Latest / Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk / Tracer Rounds Air National Guard Veteran Larry Riepma

Transcript

Tracer Rounds Air National Guard Veteran Larry Riepma · Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk

0:00
Military broadcast radio, the station that's giving veterans a
0:04
voice. Find us on the web at MB radio
0:08
dot US. This entire military is 1
0:12
cohesive dedicated force and the threats to our nations, they
0:17
don't sleep. They're watching our every move.
0:21
Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, ISIS, Al Qaeda, they may
0:28
be watching this right now. Our military should not be
0:33
mistaken for our cable news dad test show.
0:36
We don't care what you look like.
0:39
We don't care who you voted. For.
0:41
Who you worship, what you worship, who you love.
0:44
It doesn't matter if your dad left you millions when he died
0:47
or if you knew who your father was.
0:51
We have been honed into a machine of lethal moving parts
0:55
that you would be wise to avoid if you know what's good for you.
0:59
We will not be intimidated. We will not back down.
1:03
We've seen war. We don't want war.
1:07
But if you want war with the United States of America,
1:09
there's one thing I can promise you.
1:11
So help me God. Someone else Opinions expressed
1:23
in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily.
1:28
Reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
1:32
Find us on the web at MB Radio dot US.
1:36
Military broadcast Radio, The station that's giving veterans a
1:40
voice. Find us on the web at MB Radio
1:44
dot US. Opinions expressed in this
1:47
program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily
1:51
reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
1:56
Find us on the web at MB Radio. Join Terry with Tracer Rounds
2:01
every Tuesday at 8:00 PM Eastern to hear interviews with veteran
2:06
artists, veteran business owners and businesses that support
2:10
veterans. Catch us on Roku, Amazon Fire TV
2:15
and MB Radio. If you miss a show, you can
2:19
listen again on Wreaths Across America Radio every Wednesday at
2:23
3:00 PM Eastern. TuneIn to see if you are on
2:26
target MBR giving veterans the voice, find us on the web at MB
2:34
Radio dot US. Welcome to the Tracer Rounds
2:38
podcast, and I'm your host, Terry.
2:40
And the veteran we have tonight is Air National Guard veteran
2:45
Larry Reitman, who is also my uncle, and he's my dad's twin
2:48
brother. So looking at my uncle, I kind
2:51
of see my dad at the same time. So welcome, Larry.
2:54
I appreciate you coming on the podcast tonight.
2:57
Good for having me. I'm so excited to talk to you
3:01
because you, your career I don't know much about because when I
3:07
was like in my teens and 14 years old or so, I moved away.
3:10
And so I never really knew much about your service.
3:12
So I'm so I'm happy tonight to hear a little bit more about
3:16
what you did in the military and how long you've been in the
3:18
military, that kind of thing. So it's I think, if you don't
3:21
mind, can we start with how old you were when you joined the
3:23
service and what branch did you join?
3:27
I was 18 and I joined the Air Force.
3:30
What was the climate like when you joined?
3:32
Did you join because you wanted to see something or you wanted
3:36
to get a skill or what was your reasoning for joining the
3:39
military at that time? Didn't want to go in the army.
3:45
Air Force is definitely bad, and I'll give you that.
3:49
So you enlisted at 18 and so you enlisted active duty Air Force?
3:54
Or what did you do? Active duty.
3:57
Active duty and how many years active duty did you do in the
4:00
Air Force? 4.
4:03
Four. And what did you enlist to do?
4:05
What was your MOS or your AFI? Can't remember what the Air
4:09
Force calls it. Air Force?
4:14
Don't give me a line. I'm trying.
4:16
To think of that myself and my specialty, whatever, but I was a
4:22
jet engine mechanic. And and what type of What type
4:25
of planes did you work on? Well, the the first one I worked
4:31
on was the F1O5, the Thunder Chief and I was stationed in
4:41
Wichita, KS working on those and then they shipped us over to
4:47
Thailand and then I got shipped over to Japan for about a year
4:54
and then back to Thailand again. So we have some comments from
5:03
some family. So Jerry says we're here and
5:09
Robert says Uncle Larry, oops, I missed it, hold on, it
5:12
disappeared on me. There it goes, Uncle Larry.
5:16
And then some of our some of our hosts are on here too.
5:20
We have MJ, who is a host for the world of conscious positive
5:25
thinking. And so she said, oh, so MJ said,
5:31
yay, Air Force. Oops, I missed it.
5:33
Sorry. Here we go.
5:37
So you went to Japan. What was that like?
5:41
And had you ever been outside the US before you got sent over
5:45
there? Never.
5:46
I'm barely out of the state of Idaho.
5:48
In fact, Pan was a very nice country.
