that we sent 5,000 soldiers to Louisiana to train against Toronto mode.
These are people that are trained to fight us.
We use electronic gear to see to simulate warfare and they beat us pretty badly.
And so that's a battalion we're brigade, we shouldn't lose, but they knew we're coming,
they knew we're going to do and we weren't yet good at our jobs.
That's why you do this training.
But it was about 15 days of misery and it was just miserable enough that you started
to empathize with.
Soldiers have an actual misery like the 32nd brigade, for instance, in World War 2 served
for almost 500 days of consecutive active duty in pop of beginning.
And so if you could think about how miserable it was to serve from 15 days when the enemy
is not actually trying to kill you, you're just uncomfortable and stressed.
And then you think about what World War 2 soldiers did, what Vietnam soldiers did, and
let's not forget Korea, you know, then you get that perspective, you realize like the
hardening you need to get through real times of adversity, you only get a taste of that
in a training environment.
And it's not fun to taste it, but it's necessary.
Yeah, it gives you a different perspective.
Yeah, absolutely.
And it also reminds you like training on the weekend is not going to get you job proficiency.
You have to training as an agile and intelligent enemy, you can anticipate what you're going
to do, and you have to train an austere environment where you can't have your phone rely on
and you can't lie yourself to get distracted and have runs of the PXU yourself, your monster
energy drinks like you have to be in a situation where like everyone is working together to
try to survive.
Right.
And in this environment we have actual tanks and actual helicopters and artillery rounds
and things that are pretty dramatic going on that it simulates as close as you can without
real bullets.
Stick around, we'll be right back with a continuation of the story.
And we're back with community stories.
I'm Alyssa K and I've been talking with Rod Watson, a captain in the National Guard
and current principal at Lincoln High School in Wisconsin Rapids.
Listen in as Captain Watson continues to share his story and talks about the importance
of community in the military here on community stories.
So you mentioned that the reason that you reinlisted is because you missed the military camaraderie
atmosphere.
Tell me about that a little bit.
What did you miss about it?
Um, the fellowship you get with other soldiers is far more powerful than like your loyalty
to your country.
That's all great, but it's abstract.
Right.
And so like you don't get from right to geo in a certain country today.
It's just a nice thing to do.
You really think about like I don't want to let the other guys down.
When you're, especially as you rise in the ranks of leadership in the civilian world,
it can get kind of lonely being in charge because you don't have peers as much anymore.
Like I'm a principal.
There's like, you know, there's a few of us in the district, um, but there's, when you
get to the point where like you're not hanging out with your supports anymore, you don't
have a lot of, um, camaraderie anymore and the military absolutely has that.
They take care of each other.
They give each other really hard time.
Um, but it's all in the name of like being part of a team and it's easy to miss that
as you get older.
Um, I also felt like as an enlisted soldier, I, I did maximize my service.
You know, now I have a doctor degree.
I have a decent amount of education and, um, extreme interests in history and, and the
military.
So I'm like, I can do better.
The being a truck driver.
Another wrong being a trucker.
But like that's not your career culminates in.
And so I thought I should earn all these accolades I get during veterans day with everybody
shaking my hands and I, I'm gonna come back to my rack and a little girl walked up in
the airport and her mom was behind her and girl says, uh, reach out to her little hand
and she goes, I want to meet a hero.
Oh, I'm looking around for who she's trying to talk to like, uh, I certainly wasn't a
rogue, right?
Um, but that's not the welcome that the Vietnam veterans got in the way our country now treats
veterans makes it much easier to want to serve as a career instead of as a, so let me do
endure.
Mm-hmm.
Can you tell me anything about the, the current job you have in intelligence?
Yeah.
Anyway, um, it is, there is a lot of class of information in regards to intelligence,
but the way classification works is that if you have a need to know something, then you're
allowed to know it even if you have secret clearance.
So like, I don't have a need to know most military secrets, so they're right.
But my current job is to analyze the enemy's threat as best as possible and make sure that
our current bosses can respond accordingly.
So if you make a plan, the enemy's doing the same thing, right?
And so, um, it's not just the enemy or everybody wrote the train and the weather and other things
that affect your plan.
And so my job is to put that intelligence into our plans to say, um, you know, I know you
want to attack this way, serve with the enemy, no, sure, common, and they've already set
up these obstacles and they already have lines of fire here.
