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An up close and personal interview with U.S. Army Veteran and Togetherweserved.com Member:
MSG Richard B Brigmond U.S. Army (Ret) (1961-1983)
PLEASE DESCRIBE WHO OR WHAT INFLUENCED YOUR DECISION TO JOIN THE ARMY?
As a youth, I was ugly, gangly, redheaded, bullied, barefooted, ragged, poor beyond belief, tired of picking cotton, sunburned, spurned by hoards of beautiful women along with the homely ones as well, and completely enamored with shiny boots and the United States Army uniform. Yeah, I was a southern farm boy, desperately destitute of any gainful future prospects for escaping the cotton field except the military. Oh, I was indeed imbued with patriotism and a fancy for the uniform and fanatically loyal to my native country, the United States of South Georgia. Though it was a frightening venture, I closed my eyes for courage and enlisted. I served 22 years with dedication and honesty. I am honored with a couple of "been there" medals, but the only decoration of personal significance is the United States Army Good Conduct Medal and that little weapons qualification badge that is called the Basic Missileman Qualification Badge. Certainly, psychologists will have a heyday with the fact (if one disregards my fantasies and wishful thinking) that I remained shy and naive all my life except for an affair I had with the Browning .50 caliber machine gun, but with respect to Mistress Browning, I have learned that I can make an unsightly larger hole with a sharp pencil and I would rather suffer trench foot up to my earlobes while standing guard in the open sewers of hell than to write with a pencil that is not made in the United States of America.
During the excitement of the rush-for-space era was when the Army began recruiting aspiring high school graduates to be maintenance specialists for the air defense systems being deployed against the Soviet Union air threat. In a high schooler's mind, though unrealistic, the prospects of actually working on missiles and rockets were an opportunity to fulfill fantasy, aspiration and ultimately become an astronaut. Surely, some, as even I, daydreamed that the Army experience would be the first step toward eventually walking on the surface of the moon. I began zealously preparing myself for the opportunity to eventually become a part of the space program by first paying my dues in service of my country. In my youth, I became moonstruck. My fantasy began to take solid roots. My brother and I converted enough chemical fertilizer into model rocket fuel to grow an acre of cotton. We scoured debris piles and ditches for discarded irrigation pipe to convert into rocket motors. We never had any significant success, but we made a lot of loud noises and smoke. That was enough hubbub in our neighborhood that the folks feared a threat from the skies, that one of our missiles may fall upon their heads.  The various religious denominations in my neighborhood during my youth adhered to some pretty antiquated notions of primitive fundamentalism, many believers were my close relatives. Most were flat-earth adherents and hellfire and brimstone zealots. They scowled disdainfully upon me for my audaciously sacrilegious thoughts that man could rocket out of this world. Their criticism would have caused my aspirations to perish except for one old poor farmer. He knew very little about space travel, but he encouraged me. His name is Sam Rollins. I owe him a lot. He feared God, but he was not a religious man. If by some divine grace that I shall go to heaven and not find him there, my first task will be to organize a commando raid to hell and fetch him out.
My aspiration was to "go" to the moon and because I lacked a natural mental capacity for mathematics and science, I delved into those subjects zealously in order to prepare myself. Due to the lack of natural aptitude for such academics, I failed those courses that I studied in high school. But because of the extra efforts and persistent rigors that I spent studying these subjects, I developed a "false" aptitude for science and mathematics and I passed proficiency tests in those areas quite impressively and easily. Without hope, any creature will truly and simply expire. Idiots and imbeciles strive and survive only because they have hope in the fact that the great accomplishments in the annals of man did not begin and end with genius and ability, but with normal and even feeble minded people whose only brilliance was drive, enthusiasm and vision.
WHETHER YOU WERE IN THE SERVICE FOR SEVERAL YEARS OR AS A CAREER, PLEASE DESCRIBE THE DIRECTION OR PATH YOU TOOK. WHAT WAS YOUR REASON FOR LEAVING?