5:54
I I enjoyed Japan a lot. The people are are honest and
6:00
and pretty progressive and and friendly and I always felt safe
6:07
there wherever I went. And I think I saw one Pan
6:12
handler the entire time I was in the country.
6:16
Oh wow, you see a lot here, that's for sure.
6:20
Well, Thailand. Everybody's a PAN handler and
6:25
the Philippines is even worse yet.
6:29
Oh wow, so how did? What was your favorite
6:33
assignment while you were active duty?
6:36
Probably Japan. Japan.
6:39
Kansas was nice too, other than the wind blew all the time.
6:44
But other than that, it was it was a nice state.
6:49
Yeah, it's pretty flat. I don't know if you've, I don't
6:53
know if you've heard the joke, but they're like if you go down
6:56
the highway, you pass the same dog in the same mailbox at least
6:59
six times because it's always so flat.
7:04
You're not seeing anything but just flat countryside for miles
7:07
and miles. That's neat.
7:10
So what did you do after your four years in the active duty
7:16
Air Force? What did you do next?
7:18
Well, I worked for Boeing for, oh, a year and a half and then
7:27
got laid off and then I moved back to Idaho and went to
7:31
college for a while and joined the Air guard for added income.
7:39
Yeah. What were you studying in the in
7:41
college? Well, originally I, I thought
7:45
it'd be nice to, to be be with the Fish and Game department or
7:52
something, but I, I found out you had to pretty much needed a
7:57
degree in biology. And to get the degree in
8:00
biology, you needed a lot of calculus, geometry and algebra
8:06
and it just wasn't my thing. So then I was going to be a
8:11
history teacher and then they offered me a full time position
8:23
with the Idaho Air Guard. So I talked to my college
8:29
professor about it and and told him how how much I'd be making.
8:35
And he said, well, I don't make much more than that myself and
8:39
I've got a PhD. So anyway, I decided, well, I'll
8:43
do that then. So what did you do?
8:47
You were a tech. Yes.
8:50
For the Air Force. And So what did you do?
8:53
Same thing fixed. Oh, same thing.
8:55
Yeah. So did you travel a lot too with
9:00
on the tech side or were you mostly traveling on the National
9:05
Guard? Air National Guard side.
9:07
They we would always, if we when we travelled, we were always
9:13
military. They would just either spend our
9:19
our two weeks required two weeks or they just put us on military
9:26
orders for a period of time. They can put us on military
9:30
orders for up to six months without making us active duty.
9:36
Right. So what all did you do on your
9:39
assignments when you got sent different places with the Air
9:43
National Guard? What all did you do?
9:44
I know you told me that you went overseas and you were kind of in
9:50
Iraq. Weren't you in Iraq when you
9:52
were just trying to make sure that nothing was going on?
9:55
You're just kind of doing flyovers.
9:58
Well, I was in that part of the country twice.
10:04
I was in Saudi Arabia and and that was the southern watch,
10:11
they called it. And they, our planes would just
10:15
fly around Iraq all day long in case the Hussein decided he
10:24
wanted to bomb some Kurds that day.
10:27
And then we'd take out his planes.
10:28
But of course he never did. And then later on I went to
10:36
Turkey and that was Northern Watch and we did the same thing.
10:40
And I, I did get to the Turkey, I got to go up on a, on a tanker
10:46
because of our planes would fly up there 8 hours or so at a time
10:50
so that they'd have to get refueled every couple of hours
10:54
or so. And that was kind of
10:56
interesting. You know, I got to see Iraq from
11:00
up high and, you know, I got to see how they refuel planes
11:05
midair and, and those kind of things.
11:07
It was, it was interesting. It looks pretty crazy to see
11:12
that midair fueling. It's like, how do they do that
11:15
precision movements, each one of them, so that they link up
11:18
perfectly and they stay steady so that the fuel can transfer
11:22
and then, you know, they separate.
11:24
It's just amazing how that coordination or that
11:26
choreography of those two planes comes together.
11:30
Well, they have a guy in back of the plane that runs the boom.
11:34
You know, he can go left to right up, down with it, you
11:38
know, and, and hook it into the, the plane's got it.
11:42
The fighters got a little nozzle thing that sticks up and and
11:48
forward and they just guide it in there and lock it on there
11:53
and fill them up. Right.
11:57
It still has to be a lot of precision, like not deviating
12:01
from, you know, moving anything so that that transfer can
12:05
happen. It just seems like that's like a
12:09
really serious connection. And it it would be worrisome to
12:13
me. I'd be like, oh man, I'm going
12:14
to move. I know I'm going to move.
12:17
I'm I'm sure they had a lot of training in order to accomplish
12:21
that. So what would you say was maybe
12:25
your scariest moment in a plane? What would you say?
12:29
Like what would have, what kind of thing would have happened
12:32
that you're like, oh man, I don't know what's going to
12:35
happen from this point. Forward I can't even remember 1.
