Oral History Program Master Sergeant Kenneth Young Interviewed by Robert Ross 1 July 1980 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Master Sergeant Kenneth Young Interviewed by Robert Ross 1 July 1980 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. 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These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed Kelley Evans, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Young, Master Sergeant Kenneth, an oral history by Robert Ross, 1 July 1980, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Master Sergeant Kenneth Young. The interview was conducted on July 1, 1980, by Robert Ross, in Ogden, Utah. Young discusses his military experiences and the changes that had taken place over a twenty to twenty-five year period within the military service. RR: Sergeant Young, I am mainly interested in the major changes that have taken place within the military service over the last twenty to twenty five year period, but before we begin would you tell me a little about your background, like when and where were you born? What you can remember about your early childhood days. KY: Okay. That sounds fine. I was born up in Logan, Utah in November 1937. In fact I spent all my growing up years in Logan. My early days, I guess I was three or four years old or maybe a little older when WWII broke out. I was a member of a large family. Some of my brothers, older brothers and sisters were already gone by the time I could remember. Three of them served in WWII, two of them were in the Navy. Both of them saw a lot of combat action and one of them was in the Marines and he seen a lot of combat action. Those that were in the service were instrumental in our family doing as well as we did during those early times. I do remember the rationing of butter, sugar and several other items. The scrape drives and the clothing drives. Where old and used clothing were sent, I think they were sent to England if I remember right, and as I said the rationing and jobs were hard to come by. The United States at that time was in a semi depression I guess during the early days of the war. My father delivered coal. Main thing I remember about him was just working from sun up to sun down. There for a little while he got to drive the coal truck home and that was our families only means of transportation was riding around 1 in that truck. Then either for economic reasons or whatever reasons were, they wouldn’t let him bring the truck home and we were without transportation except for an old bike, that all us kids learned how to ride. We couldn't sit over the bar of the bike at that time, but we could ride it what we called under bar. I went to Woodruff Elementary school there in Logan, it was right next to Logan Senior High School. From Logan Elementary, I went to Logan Junior High School and at that time it was located upon 1st East and about 2nd or 3rd North. There I started having a little more problems with teachers and found out the meaning of the word slough school. The unfortunate thing was I didn’t know what I was doing to myself at that time. But the big thing was to skip school and hitchhike to Preston and play pool, that's what we did a lot, from Logan Junior High School. I managed to get through that and I entered Logan Senior High School still in its present location. I was first introduced ROTC there at Logan Senior High School and really liked it. I learned all about discipline, courtesy, weapons and drill and ceremony. It was an interesting class and I looked forward to going to it. I think I made PFC or something like that my first, my sophomore year. At the end of my junior year I was really dissatisfied with school. I had been having more and more problems with teachers and had been kicked out of a couple classes, which I thought was kind of smart at that time and the thing to do not realizing the overall consequences of being such a smart aleck. Right after football season my junior year, I said, "To heck with this." One of my older brothers had quit school and went in the Army. He had just at that time on what was called a re-enlistment leave and he had a pocket full of money and so we would just party, party, party. "Hey! The Army is the way to go." I had been working at various different jobs for years on Saturdays I helped the milkman deliver milk to residential and to 2 retail outlets. During my summer months I would spend on a farm, either a dairy farm biggest part of the time milking, hauling hay and whatever goes on at a dairy farm or I spent a couple summers out in Howell Valley on a dry farm hauling rocks principally, killing rattlesnakes and burning sage brush. But looking back over it all, the jobs were not really all that satisfying. So I had a stint at working in Wennet’s Ice Cream factory. I worked various cafes washing dishes. Between washing dishes, hauling hay, cleaning beets and hauling rocks I figured this is not the life for me, couldn't stay in school and I wasn't making enough money or satisfied with the different jobs that I had. Then seeing my brother on his leave with all that money, I decided the Army is the life for me to go. I had planned on going into the Air Force, but the day I sloughed school and hitchhiked from Logan to Ogden to sign up in the service with my friends, the Air Force Recruiter passed us up on the highway so that cut out the Air Force. The first office I went into was the Army office. We went in and took the test and what have you as far as being prepared to sign up. I didn't think I would have any problems getting my parents to sign for me to go because I was only seventeen at that time. In fact, I wasn't even seventeen when I took the test. During the course of the years my father was rated a hundred percent disabled and we were on church welfare and any other welfare system that we could get on, things were pretty rough, there was quite a few of us a home at that time. I celebrated my seventeenth birthday by being sworn