[Interview Begins]

SPRAGUE: Today is May 5th, 2023. This is an interview with Patricia Jane Babcock, who goes by Jane.

BABCOCK: Yes.

SPRAGUE: Who served in the United States Army and Army Reserve from April 22nd, 1982.

BABCOCK: Correct.

SPRAGUE: To November 9th, 2004. Correct. And you prefer Jane, correct?

BABCOCK: Yes. Okay. Pat was my mom.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. No problem. And Jane entered service as Patricia Jane Cook.

BABCOCK: Yes.

SPRAGUE: This interview is being conducted by Luke Sprague at the Manitowoc Public Library for the I Am Not Visible project as part of the State of Wisconsin's Veterans Oral History program. No one else is present in the room. Okay, Jane, where did you grow up?

BABCOCK: Mostly on the East Coast.

BABCOCK: My father worked for Coca-Cola and we did a lot of moving. So I was born in.

BABCOCK: Upstate New York, moved to.

BABCOCK: Let's see, upstate New York and starting out in. Westerville, Ohio. No. Hudson, Ohio. Westerville, Ohio. South Orange, New Jersey. Then moved out to Lacrosse or lived in Iowa once for two years. But I was a toddler then and then moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin, in between my junior senior year of high school.

SPRAGUE: So you had moved around a lot and then came into La Crosse. Okay?

BABCOCK: Yep. That made it easy to be the new kid on the block.

SPRAGUE: And that has its own charm. The New Year. The new kid. Did you graduate from Lacrosse high schools or.

BABCOCK: Central High School In Lacrosse? Yes. Okay. In 77. But I waited until I was 23 to join the military.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So if you don't mind sharing between graduation and 23, what were you involved with?

BABCOCK: Working in factories, waiting tables.

BABCOCK: Basically dead end.

BABCOCK: Jobs.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So did you have anyone in your family who had served in the military?

BABCOCK: My father served in World War Two and my grandfather served in World War One and World War Two. And did the reserves between and after. So he did 30 years in service.

SPRAGUE: Wow. So if you would be so kind, could you both give us both your grandfather's full name and father's full name?

BABCOCK: Sure. They were both Joseph Raymond Cook.

BABCOCK: Senior and Junior.

BABCOCK: And my grandfather retired as a colonel.

BABCOCK: And my dad.

BABCOCK: Made corporal just before he got out.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Huh? Okay.

BABCOCK: So the day I got to call him up as a sergeant and say I outrank you felt pretty good.

SPRAGUE: So any grandmothers or mothers or aunts that served?

BABCOCK: Nope. Okay. Nope.

BABCOCK: We were the first.

BABCOCK: Generation of all girls. My father.

BABCOCK: Had five.

BABCOCK: Daughters. We used to.

BABCOCK: Refer to hostesses harem. He had a wife, five daughters and a bitch dog.

BABCOCK: So I couldn't even get a boy dog in the house.

SPRAGUE: Sorry. So you're in lacrosse still? You're before 23. What made you want to join the military?

BABCOCK: Well, getting out of high school, I thought.

BABCOCK: To myself, you know, I don't know what I want to do. I'm not going to spend the money on school. I didn't know how to go about getting all the loans and everything. It really wasn't a scholarship kind of kid. So I knew that the military would give me training. I took the.

BABCOCK: ASVAB. They said, Pick anything that's not male restricted.

BABCOCK: And I said, Well, what's your longest electronic school?

BABCOCK: And they said, This one, but it's a six month wait.

BABCOCK: And I went, Yeah, no, I.

BABCOCK: Don't think I think about checking.

BABCOCK: Out that long. So what's your next one? And that was crypto tech.

BABCOCK: So being I was actually in.

BABCOCK: The Army for an entire year before I finished my 80, okay? And I went through.

BABCOCK: With no face backs. So I said, Well, that's a good amount of training and then get some experience and get out and get a good job.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. So we're going to get to that and I'm going to circle around to that. So but I would imagine you first went after you enlisted. You went to Basic. Well, and where was that?

BABCOCK: At Fort Dix, New Jersey. Yeah.

BABCOCK: It's interesting, but I had some really excellent days. I had one day I was younger.

BABCOCK: Than I was.

BABCOCK: And then our older one was a Vietnam veteran.

BABCOCK: Military still.

BABCOCK: Obviously. And the young guy, I stepped off the cattle car and the first thing he said was, How old are you? Private? And I said, 23, drill sergeant. And he said, Your new name is Mom. And literally every time one of the guys in the company had a problem with a female, you know, they yelled for me.

BABCOCK: And I'd come over and.

BABCOCK: He'd say, If it's an army thing, send her to me if it's a.

BABCOCK: Girl thing. You take care of it.

BABCOCK: So? So I went through basic training. His mom ended up as a mom in 80, and then ten years later, one of my buddies was in the gymnasium at Fort Meade, Maryland. We were doing some practice DNC for President Bush Seniors Inaugural Parade.

BABCOCK: And he came out in an old guard uniform.

BABCOCK: Looking like a.

BABCOCK: Poster child.

BABCOCK: And he said this morning, we will cover these drills and ceremonies in accordance with they are 635 dash.

BABCOCK: I think it's either 100 or 200.

BABCOCK: And all of a sudden, he stopped.

BABCOCK: And he looked right over his shoulder at me and he goes, Mom. Yeah, this was one of my days. It was my young guy.

BABCOCK: So Flashback City. But it turned out that he actually he was old guard and he did the case on duties and I worked in a.

BABCOCK: Building for a contractor at the time, a.

BABCOCK: Navy contractor that.

BABCOCK: Did underwater acoustical work.

BABCOCK: And we used to, you know, case would go by.

BABCOCK: Everybody cos most of the guys were Navy and they got case on and everybody be on that side of the building. It's like, why isn't this building tipping over?

BABCOCK: But I found out that I'd seen him walking case on duty before and hadn't realized it.

SPRAGUE: So. So what year was that when you were at Fort Dix?

BABCOCK: 82. Okay.

SPRAGUE: And you had mentioned what were the men and women training together then, or are they separate companies or.

BABCOCK: We were in a separate company.

BABCOCK: We were all female at the time. Okay. But there were a couple of companies that were transitioning to combined. So there were other units on the force that were combined. But we were all.

BABCOCK: And we were actually we came through the line at MIPS.

BABCOCK: At the entrance station, getting our uniforms, and they got down to like the last three or four.

BABCOCK: Women and they didn't have.

BABCOCK: Uniforms for them that would fit. So they sent us all.

BABCOCK: Back to the beginning of the line.

BABCOCK: We all turned in.

BABCOCK: Our fatigues and got to use.

SPRAGUE: O.

BABCOCK: So we were the first unit.

BABCOCK: To.

BABCOCK: Move out and b to use, which of course caused a lot of attention. And our DI would stand.

BABCOCK: There and yell at guys, Those are.

BABCOCK: By women, don't you look at them because everybody is interested in the new uniform.

SPRAGUE: Wow. So you literally got to see the transition from fatigues to PD.

BABCOCK: Yep. Yeah.

BABCOCK: Which I really wanted. The fatigues.

SPRAGUE: Yeah, but.

BABCOCK: They looked better.

BABCOCK: Oh. Although when I first enlisted, I actually had to get an overweight waiver.

BABCOCK: And while I was in, I lost almost £30 in basic training. So when I got.

BABCOCK: Done my D, I said, go back to the entrance station, get a whole new issue. So I actually left for 80.

BABCOCK: With uniforms that still smelled like mothballs. Wow. Because I'd lost too much weight or so much weight. Huh?

SPRAGUE: Were there I've heard this from other women. Were there issues with getting beat use that fit properly across the board or not? Yeah.

BABCOCK: Yeah. Well, they're all cut for men.

BABCOCK: And I had worked in a clothing factory before I enlisted, so I understood, you know, how cut of fabric will chafe women in certain areas that they might not chafe again.

BABCOCK: So yeah, it was just.

BABCOCK: Because they were male. They were designed to be a straight line as opposed to any type of curvature. And the hips are different and all the other stuff.

SPRAGUE: So yeah. What was it like being exposed to people from all over the country?

BABCOCK: For me, it wasn't a problem because I'd moved around so much during my life. You know, I'd lived in neighborhoods where I was the white kid.

BABCOCK: I lived in.