12:42
Can't remember. Well, that's good.
12:43
That means there was nothing really scary.
12:45
Yeah. There was any.
12:49
Any air travel we did was usually extremely uncomfortable
12:54
and noisy. Yeah, I bet you know, they don't
12:58
put you in first class that, you know, we usually had web seats
13:07
that are on the edges of the plane and, and, and we'd be
13:12
surrounded by cargo and there was there was some noisy in
13:17
there. You couldn't really carry on a
13:19
conversation and so I, I, I didn't enjoy traveling much.
13:25
Yeah, well, I could see that. So when you were in air, what
13:31
did what? Did you have a job on the plane
13:33
too, or just traveling mostly with the crew to make sure the
13:37
plane didn't have any problems? Well, no, the, the planes that I
13:42
flew on were, were strictly transportation, you know.
13:49
Yeah, all the planes that I worked on were, were fighter
13:53
types, single path, single, single or double occupancy on
14:01
them. And that was that's about it.
14:04
I was supposed to fly down to Texas on an F4 and then they,
14:11
they got cancelled at the last minute and they sent me
14:14
commercial. I was very disappointed.
14:17
Yeah, I would be too. I don't blame you.
14:20
I don't know if you saw it, but Pam and my dad are watching, so
14:24
they just wanted to say hello to hello.
14:30
So how many years did you end up serving in the Air Force
14:34
National Guard? Well, I had 23 years as a full
14:43
timer and then add about three more years as a part timer.
14:49
So and then then of course they also counted my four years of
14:55
active duty. So all right.
14:59
What would you say your biggest take away from the service was?
15:05
My retirement. Well, that's something, isn't
15:11
it? Yeah, I would say that's a good
15:12
take away. Do you miss it?
15:17
No. No, no, after all those years,
15:20
you don't miss it. No, I was happy to go.
15:24
Yeah, I I miss some of the com camaraderie there.
15:30
We usually were pretty much under work, so we had a lot of
15:35
time to to make one another's life as miserable as possible.
15:43
That was always fun. So you were a jokester, were
15:47
you? Kinda.
15:51
Sounds just like my dad. He was a jokester at his work
15:53
too. They never knew what he was
15:55
going to do so it sounds like a 2 peas in a pod.
15:58
Well, I was the butt of of many of them, so.
16:01
Oh no. Yeah, it went both ways.
16:05
So you were you were you were giving up, but you're also
16:08
receiving some of those jokes or some of those pranks.
16:12
Or if I could, I could share what one of the better ones.
16:16
There was about 8 or 10 of us in the shop and we only had one
16:25
latrine and it only had one stall in it.
16:29
You know, it had a door on it and all that.
16:32
And, and I had to use it pretty badly And, and so I kept
16:38
checking, but this one guy realized that I was checking.
16:42
So he snuck in there and with a pair of boots out of his locker
16:48
and put those in the stall. So every time I'd look, I
16:52
thought it was somebody was using it.
16:55
They thought that was funny. They really got it.
17:00
How did you figure out that no one was in there?
17:03
I don't remember. I figured it out, but finally
17:05
did. Maybe I went next door.
17:08
You know, I was, it was a pretty drastic, but that's kind of
17:13
things we do to one another. Kind of ornery.
17:20
Oh, that's funny. I think we're going to take a
17:22
quick break, but when we come back, we'll follow up with some
17:25
more conversation about your service.
17:26
So we're going to hear coffee, Anderson, Mr. Red, White and
17:29
Blue. We'll be right back.
20:57
Military broadcast radio The station that's giving veterans a
21:01
voice. Find us on the web at NB Radio
21:05
dot. Opinions expressed in this
21:08
program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily
21:12
reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
21:18
Welcome back to Tracer Rounds and I have a special guest
21:20
tonight. I have my uncle Larry Rita, and
21:23
he is an Air National Guard veteran and the Air Force
21:26
veteran as well because he has active duty service as well.
21:29
So I was going to ask you what was your favorite plane to work
21:32
on and why? I'll probably the F4 because I
21:39
did it the longest I I could still work on it today because I
21:44
knew it so well. But yeah, I was, I, I would say,
21:50
but the, the warthog at the the end of my end of my career, that
21:59
probably would have been OK. I just, I didn't wasn't on it
22:03
long enough to really, really master it and get to know
22:07
everything about it. So what would you, what would be
22:12
the thing you'd have to fix the most on the F4I mean, what was
22:17
the the thing you worked the most on when you worked on that
22:20
aircraft? Well, we'd we'd have to tear
22:25
them apart every so many hours, so many flying hours for an
22:30
inspection. That was what we did the most
22:32
of. I mean, once in a while we'd
22:34
have a a failure of something, but but periodic inspections,
22:42
that's mostly what we did. Yeah, so you said after how many
22:47
hours of flying they had to be totally torn apart.