in at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, Utah. At that time I took my first legal train ride from Salt Lake City out to California. I had been assigned to Fort Ord, California. I had been assigned to the tank company 63rd Infantry Regiment for basic training purposes. This was really a rude awaking for me, to be in the service and meet people from different walks of life. My exposure to colored 3 people had only been to one individual. He happen to be a prisoner working in the fair grounds at Logan and when I got in that basic training outfit there were quite a few colored people and there were some of those patchucos and for a lack of a better term what I call wise guys from LA and San Francisco and it was really quite a waking to meet these people from different states, had different outlooks on life and different ways of doing things. Of course I had been used to Logan and the surrounding vicinity and the people here just principally in Utah. During basic training I was making something like seventy dollars a month, if I remember correctly. Because of the welfare status of my family I was required to send home forty dollars a month in the form of a government allotment to my mother and father, which I didn't mind. But that only gave me thirty some odd dollars a month for myself to live on. Now, the first time I got paid in the service, I lost that playing cards. That's the first time I played serious poker. Then I found out with the limited amount of funds and no more coming in and you couldn't write home to Mom and Dad to get any. I had to watch out for number one, so it became routine with me to buy all my cigarettes, shaving equipment, shoe shine equipment and any other items like that, I knew I was going to need during the course of the month and lock them up in my footlocker, because I wouldn't be able to afford them later on. After basic training at Fort Ord, which was looking back at it now, I think one of the best things that ever happen to me, because the discipline was so strict. When they told you to do something, there were no questions asked, you did it. They wouldn't mind getting in your face and hollering at you or screaming at you or telling you what they thought of you in four letter words etc. But I thought it probably opened my eyes and made me start walking the path. Now, after basic training at Fort Ord, I went to Fort Campbell, Kentucky for advance individual training, and 4 to paratrooper school. Now, I wouldn't doubt that the paratroopers were the elite of the elite, in my opinion. The school was very, very rough and very physical. The discipline and the training unit I was semi-prepared for it and made up my mind that I wasn't going to be a quitter, that I was going to do it come hell or high water. I got out of jump school in May of 1955 and got assigned by accident to a HQs and HQs Company of the 188th RCT. Inside the company they assigned me to the Communications Platoon and I was made a switch board operator. I was still a Private E-2 drawing thirty some odd dollars a month. Well, my pay had gone up a little bit because I started drawing jump pay. As a switchboard operator my primary function was just doing maintenance on tactical field communications equipment. Such time as we went to the field and then I operated a tactical switchboard. They still use this type of switchboard today, despite all the technology advancements in the communication field. Right after January 1956, our whole division went on what they called Gyro-Scope to Europe. The whole 11th Airborne Division went over, my battalion, Regiment at that time was one of the last ones to go and we took a train from Fort Campbell, Kentucky to Brooklyn Army Terminal, I guess New York or New Jersey and got on a ship, USS William 0 Darby and sailed to Europe. It took us nine days on the boat at that time. We were packed in there like sardines. I can imagine what the troops were like during WWII and Korea. How they would pack them ships. That has to be the most miserable nine days of my life. For five of them I couldn't sleep, eat or drink. I would lie on the bed and get up in the morning while everybody was gone to chow, I would go up on deck and find me a warm place and just lay again. I couldn't do anything I was so sick. In Germany, we got assigned to what is called the Gallangen Concern. It was about seven miles south of Augsberg. I was really 5 amazed at the difference in the different countries. They dressed different, the cars were different. They even had a little three wheel car. They called it the Messerschmitt. It had a cockpit type effect on it like an airplane. The people just looked different. The country side, I thought was kind of strange, but after I was there a while, I decided probably one of the most beautiful places in the world is Germany. At that time they were trying to recover from the effects of WWII still. The economy wasn't what it is today. Everything was just neat and clean as a pin. I was still a switchboard operator, but after we were there for two or three months there was some vacancies in the message center section and I went in there as a message clerk and Cryptocifer, that word Cryptocifer sounds pretty sophisticated, but it’s nothing more than transferring things off the tape on to a message form. I also handled distribution and went on motor vehicle message runs, which kept us busy twenty-four hours a day. I graduated up, I had made Private First Class by then and the pay had gone up a little bit. I was still in message center and made a teletype operator and chief crypto-clerk, which took about all the time of the day that you had. Sometimes we worked nights. At that time we had a twenty-four hour radio stations going plus a twenty-four hour teletype network. We also operated the teletype in the field twenty-four hours a day in a tactical network. I made spec four and my pay went up again. The discipline was still pretty strict, we really didn't argue with anybody. But