Or, and usually you know that through collection, like we're using satellites or something to
look at where the enemy's at or through intuition or through analysis of any enemy doctorates,
I'm sorry, doctrine and tactics, and then also like what they've done in the past.
And so, uh, the current threat is, I'm sure the listeners know and you know with Russia
and so China is determined to be the most existential threat, um, but they, the current
threat of who's actually in the battlefield and fighting our weapon systems is Russia.
And so learning Russian tactics, which are significantly different than ours and making
sure that our bosses are making battle plans that respond to that helps us to be ready
for the next fight.
See.
And so you said also weather.
Yeah.
So are you, are you, have you studied weather patterns?
No, that's not the job is not weather man as much as weather analysis.
So you, you have to figure out like if you're fighting in a hot and humid condition, what's
I do to your comm systems, communications, what's I do to your artillery systems.
Um, if the enemy has chemical capabilities and it's really windy, does that diminish
their impact?
So you figure the impact of them because every soldier at least in a, an environment they
have their phones could give you the same weather report.
It's 82 degrees.
Congratulations.
But um, the sun's going to set at 835.
That's important.
It's actually getting dark at 852.
That's important.
You know, like the, the, and then why is that important?
Well, this is the enemy tends to attack once it gets actually dark, they have better
night vision capabilities than we do or whatever kind of analysis you can actually provide.
Gotcha.
That's what adds value to the boss because he can look up to weather.
I see.
Yeah.
So what would you say or what do you say to young people about joining the military?
They have to make sure it's right for them.
Um, and it's not as simple as people think.
I know that sometimes I, um, I cringe when a student says I want to join the military.
I'm like, but you don't ever do what you're told.
That's all you would do in the army is what you're told.
However, sometimes people don't do it their toll because they actually have an instinct
towards leadership.
Right.
And so I like to think about any leader in history who is famous for doing what they're
told.
Right.
And so that's not really how leaders are built, but you do have to learn the time and place
to bug authority and the basic training is not that time.
Right.
So you got to get through that step first.
Yes.
Miserable experience, but based training and say, I'm not going to do what the trolls
are and say I'm like, you're going to get very strong in the next nine weeks.
Um, so I tell young people, like, make sure you actually want to do this.
Like this is a commitment.
You're not getting out of it.
And so sometimes people do try, um, and you have to make sure you love this country
enough to serve it and, and, you know, do really dangerous things in its name.
Um, I often encourage to like, do you, are you going to get transferable skills from
this?
Like if you really want to join and you want to be infantry, that's great.
We need infantrymen.
You have to figure out how to market those skills because in a job interview, explaining
that you have learned to be very proficient at closing with and destroying the enemy doesn't
usually get you job, get you raised eyebrows, we don't, we don't like that kind of behavior
in society.
Right.
But learning how to express that I learned how to solve problems, work as a team, accomplish
objectives.
These are the real things that infantrymen do, um, and then doing that in civilian world
and any capacity makes you value added to that organization.
So helping young people know that the military is not just a place to go, have adventures,
you're going to build these skills and you can also just pick a job as not infantry like
you be a fireman, come back and be a fireman and you got trained, you have paid to train
instead of going around.
Right.
Um, and then just, you got to have physical fitness, like that's a part we forget sometimes
but our country is not as fit as it could be.
And so there's a diminishing percentage of people who can join just based on their basic
level of fitness.
Even though they've lowered those somewhat over the years.
Yeah.
They have.
So we do an ACFT now.
So the APFTs, the RB Cabet Fitness Test involves six events.
We used to have just the three, the three were pushups that us in two mile run.
Um, the unspoken secret is that the new six event test is usually passed, almost every
past, but it is challenging to do all six things.
You will be gassed when you try because you still need to be in shape.
You do.
So and then it's, it's all often, um, followed up by a tape test to see if you are the
right body composition, because soldiers are supposed to be fit and slim as much as possible.
So the fitness test involves deadlift with a hex bar, maximum lap rep, maximum weight,
and then a medicine ball throw over your head, 10 pole medicine ball, 10 pound as far as
you can throw it.
Um, and then a push pull drag carry which simulates like refilling ammo positions and dragging
wood to people off the battlefield.