22:51
Well, it, it changed, but it was 600 flying hours.
22:56
And then they started doing it by sorties.
22:59
That means how many times the plane went up before it landed
23:04
and the hours didn't matter. But in Iraq, they'd fly 8 hours
23:10
at a time. So that was only one sorting and
23:13
then usually maybe get 600 sorties.
23:18
So, you know, some of them had a lot of hours on them.
23:21
Yeah, wow. Is it, I wonder, I mean, I know
23:26
people drive for 8 hours. Is it any different flying for 8
23:29
hours? Would you know?
23:30
Like I mean, I don't know if being in an aircraft seat up in
23:34
the air 88 hours in the seat would be any different than the
23:37
8 hours in the seat on the ground.
23:39
I don't. I don't know that the pilots
23:43
didn't share that with me. They were the ones that were up
23:46
there for 8 hours. Oh, because there you can't stop
23:50
at QuikTrip and get a pop or something and then pop back in
23:54
and keep going. They can't get much of anything.
23:58
Right. Yeah.
24:00
I don't know how they, I really don't know much about what it'd
24:04
be like, but it's quite confining in there there's.
24:08
Yeah. Not a lot.
24:09
A lot of room to wiggle around and and readjust yourself so.
24:15
Right. Yeah.
24:16
I can't imagine just being kind of stifled for 8 hours without
24:21
any kind of, you know, real movement or whatever.
24:23
That seems like a really long time to to be in that space.
24:29
That's why they make the big box.
24:31
Right, Yes, yes. Did you hear of any, like when
24:37
you were over there and they were flying, did you hear of any
24:40
near misses or anything that was going on at the time?
24:45
Oh no. But when I was in Thailand, they
24:49
were shooting down one O 5 so fast we'd have scheduled
24:54
airplanes scheduled come in for inspection and they get shot
24:59
down. So we lost.
25:03
We lost five in one day. Oh wow, that's a lot.
25:08
So what happens when you lose 5 aircraft in a day?
25:11
You don't really have many replacements do.
25:15
You to they add more, they send a few more over there, but they
25:20
were going to retire that plane and and the the North Vietnamese
25:26
pretty well retired before us. Yeah, it sounds like it.
25:30
Yeah. Wow.
25:33
Were there did, did the pilots get out or do you do you know
25:37
about any of that? One of them got held prisoner.
25:43
Did they? There was, yeah.
25:46
Oh wow, That was a pretty good number of them over there.
25:49
Yeah, wow. Were any of them from your unit
25:55
or were the other planes that were shot down?
25:57
No, they were from our unit. There was a lot of them went
26:00
down. Yeah, that was that particular
26:04
plane was pretty vulnerable for for ground fire and and and Mig
26:12
attacks. You know, they, they just
26:14
didn't, it didn't function well for those it got.
26:18
They shot down a bunch of them. What'd they shoot them down
26:22
with? Ohio everything.
26:26
Sand, missiles, anti aircraft, fire, Migs.
26:32
You know they were. They were now however they
26:36
could. Yeah, wow, that has to been
26:42
pretty, pretty scary to have witnessed and lived through all
26:45
that. I can't imagine.
26:48
I was, I was quite safe where I was.
26:51
I mean, I was. But yeah, to be a pilot, yeah,
26:56
they earned the money on on those for sure.
27:01
What year did you enlist? I don't know that I asked you
27:03
that question. 1963. 63, Yeah, OK.
27:10
Long time ago. And what and what year did you
27:13
retire? December 31st of 96. 96 and you
27:25
said you don't miss it, but you miss the community and the
27:27
jokes. Oh yeah, Well, I still, I still
27:31
stay in touch with some of the some of the guys from there.
27:36
Yeah. What unit were you in?
27:39
124th Fighter Wing. 124th Fighter Wing, is that so?
27:48
Is that unit still in service or did it decommission or?
27:52
No, it's still there, still at Gallon Field.
27:58
Yeah. Do they have reunions or
28:00
anything that you attend? I've, I went to a couple of
28:07
things, yeah. Yeah.
28:10
Do you miss seeing the planes? No.
28:15
No, you're like, I'm done. I know how to work on them, but
28:18
I'm done. Yeah.
28:21
I imagine it was hard work. I mean, I can't imagine that
28:25
stripping a plane would be easy. Like there would be a lot
28:27
involved and you know, just dealing with the the amount of
28:31
tools and everything else that you have to lug around and
28:33
carry, I imagine it was quite a a chore to handle that.
28:38
Well, I, I work primarily in the shop.
28:42
Yeah, sometimes I'd have to go out on a flat line and work, but
28:47
that was that was fairly rare. But I did my work in in the shop
28:52
and it wasn't it wasn't physically demanding job.