it just so happened that I was in a platoon, same one that I joined right after jump school and this was made up of a bunch of NCO'S and as I look back on it today they were probably some of the better ones in the Army, the entire Army. A fine group of guys. While I was in this capacity, I met who is now my wife and started going with her, she's German. When it got time for me to start thinking about coming back 6 from Germany in 1958, I didn't want to leave her and I really didn't want to leave the guys so I decided I would stick around for a little while. They made me a spec 5, E-5, at that time a message center chief. So now that I am in the leadership capacity I had a section with myself and six men. We had responsibility for distribution for all the written correspondence, coming into and out of the group HQs. In the time in between the 11th Airborne Division deactivated and we were re-designated the 1st ABN Battle Group, 187th Infantry, part of the 24th Infantry Division. We were all throughout Germany, like we were in Augsberg and we had other units in Munich and my concern was out in Gallagan. In 1958, I made E-5, took over the section and I got married. I don't remember what exactly the pay was at that time. However it wasn't really that big of a burden on us, except with a new wife trying to set up a household. I didn't qualify for government quarters, because of my time in grade and my time in service. So we had to rent an apartment down town which wasn't really all that bad, except their apartments and their way of living did not contain all the comforts that we here in America are used to having, like hot water anytime you want it. You may even have to share a bathroom with some other family. I remember our first apartment, the kitchen was so dog-gone small that you couldn't get more than two people in there at any one time. In 1959 the wife and I rotated back to the United States. This time we were lucky, we got to fly back. We were reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina as part of the 187th ABN Infantry as part of the 82nd ABN Division. I was still a message center chief. There had been pay raises come along. I would have to do a lot of research to find out how the pay had gone up. Discipline, as far as discipline goes you could start to see a change in the early 1960s, where it was starting to back off a little bit. There were new weapons coming out. We were one of the 7 first units to try out the M-14 rifle replacing the M-l rifle. The 82nd ABN at that time was and still is a part of the stract force. Any type of new equipment that had been tested and approved the stract force got it first. During this time there at Fort Bragg, I lived from one place to another and it was just really nip and tuck for an E-5 with a young daughter and wife. It was hard to make from one payday to the next payday. You really didn't have a lot left over. So it was a slow progression from a cheap apartment to a better apartment up to and finally could rent a house and finally got to move on post and that was really living to me. During a course of time there I was involved in several air-mobile exercises. I spent two months in Alaska. I was involved in an Air Force exercise to see how many troops and equipment they could move to Puerto Rico. So I spent two days at Puerto Rico. I was also involved in riot control and riot training. I went to Mississippi to help old Meredith get into college down there. Later on in about 1963 or 1964, I was still a message center chief. At this time the 11th Air Assault Division was starting up and they was grabbing guys out of the 82nd ABN Division overnight and sent them down there, regardless of their marital status almost overnight to make up the cadre force of the 11th Air Assault Division. This created quite a personnel problem with in the unit that I was in. In fact we were going to the field one day and they pulled up our wire chief almost overnight so he couldn't go. The wire section was out in the field standing around with no leadership whatsoever and I was given the wire section on about a five minute notice. After I took over the wire section, I was then in charge of about twenty men, several vehicles and umpteen hundred dollars’ worth of equipment. I really loved it, it was a challenge. It was a pleasure to work with the guys after we got ourselves on the same frequency and its hard work. But you didn't have the problems then of getting the people to do it, that you have now in the modern army 8 today, the so-called volunteer army. At that time you told a man what you wanted done and it was done. All you had to do as an NCO is go back and if there was any changes to be made is have them made or check, because they knew you were coming back to check on it. RR: Do you think this is because of attitude changes? KY: Very definitely. I think the attitude then, of course the draft was on too, But the attitude then was pro-American attitude, let’s keep this ball on the road, the show on the road, let's keep America together and today the people I see today and when I retired the young troop that were coming in then has an apathetic attitude toward the Democratic system in all and they were all self-centered, "Hooray for me and to heck with everybody else." As far as dedication and devotion to their country, they don't know what that means. RR: Did you notice at that time that the responsibility was shifting from the non-commissioned officers to the officer rank? KY: Yes, very definitely, very definitely. It was actually a slow shift, what they use to in a corporal to take charge of something, pretty soon it was an E-5 (sergeant) to do it. Then it got up to be an E-6 or E-7 (Sergeants) that had to do it. Then it became a lieutenant that had to do it. You can look back now in retrospect and see the slow shift where it was all taken away from the NCO ranks into the commissioned ranks. It very definitely did happen. I think that's where we went wrong or the