BABCOCK: Neighborhoods where, oh, she's, you know, she's Catholic. And I lived in a mostly Jewish neighborhood in New Jersey. So we had a little tiny church and there was three big temples in the town. So I'd been on both sides of the street. It didn't didn't bother me.

SPRAGUE: What were some of the stand out experiences that from from your basic at Fort Dix that you remember?

BABCOCK: Well, we had Sarkin Noriega and Sergeant Ziegler. Ziegler was our Vietnam guy, and he was much more conscientious about the females because the first day he stood up in front of us and he said, You know, I have a wife, I.

BABCOCK: Have a daughter.

BABCOCK: I'm not going to use foul language around you guys.

BABCOCK: But his favorite word was feces. And so.

BABCOCK: He one day we were.

BABCOCK: Doing a road march and I don't remember where we were going, but all of a sudden he said, okay, you know, him left and off the road. We went into a beautiful wooded area with a small pond.

BABCOCK: And the sunlight dep through the trees and everything. And he said, You've got 15 minutes of peace use. And he walked.

BABCOCK: Off toward the road and then he waited. And then he came back and got his form back up and marched us back out.

BABCOCK: But he he was aware of the need to have.

BABCOCK: That call every so often.

BABCOCK: But he was just as demanding. He could just as easily wake us up at two in the.

BABCOCK: Morning and make us turtle crawl. You know.

BABCOCK: You got 5 minutes, get uniforms, grab your Kevlar.

BABCOCK: Or at that time helmet and then bring us out.

BABCOCK: Somebody had messed.

BABCOCK: Up, somebody had left something out or whatever. And it was like, okay, you know, drop turtle, crawl, leave. It tracks all across the field.

SPRAGUE: So interesting. So you were to use not wearing Kevlar, but wearing steel pots that understand you correctly?

BABCOCK: Yep. Huh.

SPRAGUE: It's an interesting time frame. Okay. Were there any racial issues and basic at all?

BABCOCK: Yes. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's.

BABCOCK: You're throwing a bunch of people from all over in society into a group. And some one of our girls. I remember.

BABCOCK: Actually, I think if she was at it.

BABCOCK: She had never seen a black person up close. She was from a very white, rural area, and she didn't.

BABCOCK: Understand the difference in skin.

BABCOCK: Tones, like on the palm of hand, as opposed to the back of the hand and things like that. So she had all sorts of questions.

BABCOCK: But yeah, we had one white drill and one black drill, and.

BABCOCK: So there was a lot less in our company. Hmm.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. So moving on to 80. You mentioned that you're 80 Was sounds like a year long or very pretty close. Pretty close. And tell us about where you attended. And you mentioned this during the pre-interview, and I'd like you to expand on that a little bit more, if you would.

BABCOCK: Sure. Fort Gordon, Georgia.

BABCOCK: Discussed a.

BABCOCK: Georgia.

SPRAGUE: I was stationed there. That's why I can laugh.

BABCOCK: Oh, okay. How far from Signal Tower?

SPRAGUE: Quite a ways. Well, yeah, we were at off post, so that drill worked on post, so. Yeah.

BABCOCK: Yep.

BABCOCK: Well, we were just a little ways from Signal.

BABCOCK: Tower, and then our school building was down the block from there. Okay.

BABCOCK: At Fort Gordon, Georgia, is named after.

BABCOCK: Major-General John B Gordon.

BABCOCK: And he is.

BABCOCK: Brother to Brigadier General Thomas. Carl Gordon. Or not Brother, I think his cousin or nephew. But anyways, my grandmother was a Gordon and she was a Georgia peach.

BABCOCK: And if you go back, I want to say five generations.

BABCOCK: Thomas Carl, it was her uncle. Great, great, great, great uncle. Okay. So I was indirectly aligned with this family that went through Fort Guard.

BABCOCK: My grandfather actually took his officer training camp and his pre-deployment.

BABCOCK: They didn't call it that at the time, but pre-deployment training.

BABCOCK: Before heading over to Europe at at the time Camp.

BABCOCK: Gordon. Wow.

SPRAGUE: Yeah, that's interesting. I have to ask. There were some earlier Vietnam vets and I found this odd that they were calling Port Gordon or Camp Gordon Signal Center, south or South. Do you have any familiarity there?

BABCOCK: Well, it's a signal school was there and a lot of the signal activity, communications and stuff going across country and everything.

BABCOCK: So that's where it got its initial moniker of being the signal Center.

BABCOCK: But yeah, it was it was okay. Hmm.

SPRAGUE: So what was the discipline like at air versus basic training?

BABCOCK: I think that has a lot to do with the difference.

BABCOCK: Between emphasis.

BABCOCK: When you're getting done with eight weeks of basic training and then you're going off to just say eight weeks for cable.

BABCOCK: Guys to climb the phone poles and run lines. They're more I think they're more disciplined and more much more supervised when.

BABCOCK: We get to basic training. Of course.

BABCOCK: The first couple of weeks, they were very disciplined with us and they kept us very structured.

BABCOCK: But after a few weeks, they lightened.

BABCOCK: Up and they said, okay.

BABCOCK: You guys are behaving well and you're going to be here for the next ten.

BABCOCK: Months. So they lightened up the reins. Some of our.

BABCOCK: Guys were allowed to bring their families down.

BABCOCK: And live off post, which is kind of unusual.

BABCOCK: For it. Some of the guys got together and they were actually given later on in school.

BABCOCK: They were given permission to, as a group, get an apartment off post or things like that. But there was also.

BABCOCK: Because we were in the crypto field, we.

BABCOCK: Had the security clearance issues and.

BABCOCK: We might walk into that school building and they might go, you, you and you come here and empty your.

BABCOCK: Pockets, take off your boots, okay? And then be allowed to enter the school making sure we weren't bringing in anything.

BABCOCK: Or at the end of the day they do the same.

BABCOCK: And that was to make sure we weren't taking anything out.

BABCOCK: Although at the end.

BABCOCK: Of our year.

BABCOCK: We were taking our final test and they came into the classroom and said, Shut off your equipment, sit down, shut.

BABCOCK: Up. And we were all like, What? And of course we were all chattering. And they're like, We told you to shut up.

BABCOCK: We sat down and apparently one of the young men in the class who had faced twice. He had been put back for failure to pass the test. He was going back.

BABCOCK: To his barracks and writing notes.

BABCOCK: In his notebook. And when he'd slammed his locker that.

BABCOCK: Morning, one of the pieces of paper was sticking out a little bit. And when the first sergeant was walking through, he saw it. He grabbed it, pulled it out and realized what it was and went, Oh, crap. Classified information.

BABCOCK: They brought us all. First they searched.

BABCOCK: Us at school.

BABCOCK: Then they took all the people that had.

BABCOCK: Cars on poles, searched their cars.

BABCOCK: Sent employees out to the.

BABCOCK: Houses and apartments as necessary. Took us back to the barracks, searched all of our barracks, tore apart our lockers and everything else. And then they.

BABCOCK: Finally got.

BABCOCK: Around to telling us why. And everybody kind of looked around and went, okay, what's. Who's the one missing kid? They had already taken him off. So. Okay. Then the next day, let us go back and finish our test. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: So? So we have it right? What? At the time when you came into 18. Not later, but initially. What was your MOS title and what was that? The most designator?

BABCOCK: 32 Foxtrot. Right. And cryptographic.

BABCOCK: Systems repair. Okay.

BABCOCK: And it was down to the component level. We were the I think.

BABCOCK: Second, the last class to go through that was component level. And they turned around and made it card swap. So there was actually class.

BABCOCK: As graduating as.

BABCOCK: Card swap first before we were graduating as component level. Wow.

SPRAGUE: So, of course, we don't want any classified information during this interview. What I'm assuming when you mean component level, you instead of swapping cards, you mean either a transistor or a resistor or maybe even chip level versus an I see card, an integrated circuit card or. Yeah. Help me out with that.

BABCOCK: Yeah. No, we started out with precision soldering course. So we had to pass that, go on to school and it was. Yeah. Right down to okay, which resistor, which diode, whichever is, you know, and in some of the equipment which tube is failing and then we'd repair it and put it back in.

SPRAGUE: So can I ask you with a generalized question without revealing anything? I'm assuming this is crypto equipment that went on radio equipment, telephones.

BABCOCK: Yeah, well, the back phone for the it was anything voice would go through the system that we worked on because it would take it, scramble it, put a bunch of noise on top of it and then when it got to the other.