28:59
It seems like it would be because being a mechanic of any
29:03
kind is really pretty laboursome.
29:06
Like it's very hands on very, you know, you're, you're
29:10
manipulating things And so it's a lot of wrenching and a lot of
29:15
arm strength, I would think. No, that didn't take much
29:20
strength. It takes finesse.
29:22
You, you have to, you have to get in some very, very difficult
29:27
places. And we'd, we'd manufacture our
29:30
own little special tools to get in places.
29:34
But yeah, it was accessibility was probably the the the biggest
29:40
thing. Yeah, my Uncle Larry, I talked
29:45
to him. I mean, Larry Lauren, my Uncle
29:47
Lauren, I talked to him and he's Air Force veteran too, or Air
29:51
Force Reserve is what he did. And he was also working on
29:54
planes over at Gowen Field. So I, I find that really
29:56
interesting that you're both were over there.
30:00
I don't know what unit he belonged to.
30:01
I know you were in the National Guard and I'm, I'm pretty sure
30:04
he was Air Force Reserve. So obviously different,
30:09
different divisions, departments, but he was working
30:12
over there as well. So I thought that was pretty
30:14
interesting that you're both working on planes.
30:16
I think he said he missed it a little bit, but he was putting
30:19
in communication devices, I think.
30:21
I don't think he was actually working on them.
30:23
He was actually installing communication equipment and
30:27
things like that. Yeah, they have.
30:31
They have lots of different job specialties.
30:35
Yeah. Everybody's got their own little
30:38
areas that they specialize in and you don't know much about
30:44
any what anybody else does. Right.
30:48
You know what you do, and that's what you do best.
30:51
Yeah. Well, I think we'll take another
30:54
quick break and we're going to play Joe Muse, American Dream,
30:58
and then we'll be right back. Great.
34:26
And we're back on Teresa Rounds podcast with my special guest
34:31
tonight, Larry Reedema, who is Air Force, Air National Guard
34:36
veteran or Air Force veteran. I don't know which to call.
34:38
I think it's both. I think it's all the same.
34:41
I was going to ask you, what did you do after you retired from
34:45
the Air Force? I, I made a, a personal promise
34:51
to myself, I'd never hold another full time job.
34:55
So I did the handyman things for people.
35:02
I did that for a few years and then my neighbor was a builder
35:08
and so I worked for him for several years, but never full
35:15
time. He was, he had a window
35:18
business. I ran his window business for
35:20
him and then I helped him on houses occasionally and give me
35:26
something to do and I learned a lot.
35:28
Actually, I enjoyed that more than I did airplanes.
35:35
Really. Yeah.
35:37
I think airplanes are so fascinating.
35:40
Well, everything that I ever did on an airplane looked the same
35:46
when I was finished as when I started.
35:49
But that's. True.
35:51
But when you build a house, you have nothing and you make
35:56
something, even if, even if it isn't yours, you can still enjoy
36:00
it. You can enjoy it by it and
36:03
remember fond memories of, of what you were doing on it and,
36:09
and feel a sense of accomplishment.
36:11
And I don't think I really got that sense of accomplishment out
36:15
of out of aircraft so much. Yeah, understood.
36:22
Yeah. I mean, it's pretty awesome to,
36:25
you know, go by somewhere that you a house that you built or
36:27
they had a hand in building and then see it and see it over the
36:31
years and that all the different families and that take, you
36:35
know, take up residence in the home and enjoy it.
36:38
You know, so you're building something that's a legacy for
36:40
someone to enjoy for years to come.
36:43
And so, you know, they don't, they don't necessarily get
36:46
decommissioned like aircraft and, you know, be out of
36:48
service. So unless somebody doesn't take
36:50
care of them. So you get to enjoy that for
36:53
years, probably longer than than an aircraft that you worked on.
37:01
So you you said that you worked for him for several years and
37:08
then what did you do after that then?
37:09
Did you just fully retire or what did you do after you
37:13
stopped working for him? And did you build your house?
37:15
Did he help you build your house?
37:17
Yeah, yeah. Well, my, my wife and I were the
37:23
primary builders. I didn't, Oh, wow.
37:25
I didn't, I didn't do everything on the House by any means, but I
37:29
was my own general contractor. But if I had, if I had a
37:34
question, you know, I could always, always ask my own boss.
37:38
He'd, he'd give me the right answer.
37:40
So, but yeah, it was an interesting experience, but
37:49
well, we hit the the about one about O seven O 8 was when the
37:57
the building business kind of took a crap.
38:03
And and so he was guy I work for he he's he he went broke.
38:11
He got, he got his home repossessed and everything.
38:16
And and so anyway, he was available to help me
38:21
occasionally, but and I helped him.