entire service went wrong in a lot of ways, where you take this leadership responsibility away from the lower ranks. In my opinion the American army survived in the theory of chain of command. I think that was one of the greater downfalls of the Bund shier during WW II. If the NCO's or the leaders were limited then the rest of them became just like a herd of sheep. They would wander 9 around the field without any leadership. The American army survived on this take charge attitude. Then the shift in the ways of thinking to take it out of the NCO's ranks and give it to the officers and these things started to hurt the army. It wasn't until many, many years later they realized their mistake and started giving it back to them, the only thing is when they took it away from the NCO's rank, they took it away gradually like they was trying to psyche us out so to speak or psyche out the NCO corps so to speak. But when they finally woke up to their mistakes that they were making and the tremendous impact that it was having, they tried to drop it back on the NCO Corp all at one time and this created more hardships between the NCO's and the Officers Corp. Now, during my tour as the wire chief in this airborne unit I learned a lot about leadership and I learned a lot about dealing with different people, motivation and treating the individual as an individual. I kind of prided myself on the fact that I was what I call a democratic type leader. I was, "Will you this or can you that?" rather than a directive authoritarian type leader. Now, we are going back to the weapons again, shortly after the M-14s came out, which incidentally, I hated. The M-16 rifle came out. The weapon rapidly developed the nickname of widow-maker. Again the 82nd ABN Division was one of the first ones to get the M-16s. The nickname of widow-maker was primarily in Vietnam and history will recall the 82nd ABN Division, the entire Division was deployed to Santa-Domingo in the Dominican Republic in 1965 and the M-16 really earned its name as widow-maker there as well as Vietnam. Promotions at this time were slow and far in between. Now, before I was ever promoted to Staff Sergeant E-6, I was what we called a field grade E-5. I had been since 1958 and we are talking about 1964 somewhere around there so promotions were far and in between. 10 After the Korean War the Army went into what they called demobilization process, cutting down on personnel so that cut down on promotable positions and slots. So things were hard, promotions came hard, pay raises were few and far between. We look back on our times then and wonder how we made it at that time, but we have to take into consideration the different prices at that time, also during this time I went and bought a house which we lived in at Fort Bragg for so long. In fact, I still own that house today. The only reason I could afford the house or buy it was through a VA loan. So I was taking part of some of the benefits that were afforded the service man at that time. My family was being taken care of with all their medical problems at the military hospitals and I was being taken care of as well. Like I say, I bought the house on a VA home loan and that was the only way I could afford it and I still got it today. I soon got orders to go to Vietnam, by this time I had made Sergeant First Class E-7. The pay was fairly good, I was still on jump status and several years earlier they had come out with what they called specialty pay or proficiency pay and this was determined by a testing method for various different MOS's and depending on how critical your job specialty was determined how much your specialty pay was. Fortunate for me I was drawing the specialty pay plus I was drawing jump pay. So that made me a little bit richer than the other E7's that wasn't. When I got over to Vietnam, I continued to draw this money plus overseas pay and at that time personnel serving in Vietnam didn’t have to pay any Federal income tax on their money. So this was another pay raise. I spent thirteen months, actually twelve months. After I was there six months re-enlisted and my military career was well on the way so there was no way I wasn't going to re-enlist. So I did, the military at that time would furnish you a free thirty day leave with round trip transportation everything paid for by the government. The 11 only thing is we had to make up those thirty days back in Vietnam. I came home on leave and really enjoyed my wife and family and we really enjoyed those thirty days. Probably one of the hardest things I did in my life was to leave again going back to Vietnam knowing what I was going for and I had it fairly made in Vietnam. I started out in Cameron Bay to Fan-Rang and from Fan-Rang to Ben-Hoa from Ben-Hoa up to Heau. I really didn’t have it as bad as the guys in the bush. I served in capacity there as Common Chief and First Sergeant even spent a little while about thirty days as Sergeant Major of the forward element. It was an interesting experience and I made a lot of lasting friends and the memories and the experiences I had at that place will stay with me for a long time, but I was really glad to lease. After Vietnam, I got reassigned to Germany, of course I was able to take my wife children. We got quarters right away. At this time I had gave up my airborne status. Now, you got to understand when I left Vietnam I gave up my airborne status, I lost the overseas pay, lost my jump pay, I started paying taxes again and I was in a foreign country. So I took quite a pay drop to get this assignment in Germany. I was assigned to a Field Artillery Group Headquarters. This was my first experience with field artillery and I must admit for the first few months I was really confused, trying to figure out what these guys were doing, running around hollering put the steel on the target and I didn't know what they was talking about. I understand things like telephones, switchboards and radios. The technological advances in the communications