BABCOCK: End, they pull the noise off and then they'd unscramble it.

SPRAGUE: So how closely when you had enlisted and you chose your most, you're the second one. How well did you do at the time? Did you think this was fitting you in terms of what you wanted to do?

BABCOCK: Oh, I thought it was great because that.

BABCOCK: Had always been one that like to tinker.

BABCOCK: Take things apart, put it back together, see how they work, that kind of stuff. So you ruined more than one toaster for my mom.

SPRAGUE: Any interesting? You were there for quite a while. So any memorable people that you remember that you hold?

BABCOCK: At this point, the only person.

BABCOCK: I really remember name wise was Michael Zito. He was one of the other students. Mm hmm. And at first, you know, he was having a struggle with soldering course. And I said, Here, I'll help you, you know, break your hand, you know, put your pinkie on the table.

BABCOCK: That way you have a steady thing.

BABCOCK: And do that. And, you know, at first he was kind of like, I can do this. You can take, you know, we will and.

BABCOCK: We got to be friends. And he was married. He was from New Jersey. So that was one of the other things that got us talking to each other. And pretty soon he invited me out to meet his wife who lived off, posed.

BABCOCK: With their two little boys. And so we got to be friends that way.

BABCOCK: And then we ended up in Korea. Both of us ended up.

BABCOCK: In South Korea at different posts.

SPRAGUE: Mm hmm.

BABCOCK: But he had taken leave, and I hadn't. So I went.

BABCOCK: Straight.

BABCOCK: Over two weeks later, he arrived, and then he got a hold of me. And so we would talk in South Korea, but we hadn't seen each other. Well, he left country before I did.

BABCOCK: I don't remember how.

BABCOCK: He ended.

BABCOCK: Up going earlier than me.

BABCOCK: But he went back to the States and he ended up at Fort Ritchie, Maryland, which was the installer unit.

BABCOCK: So we traveled all over the US installing equipment.

BABCOCK: But he got back before me. So when I came into the company it was funny because my flight in had gotten.

BABCOCK: Bumped.

BABCOCK: And they bumped another flight and then they said, okay, well.

BABCOCK: We're going from Baltimore-Washington Airport to the Hagerstown Airport and it's almost as quick to drive in a car.

BABCOCK: So they gave us limos, sent us that way.

BABCOCK: Because there was enough room.

BABCOCK: In the next flight and the guy dropped off the.

BABCOCK: First guy, and then he said, okay, well.

BABCOCK: On the way to the airport, I'm going to go past this guy's house and past your base. So he pulled into the base. So I pulled up.

BABCOCK: To the.

BABCOCK: Company, the limousine, and the guy came around, help me out of the limo, carried my luggage up to the lobby and everything, and everybody's like.

BABCOCK: Oh, yeah, God, yeah.

BABCOCK: You know, they laughed.

BABCOCK: Because I was dressed nicely. Korea was a wonderful place to shop.

SPRAGUE: So this would be so we can place the reader. This is after you come back from Korea.

BABCOCK: Tour and.

BABCOCK: Sure enough, a walk in the lobby and all of a sudden Zito goes, Hey, Jane. And it was like, okay, right back to the same person. So we actually went through.

BABCOCK: Our military careers together without even realizing, you know, we didn't ask for it, you know, But.

BABCOCK: I stayed good friends with them.

BABCOCK: For quite a number of years and would go over and.

BABCOCK: Babysit the kids.

BABCOCK: So he needs a wife could go out and things like that.

SPRAGUE: So if you could, because it's an important part of your story. What was Michael Zito's, how do I suppose last.

BABCOCK: Name Z Ideal.

SPRAGUE: Okay, thank you.

BABCOCK: Yeah.

BABCOCK: He still lives out on the East Coast.

BABCOCK: He and Don are separate, are divorced, but. Yep.

SPRAGUE: Any other memories that you have from I.t. That stick out in your head? Oh, that you care to share?

BABCOCK: Well, every month we would go to do some kind of pretty much basic type training.

BABCOCK: We never go to the range. We do a bunch of DLC.

BABCOCK: We the.

BABCOCK: Obstacle course. I love doing obstacle course.

BABCOCK: I jump off a telephone pole any time. So and later on in life, as a civilian, I actually worked on.

BABCOCK: An obstacle course for a summer. It was great.

BABCOCK: And so it was it was a good sense of belonging together. And it was very eye opening.

BABCOCK: As a 24 year old at that time looked well, almost 25.

BABCOCK: Looking back at the young kids coming in, the 17.

BABCOCK: 18, 19 year olds who were just like deers in the headlights kind of look, you know, some of them had.

BABCOCK: Never met people of other.

BABCOCK: Races, or if they did, they hadn't really understood the bond that could.

BABCOCK: Develop and building that much time together.

BABCOCK: There was much more a sense of having the other guy. Six.

SPRAGUE: Excuse me. Okay, so let's let's go to your your first duty station in Korea, I assume. Tell me about what that was like in arriving in Korea.

BABCOCK: For me, it was just another.

BABCOCK: Adventure because I had moved around a lot. The only.

BABCOCK: Problem is.

BABCOCK: Is.

BABCOCK: They gave quite a few of us on the plane.

BABCOCK: Food poisoning.

SPRAGUE: Oh, no.

BABCOCK: So by the time we'd landed in Japan and taken back off.

BABCOCK: All of a sudden, a bunch of us, probably a good dozen or more of us, started getting sick.

BABCOCK: So you can only drive so.

BABCOCK: Many times before.

BABCOCK: You get really weak. So they were literally.

BABCOCK: Taking us off the plane on stretchers and putting us on to a bus where they could hook the stretcher onto the side of the bus. So we were layers.

BABCOCK: Stacked.

BABCOCK: Up and they took us to the hospital, rehydrated us and everything, and then the next day took us back to post. Well.

BABCOCK: They didn't have the females.

BABCOCK: Barracks was being rehabbed.

BABCOCK: So they actually housed us off base.

BABCOCK: In a hotel.

BABCOCK: Very nice hotel.

BABCOCK: But the next morning I went down and I was still feeling.

BABCOCK: So weak and so tired and I figured I was dehydrated.

BABCOCK: Again. So I tried.

BABCOCK: To explain to the Koreans that I needed to get.

BABCOCK: Back to port because I was.

BABCOCK: Sick. And the next thing I know, they were trying to throw me into a taxi and telling the taxi driver, me, Gong Agassi.

BABCOCK: I can't remember the name for Baby, but.

BABCOCK: They thought I was pretty pregnant. They were telling him I was an American soldier, a woman that was pregnant. And so the taxi driver.

BABCOCK: Who was driving.

BABCOCK: Insanely got me to post screeched to a stop at the gate. And of course, the gate guys had seen somebody coming at high speed.

BABCOCK: So they pointed weapons.

BABCOCK: And I'm like holding my ID card out the window and everything and get out, lay down. Wait, they come over, look at the ID, look at me.

BABCOCK: And they're like, What's wrong? And I'm like, I'm sick. I need.

BABCOCK: To get to the.

BABCOCK: Hospital. Wow. And they were like, okay.

BABCOCK: Let her in.

SPRAGUE: What an incredible story. So this would have been about 80 sometime in 83 coming to Korea. Yep. And which post were you going to?

BABCOCK: Oh, actually.

BABCOCK: That was going to the camp long.

BABCOCK: One day. But I was in Seoul at the time because I hadn't been transferred out yet. Okay. So, you know, I'd just come in-country and.

BABCOCK: Yeah, it was kind of eye opening up the way that.

BABCOCK: Koreans drive.

BABCOCK: There's three lanes painted on the road, two going straight. One is a turn lane and the guy in this lane is going to turn.

BABCOCK: And cross traffic. And it's like, Wait.

BABCOCK: A minute, see, you can't do that.

SPRAGUE: But so just so I understand because I'm trying to follow.

BABCOCK: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: When the gate guards stopped, you stopped the car. That was that in Seoul or.

BABCOCK: That was in Seoul.

SPRAGUE: And was that it May at Yongbyon or somewhere else? Yeah. Wow. At Yongsan in. In Seoul. Wow.

BABCOCK: Yeah, Because the post.

BABCOCK: Is right in the city. Yeah. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Wow. And the food poisoning that you got backing up a little bit more. Was that Department of the Army Food or was that civilian food?