Um, and then a hand release pushup, which is similar to the old pushups, but you take
your hand off the ground repeatedly and then, um, it wasn't like talk, but now they're
doing a plank instead and then, um, it finishes up with a two mile run.
And so you do those six events consecutively, uh, you will be done for the day and so maybe
a few days afterward.
Yeah.
Even if it's harder to fail military fitness standards than it used to be, which I think
is true, um, because the, the standards are lower than they were.
You are still going to work your butt off.
You better be in shape.
Do that.
It's just miserable.
Like what I just did in Louisiana for two weeks, if I wasn't in decent shape, um, like
it just wears you out because you're, we weren't even the most active section.
I was in a tactical operation centers, we basically stayed in the same place, but you're
still setting up lots of things, moving all the time, no sleep, high humidity, lots of
gear.
Um, and I think the, I don't know if you're listening public, but it can relate to what
you see on TV and you think about what soldiers have to carry now.
We are so heavy.
Um, you know, on top of your uniform, you have your vest, which has all of your gear
on your medical equipment, your ammo, um, and training wherever you have like electronic
equipment on two, um, and then on top of that, you have to carry water.
It's carry lots of water with you.
Um, and then you have a weapon and then you have usually some kind of body armor.
It's underneath that or with that and then you have your helmet.
All right.
And so you carry all that stuff and now if I'm not carrying a bag as well, which would
have my food and sleeping system and rain gear and stuff in it, then, um, even if I
don't, I'm heavy.
Right.
And so like it just, do you administer your motivation to do anything, um, and your agility,
which the enemy does not have that problem.
And then, um, if you're not in shape on top of that, then you, you're not going to look
at that done.
And you're not going to be able to support your, your comrades.
No, you, so you'll be, you'll be dragging you around.
Right.
So your question was like, how do you, what do you talk to young people about this?
I feel like do you love your country enough to like overcome the adversity and do this?
Do you love adventure?
And you handle doing what you're told enough to get through basic training, you know,
because we do, the army isn't looking for just young men and women, but they are looking
for you who can be compliant and disciplined enough to do things they don't feel like
doing, um, because in battle, we don't want people saying why when it's time to do things.
Well, yeah.
Um, and then on top of all that, are you willing to be brave enough to, um, to do really
dangerous stuff?
Are you willing to, um, get in shape in the way that we need to do to be able to physically
do what is asked of you?
Yeah.
I mean, I think people who are, uh, are recruiting numbers aren't great right now.
Like, it's hard to get young people to join the military, um, you have to ask them why
that is, but it could be a strong economy.
It could be, um, that, you know, maybe the wages haven't risen as fast as inflation.
I'm not sure.
Um, but we are not getting higher recruitment numbers right now.
And that means that we're missing out on a younger generation of people that should
be doing this training so they can be the senior soldiers later.
Right.
I won't be in forever and neither will my, my peers, um, we need the up and cover isn't
that there's, aren't that many young people?
So there's a gap.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
We do this training in Louisiana.
We had to bring lots of soldiers in from different states to pluses up enough to get back
to 100%.
To get enough, enough numbers.
Mm-hmm.
Do you feel that the military culture has changed from where it was when you joined in
the 90s?
Yeah.
Um, it was mostly changed.
It took place before I joined, uh, the idea of like actually physically harming soldiers
who were door to door.
They're told had gone away.
I used to be able to like punch people.
And we don't do that anymore.
And so, um, I'll say that they could be quite insulting when I joined.
The trainers could be as a way of like getting compliance and you don't see anywhere
in their former respectful.
Mm-hmm.
When I first joined, um, if soldiers were, um, not heterosexual, they could not tell people
that you could get kicked out if you ever mentioned your sexuality if it was different
than heterosexuality.
Now, nobody cares.
I mean, like, it's all the same.
So we go through training to make sure that people are respectful of each other, no matter
their race, creed, uh, sexuality, whatever, because all that really matters is, can you
do this job?
Right.
Usually soldiers, uh, raise it, like, roll their eyes at this kind of training is like,
obviously.
Like, it doesn't matter.
Like, you will find sometimes soldiers will join the military and be racist for about
three minutes, um, because you'll find out quickly that that black drill sergeant, uh,
skin colour is not the thing you need to be afraid of.
And so, um, the, like, the things that make us, the divide us as a society are often due
to unfamiliarity.
Mm-hmm.
