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Elmer Allen
When were you deployed and what did you do at your duty station?
The active duty station?
Yes.
I was at Fort Hood Texas from 1989 to 1993 with second armor division and we deployed on October 10th of 1990 to Saudi Arabia. For Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. I returned June 10th 1991.
How many years had you been a part of the military prior to your
deployment?
18 months
What kind of preparation did you make prior to deployment?
Prior to deployment we basically just prepared all vehicles and brought them up maintenance wise, so they were all 100 percent because everything we had back then in the inventory was very old. It was all from the 80’s and did lots of basic tank maneuvering, training maneuvers and stuff like that and a lot of chemical warfare training and preparation for Desert Storm.
What about at home, what did you do at home to prepare you?
At home, at that time, I was an active duty soldier so my home was in the barracks and I just happened to be on leave when I got the call that I needed to get back to Fort Hood. So really, the only thing that I prepared at that time was just kind of going around and said good-bye to all of your family and there really wasn’t anything special that you needed to prepare because you didn’t have any responsibilities being that I was only twenty-one at the time.
What was the hardest thing about being there?
The hardest thing about being there was basically being away from family and friends. And of course the accommodations in the desert weren’t the best because we didn’t live at any bases. We basically lived in the desert for months and you had no electricity, no running water and so that made it real interesting.
What was life at your duty station?
The duty station as far as in the United States or on duty overseas?
Probably overseas.
Pretty much when we got overseas we spent very little time in Saudi Arabian ports. All the rest of the time was spent basically hiding in the Saudi Arabian deserts so we weren’t seen or noticed where we were by the numbers. And like I said, there were no accommodations and your food was delivered daily and once a week they offered to take your clothes to wash and most of the time was just spent doing radio watch and running some training maneuvers from time to time just to stay prepared for whenever the day we were called to move into Kuwait.
How long did you serve over there?
It was a total of 8 months.
What kind of stress did you endure while deployed and how was it
different from everyday stress as a soldier?
Life was probably a lot more stressful for us than what we understood because we accepted that way of life. A lot of times, we found humor in hardships so you kind of took it that you didn’t have showers and that you didn’t have convenience stores like a Kwik Trip which some people take Kwik Trips like even a flushing toilet in your own home for granted like its real simple. But there is a lot of time to think about it when you spend months without it and that’s the kind of stress that you put up with like if it was hot you could never be cool and if it was cold it was hard to be warm. So it’s pretty much a 24 hour day battle of the elements and if you had a letter it was 30 days old so when you responded to one, so everything you had was very slow moving cause e-mail didn’t exist back then.
What equipment did you have while at your duty station?
We actually, fortunately, lucked out and because of the Reagan era and the buildup of military equipment that at this point in time we really had no educated knowledge to even know that this was even happening. But in California and in a couple of holding sites in Germany there was basically an entire replacement for the United States Armed Forces. If there were a thousand tanks or a thousand Bradleys or artillery pieces, it didn’t really matter what it was, there was a brand new piece for every piece that we had in the military. Surprised to us, about a month before Christmas, soldiers and marines got about the best presents you could ask for. We all got brand new tanks and brand new Bradley Fighting Vehicles and brand new weapons systems so we really went from having 8 of 13 total tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles being basically down and couldn’t be used under maintenance one week. The next week we turned them in and it was almost like you had 13 brand new Cadillacs because everything was perfect and you didn’t have to do anything to them and they didn’t break down on you and so it was kind of a nice little treat that you got.
What personal items were you allowed to bring with you to your duty
station and what specifically did you bring?
At the time you could bring one small bag so it was probably about maybe about half a foot in width and 18 inches long and 18 inches tall so it would be like a small travel carry on bag you would take on to a plane. And pretty much everything you brought was letter writing material and pens and I believe we brought at the time tapes, cassette players with headphones and which is kind of funny even thinking back to it. Some of the other stuff that I brought were batteries, a camera, and a lot of empty film canisters for taking pictures.
What did you do in your free time?
In our free time we for the most part a lot of times you just hung out and sometimes did nothing in free time. That was all you wanted to do and when you had the opportunity, they would deliver showers out to the desert so sometimes you were if you were fortunate to have water you could shower. A lot of times, you just kind of slept and took naps whenever you got a chance to and listened to music and did personal things like clean your own fire arms.
Did you enjoy having free time or was it more stress?