BABCOCK: Commercial. Commercial flight. Okay. Yeah. Wow.

SPRAGUE: So that was your first experience in showing up in Korea?

BABCOCK: Yeah. Yeah. Which made it scary. When I got ready to leave, I started to panic.

BABCOCK: I didn't know what panic attacks were. And the closer I got to departure, it was like, okay, I'm not getting on that plane.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

BABCOCK: Because I don't ever want to be that sick. But I didn't understand that.

SPRAGUE: So you get to one day you was at Camp Long, I assume, or what was the name of the camp?

BABCOCK: I actually went to Camp Casey first.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Sorry.

BABCOCK: That's okay. I was assigned originally to Camp Casey, but then after a few. Oh, I think I was there maybe three months.

BABCOCK: Okay. They transferred me over to.

BABCOCK: Want you because that guy had left.

BABCOCK: On.

BABCOCK: Emergency leave, and they figured.

BABCOCK: I think there was a death in his family or something. So they knew he wasn't coming.

BABCOCK: Back and they didn't have.

BABCOCK: A crypto tech, whereas I was one.

BABCOCK: Of two at Casey.

BABCOCK: So term.

BABCOCK: Which took them six months to get my paycheck to actually.

BABCOCK: Camilo. Wow. So I would.

BABCOCK: Have to go to Casey every time we got paid to get my.

BABCOCK: Check.

SPRAGUE: That's a having served at Camp Casey. And knowing where one you is, that's a decent that's not an inconsequential trip.

BABCOCK: Now, it took the better part of a day to go and get and come back.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. What did you. I just have to ask, did you go via train or did you go via army vehicle or.

BABCOCK: I just took a.

BABCOCK: Pick up and headed out.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. And so good question. At Camp Casey. Do you remember what unit you were with or what?

BABCOCK: No, I don't remember the unit signifier, but.

BABCOCK: Big company three or four signal.

BABCOCK: Was where I was at at Camp.

SPRAGUE: Long. Yup.

BABCOCK: Okay. But I.

BABCOCK: Do remember they had a drill team come.

BABCOCK: And, you know, one of our morale days on a weekend, they came and did a show for us and it was amazing to watch these guys and the precision. Wow. Huh.

SPRAGUE: That's interesting. Yeah. Okay, so the tour at one June at Camp Long. How long was that? And total time. Was it a year? A year? Okay. Okay. And what was a typical day like at one or camp long?

BABCOCK: Get up in the morning, do for.

BABCOCK: P.T., go back, shower, eat breakfast, get dressed and head over to the shop. Mm hmm. So really wasn't very exciting.

BABCOCK: Most jobs in the military, you know, when you go and you do your job for 8 hours and you go home, you know, unless you're in a war zone or someplace like that.

BABCOCK: So it's pretty typical. But we did have fun. We had a USO tour one time.

BABCOCK: Foster Brooks.

BABCOCK: The old comedian that used to act like he was drunk. He came one time. So we get to watch his acts.

SPRAGUE: Huh? Okay.

BABCOCK: And then on the.

BABCOCK: Flight, you know, I think it was when I.

BABCOCK: Was at Fort Ritchie, after I'd come back from Korea, one of my flights I took, I actually got to see a female actress, older woman who I think of her name later.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

BABCOCK: She actually she came into the back of the plane and did a skit. She goes, I here we have a bunch of soldiers on the flight and did her skit for us.

BABCOCK: Had us just roll in.

SPRAGUE: Okay. While you were at Camp Long, what did you do in your spare time, time when you weren't on duty?

BABCOCK: Well, I was lucky being housed in a Quonset hut with a bunch of other females. And then we had a wing off of it that.

BABCOCK: Contained our bathrooms and showers, which.

BABCOCK: We were lucky because.

BABCOCK: All the rest of the Quonset huts.

BABCOCK: Were the males, and they had to go to a separate.

BABCOCK: Quonset hut to shower or even to use the.

BABCOCK: Facilities.

BABCOCK: So we were had hours connected with a small group of women that were.

BABCOCK: There on base. And our Oshima, which is our.

BABCOCK: Korean woman that took care of cleaning, and.

BABCOCK: She could shine 25 pairs of boots in the time that.

BABCOCK: I could shine one pair. And all of hers looked better than mine. So Miss Moon was awesome, but I got to be friends with her. And so.

BABCOCK: Sometimes I'd go down to the village.

BABCOCK: And we'd grab a kid, throw it on her back, wrap the blanket around us and head off to the market. Or other times I would just get on a dang bu bus and go somewhere. You know, I'd look at.

BABCOCK: The map, point my finger, and the guy would say, Tell me that bus. I get on and go and visit that village, go shopping, go see things.

BABCOCK: The spring before I left.

BABCOCK: I got real comfortable and I knew the area well enough.

BABCOCK: I could take the bus over to towns over and then go up in the mountains and camp overnight or things like that. So.

SPRAGUE: So it sounds like to me you had a positive experience exploring in Korea.

BABCOCK: Yeah.

BABCOCK: I like I said, moving around. I was always the new kid on the block, so I'd.

BABCOCK: Stick my hand out. Hey, what do you guys do for.

BABCOCK: Fun around here? Yeah, and I didn't bother me to be traveling by myself or anything like that.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And you also had mentioned your for your your hooch there for whatever you want to call it. Could you expand on that a little bit more? Because I don't think most people know about what that is. I know what that is. And you know what that is. We had an oddity, not an ahjumma. But yeah, if you could tell us more because you actually. Remember her name?

BABCOCK: Yes. When when guys are in foreign countries, a lot of.

BABCOCK: Local natives.

BABCOCK: Work for on post work for the soldiers.

BABCOCK: Whether it's keeping their barracks clean and things like that. I mean, we took.

BABCOCK: Care of our own personal space. Our own was ours. And she didn't disturb things inside.

BABCOCK: Our individual spaces, but she took care of cleaning the rest of the building. She ironed.

BABCOCK: Our uniforms. I remember when I first got there, I caught her ironing my pajamas.

BABCOCK: Because when you're in basic, you have to.

BABCOCK: Wear pajamas and.

BABCOCK: You have to wear.

BABCOCK: Pajamas that.

BABCOCK: Cover you from the Adam's apple to your ankles and covers down at least close to your elbow. So it was easier to buy mens.

BABCOCK: Pajamas to do that. So I caught her ironing my pajamas one day and I was like, Miss Point, you got to iron my pajamas. And she's like, No, no fire.

BABCOCK: Come middle night, my go run outside. I don't have you outside all wrinkly.

BABCOCK: So she was very particular about how we worked, how we looked, and she could start a uniform until it stood up by itself. Then she could sign a pair of boots. You could.

BABCOCK: Almost shave.

BABCOCK: It if you were a guy in the shine of those boots. So she was she was wonderful.

BABCOCK: And she was very welcoming.

BABCOCK: I remember.

BABCOCK: She had actually become a.

BABCOCK: Christian. She had been raised in in a Buddhist religion.

BABCOCK: But she carried some of those lessons with her. One of the first times I went down to her house, she insisted that I have this much Coca Cola and a little tiny lemon cookie. And I was like, Miss Moon.

BABCOCK: I just.

BABCOCK: Eat.

BABCOCK: Lunch up at the mess hall. I'm not hungry. And she's like, Oh no.

BABCOCK: I give to you. And I remember somebody had told me.

BABCOCK: It's.

BABCOCK: Insulting to turn down a gift of.

BABCOCK: Food.

BABCOCK: Because that's her way of.

BABCOCK: Showing.

BABCOCK: Buddha or God that she has enough in life she can.

BABCOCK: Afford to give away. So to turn it down would be mostly like saying you're not worthy of heaven. So of course.

BABCOCK: She eat a little lemon cookie. You drink the Coca-Cola. Okay, let's.

BABCOCK: Go. We're going to go shopping. Yeah. So that was and just the respect for elders.

BABCOCK: Miss Moon was actually we paid her $25 a month to do all of our laundry and cleaning and stuff like that. And then you could pay her the extra $2.

BABCOCK: A month after bootstrapped. And she had.

BABCOCK: On average, I'd say, about eight.

BABCOCK: Women in the building. Sometimes there were ten, but she was putting her son through college. Her husband had died when her son was young and.

BABCOCK: She was putting him through.

BABCOCK: College and what she earned from us.