field were really amazing. Some of the basic things like telephones and switchboards at our level stayed constant, but the advances in the radios were tremendous. We went from a one channel PRC 6, which most people referred to as the walkie-talkie to nine hundred and twenty channel PRC 25. They really increased capabilities of the infantrymen in the bush. 12 The range was greater, the channel selection was greater and there was less maintenance problems. We went to the VRC 46, 47 and 49 series in the infantry and it was really a boost to communications. I can imagine satellite boys were doing in the long range communications. They were developing space diversity antennas, they were using satellite, they were bouncing radio waves off of clouds. If one really knew all the technology advances it would really boggle your mind. I imagine they are still going on. In Germany the discipline problems really started to hit you in the face at that time. We started running into the younger generation troops, the so called volunteers. The dope was the biggest problems we had at that time. Not so much AWOL and desertion or stuff like that. But people getting spaced out on grass and hash. Recent newspapers articles, within the last two or three weeks here at home pointed out the tremendous amount of GIs that were arrested or as you might prefer the term busted as far as dope goes. The big thing was the troops would sit around the barracks and a new guy would come in they would close the door and he either smoked a little dope or sniff a little hash or whatever you do with that stuff or he got physically abused. This was done to keep him from talking about the other guys who were doing it on a regular basis. So the new guy was between a rock and a hard place from the day he got there. The younger generation would sit around in the barracks at night complaining that there was nothing to do and no place to go, so they would either get high on their dope or they would get wasted on booze. Germany was a gold mine for travel opportunity and night life so anything that you wanted to do, it was a wide open country if people would just get out and do it. The military was the only way I could afford to go over, so I took advantage of it on my last tour. I visited places like Austria. I was all over Salzburg and 13 various other different places in Austria, some of the most beautiful country in the world. I went from one end of Germany to the other end of Germany. I went clear down into Italy, that was the only way I could do it. RR: But, everybody has that opportunity. KY: Oh, definitely, golden opportunity to see these different countries. Heck, we were within a three day limits or a weekend pass limits of Paris. With the road networks over there now it would take you only three or four hours to drive there from Germany or to Switzerland or Denmark. Denmark was quite a tourist attraction. But that was, got to be a problem area also. The pay again, going back to the pay was steadily going up, life even at that time over in Germany for a person living in government quarters wasn’t really all that bad. You weren't really going to sock a lot away at the end of the month, but you could afford to live a comfortable life and tour a little bit, see a little bit of that country over there. You could even, if you had a mind to visit some of the places you read about in history books where great battles were fought. It was really quite amazing for a guy that would use his imagination or what he had learned through history to visit these places and see these things. They are now just stories somewhat. We during the course of the years, Now I got to go back into the late 50's, I think it was our uniforms changed. The change from the old Army OD, Army brown what everybody calls it to the current green uniform. The guys already on active duty had to buy their new uniform and there was a lot of controversy over that, nobody wanted to spend that kind of money, yours truly included in that. We also had to buy Bermuda shorts and knee socks which I never wore. But the new uniform everybody had it set in their mind that the Ike jacket and the ODs were the only way to go. 14 Slowly but surely it caught on to what it is today, and I think it’s a very sharp, a very modern looking uniform. The weapons I already talked about, the advances in weapons. I will get into some artillery a little bit later on. The food had changed a lot in the military. Instead of take it or leave it, now, you started getting a choice of the different meals that you want for breakfast, dinner and supper was just one meal, but breakfast and dinner choice between a full meal or just a snack. For breakfast you might be able to take pancakes and eggs or eggs and ham or whatever, you had two or three choices. Plus soft drinks starting, free soft drinks and malts were starting to appear in the mess halls. We had it there for a while where we had a ten o'clock break. Everything would stop and everybody would go to the mess hall and have a cup of coffee and a sweet roll or glass of milk, malt or whatever it was you wanted. People were starting to holler about the individual rights of soldiers in order to have the individual rights you had to do away with the discipline. It finally came down to the mess we have right now in the military. I think that every male should serve at least two years in the military, if nothing else for the education purposes. Learning about different cultures and different ways of life and how people just as far away as the next state live, think and how they work and do things. It’s a tremendous educational experience to get out of the home town and get out with these other people. The hair standards started to change. The whole Code of Military Justice started to change. Granted, it was a better life, I mean things were a little bit easier and you still had this tremendous amount of pressure and I think the pressure built more and more as they would ease the discipline