38:26
I didn't charge him. I I helped him for free after
38:29
that because he he needed it. But then since then he's he's a
38:36
multi gajillionaire now he's he's been real busy and has made
38:42
all kinds of money. That's the way that's the way
38:45
the construction is. It's chicken one day and
38:51
feathers the next. Yeah, you're right.
38:56
The the other uncle I was talking about, Lauren, he's a
38:59
builder too. All, all the uncles were
39:01
builders pretty much, or roofers.
39:02
They started roofers and then they were builders.
39:04
And he's, I think seen the same thing that you're talking about.
39:08
That's feast or famine. There's lots of work or there's
39:11
no work. How long did it take you to
39:15
build your house about? Three years before we were
39:22
really done, maybe a year and a half before we were able to live
39:28
in it. But then we still had a lot of
39:30
other things, painting and and landscaping and sidewalks and
39:37
outbuildings and lots of other stuff.
39:40
But we after about a year and a half, we were able to live in
39:43
it. Yeah, it's a labor of love, it
39:47
sounds like. Yeah, yeah.
39:51
And didn't seem like that we'd ever get done, but I convinced
39:55
myself we wouldn't. But we won't be old, finally
39:59
dead. Right.
40:02
So what would you tell somebody joining the service today,
40:05
joining the Air Force or Air National Guard?
40:07
What piece of advice would you give them to if they were trying
40:11
to look for a career in the in the military or in the Air
40:14
Force? What would you tell them today
40:15
that it's important to know? Well, you certainly got job
40:19
security and you better be able to follow orders, which I never
40:27
was that good at. And there's there's a lot worse
40:35
ways to make a living, but you're not going to get rich.
40:41
But you know, truly, for most of us, I can't speak for everybody,
40:45
for most of us, it's really not about the money we're going to
40:48
make. It's about the experiences we're
40:50
going to have and what we can do for the country and then what we
40:54
can do for our families in the meantime.
40:57
I mean, I think we all serve for different reasons maybe, but
41:01
some similarities and why we serve and.
41:03
And one is to, you know, make sure that freedom is maintained
41:08
in this country and that we are people are protected and our
41:11
country's protected. And, you know, it takes people
41:14
to step up and say, I, you know, I will give the oath in order to
41:18
keep our freedoms the way they are.
41:21
Would you say that's pretty accurate?
41:23
Yeah. I'd I'd say that's true.
41:26
And I got to see, see a lot of things that there's no way I
41:31
would have ever seen them without being in the military.
41:36
I've seen a lot of a lot of other countries, you know, I've
41:41
been from Norway to Guam, you know, and bought everything in
41:48
between. It was it was an interesting
41:55
experience. Definitely.
41:58
So would you say that we have it pretty good here and people just
42:01
don't really take the time to understand that?
42:04
Because if you go to another country, you know, you, you see
42:08
all kinds of things that people take for granted here.
42:14
Well, some countries that's true.
42:16
A country like Norway, you never see a, a fat Norwegian.
42:24
I didn't, didn't see a single one over there.
42:27
And we went from, well, we were in some little, little town
42:35
right on the Russian border and we took a tour bus down to the,
42:41
I'm trying to remember the name of the capital in Norway.
42:44
And when we took a tour bus down there and I didn't, I didn't see
42:49
a a single piece of litter all the way there and all the way
42:54
back. So I thought that quite
42:57
interesting. Yeah, definitely.
43:01
I think it's Oslo, isn't it? Isn't it?
43:03
Oslo. Yeah, exactly, Exactly.
43:08
I'd have thought about it. I would have remembered it
43:10
sometime tomorrow, but. That's what I do.
43:13
I can't think of something right at the moment and then like 2 in
43:16
the morning I'm like that's what it was.
43:18
It bugged me all night till I remembered it.
43:24
So if somebody is thinking about a service to join, which would
43:30
you say would which one would you recommend?
43:33
Knowing what you know about the Air Force or the Air National
43:36
Guard, what would you recommend? Well, the Air Force is a is a
43:40
lot plusher. You know that you have the
43:45
accommodations that the other services don't, don't offer,
43:51
particularly the Army or the Marines, But but rank is very
43:56
slow where the Army, at least from what I've seen, you get
44:04
promoted way quicker and in the in the Air Force, it takes
44:10
forever. Yeah, I think it really depends
44:15
on, well, if you're in the Army National Guard or the Army
44:18
Reserve or the active duty Army, I think in the Guard side of the
44:23
House it takes a little longer 'cause I've seen a career E
44:28
force, so like 20 years as an E4 and maybe some.
44:33
Yeah, that's what I said. And some of it may be just that
44:36
that was their choice to some degree.
44:38
And then in other instances, I think there was some other
44:43
influences that might have been a play in their instance in the
44:47
reserve side of the house. It was pretty much, you know,
44:49
you met your threshold of time and service, you did your
44:51
schools and then you went before the board.