We always liked having free time because a lot of times if you were overworked. Free time became sleep time no matter what time of the day it was. So if you were off during the day that was your night, even if it was from 10 in the morning until 5 in the evening. That was your only cycle to sleep for the day.
How long usually is your break time?
Actually you really never had breaks because every day of the week was a Sunday so you worked every day in the military you know so you could never really tell what day of the week it was or what hour it was but we usually worked on sometimes 12 hours on 12 hours off and sometimes 8 on 8 off. We pulled shift work.
Are there any memorable moments that you would like to share from over
there?
Memorable moments for Desert Storm that would be, were like shaking hands with your buddies prior to moving over across the border when we actually moved in to kick Iraq out of Kuwait. That’s a real memorable moment right there. Other memorable moments were taking enemy prisoners of war which we took like 4500 prisoners in 4 days and there were only 3500 people in our unit so it was very busy.
Are there any people that really stood out to you while you were over
there serving?
Yes, a good friend of mine was 2 years behind me at Wausau
East High School and so we knew each other, we were acquaintances in high
school, never really friends but in the time we were overseas we became best
friends and still are best friends today.
How did you feel after you returned home?
Very excited to be home, so it was a fun time took one month off and even though everyday wasn’t a party everyday felt like it was because you were so excited to be home and hanging out with family and friends.
Was there any lessons you learned while a way at war?
Lessons learned would just simply be not to take anything for granted of all the simple things you have in life from the houses like I said stores everything that you have in the United States really.
What did serving your country mean to you while on active duty?
It was kind of like an honorable type duty thing, patriotic.
Is there a message that you have for people today about the war?
About Desert Storm it was that it was fortunately very
short and we didn’t lose many American lives.
Going back or actually being able to watch documentaries years down the
road seeing the Kuwaiti people living free and being happy and having all of the
accommodations that people have in the United States made it all worth it.
While we are talking about that, do you know how long Desert Storm 2
actually lasted?
It only lasted 45 days.
Do you feel something should have been done differently with the current
conflict?
Current conflict as in back in 1990 Desert Storm?
Yes
The only thing different that should have been done is that we shouldn’t had stopped at the Iraq border in Kuwait city we should had went straight to Baghdad and finished the job and we wouldn’t be wasting our time over there right know.
Is there anything else you would like to add about your trip?
No that’s about it.
What conflicts did you participate in?
Is this starting over again?
No, this is for Desert Storm.
The conflicts that I participated in were operation desert shield, operation Desert Storm and I was there during what they call operation provide comfort.
What branch of military were you in?
United States army.
Were you ever activated during wartime?
Yes
When and why did you join the service?
I joined the service in 1988 and it was just because I had interest in history and I liked to study war and I was basically wanted to play my role and serve a few years for the United States.
What kind of pre-war training did you receive?
Pre-war training was basically we just ran rifle ranges and tank ranges and stuff like that to stay practiced with all the skills.
Did that help you once you were in war or did it seem useless?
No it helped.
What was an average day in the military like?
An average day in the military was usually very busy. A lot of times it was anywhere from 8 to 16 hour days.
What was an average day in the military like?
An average day was usually very busy and sometimes fun but sometimes stressful. You just did a lot of work it’s usually based around physical training for yourself and maintenance of all of your equipment its maintenance everyday what the military does is they maintain equipment and they maintain weapons and so you get really fluent with it.
How was diversity accepted in your unit?
Diversity in our unit was very well accepted. You are talking about all the different nationalities of people we had. We had people from White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, guys from the United States and we had a guy from Guam and guys from as far as the Simon islands and the South Pacific so we had very wide range of people you meet.
Do you have an idea or estimate of how many people?
My company that I was in had 110.
Did you see combat while you were there? If so, what was it like?
Yes, I did see combat and it was basically the hundred hour ground war, is what they called it. It started with we had the Marine breech a couple of obstacles for us meaning they blew up and cleared the lanes and once they cleared the lanes we went through them, as the army assisted them and ran the missions straight up to Kuwait city and throughout that time we took a lot of enemy prisoners of war. Our Brigade alone, which was the first Tiger Brigade from the 2nd armored division destroyed 368 vehicles which were basically tanks, trucks, armored personal carriers and took 4500 prisoners and on day 4 we surrounded Kuwait city. It was actually tank battalions that started to hit and stop all the traffic on the highway of death and during that time frame from our vehicles that were firing on stopped when the road got all packed up like it did and if you’ve ever seen any documentaries on it they call it the big turkey shoot cause that’s when all the apaches and planes came in and basically destroyed every single vehicle that was on the highway because it was all fleeing the Iraqi army so it was a pretty interesting 4 days. We were very fortunate to make it through it with only 2 combat deaths and I don’t remember maybe like 30 wounded action so it was a very lucky war for the side of the United States
Were you ever wounded?