After my basic training at Fort Gordon, Georgia, I attended the HAWK missile and launcher maintenance course at Fort Bliss, Texas. The course was 21 weeks which included 8 weeks of basic electronics. Graduates were awarded the Military Occupational Specialty of 227.2O - HAWK Missile and Launcher Mechanic. Some of the students of my class were assigned with me to the 6th Battalion, 562nd Air Defense Artillery. We trained for six weeks in Basic Unit Training and then trained another six weeks in Advanced Unit Training. Our equipment and the entire battalion were shipped to Germany and there we became a part of the 32nd Air Defense Artillery Brigade. As enlistments began to terminate, I was promoted to pay grade E5 and became a HAWK Missile and Launcher Maintenance Supervisor MOS 227.6O.
I rotated back to Fort George G. Meade, Maryland and shortly afterward to Camp Jonathan Williams, Korea and became an MOS 22J, HAWK Missile and Launcher Mechanic as the old MOS specialty designators had become obsolete. It was the same job. My next assignment was a direct assignment from Korea to Germany. I worked as the Assembly and Service Section Chief with another MOS designator change of 24D, still a HAWK Missile and Launcher Mechanic. I also had acquired a secondary MOS of a HAWK Missile continuous wave radar mechanic, MOS 24B from a cross-training duty assignment in Korea. From Germany, my next assignment was in Key West, Florida. I was the Assembly and Service Chief there until I attended a six weeks transition course at Fort Bliss, Texas for the Improved HAWK Missile System in 1972. We were awarded a new MOS of 24C, HAWK Missile System Firing Section Mechanic. I remained a 24C until my promotion to pay grade E8, at which time I became a member of the Ordnance career branch with the MOS designator of 24V and I shortly afterward, retired.
OF ALL YOUR DUTY STATIONS OR ASSIGNMENTS, WHICH ONE DO YOU HAVE FONDEST MEMORIES OF AND WHY? WHICH ONE WAS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE?
The Greeks, a most delightfully honest people, can be charmingly more boorish, robust, and colorful than any of the many wonderful people in the world. They favor ample portions of everything from sea urchins to swordfish steaks. They drink a sparkling clear drink with a licorice flavor that can be mixed one part to a thousand parts of water, which miraculously takes on the appearance of whole milk, but will still qualify as a powerful rocket fuel. In folksy friendly restaurants, the only menu is a tour of the kitchen and lifting the lids of the pots on the stove. On festive family occasions, the order or abundance is not the measure of a festive meal, nor is there a "main course" but a "first course," as there are successive scrumptious salvos of pork, goat, mutton, chicken, beef, fish and enough of any in-season vegetable and fruit to feed an army. Precluding any notion of impropriety, the men are man enough to dance with the men. Until recent legislation forbidding a long established custom, as the spirit of a special happening heightened, they smashed their plates onto the floor. I cannot share any unique impressions of the other cultures of which I had experienced during assignments because prior to my assignment on the Island of Crete my exposure to the people (Germans, Koreans, and even stateside Americans) was limited and restricted by the demands of my duties. In 1978, I was transferred to Crete to a service practice firing range - the very best of all my assignments. The one year tour was unaccompanied - without families.
There was plenty of time to learn my job, no extra duties, no troops to command and most unusual, there was free-time to rest and prepare. The place was as close to the mythical Valhalla as one can imagine as I was truly thinking that I had died of broken radar dysentery and resurrected in Heaven. I served with the finest HAWK missilemen that NATO had to offer and I listened at length to the insights they shared with me. As an evaluator, I became aware of discrete innovations that got the missile off the launcher and the resulting technical kills. William "Bill" Bibo was our Raytheon Technical Representative for telemetry on the HAWK firing range. In appearance and personality he is a cross between the late surly radio host, Wolfman Jack, and television's suave, fix-it man, Bob Vila, of This Old House, but technically he is all Einstein. Though he never maligned the HAWK Missile System, his explanations were an awaking to me that I had deluded myself during my entire military service and luckily I was on this tranquil island. The setting and the ease of my duties and life were such as to help me reconcile my misdirected dedication, unrealized dreams and futile efforts. Whether cleverly discreet or inadvertently, he was able to explain a lot of my concerns about HAWK viability.