44:54
And if your packet looked good, then you got your promotion.
44:56
But if you weren't willing to spend the time to put a packet
45:00
together, then you might have not been picked up for that, for
45:03
that next rank. But it it happened, you know,
45:05
pretty sequentially as it should with time and service, I think.
45:10
Right. Yeah, that's more or less how we
45:13
had it. You had different courses you
45:16
had to take, you know, if you wanted to be in management, you
45:21
had to take management courses. But yeah, if you had it
45:25
together, but it was still to make make E7.
45:32
Very few people that ever made it under 20 years really.
45:37
Right. It's a, it was a slow process.
45:42
And I, I, I talked to Army people, you know, that made E5
45:47
in, in their first four years of active duty.
45:50
And in the Air Force, that's very, very rare.
45:55
You know, I don't even know if it even happens.
45:58
But you know, E5's usually 6-8 years before you can, you, can
46:06
you, you're going to get that one.
46:08
So yeah. I'm going to pin that on, we'll
46:11
take another quick break and we'll be back and we'll wrap up
46:13
our our conversation, but we're going to listen to Dustin
46:16
Garner, Brothers in arms, and we'll be right back.
49:06
Military Broadcast Radio, the station that's giving veterans a
49:10
voice. Find us on the web at MB Radio
49:13
dot. Opinions expressed in this
49:17
program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily
49:21
reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
49:27
The interview of the week is brought to you by Jersey Mike's,
49:32
a sub above. Welcome back to Tracer Rounds,
49:38
where we're giving veterans a voice.
49:39
And tonight's veteran is Larry Reitman, and he's my uncle and
49:42
he's my dad's twin brother. And it's like seeing my dad on
49:45
the screen beside me. And I think that's pretty darn
49:47
cool. So let me ask you this, what
49:53
would you say your highlight of your services?
49:55
What would you say? Like if you could just put your
49:58
hands on one thing, what would you say that one thing is?
50:01
I mean, do you feel like it gave you opportunities that you
50:04
wouldn't otherwise have in, in the industries that you did
50:08
maybe afterward or that just, you know, a knowledge that you
50:13
took away that you wouldn't otherwise had?
50:15
What would you say your your poignant moment or your pivotal
50:19
moment in that your service was? That's difficult to say, but you
50:28
know, I, I learned a lot of things when I was younger, like
50:34
responsibility and loyalty and being able to follow direction.
50:41
Those sort of things were, had I not been in the military, I
50:47
probably would have taken me a lot longer to to learn those
50:51
things than it did. Maybe I would have never.
50:54
I don't know. Hard to say.
50:59
Yeah, I think that the military teaches you what you can do when
51:03
you didn't think you could do it.
51:05
Like it pushes you past the boundary you thought existed and
51:09
then you realize it didn't because you just push past it
51:13
because everything seems so hard.
51:15
And then when you're forced to like go beyond what you think
51:18
you can do, you find out you can do a whole lot more than what
51:21
you ever envisioned is what I what, what I've learned in my
51:24
military experiences. You know, I didn't think I could
51:26
do some things. And then I found out I could go
51:28
a whole lot harder and longer than I ever thought would.
51:34
It concur. So is there anything that you'd
51:39
like to say just that we didn't talk about or anything you'd
51:43
like to follow up a question on while we have a few minutes
51:46
left? Well, and one thing I learned
52:00
traveling to other countries is that I have no tolerance for
52:04
humidity. So you didn't like Texas?
52:10
In other words, there's plenty of humidity here.
52:15
Not particularly, but Texas is dry compared to Thailand.
52:21
Really. Oh my goodness, yes, Thailand is
52:27
overwhelming. Your clothes would be wet in the
52:30
locker before you ever got them home.
52:33
And yeah, that was, yeah, I, I couldn't handle that claim.
52:38
Everybody would tell me that. Or you'll get used to it.
52:42
No, no, it didn't happen. So I I enjoy the Idaho climate a
52:51
lot more. Tony is one of our hosts and he
52:55
says welcome Uncle Larry. And he's an Air Force veteran
52:59
and he's a host on Inside the Hoosier Mind and he does a
53:03
sports program. He's he's really good by the
53:05
way, but he doesn't like my dolphins.
53:08
Do you like the Dolphins? I, I'm not much of A football
53:13
fan, so I, I can't, I can't really give you an opinion.
53:19
Except for Boise State. Now tell me you you support
53:21
Boise State. I have.
53:23
I particularly when Kellen Moore was her quarterback.
53:28
Yeah, I used to. I, I actually would listen or
53:33
watch his, all his games, you know, I was quite a fan of his,
53:38
but not so much now. Yeah.