And once you spend time with someone, you realize, I don't care what her gender, uh,
association is, or her sexual orientation, or whatever, like, she's doing the job.
Right.
And I can rely on her, and we're doing it together.
Yeah.
And so you don't hear, I think when I started you'd hear more racism, bigotry, kind
of jokes, at least now you don't hear that stuff as much, um, and probably far less than
in society.
And the military has always been on the cutting edge of this stuff, right?
We desegregated the military before a desegregate her country.
Um, we, we've done, you know, we let women serve, uh, sooner than they served in most
professional businesses here in the country, not as soon as we should have, but now we
have a fully integrated military women who do almost every job that men can do, um, and
it's made as much stronger as a fighting force than our opponents who haven't figured
that out yet.
Yeah.
And so that's a culture I've seen.
Um, I will say that, like, the cell phone culture has taken over.
And so getting soldiers to, uh, focus enough to get the job done and put their phones
away.
That's not been easy.
Um, when I first joined most soldiers' folk cigarettes, then that went away for
a while, and now they're all vaping.
And so, you know, like, we're back to dependency on things that are not good for your
lungs.
And so that's been different.
And you need those lungs when you got to be physically active.
And we all need lungs.
Yeah.
That's, I, I wish people could understand that the vaping industry is not looking out
for best interests.
And it's, um, only getting worse.
Mm-hmm.
Um, so there's a few changes like that.
I think that also the change to, um, to overall job competency instead of just, like,
routine training, the military is a very serious organization.
It builds very good leaders, and they're very serious about making sure that our training
events lead to proficiency in the job skills that we need.
We don't always mean that marked.
We certainly try.
And it's, it's just less routine like today.
We're going to do rifle marksmanship.
No, today we're going to practice, uh, you know, movement of contact or something that
is a lot more complicated.
And so, um, that might be also my perspective going from reserves to the National Guard.
But it really seemed like more professional training is the norm now than it was.
Well, that's a good thing.
Yeah.
I really need that.
Yeah.
Well, is there anything else that you would want to share with our listeners?
I think, um, so people often, well, okay, I'll start with the story.
When I worked at Sean O. Middle School, I would get interviewed by six graders every year
about my experience in Iraq.
Oh, okay.
And the very good teacher there would have the students write down their question on
no cards.
So they wouldn't forget it.
And then I can answer the questions from the front of the room and I came in uniform.
And I was so super into there, but they didn't see me in uniform, so, um, and their
questions were awesome.
And so, um, and my entertaining readers to hear like the, the some of the best questions
I can remember.
Well, okay.
First of all, a large majority of them are about food.
Six graders are just hungry from the head of the wake up to the time they go to bed.
So I'm like, what did you eat?
Um, and then I remember once that, um, did you have a gun and what was this name?
Well, Molly, but he's asking and then, um, another one was, did you die?
Oh.
Well, you know, I don't think so, but I guess it's possible.
So just, um, we, I work at Lincoln now.
I worked at Fitzville last year, um, we should, those of us that work with young people
provide opportunities for them to speak to soldiers when they can, um, to understand
the like, and not just soldiers like the, the people who are serving on the front lines
in our society are really police officers, right?
And like the, I dealt with dangerous things for a year.
They do it every single day.
Yeah.
And so if I had time to hear their story and learn like how they get up every day and
keep us safe.
I feel like I get a lot more accolades as a part time soldier than police officers do
doing this every day.
I talked to one police officer recently who said he's pulled over 100 bodies out of cars
in his career.
And he goes to bed every night with that, right?
And so if there's anybody listening that can think about like how are we exposing our
young people to veterans and, and firemen and police officers who can share their story
of service so we can try to instill that sense in our young people, that's how we sustain
the society.
The other thing that I've learned the most in my career is that most of us in this world
are the same.
And we do like to figure out what divides us.
We spent a lot of time worried about that.
I think is our skin color different, is our orientation different, you know, genders
are different.
Whatever there are differences, I get it.
But I work shoulder to shoulder with Iraqis who were raised in a different culture, you
know, different religion than me.
And they're just human beings.
They just wanted to like be left alone and have the best life they can for their family.
And you know, at the end of the day when you're sharing cold sugar beverages with each
other and you're just trying to communicate with like seven shared words between two languages
you realize that like our shared humanity is much more powerful than our differences.
You know, even if they have more air and stomachs than you do.