When I attended school at Fort Bliss in 1961, some of our instructors reemphasized that HAWK was an acronym for Homing All the Way Killer. Afterward, they joked that HAWK really meant Hope Ajax Will Kill. Ajax was the name of a forerunner longer ranged missile.  Even though Ajax was a behind-the-lines missile, it had the long-range capacity to intercept targets before a threat would become a HAWK responsibility. Those battery level administrative personnel (as essential as their duty is, it is hard to regard a clerk as a soldier) referred to HAWK as the Holiday And Weekend Killer. Pertaining to family and married life of HAWK soldiers the missile was satirized by the sad-but-true sneer of Husband And Wife Killer. I was assuming that during all my many years as a maintenance man that only Americans were making such jokes. In 1980, I found some graffiti left by a German unit on the launcher crew bunker wall of a HAWK site on the NAMFI firing range lampooning HAWK. Heute Alles Wieder Kaput. The word-for-word translation is Today Everything Again Broken. I have learned many years since that the Germans had also a couple of other expressions that do not translate quite literally, but will equate to an expression-for-expression rather adequately: Haufen Arbeit Wenig Kohle; A heap of work (mining) and little coal and Hau Ab Wenn's Knallt; Beat foot if hell breaks loose, alluding to: If war starts, run! Amusing. Even a soldier's life was peaceful on the Island of Crete. It was a long time before I adapted to the ease of my duties and the off-duty time. Much time was spent soul searching and reflection. Soon, I became very accustomed to the unreal carefree duty and as my tour neared termination, I began to dread the return to the hellish routine of a HAWK missile site. In consideration that I lacked a couple of years before I qualified for retirement, I requested an extension (an additional 12 months) of my tour and moved my family to Crete and that extra year was the best time of our lives.
FROM YOUR ENTIRE SERVICE, INCLUDING COMBAT, DESCRIBE THE PERSONAL MEMORIES WHICH HAVE IMPACTED YOU MOST?
During the summer of 1974, near the finish of a week long field exercise, I had to write a report to our battalion operations officer, Major Grady Barr, about our malfunctioning equipment and degraded operations. Later that day, he critiqued our exercise. He used my report extensively without mentioning that I was its writer. Afterward, the new Battalion Headquarters Operations Readiness Officer (formerly my maintenance chief in Charlie Battery, 2nd Battalion, 62nd Air Defense Artillery), Chief Warrant Officer Billy L. Garner, told me that the operations officer had complimented my writing for its clarity about the technical difficulties that we were experiencing. I was puffed-up to the gills and I became quite cocky by the accolade. Effective writing was something that I had always striven to accomplish. Finally, I was attaining some measure of acuity. I had become a HAWK system readiness inspector and evaluator at our battalion headquarters and in the Reflections Section (Which individual person from your service stands out as the one who had the biggest impact on you and why?) I have written how I got the job. I hatched a harebrained idea and I began a personal project of compiling reports that would be channeled through my immediate commander up the chain of command about the HAWK System. A soldier has this right, but it is a deadly right.
WHAT ACHIEVEMENT(S) ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF FROM YOUR MILITARY CAREER? IF YOU RECEIVED ANY MEDALS FOR VALOR OR OTHER SIGNIFICANT AWARDS, PLEASE DESCRIBE HOW THESE WERE EARNED.
During my career, the HAWK Missile System was deployed for a short time in Vietnam, but I never served in an out-and-out war zone.
OF ALL THE MEDALS, AWARDS, QUALIFICATION BADGES OR DEVICES YOU RECEIVED, PLEASE DESCRIBE THE ONE(S) MOST MEANINGFUL TO YOU AND WHY?
My Basic Missileman Badge is my most cherished award. It distinguishes me as a missileman. It is a Weapons Qualification badge. It does not compare to the Recruiters, Combat Infantry, etc., Badges. United States Army Air Defenders have no such distinctive badge. The United States Air Force has a very impressive Missile Qualification Badge. My Basic Missile Weapons Qualification Badge technically expired after the first year (1962), but I wore it during all my military career and I still do - on Memorial Days. I never served in combat. During the Cold War, some HAWK missile soldiers served in Viet Nam. The HAWK Missile System was deployed during the first Iraq War and HAWK missilemen demonstrated the mettle of heroes and have the decorations attesting bravery. As with my carelessly snide remark about clerks, critics who look down the sides of their noses and passed their best Elvis sneers at what they perceive as the feeble bravado of a sniveling wimpy cur dog are at odds with the physiologists who attest that a cornered mongrel's sniveling or bravado quickly morphs into a flight or fight response, which has won many a day against overwhelming odds. When hopelessness and bleakness become obvious, desperation is replaced by an arrogant audacity of which there is no mixture under heaven that is more formidable as can be attested by the fierceness of the 300 Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae, the men of the Lost Battalion, and the volunteers of the Alamo, of the French Foreign Legionnaires at the Battle of Camaron, of the British troops at the Battle Rorke's Drift, and of the sailors at the Battle off Samar. Those soldiers who manned the un-assaulted bastions, trenches, ramparts, foxholes, etc., have nevertheless counted coup but often suffer careless remarks about having served in unessential duties. The symptoms of sleep deprivation does not equal the post traumatic stress syndrome and neither compares with dead.