measures. The pressure to maintain the same level of efficiency of the troops was put back on the NCO's more and more. We started getting officers fresh 15 out of West Point with the attitude that the NCO's were the curse of the Army. These guys with their book solutions came in and tried to take charge. Here you got a young kid right out of school, granted I think West Point is probably an outstanding institution, but I think anybody going into a new unit with a book solution should also look at the experience that's sitting there on the line in the form of that NCO. So there was more conflict brewing here, because of the attitude these people graduated out of West Point with. They could walk on water and leap tall buildings and it just really wasn't so. Here again is our problem NCO and officer relation. If you remember I mentioned earlier the dope problem, the drug problem that was going on there in Germany. I might add at this time that was not restricted to the enlisted men or the non-commissioned officers. It became a problem with the officers too, the young 2nd LT. A tremendous amount of pressure was one of the reasons given. But I think it was just part of the times. While I was there in Germany I was taken out of the Communication section and was made the S-2 Intelligence Sergeant and the S-3 Operations Sergeant. I held these two positions down for about six months until it came time for me to rotate back home. In August 1972, we were reassigned to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. My family got to fly back, we visited Utah on vacation. I reported into Fort Sill and got assigned to another Artillery Group Headquarters. At that time all the combat units were lack luster. The principle interest was placed on school support for various different Artillery and Missiles schools. Electronic schools there at Fort Sill which a tremendous part, a big part and it really has a lot to offer. I was fortunate enough to have a Signal Officer and a Group Commander that would support my way of thinking of converting the Group Headquarters into a School Support Headquarters, into cohesive combat unit and we proceeded along those lines until the whole Artillery Group were 16 thinking along the same lines which in the long run paid off in conducting a more cohesive unit. I was instrumental and deeply involved in the tact fire test system. This was a Department of the Army test where we tested automatic data for artillery units. It was really a fascinating system. I wont go into that in detail because of classification and it’s been awhile since I been out. I will just shy away from that subject if you don't mind without revealing anymore then it was. A tact fire system when we were involved in that. RR: That's fine. KY: I started considering retirement at Fort Sill. The discipline problems were still there. The volunteer Army was in full swing and everybody was running patting everybody on the back saying how great it was and they knew or I felt they knew that it wasn't working. Maintenance games became a big thing. What I mean is that we were sitting down at the unit level and turning in status, maintenance status of critical items of equipment, vehicles, guns and radios and what it came to was they really didn't want to know the truth, they wanted you to report that everything was going on the uppity-up and everything was a hundred percent whether it was or not. This went against my grain. It seemed like the higher ups and I am talking about the Colonels and Generals rank now all were turning into yes men, now this is ray personal opinion and they didn't want to report to the higher-ups the true status of their outfits that they were really having maintenance problems or not. RR: In other words they made the volunteers Army looks like it was working even though it wasn't. KY: Personal opinion, yes. I think was exactly what was going on. 17 RR: Do you think they really finally found out that it’s not going to work. KY: Yes. I think it has finally dawned on them, this aborted rescue attempt and various other things that have happen have shown the people in the power to be, in the power positions that, "Hey! These guys are not really as ready as they were saying for years that they are ready. "The volunteer troop, he wants to be told why he is going to do anything or ask to do something. You can’t run a military organization like that. The military is the biggest organization in the world and the American Army is the biggest in the world and you have to get these people in the frame of mind to do it and ask questions later. You cannot stop and explain as I am sure was found out on the battle fields in Vietnam. Why a guy should move from point A to point B. It has to be done, then ask questions. RR: Well, there you get back to the discipline and attitude problems. KY: Yes. Sitting in this position now you can look at it and say, "Hey! I saw it coming umpteen years ago". Once I decided to retire, my wife and I discussed the various locations that we wanted to retire. During our discussions, Fayetteville, North Carolina is about a mile out of Fort Bragg and I imagine it probably joins Fort Bragg now. Thinking of the all-volunteer Army, the attitude of the young volunteer entering the service at that time and the discipline problems that was going on in the service at this time, even though we own that home, we decided it would be better to raise our children in a non-military community. So that's how we decided to come back here to Utah. Now, thinking of the future, I started taking a lot of Civil service test for different types of positions, my primary goal was to be hired on in the postal system. I did this while I was on active duty I started taking these series of test, when retirement came at the end of May 1975. It was happy and a sad day in our life. I always remember most in my mind about an hour after the retirement 18 ceremony and we had gone back to the place where we were living at that time