SPRAGUE: Wow.

BABCOCK: So, yeah, Park. Moon Park. He was very nice, young man. I have pictures. We went to the zoo one time when he introduced me to his fiancee. So, yeah.

SPRAGUE: While you were in Korea, you mentioned during the pre-interview that you got scheduled for the installers course.

BABCOCK: Yes, I tried to extend. I wanted to stay in Korea because I liked shopping.

BABCOCK: And.

BABCOCK: They said, No, no, no, you're already installed, you're already scheduled for school. And I was like, I already finished it. And they said, No, we're going to send you on to be an installer. And and I was like, Well, I didn't ask for that. And they said, Well, we decided that's what we're doing. Okay.

SPRAGUE: But so having experienced it myself, I'm curious, tell me about shopping a little bit in Korea.

BABCOCK: Well, the typical Korean family don't have large.

BABCOCK: Refrigerators like we do. And like Miss Moon's EO was her hooch. You open the traditional screen door, you took shoes.

BABCOCK: Off outside, you stepped in, and they had and all heat. So they would take a brick of.

BABCOCK: Charcoal, light.

BABCOCK: It and drop it in a hole that ran into a pipe that.

BABCOCK: Went under the floor of the hooch.

BABCOCK: And so the floor was heated, which.

BABCOCK: Was wonderful in the winter. And then they would keep their bed rolls up on top of their almost like wall lockers that they had, keeping their blankets and everything up on top. So they would bring them down and put them on the floor. So that room was everything.

BABCOCK: They entertained there, they ate there.

BABCOCK: They slept there in that same room.

BABCOCK: But then you go down two steps and little tiny skinny galley type kitchen with fresh running water, cement counter with a cement sink and a little tiny refrigerator. And so because they don't have a lot.

BABCOCK: Of refrigeration and things like that, you had to go to the market every day and get your food for that next 24 hour meal. And so going there was always fresh food, fresh vegetables, you know.

BABCOCK: Noodles that were just being made by the vendor.

BABCOCK: Right there on the street. That's wonderful.

BABCOCK: I celebrated my 25th over there. My mom sent me $25 and I bought a blue jean jacket.

BABCOCK: Like two packs of socks, some fresh fruit, pebbles. They were like an apple, but they were a pair. And then I had money left over, so I bought some candy.

BABCOCK: And then I also bought what I thought were helium balloons.

BABCOCK: Well.

BABCOCK: Apparently they don't here didn't have.

BABCOCK: Or not in that.

BABCOCK: Area, have helium.

BABCOCK: In Korea.

BABCOCK: So later on, when I was back.

BABCOCK: At the.

BABCOCK: Barracks, I went over to visit a friend at the Air Force.

BABCOCK: Barracks.

BABCOCK: And one of the balloons had started to fade. So I took my lighter and I.

BABCOCK: Was just going to pop.

BABCOCK: It. No.

BABCOCK: Well.

BABCOCK: I didn't create a fireball. I burned all the hair off my.

BABCOCK: Arm up to my.

BABCOCK: So.

BABCOCK: Learned real quick, not helium.

SPRAGUE: What do you remember? Any particular training or field exercises while you were there?

BABCOCK: Oh, All to Focus Lands is the big exercise.

BABCOCK: And that's when soldiers from Europe and U.S. and everything, they come over and set up and everything. Now, I don't know.

BABCOCK: Who plans these things, but they're not real wise.

BABCOCK: About.

BABCOCK: Rice paddies because they would fill them in with dirt. This was in the winter while they were still the ground was still frozen. Well, we got a.

BABCOCK: Sudden warm up of temperature and that frozen dirt turned into not frost dirt.

BABCOCK: And we had a long stretch of.

BABCOCK: Largest.

BABCOCK: Hooked together. I think they had.

BABCOCK: Three of them.

BABCOCK: And that was the sleeping area for most of the people in the exercise in our unit.

BABCOCK: Yeah, about three or four in the morning, the poles loosened up enough, it fell over.

BABCOCK: So all these people are trapped under this heavy canvas in the mud?

BABCOCK: Yeah. Screaming, it felt like. And lights are.

BABCOCK: Turning on and everything else trying to. Well, lucky for me, because we were the crypto people and the communications people, we were up higher on the hillside and we had.

BABCOCK: Deliberately put our jeep small right outside the talk and the communications vans. And we had ahjumma from the village.

BABCOCK: Make us mats, so we had rice.

BABCOCK: Mats down so we didn't have to worry about the mud and stuff and we would take our boots off.

BABCOCK: Outside.

BABCOCK: So all of a sudden it's like, What.

BABCOCK: The heck's going on over there? It was a muddy mess. But they did have one soldier that year. He got.

BABCOCK: Lost. Going from hillside to hillside, and he went off in the wrong direction and he got lost overnight. And so the next you know, next morning we're getting search parties going and everything. And being a smart young man, he.

BABCOCK: Went ahead and lit a small fire and he was putting semi green leaves and things like that.

BABCOCK: On, you know, onto the fire, green twigs to smoke so that we'd be able to find him easier.

BABCOCK: The only problem is in South Korea, you don't cut.

BABCOCK: An olive tree.

BABCOCK: You have to have government.

BABCOCK: Permission Each job, like being a nursery type of person that praises plants or more plants, trees, does.

BABCOCK: Landscaping and thing. You have to have special licenses because trees are so sacred over there. Because when the Japanese.

BABCOCK: Had taken over Korea, they'd stripped the.

BABCOCK: Land. You'd see a tree with a trunk this big, and there'd be a little chain link around it. There'd be signs telling you how old it is.

BABCOCK: And all, you.

BABCOCK: Know, it was very celebrated to have an older tree. So of course, the Koreans went, Oh, he broke our laws. We're going to put him in jail. And the Americans went, Oh, no, no, we'll take care of it. They put him on a plane and sent him home. So.

SPRAGUE: Oh, no.

BABCOCK: Because, yeah, he'd cut on a living tree.

SPRAGUE: Anything else from a farm B company specifically, or they were U within the company headquarters or just assigned within it or How did that.

BABCOCK: Yeah. A certain plant that was in the it was in the communications section of the big company, three or four signal.

BABCOCK: And we had a first.

BABCOCK: Sergeant part of my tour there, the first sergeant.

BABCOCK: He had actually had half a.

BABCOCK: Lung taken out for cancer, but that man could run and run and run.

BABCOCK: So Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays.

BABCOCK: You'd start out doing two miles on Mondays, three miles on Wednesdays and four miles on Fridays. And he would run us out in the village in and back and things like that. But I remember we had someone they kept reporting that an American GI was going down to the Korean red light district and flashing women.

BABCOCK: So they thought they knew who it was. And the first sergeant called them.

BABCOCK: Up front of formation, gave him read them the riot act, and said, you know, do you want to show it.

BABCOCK: Off? So now, of course, he didn't.

BABCOCK: But he said, you know, I'm going to take your pass.

BABCOCK: I'm going to tie it to the.

BABCOCK: Ass of a rabbit.

BABCOCK: And when it comes back, you can have it back. Well, a week later, he had to call that same young man up and.

BABCOCK: Apologize to them because apparently they caught the guy and it wasn't him, but it was, you know, good fun.

SPRAGUE: Well, what was the ratio of men to women in your unit?

BABCOCK: Oh.

BABCOCK: On average, there was 8 to.

BABCOCK: 12 females at a time in the company. And the company was probably.

BABCOCK: Anywhere from 80.

BABCOCK: To 120, depending on rotation season.

SPRAGUE: And how did that work in a single company? Were there any issues working between the two genders or was it pretty?

BABCOCK: Yeah, there's always going.

BABCOCK: To be some conflict, especially, you know, there were certain females that thought they were. God's gift.

BABCOCK: But then there were some guys that thought they were.

BABCOCK: Especially handsome or something. So it's, you know, typical human behavior. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So tell me what it looks like. Tell me about your next step. I think you come you come back to the States.

BABCOCK: And that's when I went to Fort Richey, Maryland.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And tell me. So you started there. You didn't go to the course in route or.

BABCOCK: Oh, yes. Yeah, I went to the installer course because.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

BABCOCK: I was stationed at Fort Richey, but the installers course was at Fort Watt UCA, Arizona.

BABCOCK: Okay. Which is where I got my tattoo.

SPRAGUE: Okay. But do you care to share or not share?