Yeah, right.
That difference was important that day.
But our similarities, I think we really get focused on our differences and we try to
train each other and how to be respectful.
But I think we got to come back to the idea that we are mostly the same.
Our differences are interesting and that makes us all unique and fun to be around and
exciting.
But our similarities also bring us together and we forget that part so much.
Mm-hmm.
Well, thank you for sitting down with me today, Rod.
It was a pleasure to meet you.
You're welcome.
Hope we get to talk to you again.
Yes.
And thank you for sharing your story with our community.
You're welcome.
Stay tuned.
We'll be right back with more stories from your community.
And now, back to community stories.
This man needs no introduction, but as your host, I'm Melissa K. We'll do it anyway.
Tom Heiser is a well-known voice here on WFHR and now you get to hear his story.
It's a good one too.
Tom is very involved with our local veterans organizations, including the VVA, the VFW,
County Veterans Service Commission and more.
You hear him regularly during our monthly veterans update at the beginning of each
month.
Now let's jump back to the 60s when young men were drafted into the Army.
Tom shares his story of how that unfolded for him.
It was Tom Heiser, H-E-I-S-E-R, and I live in Wisconsin Rapids.
Hello, Tom.
Thank you for sitting down with me today.
Tell me about the military organizations that you're currently involved in.
Oh, currently involved in.
I'm the Secretary for the Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 101.
I'm the Agitant, which is also the Secretary for the VFW, post-2534.
I'm the Chairman of the County Veterans Service Commission, which meets a couple of
times a year, which could meet even more.
If need be, I'm on the Selective Service Board for Central Wisconsin.
If they ever go back to the draft, I'd be involved in that.
And my wife and I did reunions of my unit from Vietnam for several years
until health issues came, I'm always.
Oh, that's a lot of organizations, Tom.
It does keep me busy.
Keep you out of trouble.
It does keep me busy.
All right.
Well, let's jump back and tell me what prompted you to join the military in the
first place?
In the mid-delay 60s, the government instituted the draft program, where they took 366
tennis or ping pong balls, put them in a container, and then drew them out.
So like they drew January 1st, it could be number 80.
January 2nd could be number 345.
So your birthday was associated with a number.
Okay.
And I lived in Phonolac County at the time.
And the stories going around were, if you were under your number was under 200, you were
going to get drafted.
And that was a true story, not just a rumor.
And my number was under 200.
So I decided, well, I would rather choose what I wanted to do rather than the government
say, you will do this.
So why?
Well, the draft worked for those of us who don't know.
They picked where you...
Right.
They just picked you and...
...picked your branch and picked your...
Now you're in the army or now you're in the Marine Corps, and here's what you're going
to be.
Wow.
So instead of that, you wanted to choose.
Right.
So my decision was, I wanted to go into the military police, and the requirement was you
had to be 5-8.
And how old are you at this time?
I'm 19.
Okay.
You had to be 5-8, and I was 5-10.
So I knew, okay, there's not going to be an issue here, and the recruiter said, no
issue.
Okay.
So I signed up.
Well, you got down to Milwaukee, and you had to go through the physical, and their
measuring unit wasn't, I think, put it as not standardized.
Okay.
And I remember the sergeant looking at the sky and saying, this machine is wrong, but
all to respect sergeant, this is a piece of government equipment, it is right, and
you are wrong.
Oh my goodness.
So after about four measurements, I got to be at 5-7-3-4, which I was still too short.
So I just asked, and I said, no, what happened, they said, well, you signed up.
We can choose what you are going to be, because you enlisted.
And the person on there said, we were looking at your test scores, and there is this equal
to the army within the army, it was a military intelligence organization, I said, well, what
are they doing?
So we don't know.
It's all top secret, you have to be the top secret clearance.
But you do qualify, and I said, okay, by the way, the Army Security Agency was what
the name of the organization was, does not quote a Vietnam.
Yeah, you weren't a Vietnam veteran hat there, Tom.
Yeah, we'll get into that.
But it's all secret, we don't know, they don't want to Vietnam, and it takes a lot of training.
Okay.
Well, I said, okay, I'll sign up for that, you know, in 19 years old, they're putting
all these carrots in front of you, and you're just going, yeah, yeah, that's cool.
And signed up for it.
And went to my basic training, which was in Fort Leonardwood, Missouri, and that was
six weeks.