in an apartment or a rented house. I mentioned, to my wife and daughters, well about an hour and a half ago I was a Master Sergeant E-8 in the Army, I was somebody, I was something and now I am nothing. My youngest daughter said, Daddy you will always be something to me and that sticks in my mind. We came out here to Utah and decided after looking around a little bit, we wanted to settle down in Brigham City, Utah, because it's such a peaceful, quiet, clean little town. I did luck up and go to work for the postal system, as an eighty-nine day temporary employee and enjoyed the work. The pay was good. The military retirement checks were coming in. We had bought a beautiful home with a big back yard and fruit trees and finally after twenty some odd years if I wanted to dig up some grass I could dig up some grass. I had a place, this was my place and I am going to do what I want to with it. After my short employment with the postal service, I went out to Thiokol, because of my military service experience, when I went out there for a job interview, they like to stereotype you and I image other major industry would do the same thing. They stuck me in the physical security branch a type of guard or something like that. I blame my military experience, not knowing how to sell myself to the different businesses and industries out there in the civilian market. I more or less got myself in the frame of mind that I had to start at the bottom no matter what I did and that was a little bit hard to swallow, but I could do it. I didn't really know what civilian industries consisted of, how many different areas of occupations there are in a place like Thiokol, which is a city within a city. I didn't know how to sell my talents at that time. I lasted out at Thiokol about a year as a guard, again the pay wasn't all that bad, but now I am doing rotating shift work which I didn't have to do in the military. This really upset our way of living. Of course, you know, 19 we lived one way for twenty years and now everything is turned upside down. I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to get up, go to bed or eat breakfast or have supper or what, all I knew was when I had to go to work. Luckily after about a year there I found out about the opening as an ROTC instructor in the Ogden City School District and I applied for that and fortunate enough to be accepted into this position. Now, always in the back of my mind I have had a desire to improve my education. If you remember earlier I said I quit school after the football season of my junior year in high school. After I got over to Germany the first time I was fortunate enough to take and pass the GED test, so I graduated from high school about the same time had I stayed in school. Now with this job with the Ogden City School District it gives me my evenings free. I decided I would take advantage of VA benefits and enter Weber State College. That has probably been one of the more rewarding experiences in my life. I really feel like I was brought out of the dark on a lot of basic things that were taught in geography classes, English classes, physiology classes and basic things that I probably should have learned in high school that I never knew before. It's really been an enlightening and broadening experience. I plan on graduating here very shortly and frankly I admit I am going to miss the college. But it has not all been roses, not all been easy. But I found out some fascinating things. The only way I could have possibly went to college without creating more hardships on the family was through the VA benefits. They paid for everything or else I wouldn't be able to afford to go. RR: Before we end this interview. How about answering some specific questions on education benefits, promotion system, assignments and duties and things like that. Let's go to the assignments and duties first. You explained all your duties and assignments while you 20 were on active duty. What changes have you seen taken place within the last few years as far as assignments and how a guy earns them and things like that. KY: Well, all your assignments today and your various different duties in the Army today are open to anybody that qualifies for these things. In just about any branch of the service today if you have a particular occupation in mind you can get it guaranteed in writing even, if you qualify, that this will be the job they are going to put you into. They are open to anybody. As a matter of fact I imagine they are even going into a lot of females or filling male slots with them. Race, color, creed, religion and nationality, none of that is even considered anymore today. RR: You mentioned females, were there any females in the units that you were in. KY: Yes, at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The females were primarily restricted to clerical duties. We had one as the battery mail clerk another one was the S-l clerk and another one was upstairs in the S-3 section. Now when we went to the field they went to the field with us even though those were the days and that wasn't so far, so long ago, I am talking about in the seventies. They had to go and participate just like anybody else. There were no considerations or allowances because of their difference in sex. RR: But now, compared with fifteen to twenty years ago, females can get any type jobs in the service except combat arms. KY: Very definitely, very definitely. Now fifteen to twenty years ago they were restricted primarily to clerical duties, all female units. Most of them worked in hospitals, post library and stuff like that. But now you can find them anywhere, even in the motor pool down there as grease monkeys. 