BABCOCK: Let's put it this way.

BABCOCK: It's a reserve for a select crowd of one.

BABCOCK: No.

SPRAGUE: No problem. Yeah, no problem.

BABCOCK: A bunch of females. We'd had a little bit to drink one weekend, and one of the girls was wanting to get hers.

BABCOCK: Color picked up on hers. And so the rest of us were like.

BABCOCK: Okay, yeah, we'll go.

BABCOCK: Along. And then.

BABCOCK: Hey, that is pretty, you.

BABCOCK: Know.

BABCOCK: Some of the women got them on their arm or on back.

BABCOCK: Shoulder or things like this. And it was.

BABCOCK: Like, you know what? If I ever wear a really fancy dress to a formal occasion, I don't want half of a tattoo sticking out.

BABCOCK: So mine is on my hip. Okay.

SPRAGUE: And that was that for you? Yup. Okay. So then after that, I'm assuming for Pachuco was in route or. Okay. Yeah. And then you came back and you went over to Fort Ritchie, and now you're an installer? Yeah. Do you have anything first before I skip it? Was there anything you wanted to cover from the installers? Cause that was interesting.

BABCOCK: It was interesting because it was a predominantly male field. Mm hmm. I mean, we had a pretty good number of females in the city.

BABCOCK: But when I got to the installers course, there were very few females.

BABCOCK: I think there was only one or two in the entire class. And it was it was really interesting. We did everything from bending conduit, making duct work.

BABCOCK: Running electrical power.

BABCOCK: Creating cables, you know, industrial cables. Bill operators give better service and we rape beautiful young.

BABCOCK: Virgins are the color codes for when you get a.

BABCOCK: Cable full of wires.

BABCOCK: And.

BABCOCK: They have different colors on them to tell you this wire mesh the wire on the other.

BABCOCK: End.

SPRAGUE: So the color codes for the cabling system.

BABCOCK: Blue, orange, green, brown, slate ELL operators give better service and we.

BABCOCK: Rate beautiful young.

BABCOCK: Virgins is white red.

SPRAGUE: Why run backwards environment.

BABCOCK: Oh, I see.

BABCOCK: But that was yours then.

BABCOCK: So those were the things that you use to remember your color codes. And we did everything.

BABCOCK: From air traffic control tower buildings. Gutted them where you did everything, ran the alarm systems out to the fire stations, the police stations, the hospitals, all that stuff to right down to setting up a crypto system. Now, remember, when I went through crypto school, it took two racks of equipment and now it's smaller than the desk vault.

SPRAGUE: Right, Right. So hopping around here and maybe jump at your were ten years or 5 to 8 years before my time, maybe a decade. If you were going to do wire line encryption in the field, you might use what we would call then a type 57, but not a quick 57 because that was for the radio. Yep. And then you could do wire lightning real simple wire line encryption. And then the other part that's interesting to me in talking to you about this is the Army. When I was in, they had their junction boxes and their systems, if I remember correctly, were based on 26 pair of cable. I could be wrong. The 1066 and then these big amphenol connectors that were massive versus the the civilian private sector was based on pairs of 25. Mm hmm. I don't know. Maybe in Garrison, they went back to the civilian protocol, to our back protocol. But the army deployed stuff, had a weird and. Yeah. What? Yeah. You can help me out with that, if you remember.

BABCOCK: Yep. Yeah. It takes a while for the army to catch up, which is really odd because so much of the research and development.

BABCOCK: Is done by the branches of service.

BABCOCK: Just like. A development that's done with the space program and things like that. But yet the equipment is really.

BABCOCK: Old.

BABCOCK: And stays in the system.

BABCOCK: With the military for the.

BABCOCK: Longest times. And then once the active duty, you know, they they share it out.

BABCOCK: To the Reserves and National.

BABCOCK: Guard. Well, now the active duty switch.

BABCOCK: Is over to something new. But the Reserves and Guard.

BABCOCK: Are still using the old equipment. They're still sleeping in the same sleeping bag that the guy in Vietnam slept in. They're still eating the Marines, which used. I see rats. We didn't get Marines.

BABCOCK: Until I got closer to getting done with my first tour.

SPRAGUE: Wow.

BABCOCK: So, yeah.

BABCOCK: Those lovely scrambled egg.

BABCOCK: Loafs at both ends often push it out. And it was like a loaf of of.

BABCOCK: Kind of yellow with green spots where ham was. Yeah. I kept my original basic training P-38.

BABCOCK: Until.

BABCOCK: When the planes when the planes struck, my husband had to take a business trip and he took my vehicle and had my P-38 on the keychain. He got to the airport.

BABCOCK: He took it away from 2001.

SPRAGUE: Yep. So and that what you're talking about is 83, 84, all the way.

BABCOCK: Through. 82. Basic training. 38.

BABCOCK: I kept it until 2001 when my husband. Huh, got caught at the airport with a weapon.

SPRAGUE: P-38 can opener.

BABCOCK: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Lovely. Okay. So when you became an installer, did your MLS change or assume it did or not?

BABCOCK: No, they just added skill identifier.

SPRAGUE: Okay, so it went up to.

BABCOCK: 32 Fox ten.

SPRAGUE: I okay in the eye as the identifier maybe. Okay. I'm just trying to understand.

BABCOCK: Yep.

SPRAGUE: So you're at Fort Ritchie. And given based on your pre-interview, he brought you and you said you did your TCI at this point? Yes. You had one of the things on your interview request form this, and I'm out of Fort Ritchie c e a CONUS. Do you know what.

BABCOCK: That means for.

BABCOCK: Electronic installation and communications.

BABCOCK: CONUS, which was meaning stateside? Okay.

BABCOCK: See, a.

BABCOCK: CONUS was the.

SPRAGUE: Second US. Yeah, See a CONUS? Yeah, I have. Online. I found U.S.. I sec Dash CONUS or something.

BABCOCK: Yeah, they changed the name a couple of times.

BABCOCK: Okay. Since then.

BABCOCK: But yeah, it was a blast. I saw 26 states in two and a half years.

SPRAGUE: Wow. And was that all on TDY? Wow.

BABCOCK: Living in hotels, wearing civilian clothes, eating in.

BABCOCK: Restaurants most of the time.

BABCOCK: Because we might. We did one job, or we went to 13 places in nine weeks.

BABCOCK: So you'd go.

BABCOCK: In, saw the equipment, do a smoke test to make sure it.

BABCOCK: Works and move on. Wow.

BABCOCK: So I'm in on Friday afternoon, having finished.

BABCOCK: Off of a full run.

BABCOCK: Hand in your paperwork on Monday morning, get a new set of plane tickets.

BABCOCK: Head out on Tuesday. Wow.

SPRAGUE: Well, I would imagine it used to be when you were on TDY, you got pretty good pay because it was additional.

BABCOCK: Yeah. You were recouping what you'd spent.

BABCOCK: Plus there was always a little extra. But we had a government credit card, so we just put most of like the cars and all that stuff on the credit card. And that way we didn't have to deal with the bill. Yeah. And then we just.

BABCOCK: Ate our food.

SPRAGUE: Huh. This is interesting to me because I've been involved in the world you're talking about on the civilian side. It's I think it makes sense to me because of the clearance issue. That's why you'd have an Army installer do that, I would think.

BABCOCK: Yeah.

BABCOCK: We we were one of our jobs. We actually went.

BABCOCK: We were.

SPRAGUE: Where were we?

BABCOCK: I don't even remember where we were at the time.

BABCOCK: But they called us up and there was two teams at.

BABCOCK: This particular install job because we were doing a whole datacenter and they called up and they said, okay, Gallagher, Cook and Benita Lane.

BABCOCK: We need you three to go to the.

BABCOCK: Airport.

BABCOCK: Get on a plane, fly to California doing install job for the Air Force guys. You need it done in the next.

BABCOCK: Like I think it was four days.

SPRAGUE: Oh my God.

BABCOCK: So we go to the airport and we do that. And, you know, they said, this is your hotel and everything now.

BABCOCK: Normally what should happen is, is they should cut orders and you should have those paper orders. Well, apparently somebody didn't finish the process of cutting the orders because they were doing a an update on.

BABCOCK: Our clearances like the next year.

BABCOCK: And they were like, we can't find these for five days of you.

BABCOCK: Where were you? You're supposed to be in Baltimore, but you weren't. Yeah, that's where we were. We were in Baltimore.