And then my advanced training was in Fort Tevin's Massachusetts, and that was 14 weeks
because we had to learn more, I scored it was a more schooled intercept operator.
And got talking to him, and I said, well, ASA doesn't go to Vietnam, doesn't, and they
said, no, the ASA does not go to Vietnam.
Radio research goes to Vietnam, so they changed our titles from Army Security Agency, which
were in Europe and America and Africa and everywhere else, but in Vietnam and Thailand,
you were radio research.
So yes, I'm from Germany, and I was doing my job over there, and all these guys were coming
back from Vietnam, were getting stationed in Germany, and they were telling me about
talking about it, and they said, well, you know, I'm doing my job here, and it's getting
kind of boring.
It's the same thing.
So I signed up in that ship to Vietnam for 11 months in Thailand for one.
So it was interesting, I imagine, I say more schooled intercept operator, and we can talk
a little bit about what we did, but not a lot because some of us still classify.
Okay, I have one burning question.
Can you still communicate with Morse code?
A little bit, I do have a ham radio license.
Wow.
Not real active in it, but it's been a while, and the letters are still in there.
That's incredible, because that's a long time ago.
Right.
Wow.
Well, 14 weeks of it, and drilled into you, so something that's still there.
Well, and then you used it for almost a year, or three years.
Three years.
Okay, I thought you said 11 months, and then one month.
Why was in Germany?
Oh, okay.
And then we came back, and we got out of the military, we were stationed in Virginia at
the time.
Okay.
Back to when you were overseas, because this is just for me, I love different cultures
and different foods.
For anybody that listens to the kitchen's open, we'll know that.
What was the food like while you were there?
Very, very, very spicy.
Do you like spice?
No.
Okay.
Body parts do not like spice.
So it was a little traumatic for you.
Yes, and health standards are a lot different in Vietnam than they are here.
So you go through the markets, and there would be fish, different seafood items and flies.
And flies.
Oh, my.
So, you know, and, you know, because they're outside markets, right?
Right.
They're outside markets.
And some of the foods you had was like fish heads soup.
Okay.
Um, I just don't get really excited about something looking at me that I'm eating.
That's fair, Tom.
That's fair.
No, it was very spicy, um, did try it sometimes, but not a lot.
Yeah.
So did you have army rations?
Um, because of where we were, we weren't out in the field as such.
We were back in the base, um, because of what we did.
They didn't want us getting captured or whatever.
Mm-hmm.
Well, what's interesting is the first person killed in Vietnam was military intelligence
guy with the name of last name of Davis.
And whenever you land in Saigon, you go through Davis station, it was named after the first
guy killed and it was an military intelligence guy.
Wow.
Did you serve with him?
No, he was the first guy killed in Vietnam.
I was there towards the end.
Towards the, okay.
I'm sorry.
Following my poor understanding of war history, yeah, he was there in, like, mid 60s.
Okay.
And you were there during the 71-72 towards the end, okay.
So can you share, like, a story that you, a good one from that time or something, you
know, that I can share one from one of us station in Germany.
Okay.
Stick around.
We'll be right back with a continuation of the story.
Welcome back to Community Stories on WFHR.
We're glad you're here for the rest of the story.
So can you share, like, a story that you, a good one from that time or something, you
know, that I can share one from one of us station in Germany.
Okay.
And I was doing my job copying wars code and the people in the communist side of Germany
knew we were listening to them and they were listening to us.
We knew that.
So I'm sitting and I'm typing up with the sky as sending.
And I was at a place called Herzl-Based, H-E-R-Z-O, Herzl-Bernard was the name of the city
but they call it Herzl-Based.
And in the messages that Mary Christmas Herzl-Based.
So we knew that they were listening, we were listening to them.
And then when we were in Vietnam, we were in Da Nang at the time and there was going
to the Air Force Basics Change or BX, which is like a huge warlord.
Okay.
Big.
Right.
And we're checking out and they said, all our stuff was top secret.
So not a lot of people knew what we were doing.
And this Vietnamese girl was at the check out corner and we didn't have any armpit, her
and the patches on her shoulders, like many military people do because of what we were
in and we couldn't advertise that.
Right.
And she asked me, she said, what unit was this, and I said, well, 328, 323, your research
is, oh, you listen to Charlie.