No
What affects of new technology at the time have on your experience and
what was your opinion on this technology?
New technology was very nice to have back then, obviously we had thermo imagery in the vehicles it was basically as good as you could in the middle of the night you know home right in with the thermo night site on something as small as a kangaroo mouse at like 4 football fields away and pretty much to where if you needed to you could shoot it, so there were no issues with shooting a tank cause a tank was much bigger and it was just as warm as a mouse cause that’s what the thermo night sites do is it detects whatever was heated up by the sun stays heated up all night warmer then the temperature so you can scan the desert and see anything and that’s some of the nicer technology that we had at that time.
Did you ever shoot an m16 back then?
Yes we were all issued our own m16 at that time.
What conflicts did you participate in while in
Iraq?
Iraq, I guess we were considered to be there for the third year so we called it y-f3, operation Iraqi freedom three. I was there pretty much for the year, end of 2004 all of 2005.
What branch of
military were you in?
United States Army Wisconsin National Guard.
Did you have any
chances to experiences other kinds of training for other areas? Or did you just
get training in army?
Yes, pretty much army training.
Where you ever
activated during wartime?
Yes, with the Wisconsin National Guard we were activated
as just basically the battalion that I was with was base out of Eau Claire,
Wisconsin. That was were the head quarters were at and we were the first regular
unit out of Wisconsin to be activated for the Iraq War.
When and why did you join the service after that?
I’d recently re-enlisted the last time I re-enlisted was basically after the September 11 attacks which I was contemplating ending my time in service before that, but once we got hit on September 11, there was no doubt that I was going to re-enlist one more time.
Did that really spark your interest, did you
like serving your country or was it something you felt you had to do?
At that point, I was a combination of both.
What kind of pre-war training did you receive
this time?
Of all the pre-war training that we did, in the National Guard I worked as a motorman so we went to motored ranges all year around and would do live fires with basically high explosive ignition and we fired them all, we fired 60/81 and 121 milometer motors and other training that we did was any different types of rifle marks from ships and any other type of piton level training that you would do.
What was an average day in the military like?
An average day in the military was…and is this for being deployed for Iraq or Wisconsin guard?
Wisconsin Guard.
Wisconsin Guard we usually always work on weekends and every time you work on the weekend it’s pretty much the same as active duty it’s just you do things a little faster because you’re doing the same maintenance and the same weapon training and same techniques same practice but you just have to kind of have to cram it into one weekend, one month and try to keep the skills up to speed.
Where there a lot of new people that enlisted
into Iraq that were in the past wars or was it more people that knew what to do?
It was less people that knew what to do, there were more new people and very few of us around that have had prior experience.
How was diversity accepted in this unit?
Diversity in the Wisconsin Units are accepted really well, even thought there’s actually very… much smaller, as far as the diversity in culture as compared to when you’re active duty cause active duty brings people from all around United States where, if you had a unit and Edgar, Wisconsin for example, you’ll typically pull from just Marathon County.
Where you deployed during this service?
Yes
Where were you deployed and what did you do at your duty station?
We were deployed for 2004, which was June 20th until November of 2005 and we spent five months in Mississippi, California and that’s where we get all of our prep training and so it’s basically like being active duty for a short period of time and it gave you a period of time that you have to pass a bunch of classes, run through a bunch of training from weapon training to vehicle maintenance and everything else and once they give you the call and give you a date, gets automatic, everybody flew overseas and then from there you got assign where you’re going to be stationed permanently for the year.
When you say classes, what kind of classes?
Classes could be anything from first aid classes to
chemical work classes.
Where were you deployed to?
We were deployed to about thirty miles north from
Baghdad, so we were right in the city triangle in the northern part of it, near
a small town called Al Basrah.
How many years have you been part of the military
prior to this deployment?
That would have been fourteen years, fourteen, fifteen
years actually.