BABCOCK: But the.

BABCOCK: And I was like, I don't know. I've been to so many places thinking about it. Thinking about it.

BABCOCK: Oh, well, that's when we had to go to California. And they got the same story from Bonita, and they got the same story from Gallagher.

BABCOCK: And so they said, Oh, that, you know, the stories.

BABCOCK: All match up, but we don't have any paper trail. I said, Well, this is the hotel we stayed at.

BABCOCK: And, you.

BABCOCK: Know, we didn't these restaurants near the hotel and stuff like this. And so they actually had to go and investigate and check with the hotel that we were actually there. Then they had to check.

BABCOCK: I said, oh, you know, go to the comm center and you can see where we logged in each morning and it logged out at the end of the day. And they had to do that in order to verify, Oh yeah, you.

BABCOCK: Actually were there. What were you doing there? Well, we can't tell you because when we got the equipment installed, they made us go in the hallway while they tested.

BABCOCK: It, so we wouldn't know where the distant end was. Hmm.

SPRAGUE: So how did they have the equipment and materials pre-staged at those sites or. I mean, Yeah.

BABCOCK: And that's one of the words that we learned not to use in airports, because building.

BABCOCK: Materials would be all your stuff that you were going to need to do your install.

BABCOCK: People in airports get really.

BABCOCK: Nervous when you say the word bomb. So which was just an acronym. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: But Bill of materials here.

BABCOCK: We just show up and everything would be there.

BABCOCK: We hold our tools.

BABCOCK: With us, and that was it. Mm hmm.

SPRAGUE: Sounds like you had relaxed grooming standards, too.

BABCOCK: Yes. The guys would have to shave the day before we left. A lot of guys, you know.

BABCOCK: You go grow a decent beard, and then you have to shave it.

BABCOCK: For the next morning. You look like you just got a fresh face.

BABCOCK: Yeah.

BABCOCK: A little raw.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Having come from a unit that had that officially do. Were you in uniform? Were you not in uniform?

BABCOCK: Most of the time we were in service. Okay.

SPRAGUE: Yeah, that's what I thought. Tell me about you had mentioned doing the pre-interview, your experience with the rappelling down towers.

BABCOCK: Of Fort Polk Field, which is.

BABCOCK: Next to Fort Bragg.

BABCOCK: We were. We took over their tower, gutted it.

BABCOCK: Now, a lot of the smaller stuff we just threw over the side of the tower by regulation.

BABCOCK: A tower has to be so many feet tall in order to get an elevator.

BABCOCK: Well, this one was just short of that, like half a floor. So you would climb up.

BABCOCK: Nine plus flights of stairs on the steps, work in the.

BABCOCK: Tower, walk down.

BABCOCK: Nine and a half flights to the ground floor. You have your main switching room down on the first.

BABCOCK: Floor and then large ducts running up the side of the building. And that's where all the cables and everything went. And then you had all your equipment up where they could look around.

BABCOCK: Well, I was the only one on the team that was real qualified because.

BABCOCK: While I was in Korea, I got to go to change it all, which is a rappelling school. It's our Australian rappelle. So you're doing the face outward. But I had learned to repel while I was in high school. I learned the Swiss in high school. Yeah. So we get there and of course the larger pieces, we don't want to just throw them off the side of the building.

BABCOCK: So we would tie off to the bumper of the van and they would be away from the building. We tie it under the equipment. And then as they came closer, the.

BABCOCK: Equipment went down to the ground. Well, I would go along so that it wouldn't bang into the side of the tower, and then I could get pulled back up. So I just rode up and down on the rope every day for a couple of hours at the beginning of the install job, taking the old stuff down, bringing the new stuff up.

BABCOCK: When the new stuff was being pull it.

BABCOCK: Up, then I could repel back down. So of course the airborne guys and stuff from Fort Bragg.

BABCOCK: They hey, what's going on over at the tower?

BABCOCK: They come over, Look what's going on. What do you do it? Well, we're making you an.

BABCOCK: All new tower, guys. All fancy equipment, by the way. And if you down there and ee five or above, no good. Get your ass behind the line. I outrank you, and they go, But you're a girl and you're a civilian. And no, I'm not. So it was fun.

SPRAGUE: So at this point. Later in the tour, if I understand you correctly, you started becoming like your sergeant or E-5.

BABCOCK: I got my five straight.

BABCOCK: Down there at Fort Bragg.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And what was that like on site? Did you take on more responsibilities? You were in charge of the team and.

BABCOCK: Yeah, eventually. Actually, when I got back to Fort Ritchie. Toward the end of my time, probably the last.

BABCOCK: Six months or so that I was active duty.

BABCOCK: I became a team chief now, which was unusual for an E-5. But our team, Benita, myself, Gallagher and.

BABCOCK: Bernie, I can't remember his last name.

BABCOCK: We had a very good reputation as far.

BABCOCK: As the.

BABCOCK: Quality of work and stuff like that, and I think that had a lot to do with the fact that Banita and I, whether it's based on gender or what. But we were very.

BABCOCK: Meticulous in our wiring work, and we had done a lot of wiring work, including that big wall at Fort Bragg. And so we.

BABCOCK: Had a good reputation. So sometimes people would.

BABCOCK: Actually ask for our team to be the ones to come out and do an install, or they were.

BABCOCK: Something highly.

BABCOCK: Visible. So Major Black would assign our team to it.

BABCOCK: So the last six months we had a whole bunch of new team chiefs that were coming in to take over install jobs. But if you had no experience doing it, you needed to be taught how.

BABCOCK: To do it first.

BABCOCK: But they would go to the installers course and then they would come to us.

BABCOCK: And so the last.

BABCOCK: Six months I would take these two or three e 60 sevens.

BABCOCK: And go out to the field and we do an install job and of course you.

BABCOCK: Walk on site and they go, Well Sergeant First class we need to do that. And he'd go all, hold on.

BABCOCK: She's in charge. Okay.

BABCOCK: So then I would okay, yeah, I'm just I'm just training these guys.

BABCOCK: No problem. And so I actually was for six months, I was a team chief doing the training of the new team chiefs. Huh.

SPRAGUE: Anything else you'd like to share about that experience?

BABCOCK: It was very because the equipment was so varied.

BABCOCK: I learned so much about communications equipment that when I got ready to get out of my first active duty, it's what got me my job in the underwater acoustic research lab, because they had never.

BABCOCK: Had an.

BABCOCK: Onsite maintenance person before.

BABCOCK: In fact, they didn't even know they were looking.

BABCOCK: For one when they met me.

BABCOCK: But once they met me and heard my history and my ability to do.

BABCOCK: All the.

BABCOCK: Equipment maintenance, installing equipment, going.

BABCOCK: Out on ships and submarines, they would always pay for a contractor. So they realized how much money.

BABCOCK: They would save and time they would save because I could align the equipment overnight.

BABCOCK: And they could use it.

BABCOCK: The next day.

BABCOCK: As opposed to packing.

BABCOCK: It up and shipping it.

BABCOCK: Out for two, three.

BABCOCK: Weeks at a time.

BABCOCK: And bringing it back. Okay.

SPRAGUE: So so let's we're going to get to that. So tell me about your decision to get off active duty and what what drove that?

BABCOCK: Well, my originally I had planned.

BABCOCK: On doing my four years and getting out right away. Well, three and a half years, they started, you know.

BABCOCK: Well, what are you going to do? You're going to realize, you know, you know, you could be up for se6.

BABCOCK: And I'm like.

BABCOCK: I know what it's like in my field because at the time, the.

BABCOCK: Promotion system.

BABCOCK: Was pretty messed up. I got my five a little early because they had just switched to the point system. They had changed it. So you had points for college.

BABCOCK: And points for your.

BABCOCK: Skill test that you were supposed to. Well, the problem is, as a crypto tech, we didn't have a skill test.

BABCOCK: So I thought we were going to lose.

BABCOCK: The potential of earning that 150 or 200 points of a skill test. Right. So they went, Oh, that's not going to work. Well, we know we're going to need so many e fives in this field in the next year. So anybody that's on the top part of the list, you're going to get promoted.

BABCOCK: Next month because we can't use the new system to promote you. So a bunch of us got promoted that month and I was ahead of time.

BABCOCK: But then they turned around and they said, okay, now we're going to figure out how to substitute other things for the skill.