So it was the secret that's not secret.
Exactly.
The only one that didn't know were the Americans, but I mean, it was interesting.
So one question I have, because I have been reading more warlord to novels, which have,
I try to read the ones that are based on history, but maybe are a little bit fabricated.
Were there any, did you know any women radio operators when you were in the service?
Personally, no, I did not.
I'm just trying to think back.
We had some, it was not just radio operators.
We had a whole category of people we had.
We had more school nurse stepped operators, we had voice interrupts, stepped operators,
we had traffic analysts, we had cold breakers, we had radio teletype people that would send
the messages on.
We were kind of our work product went through the NSA.
So there were lady, which is the national security, correct, national security agency because
they would take and say, okay, where was this movement here, where was this movement there,
and what were they talking about, where was this stash of food, where was this stash of
weapons, and things like that.
So we were kind of in the NSA, so to say.
But so there were women involved in that?
Right, but not directly in our unit as such, but in the line, somewhere there was ladies
veterans.
Wonderful.
I wanted to verify that with the history buff here that I have, you've lived it, so that's
yeah, that's interesting.
Well, and one of the other things we also do is we go to a assumption,
Lincoln High School, once a year, we talked about the junior class in history,
because here we are, what do you want to know?
Wow, and just let them ask you questions.
Yeah.
Have you had a favorite question from a student?
I have some interesting questions, you know, what did you do in your off time?
They always ask where you injured, you know, because there was myself, and there's a guy that was
in the infantry's in artillery, and there was another guy that was in communications,
but not the same as I was.
And then another guy that was a mortar operator, so there's all different aspects,
but questions are interesting.
Yeah, so what did you do in your off time?
Because of what we did, we were told we could only travel around
in groups of two or three, you couldn't go alone because you would be a target.
And our off time, there was five of us in one Hootser building, a little,
little building called Hootsers, and we would work the second shift,
and we had 24 hours where we were monitoring all the communications we can.
And we would come back and we would play cards that didn't have an American TV over there,
so we would listen to the radio, and Crohn Hour was not the person, and we'd listen to it
that I can recall, and then we would just socialize quite a bit, there was some adult
registers consumed, and we became very close to five of us.
Talk about your families, talk about a part of you.
The family is right now. Only one of us, all the group was married at the time.
Another one of the group got married while he was over there, and I was the best man
of his wedding in California, and we would just talk about life in general and have a good time.
Try to not talk about work.
Well, when you're sitting there in a war zone, we couldn't talk about what we did at work
because it was all classified at that time, and they always told us, if you talk about it,
you're going to prison. So we didn't talk about it, and what was interesting is,
one of the cold words was a spice, name was spice, and we had Christmas at our, my wife and I
got married, after I came back to Vietnam, and we had a Christmas at our trailer on Virginia,
all the guys that came back were there, and one of the ladies asked for this
spice that they were cooking, and everybody's looking at me like, can't you keep your mouth shut?
Oh, no. It's like you'll grow to a market show, the little duck will come down if you use
the magic words. No, no, it's good. She doesn't know what's going on. It's a spice that you use
in cooking, so that was one of the cold words. Oh, wow. So you never knew. Yeah, and you know,
sometimes those inside jokes or things like that, and it's so far, everybody that I have talked
to that has been a veteran has spoken about what a bond you create with your fellow veterans.
We're still staying in contact. One of our group has passed. Another one was starting to have
dementia issues, but we do stay in touch, and what was interesting is one year, my wife and I
had a military reunion and my class reunion. I was closer to people I lived with for six months
to a year than it was. I went to high school with for 12, 13 years. Wow. You are
tighter bond. You know, your high school friends are still friends. There's no doubt about that.
The three military friends are a little bit deeper. You kind of look at each other, and one of
our reunions was so funny, because we started, we got out in 72, and our first reunion was in 99,
and you picked up the conversation. It's like a narrative. Like was yesterday. Yeah. You know,
and just the bonding is, it's there. That's wonderful. Well, let's take a short break, Tom,
and when we come back, let's talk about what you're doing now after, after all of these
experiences you had in Vietnam. We'll be back in just a moment. We'll probably.
That moment will extend to next week when we'll pick up the rest of Tom Heiser's story.
I'm Melissa K. Thank you for joining me today. We'll be back next Tuesday with more community stories.