21 RR: But that is the major change in the last ten to fifteen years is the female part of the military service. KY: Well, it's one of the major changes, yes. I contribute this contract business. I really think that's a great thing with exception of a young individual just leaving high school that really don't know where he wants to go or what he wants to do, now again I am talking about an individual that don't have any sense of direction. Granted a lot of them do. They are using the military as a training ground. Well no where else in the world can you get two or three years of paid experience before you go out on the civilian market for a job. They can get guaranteed that job for the duration of the time they are in the Army in they qualify. RR: Getting back to the Promotion System compared to how you were promoted back during you first part of your military career compared to today. KY: In my early days, of the service in order to get promoted you had to be in what they called a slot or a TO & E position that called for you to be promoted. There had to be a vacancy, say for an example from E-4 to E-5 in your MOS in your unit in order for you to even be considered for promotion. Now they promote Army wide, say for an example you are going to go from E-5 to E-6 in you specialty, it doesn't matter if there is a vacancy in your area or not. They will promote you against any slot anywhere in the Army. In that field and then move you to that slot. So it makes it a lot easier, a lot better for everybody. Because there is a chance of upward mobility as far as that goes. RR: This E-5, E-6 is what is known as pay grades. KY: Yes, that's right, that's pay grades. RR: The educational benefits have made a drastic change within the last three or four years, could you tell or explain to us what those changes are. 22 KY: Well, I'll give it my best shot. When I went in the VA benefits were yours after a certain period of time, honorable duty time and I was not required to contribute anything as far as toward my education goes. Now a young man or woman entering the service now must contribute a set amount of money. However as much as they want to per month and it is doubled by the government per month for their future education, i.e.: If I went in today and I contributed fifty dollars a month toward my future education, the military, the government would put in a hundred dollars per month for that same education. RR: So it would give you a hundred and fifty dollars a month for a period, say if you stayed three years, a hundred and fifty dollars per month that you could use for education when you got discharged. KY: Very definitely. RR: The old VA benefits paid so much money depending on how many dependents you had. If you don't mind, could you tell us how much you drew for a period of how many months? KY: Yes. I was taking full advantage of my education benefits. Like I say I entered Weber State College here in about 1976. At that time I was drawing somewhere around $422.00 a month for the first year or so and until my oldest daughter left home then it went down to three hundred and something. At the present time I am only enrolled three quarter time and my VA benefits are $319.00 a month. Stop and figure this out, I been drawing these benefits for about fifty-eight months. It's paid for all my education at Weber State College. All my tuition, all my books, my transportation cost and everything. That's a tremendous amount of money. 23 RR: Well I set down and figured it out. If a guy had one dependent and drew $370.00 a month for a period of forty-two months, after he paid his tuition and after he paid for his books, not counting his transportation cost, he would clear tax free about $14,000.00. KY: Yes, I would go along with that figure easy. I think you are really right on top the money at that point. RR: We talked about base pay. This base pay, what does that actually as far as your pay is concerned? KY: Base pay similarity to a base salary. This is a, you know like you was hired on to do a job at four hundred dollars a month, that would be your base pay. In the military you have your base pay and you draw if you don't live on the post, then you draw extra pay for your rations because you are not eating in the mess hall. You draw an additional allowance to help pay for your rent and you draw another allowance to help pay for the up keep of your uniforms. Base pay is just one figure you work with, that's your starting figure. RR: That's your taxable money. KY: That's your taxable money, right. RR: Now, you were Airborne, so you got paid for being jump qualified. How much was that a month. KY: Well, that's called hazardous duty pay, I believe it was then and still is now fifty-five dollars a month extra, this is above all your other entitlements. RR: Now that you are retired with twenty years’ service. How much is your retirement pay compared to say twenty years ago? KY: Well, as compared to twenty years ago, my retirement pay is probably just a little bit better, maybe two or three hundred dollars a month more than the individual that retired 24 twenty years ago because of the laws and that that raised the former retirees pay according to the cost of living allowances granted to the other branches of the service and the civilian community. RR: Are there any other main changes you seen take place within the last fifteen to twenty years. KY: Well the biggest, probably the biggest between the attitudes of the young people and changes in the uniforms is the technology advances of the different branches and the equipment that are available to the people today and have been a creative brain storm. That has been a quite astronomical in the leaps and bounds in the technical advances in weaponry and anything else the military service is concerned with. The benefits, they been going up and down, medical, dental, education and even as far as buying a home they been going up and down. They are primarily all for the benefit of the person that will stop and take five minutes to think about it and make maximum use of them. Then he can live a comfortable life. RR: Sergeant Young, I thank you for this interview. This tape will be on file at Weber State College Library and will be available for use by anyone that wants to go check them out. 25