In a Stars and Stripes article, published 24 June 1960, Audie Murphy is quoted in reply to the question, "What do you think makes a man do the things it takes to win the Medal of Honor?" Murphy said, "A soldier does the things he's been trained to do. There's certainly no dramatic premeditation involved." Real men and real heroes do not compare their chests anymore than they compare themselves anatomically while standing next to one another at a row of public toilet urinals.  This protocol is just good manners. On Memorial Day, 2010, I put on my Army blue uniform and I walked up to the credit union parking lot of our little village. I reported to a Marine veteran impressively decked out in his dress uniform and ceremonial sword. As other uniformed veterans gathered, I was a bit intimidated as I began glancing and comparing their many decorations with my seven awards of the Army Good Conduct Medal, which consists of one ribbon and a silver device in the form of a straight cord with two knots and that German Iron Cross styled little rifle range marksmanship qualification badge with a dangling thin bar inscribed with the word "missile." A young veteran wearing the Army green uniform with specialist-four stripes and two full rows and a partial of ribbons consisting of a Bronze Star with V device, two Purple Hearts, both Iraq and Afghanistan "been-there" ribbons and one Good Conduct ribbon and a Combat Infantryman's Badge and a paratrooper insignia reported to the Marine veteran in-charge of the Memorial Day parade. He shyly meandered his way through the gathering crowd of veterans. Arrayed above his right pocket were at least four Unit Citation ribbons. I thought that because I was the only Army veteran in uniform thus far assembled among a couple dozen Marine, Air Force and Navy veterans, he felt drawn to stand beside me. His eyes were attracted momentarily to all the rank and longevity gold stripes that fill my Army blue uniform sleeves from shoulder to wrist, then a lightning fast look to my collar and he saw the Air Defense Artillery branch insignia and lastly he stared above my left breast pocket. His disbelief of what he beheld turned to obvious befuddlement. He asked me, "Wow, Master Sergeant, what kind o' missile?"
I reckoned that he should be snickering at the Good Conduct Medal instead of the Basic Missileman "Badge." I continued to looked into the distance. I raise my hand to his shoulder and as I touched him, I said, "The TSM... the triple shot "migshooter." He would understand, but it would take three seconds. Sarcasm is always a dud or a delayed fused hang fire. By my count of one thousand three, he chuckled a listless little chortle while I choked on the awkwardness. He understood. He was almost as intimidated by my many stripes as I was in awe of his many medals. He elbowed me in the ribs as a grandson teases his grandpa. Even then, if we had been suddenly thrust onto the field of Armageddon and hitting the ground beside each other, he would have asked: "What'll we do now, Sarge?" But should have we suddenly appeared at the bar, I would have asked the question. "Soldier, you just earned the prize of the day. After this parade, I am treating you to lunch at Bonnie's. Any problems with that?" "I don't know, Master Sergeant. My mother-in-law, my wife and my..." "Bring 'em on!"
"They'd like that. You're treating me like a hero, Master Sergeant! I'm very..." "Perceptive! Soldier, you're very perceptive."
WHICH INDIVIDUAL(S) FROM YOUR TIME IN THE MILITARY STAND OUT AS HAVING THE MOST POSITIVE IMPACT ON YOU AND WHY?