What was the life like at your duty station?
Life was much worst than active duty because they
actually crammed us in this small building where it was like forty guys per
room. And that’s how you lived and we had double bump beds so it was kind of
like a little camp party in middle school that you would have goon to, like the
school forest or something like that, wearing much more pants than a…see that
was the first four-five months of life and then after that deployment to Iraq,
we actually lived there and everybody there lived in kind of different settings,
some people lives in tents, if you were at one base, at our base we were, it was
in an ammunition holdings facility, so they had a whole bunch of concrete
bunkers to protect the ammunitions Sadam’s army did and so we took every
bunkers and went right on inside to the buckers and it worked out pretty good
because it kept you cool, it was hot out.
How would you compare this to your life in Desert storm with the showers and the convenience and stuff?
Surprisingly it was much better even though Desert storm
was just like a short four day war for us on the ground but it was a forty five
day war including all the bombing and everything and but here we are everyday
outside the wire facing danger but because we had places that you can go
shopping at and you can buy pop or potato chips if you wanted to and we all had
our own lab tops. We actually bought settle light Internet through company out
of Baghdad so we had, right in our own living quarters we basically have 24
hours a day contact you can come off with ignitions outside the wire and be
instant messaging with your wife and friends within seconds. So we had strict
guidelines on what can be said in the instant messaging cause we cannot give up
any information on what you do.
What was the hardest part of being there?
The hardest part of being there was the length of time
cause they put us on deployment for 545 days, that’s a really long time to
just pick up from Wausau, Wisconsin or where ever anybody lives in Central
Wisconsin and kind of pack up your things and prepare a house and or a family
and basically walk out not knowing when you’re going to come back for
that length of time.
Does it scare you to think about how so many people
were willing to kill American citizens when you left?
I pretty much, already kind of was aware of that for
year’s prior so I think the whole part of wanting to be in the military and
get over there as fast as possible is the dislike of those people knowing that
you get to actually go over there and apply pressure to make a difference.
Did you see combat while you were there? If so,
what was it like?
We basically
saw combat there everyday for twelve months and it was stressful but you got
really use to it so you had to be very careful that you didn’t let your guard
down cause you were in it everyday and so over the course of the year our units
were about probably 800 people, total of 800 soldiers and I will have to say
maybe, we probably have 20, 40, 60, 80, we probably had like 80 vehicle which
was, armors on these, we were either hit by or responded to one that was already
blown up or responded to one that we found that wasn’t blown up yet and that
was the road side bombs that provides explosive devices that they called them,
so that makes it a pretty busy year cause we would go for sometimes days without
one being reported and the one day we were outside the wire and we had to go
take care seven of them, in a 24 hour period.
With going along with that, were there a lot more
technology, a lot more vehicles and a lot more weapons now than it was back in
desert storm?
Oh yes, technology was in a way kind of hard to believe because we now have radios that get data filled, computer technology, there’s no radio from any government from the world, there’s no technology that can break the code of military radios now days, so nobody can break through into any of our traffic and stuff that we used back in Desert Storm that was maybe the size of a suitcase for thermal imagery that was melted in the tank, was now I could hold it in my hand and have the same technology and that only weighted a couple pounds. So it’s kind of like you seen computer development over the years as you could have imagined, what the governments have done with their defense spending
How long did you serve over there?
One year in Iraq.
What effects did the new technology have on any of
your experiences?
We had what was called the blue force tracker, which was
battlefield computer system. See you’ll have a touch screen monitor right in
your Hum V and every four vehicle would have one of these, so you can monitor
the battle field before you’re at, right down the road, so it’s like when
you’re driving around, somebody has a garment GPS and you’re tracking on the
road, so I could do that, but just as simple I could scan around on the battle
field and I can go to a neighboring area and I could actually track friendly
movement and I could double click on an image and it could tell me what unit
that was. So it’s pretty high-tech it’s all satellite technology and really
you can access the map of Afghanistan, you could access the map of United States
and you could look right at from the point of Wisconsin and if there’s a blue
force tracker there. You could double click on it and see exactly what unit was
out in the woods training in Wisconsin. That’s how advance it was.
What kind of stress did you endure while deployed?
And how is it different than everyday stresses as a soldier?
The
stress there was probably more cause being older and more responsible in life.
