Veteran’s Day Remembrance
On this Veteran’s Day 2024 I wanted to give all our Vets a shout out and say thank you for your service. I served in the Army for 17 years and got to retire early at the age of 37. I served as an Infantry Officer and when people ask me what I did, my standard answer is; “mostly I just waited in line.” But that’s more to get a reaction than anything else. Here’s what I did in the Army.
I joined in 1977 and the Army was in pretty bad shape back then. There were a lot of people that had served in Viet Nam that had left the military but couldn’t find jobs and so they came back in Army because they couldn’t find anything better. In general, they were terrible soldiers, they hated the country because they felt like they had been treated badly, and they didn’t like the Army much better. There was a lot of talk about fragging the LT and skipping out and going to Canada when the Soviets invaded, which they all felt was eminent. My first duty station was at Ft Carson, CO and it was a lot of Guard Duty and hanging out at the Motor Pool.
Then in 1980 two things happened that significantly changed my life. First, Ronald Regan was elected president and the mood in the Army seemed to change almost overnight. With the release of the Iranian hostages, we seemed to gain confidence and training exercises became opportunities to learn how to defeat the enemy, rather than run from him. At Ft Carson we went from dopers to patriots in a matter of months, and the tattoo shops went from selling Weed tats to selling American Flags (GI’s love their tats). Things changed and best of all we got a 13% pay raise. Almost as good is that we changed chow too. Instead of eating C rations, we now were eating MRE’s. That was a huge morale booster for the infantry!
The other thing that happened is that I got stationed in Germany. This was a turning point for me. In Germany, I felt like I had an important job to do and I did. My unit took turns guarding the border between East and West Germany in an area called the Fulda Gap. It was an area where the border of West Germany extended far to the east creating a sort of peninsula that was surrounded by East Germany. Tom Clancy, the famous author, wrote a book called Red Storm Rising where he talked about how the Soviets would over-run Europe and that they would start by rolling through the Fulda Gap. During the time that I was there we all knew that was the plan, and our plan was to survive the first wave and then fight a counter-offensive from behind the lines. It sounded like desperate means, but all we talked about is how we could survive those Soviet Tanks and then fight our way back. It was so much different than the attitude of desertion that was so prevalent just three years prior.
The Army was good to me in many ways and after my tour in Germany I was selected to go to Officer Candidate School in Ft Benning, GA. It was like boot camp on steroids, but I came out of there as a 2nd Lieutenant and they sent me off to Korea to guard the other border. There aren’t too many people that can say they served on Freedom’s Frontier in both Germany and Korea, so maybe I did more than just stand in line.
In my time in the Army I got to serve as a Squad Leader, a Platoon Leader, and a Company Commander. I like to think that I helped men prepare for the battles in life along with contributing to the defense of this great nation.
Now, our great nation has given me back so much more than I deserve. I’m recognized and thanked at church, and concerts, and even at Home Depot and Lowes where they give veterans a 10% discount. I got a paid for a college degree through the Army too. But most of all, I got to grow up shaped by strong men who served this country out of duty and honor. I have to admit that I didn’t come into the Army with those values, I was one that didn’t have a lot of options, but I was surrounded by great men that were driven to do their best to defend the land they loved. For that, I will be forever grateful for the time I served in the United States Army.
Author: Eric Weber