My father. There is a photograph that I began to study from my earliest recollections. I often pondered everything in the picture, and I still do. The photograph was taken in the autumn in the front yard shortly after World War II. Pa was holding me and my mom was holding my brother. Those were desperate days and the surrounding images in the picture reveals the poverty that complicates desperate times. Despite his best efforts, my dad never succeeded in all his life. Several times, when he was feeling most despondent, I would overhear him declaring in a low voice to himself that in the Army he was "somebody." There was another man. He is the same age as myself. Captain Stephen D. Cork. In the spring of 1973, my commander had a man-to-man talk with me. It was one of those cloudless windy cold days that novice writers describe in the beginning of their first manuscript. I was about to have my eyes opened, but ironically the sun was so bright that I had to squint. It may have been midnight for what I could "see" at the moment. My commander motioned for me to come down from atop a radar that I was working on. We stepped away from the noise of the radar and he gestured for me to sit down with him on the slope side of the radar mound which shielded us from the cold wind and the sun shown onto our backs and then I was beginning to see that he had something in store for me. This was very unusual as he was normally very careful to be professional and formal. Captain Stephen D. Cork posed a question, "What are we wielding, HAWK or hoax?"
"I don't know," I said. I thought his statement was profound. The word "wielding" certainly caught me off guard. In my mind, such was Shakespearean language and Captain Cork's use of "hoax" frightened me. He pondered for a long time before he spoke his next words. Then he explained to me that we were both Regular Army, but that it was harder for him to keep that status. He had one year in HAWK to do his command time. This one year would make or break him. His next words must have been awkward for him to express, because he again hesitated several times as he continued speaking. His summation was strong. I remember his words well and I would feel confident to quote him but this reckoning was a long time ago.  He compared our eventualities, that I would be in the dilemma until I died or retired and that commanders could not hinder any report, defensible or not, from going through channels and as such reports were reviewed, impressions would be inevitably construed that a commander was not succeeding. It was very clear to me then. My eyes were opened. It was not just that commanders do their jobs with excellence, but they had to succeed. In the 1950's hysteria to build up an air defense against the Cold War Soviet bomber and missile threat, the other HAWK commanders had "succeeded" before him. The evaluation bamboozlement by this time had been factored out of the operations equation. Glitz and hoopla, and even good ole boy cronyism did not suffice as it once did to ignore a non-functioning item of equipment. It would be a career disaster to hint to our superiors that the myriad of HAWK battery commanders had done their one to two years do-or-die command time by hook-or-crook as a matter of career survival.
Though, it was not the intent of the reports, there was the possibility that the information would be perceived as unfounded whistle-blowing. No commander could afford a General Billy Mitchell type of whistle-blower who was ranting that the Emperor is naked. Whistle-blowers are slimy little useless wimps who, after tooting their tune, often become conveniently exposed for being cleavage gandering malcontents who hang out at the check-out counter in the grocery store or some other public place where ladies lean forward a lot. Or, maybe one would be exposed for being a snot wad who stalks about and watches ladies folding their underclothes in the laundromat. I did not like those images and at that moment, I perceived that that would be the way that I would be viewed. I felt desperate to preserve my long cherished self-delusions that I was an exact double of Gary Cooper and those strong silent heroes that he personified in the movies. For the sake of his career, I was impressed that Captain Cork had a realistic vision of incurring consequences whether he endorsed or debunked my assertions.
We were sitting on one of the large man-built knolls that provided just enough elevation for our radars to "see" over the gentle hills of the Eiffel near Bitburg, Germany. HAWK had a fabricated history of excellence. Rifle range doctrine says that without aided vision a soldier can only accurately see 460 meters or 500 yards. But aided with that little bit of insight, we could "see" that the Free World had a long line of HAWK from the North Sea to the Mediterranean Sea and just as pretentious and just as vulnerable as that "impregnable" Maginot Line of defense that the French had built during the 1930's to deter an invasion from Germany. A shiny spotless rifle with a broken firing pen functions impressively and perfectly for purposes on the parade ground, but that broken firing pen renders a rifle useless in the trenches. I gathered the magnitude of the Captain's words as he voiced that Mister Garner needed a firing section maintenance man on the battalion inspection team and that he was recommending me. It was forty years later when I realized the insight that then Captain Cork was careful to instill in me that would eventually manifest itself - it is the natural order of leadership, officers have a career, NCO's have a mission. In reflection, I was kind of bought and, frankly, to this day there are pangs of conscience that tears at my soul that I compromised my principles for the relief and elevation that I gained and that I am still unrepentant. At that moment though, I felt pangs of despair, because, actually, I was being fired.
CAN YOU RECOUNT A PARTICULAR INCIDENT FROM YOUR SERVICE WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE BEEN FUNNY AT THE TIME, BUT STILL MAKES YOU LAUGH?