Being when I was twenty-one I had very few responsibilities. You could sit there
and have total disregard for somebody older that was married with kids or in
this case you have a house and dogs and so there’s a lot of stuff going on in
life. A career profession, job on the side, so it’s kind of stressful giving
everything up.
What equipment did you have while at your duty
station?
The equipment that we had was basically all of our Hum V
and our individual weapons.
Did you use any stationary guns like they use where
they mount it and you just shoot from where you were?
Yes every vehicle had mounted weapons so we had basically
a couple varieties of machine guns, like the 50 caliber, the what they call the
240 bravo. There’s another one it shoots a smaller caliber bullet. We also had
a fully automatic grenade launcher, so every vehicle had a variety of these
mounted on them and one lucky person got to sit in the chair of it, would be the
operator.
Did you ever get to operate any unusual kinds of
guns?
No, they were all pretty usual to me cause I’ve been in
for a long time and I was really used to them, so I got to operate them all at
some point of a time or another.
What personal items were you allowed to bring with
you to your duty station? And what specifically did you bring?
Basically at this one, you brought whatever you could
pack in your extra space and you could bring anything. So this time I had
digital camera, I had a I pod for mp3, I had a lap top, I had a external hard
drive. So you can load it up on any of the technology you thought you were going
to need.
What did you do on your free time?
On our free times, we slept as much as possible or you
basically played on your computer. You always had something to do because you
took digital photographs everyday and see you were always getting ready to email
stuff home.
Are there memorable moments that you would share
from others over there?
Yes, most of the memorable moments are just basically the
comradely time spent between your fellow soldiers and you get to know everybody.
Almost at a personal level that’s even more than being brothers, so it’s
brothers in arms.
How did you feel after you return home?
Very happy to be home after being gone for that long.
What lessons did you learn from the experiences in
that war?
Once again, simply not to take anything for granted.
What did serving for your country mean to you while
you were in active duty?
Basically, it was just an honor to serve for those couple
years and be apart of the other word against terrorism.
Is there a message that you would want people today
to know about the war?
I guess the only message would be that, while being there you could tell that you definitely needed to be there and it’s definitely protecting our interest for the future.
Did you feel some things should have been done
differently with that conflict?
Not really, that would be a little too complicated to answer anyways. That question its been pretty long alert.
Is there anything else you would like to add about
the war?
The overall experience was pretty interesting just being a part of the Wisconsin National Guard because instead of deploying people from all around the world in the United States, you deploy with mostly all guys around Wisconsin and a couple from Minnesota. So you really got, it was kind of a different bond there because we’re all a lot closer right now even though I still don’t talk with a lot of them. There’s still a lot of friends and family, they’re all really close and so we’re all e-mailing constantly and phone calls and stuff like that. Up planning some future reunions, hopefully some day.
Did you take away a different meaning of friendship
from the beginning of when you went into either Desert Storm or Iraq then when
you came out?
I think you equally came out of each one with basically friends that were pretty strong bonds. Strong enough where it’s difficult to describe. It’s just one that you know last forever.
What would you suggest if someone where to look
into the war, what would your idea be of a good reason to go into it?
Basically the reason why anybody would want to get involved in it is just the future of not having that country stable and somewhat democratic even if it’s just only a little democratic just has a whole bunch of countries around it that want nothing to do with us that has a sensual point to cause more problems in the future. Where as now they look around and they see a American flag flying on that ground over there, it makes it very intimidating. It makes it very intimidating to do bad things to eventually make a plan to come over here or plan bad things when you’re looking to the left and to the right like Iran does today and in Afghanistan and Iraq you see the American flag flying so it’s really intimidating when you’re the type of person that likes to talk openly on the news that you like to kill a bunch of people. But they’re knocking on your door from both sides and that’s pretty much why the United State is there and they’re not leaving that’s one of many reason, but the second that you leave there, you leave an entire section of the world. Basically wide open to do whatever they feel like doing and it’s to plot terrorist type activities and right now even though we can’t totally stop them, at least this is kind of able to help (shudder) it a little.
***
Yes, I suppose a couple of the main things would just be the fact that we remodel Iraqi schools and stuff like that and manage to get funds for Iraqi kids that need a medical help in our area and that’s what we were doing everywhere and there was a lot of that happening everyday and we never see any of that reported on the news here. The only thing that you ever see here is statistics and when ever there is fire and explosion and stuff that’s interesting.