53:41
Well, he went to the Cowboys and then he got hurt, so then he
53:44
became a coach. He's done quite well for
53:47
himself. Yeah, I think he he parlayed his
53:51
Boise State time into something bigger and that's going to carry
53:55
him through for a while, I think.
53:56
So I think Boise State was a good stepping stone for him.
54:00
Absolutely. Yeah, he was our, he was our
54:03
fair haired boy. And then he he went to the
54:06
Cowboys and he was the 3rd Stringer, you know, you know, I
54:12
couldn't believe that. I thought he'd be their, their
54:14
top guy, but no, it didn't happen.
54:19
Where in where in Texas are you broadcasting from?
54:23
Dallas, Fort Worth. Oh oh.
54:27
Yeah, so right in the home of the Cowboys.
54:32
You're not a cowboy fan. Well, I used to be, but I kind
54:39
of transitioned to the Dolphins 'cause my unit was in Miami.
54:42
And so the Dolphins were, you know, they're really good to
54:45
military there. They were always inviting the
54:47
military to games and things like that.
54:50
And not that the Cowboys don't, they do, but I just became kind
54:53
of a fan of the Dolphins. So, but Tony's telling me he he
54:58
doesn't hate the Dolphins only. I think I just thought he did.
55:05
Oh, so Jerry's asking, what did you like to do in Japan?
55:09
What was your favorite thing to do in Japan?
55:12
Well, you could you could travel the whole country on a train and
55:20
if you never got off of it the whole time, they never charged
55:24
you for it. They.
55:25
Don't. Oh wow.
55:27
You got a ticket? Well, when you left the, the
55:31
city left from and then when you got off the train, you turn your
55:36
ticket in and then they charge it.
55:38
But if you just stayed on the train, you could see everything
55:41
and, and it was all free. And, and of course, the amount
55:50
of money that I was earning a month, then everything needed to
55:54
be free. That's the only way I could
55:57
afford it. But now I I enjoy, I enjoyed.
56:02
Japan was one of my favorite countries that that I was in.
56:07
Of course I preferred the United States, but Japan was that was
56:13
pretty good duty. How long were you there?
56:17
About a year. A year and were you very long in
56:22
Thailand? Oh yeah, maybe 8-10 months too
56:29
long. I got to see Bob Hope though.
56:34
Did you? Yes.
56:36
So he was doing the. So it was he with the USO then
56:40
or was he? Yeah.
56:41
Was it the USO? I I think that was probably his
56:46
last year he ever did it. And it was.
56:49
He did a Christmas show. It was like 120 degrees.
56:53
Oh. Wow.
56:57
So Tony's saying my grandfather was actually part of the US Air
57:01
Force unit that was the ceremonial guard unit for the
57:04
Japanese royal family when he was stationed there.
57:07
Oh, that's pretty darn cool. Well, Tony, thank you for your
57:11
grandfather's service. That's awesome.
57:16
And Tony says Terry was tired of getting her heart broken with
57:18
the Cowboys losing in the playoffs.
57:20
Yes, exactly that. Tony, you are so right.
57:23
You you hit it right on the head.
57:25
That's it. Well, that's pretty neat.
57:29
Well, I'm so excited that you came on the show tonight and
57:32
that you talked to me because, you know, like I said, we hadn't
57:36
seen each other in quite a long time.
57:37
And so I didn't really know much about your service, what you did
57:40
or how long you were in or any of that.
57:42
So it was really good to hear your side of your service and to
57:46
really get to celebrate that service on this platform with
57:49
you tonight. It was a pleasure.
57:52
I I appreciate that that you've had me on.
57:57
Oh yeah, absolutely. Well, I I think.
58:00
Do you have any closing words before we close out?
58:05
No, I can't think of any. No, OK, well, I want to thank
58:09
all of our guests for joining us.
58:11
The show hosts that we're on Tony and MJ and then the family
58:15
that was on Robert and Jerry and Pam and my dad, Jerry and I just
58:21
thank you for being with us tonight.
58:23
And I just want to celebrate your service and say thank you
58:26
for your service. And next time, and I'm in town,
58:29
I'm going to see you. I hope so.
58:32
We'll have lunch. Sounds good to me.
58:35
All right. Well, this is Teresa around
58:37
signing off and thank you so much for being on the show
58:39
tonight. You're welcome.
58:45
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to Military
58:49
Broadcast Radio. As we wrap up today's show, we
58:54
want to remind you that the podcast of today's episode will
58:58
be available right after we go off the air.
59:01
So if you missed any part of the show or want to listen again, be
59:06
sure to check it out. And remember, we're here to
59:11
support and honor our veterans. Your stories and experiences
59:16
matter, and we are committed to giving you a platform to share
59:21
them. That's right, we're here to give
59:24
our veterans a voice. So don't forget to catch the
59:28
podcast and stay connected with us giving our veterans a voice.