I have sought out some of my old non-career comrades who had done a sprint of service with me. Their reflections amount to a revelry of continuous holidays and riotous parties. I have only been able to find a few of the career HAWK maintenance soldiers. The old career soldiers are mixed bag of worn out relics, but they only reluctantly talk of those days. When they are speaking of HAWK, they nervously giggle and gasp between their words and quickly change the subject. Some speak of the bureaucracy of their post-military mundane civil service jobs or the inefficiency of their employment in the civilian sector.
When I succeed in eliciting a story about HAWK, they hedge and divert to retelling the old fabricated sagas of struggles with the German Polizei over a negotiation disagreement with Fraulein Lorelei on Twenty Mark Strasse.
Another classic is the old story of a Korean honey pit - normally, a sandbox wide, torso deep well for storing human toilet waste used to fertilize rice crops - and of a drunken soldier buddy who, unfortunately falls into the retched mire. The odyssey is of a soldier hurrying to beat curfew, who foolishly takes the raised footpath shortcut back through the rice patty to camp after partying in the ville. Also, countless times, I have heard in the first person that old furlough fantasy of the mademoiselle who picked him up at the Gare de l'Est and after 10 days of leave romance, he never even glimpsed the Eiffel Tower. Old worn-out soldiers delude themselves. There is no such encounter as a struggle with the German Polizei. Although their forbearance is very polite and courteous, any uncooperative run-in with a German policeman quickly becomes one-sided, never a struggle. No one fully survives a fall into a Korean rice paddy hot tub; he either dies or becomes a mentally deranged outcast. The Paris furlough story: He got bilked of all his leave money at the train station and could not afford the admission to go up the Eiffel Tower, slept in the lounge at the USO, returned to his camp in Germany, and told his buddies his save-face adventure lies based on recollections of the film Irma la Dulce.
WHAT PROFESSION DID YOU FOLLOW AFTER YOUR MILITARY SERVICE AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW? IF YOU ARE CURRENTLY SERVING, WHAT IS YOUR PRESENT OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALTY?
 My first work after my retirement was teaching computer technology in Binghamton, New York. I taught for only a short time and I quit the job. I "bagged" groceries from 1985 until 1996. I served a Church mission in Peru for one year and a half. After I returned to the United States, I revisited Europe for a while and after the long vacation, I returned to my boyhood home in the State of Georgia and I taught high school for three years. I relocated back to New York in 2003 and I totally retired. Presently, I do community and church service and travel.
WHAT MILITARY ASSOCIATIONS ARE YOU A MEMBER OF, IF ANY? WHAT SPECIFIC BENEFITS DO YOU DERIVE FROM YOUR MEMBERSHIPS?
I was a member of the American Legion for a spurt. Since 1996, I have not been a member on any veterans organization. I have attended several HAWK missilemen's reunions and found that the reunions very edifying. I give great honor to and have strong appreciation for those who served as members of HAWK Air Defense Artillery units.
IN WHAT WAYS HAS SERVING IN THE MILITARY INFLUENCED THE WAY YOU HAVE APPROACHED YOUR LIFE AND YOUR CAREER?
HAWK Missilemen worked very long and hard. Also, I have pondered the experience long and hard. I can only surmise that most of us, as youths, entered the Army as naive dreamers. As recruits, we envisioned glorious destinies. We were even vainglorious in our expectations of ourselves. When we realized that our personal aspirations were self-delusions, despite discouragement, still we continued faithful to our duty. It is evident that objectivity was abandoned in the very beginning pages of this account. Though I am shy about my feelings and emotions, it is blatant that mounting disappointment has kept pace with my gradual comprehension of the big picture. I feel as I do in those dreams that I have about being in polite company and suddenly my clothes are missing. No dignified purpose is ever served when someone seeks for himself pity or condolences. This is an embarrassment for me, because some disrobing has occurred. Compelled by this saga, an agelessly recurring saga, of the sacrifice of many soldiers that has gone unsung and, due to the season of my life, I must at least hum this single stanza of its melody or I am quitting my post without being duly relieved. Oh! How I wish that such a song could be as a bombastic German beer garden song, but sadly it is too much like a medieval dirge. The precautions spouted by decrepit old soldiers are as unheard as the mute marble their epitaphs are chiseled on. HAWK Missilemen are no different than those American soldiers who endured Valley Forge, perished at the Alamo, marched at Bataan, ran up San Juan Hill, the soldiers of the Lost Battalion and any other American military man or woman who chooses to serve. Admiral William Frederick Halsey is noted for his quote about those who rise to impossible occasions and of its several variations, one is particularly applicable to the HAWK Missileman: There are no extraordinary men...just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are forced to deal with.
The HAWK missilemen of the Cold War were given the mission to shoot down enemy aircraft during an attack, despite the inadequate and unreliable means given us to accomplish that task, if necessary we would have taken to the high ground, stood on buckets and each other's shoulders to close the range and with fly swatters, slingshots and cane poles to down any daring ignorant bastard flying in our direction. From my experience, I would be untruthful if I do not conclude to myself that the HAWK Missile System of the Cold War equates to the French Chauchat machine gun of World War I. What more do I owe humanity or my country? Yea, my last drop of blood, but I fear that in the face of the truly battle worn heroes that I may incur their disdain and offend God if I bare any measure of my personal regrets. These days,  Cold War HAWK missile equipment is comparatively recycle scrap and all that exists of that aspect of the Cold War experience are the diminishing dupes who deployed it - little Dutch boys whose cries went unacknowledged because their tender fingers were sufficing as plugs and the ordnance manufacturer was untimely and even hesitant to provide a remedy. Though, if a sober-minded youth were to put his ear to the breast of these monument relics that still live and breath and close his eyes for a moment, he will hear something from their hearts, something very differently than will be written in their obituaries, revealed in their "war" stories, ranted out during their nightmares or chiseled on their grave markers, the glossed over and suppressed restless bitterness of having dedicated the best years of youth holding off the country's enemies with a costly wooden tipped pike, convincingly painted to look like tempered steel, to allay the scare induced by the distant din of caisson rumble and rattle.
Hopefully, the heirs of freedom will not erect monuments or bestow tribute to the lance, but to the soldier who thrust it. Without the poetry, it can be best stated that during the Cold War days of HAWK, the radars were always broken and the Russians were always coming, but all things considered, the radars were irreparable and, luckily, the Russians never arrived. These old veterans are like the sands of time heaped by the door. As the waters of reflection are added, even to prepare the foundation for their monument, the stench of old urine is revealed and shows that because of innocent obedience and patriotic zeal, a lot of noble Cold War soldiers spent their youth being... Even the pure-hearted and most saintly minded struggle to finish this sentence without potty talk. What was it all about? The question does not deserve an answer. The first soldier who survived the first battle of the human experience obviously asked himself that same question as other soldiers have done all through the ages since. The soldiering experience has given me an incommunicable vision of the spirit of this land, its precepts of liberty and the richness of the mongrelization of the wretches who suffered its creation and maintenance. Though an enemy, scalawag or foreign, cut my throat and bind my limbs, I will defend it to my last breath and with my last twitch.
BASED ON YOUR OWN EXPERIENCES, WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO THOSE WHO HAVE RECENTLY JOINED THE ARMY?
 One bit of counsel: A soldier never knows when he will smother a hand grenade and become a hero. After such an event, Hollywood will rush to make a saga film of the soldier's life. Therefore in preparation, a soldier should practice refined manners, learn ballroom dancing, court with propriety, and marry a most comely spouse so that in the theater we will be uplifted by an epic that rivals Sergeant York, To Hell and Back, etc., instead of brawls and seedy bedroom scenes which may inspire future generations to assume that heroes come from a bottomless pit of ne'er-do-wells. It is a matter of legacy, a wholesome legacy, that will inspire wholesome patriotism for generations. Too, mothers and children of heroes go to the movies. Except for carnage occurring on the battlefield, live a G-rated life, troops.
IN WHAT WAYS HAS TOGETHERWESERVED.COM HELPED YOU REMEMBER YOUR MILITARY SERVICE AND THE FRIENDS YOU SERVED WITH.
 Aside from discovering a few names that I have desperately needed for my records and journal, Togetherweserved.com has been a morale benefit. Rediscovering that bond that a "band of brothers" acquires during a soldiering experience has given me a sense of worth that even my Sunday School teacher fell short of instilling in me.
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