BABCOCK: Test for you guys. And it was.

BABCOCK: I was like, it's going to take the Army.

BABCOCK: Years to figure that out. So I.

BABCOCK: Knew of getting.

BABCOCK: Six would be hard.

BABCOCK: And I thought to myself, No. I came in, I really want to go back to Korea. So I extended six months trying to get an.

BABCOCK: Assignment back in Korea.

BABCOCK: They couldn't come up with it because I wanted to go CONUS, RCA and stay in.

BABCOCK: The electronic communications installers so that I could travel all over Korea at Uncle.

BABCOCK: Sam's.

BABCOCK: Expense instead of mine.

BABCOCK: But they couldn't come up with a.

BABCOCK: Slot for me, so I got out. So that's why I did four and a half years on my first contract.

SPRAGUE: Okay. I'm sure you that they eventually closed Fort Ritchie with a base realignment. Any feelings on that? I know it's.

BABCOCK: Sad, but I understand why they did it.

BABCOCK: Fort Richey was a beautiful, beautiful post.

BABCOCK: In the mountains up in Pennsylvania, right on the Pennsylvania border. And because it was built on a hillside, a mountainside, it was tiered and it used to be an ice farm. It had these.

BABCOCK: Ponds that were beautiful, clear water. So there was a lot of stone buildings around it.

BABCOCK: Because they would farm the ice for taking it to Washington.

BABCOCK: And things like that. So and we had these ducks, of course, all over the place, and they had a rule on post.

BABCOCK: If you had a duck with your car.

BABCOCK: You could lose your driving.

BABCOCK: Privileges on post.

BABCOCK: It was a pretty small post.

BABCOCK: And because the stone buildings obviously weren't going.

BABCOCK: To be moved.

BABCOCK: They designed the post and the golf.

BABCOCK: Course to go in between and around the buildings.

BABCOCK: So you always had to be careful where.

BABCOCK: You park your car anywhere near.

BABCOCK: A tee, you might get a.

BABCOCK: Slice off into your car.

BABCOCK: So the guys that wanted a new paint job.

BABCOCK: Would park their cars in certain places, and those of us who didn't want the dings would park in another area.

BABCOCK: But it actually sits on the side.

BABCOCK: Of the mountain and on the.

BABCOCK: Other side of it is Camp David. And underneath.

BABCOCK: His side are.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And what is site are.

BABCOCK: It's an underground.

BABCOCK: Facility where if the.

BABCOCK: President and his people were at Camp David, he would just simply go underneath.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

BABCOCK: Fascinating place.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. So you get off active duty. What was that like coming back into the civilian world, leaving the army the first time?

BABCOCK: It was interesting in that the first.

BABCOCK: Job I took, which was a little less than a year, I worked.

BABCOCK: I got a job because they were taking a data center from New Jersey and another.

BABCOCK: One in Maryland and bringing them to a new site in Maryland.

BABCOCK: And so they needed somebody that could do install work.

BABCOCK: So there was.

BABCOCK: Myself and everybody. There were civilians. I was the only veteran, so I had to relearn to speak full English as opposed to acronyms.

BABCOCK: You know, no rights abuses or any of that kind of stuff. Yeah. And so that was interesting. But it took us six months.

BABCOCK: We got the full facility filled up.

SPRAGUE: And what was the name of that company?

BABCOCK: Sorry, that was let's see, Vivian was that one dial come.

SPRAGUE: OC.

BABCOCK: Dial com was a data system. And it was funny because we'd get so after we got it up and running, there was 47 prime base systems that were.

BABCOCK: There and we got all the wiring, cabling, ductwork, false floor, all that stuff put in, and then it was sit around and wait for something to break.

BABCOCK: Hi. Or. Or somebody drunk calling in at two in the morning going I can't get logged in. And it's like, okay, what's going on? Wow, I can't see the keyboard.

BABCOCK: And it was like.

BABCOCK: You can't see the keyboard.

BABCOCK: Sir.

BABCOCK: Okay. Are there any lights on your modem?

BABCOCK: No. Did you turn it on?

BABCOCK: Oh.

BABCOCK: But you can't.

BABCOCK: See.

BABCOCK: Why not? Well, I can't get.

BABCOCK: The lights to turn. The guy had no electricity.

BABCOCK: But he was so drunk he didn't.

BABCOCK: Fully comprehend the fact that he had no electricity.

BABCOCK: In his building.

BABCOCK: So.

BABCOCK: Wow. Stuff like that. Yeah.

BABCOCK: But we rotated shifts.

BABCOCK: So you do a month of night shift, and then you do a month of days, and then you do second shift. So, you know, when you're on second and nights, you'd help walk the floor and do the tape backups. Great big tapes that would back up the systems at night. So, you know, you're doing your job that those guys are paying, getting paid at least a third less than you're getting paid, but you're just waiting for something to break so that you can fix it.

SPRAGUE: Wow. So you had about a year roughly doing that.

BABCOCK: And then I went to Volt Burn. I can do one.

SPRAGUE: Grade and and I know you're ready. You're excited to talk about that. Tell us about that Volt Beranek.

BABCOCK: And Newman was a company that was doing government contracts. They had developed.

BABCOCK: Up in the Boston shop.

BABCOCK: They developed the tank simulation systems.

BABCOCK: So the tankers.

BABCOCK: Would get in the simulator and then tankers over in Germany would get in their simulator and they could pick what enemy they were going to see. And these guys are driving down the terrain and these guys are driving down the train and they're, you know, whether or not to attack them. Is that an enemy tank.

BABCOCK: Or is that one of my friendlies? And and.

BABCOCK: Oh, you just went up a hill that was too steep and your tank turned.

BABCOCK: Over or you ran out of gas or, you know, that kind of stuff. So it was a real good simulation system for them. But I worked in the underwater acoustic lab in Washington, D.C.. Well, Rosslyn, Virginia. Mm hmm. And like I said.

BABCOCK: From my building, we could look out into over the Wood River.

BABCOCK: Into Arlington. Wow. And it was great because we go on ships and submarines, and.

BABCOCK: I go ahead of time.

BABCOCK: And install the equipment, install the system on the sub, go on the surface ship. And while I was working on the ship, I did navigational plotting. Okay, here we are in the ocean, you know. So I kept track of that unless the equipment broke. And then I one.

BABCOCK: Time I had to go.

BABCOCK: Over to the sub when the equipment on.

BABCOCK: The sub failed and.

BABCOCK: It was storming and it was night and it was really.

BABCOCK: Ugly. And they put me in a.

BABCOCK: Birdcage and took me over by wire to the sub and it's bouncing and swaying and I got out of the birdcage and I threw up on the guy's boots. Oh, I felt really bad for that Navy guy. I was like.

BABCOCK: I think I'm going to be moved. And he's like, Okay, thanks.

SPRAGUE: So the submarine was a a Navy submarine.

BABCOCK: Yes.

SPRAGUE: And so I understand. And you are repairing or replacing cryptographic equipment?

BABCOCK: No, that was the underwater acoustical system that they were developing was.

BABCOCK: And I'm sure this is no longer anywhere near classified, but it was.

BABCOCK: It was a sound.

BABCOCK: System. We used a.

BABCOCK: Blanket a sound to map the ocean floor. Oh, my gosh. That big metal fish shaped object that got in the way. Yeah.

BABCOCK: So.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

BABCOCK: That was the system that we were one of the systems we were developing. And so I had to go on and do the repair of that equipment, but I had to write the manual for installing and all the cabling requirements and all that stuff for it. So I put that together for them.

SPRAGUE: And now that was a classified position of course.

BABCOCK: Yeah. This, the system itself was classified.

BABCOCK: Yeah.

BABCOCK: But it when Hunt for Red October was being filmed, it had been filmed.

BABCOCK: Before I went on my first sea trial and there was the Dallas and the Reuben James.

BABCOCK: And one of the scenes in there is a young man on the radio operator and he's saying.

BABCOCK: Dallas, this is a Reuben James.

BABCOCK: Which is a re name.

BABCOCK: Of a ship that the Navy had used the name before, but the Dallas was the sub they were hunting or that was doing the hunting.

BABCOCK: And the young man actually was a Navy communications.

BABCOCK: Enlisted guy.

BABCOCK: Because they had actually used the Navy. Vessels to do.

BABCOCK: This. And they had a lot of the guys on the ship had been in the movie, in the film, and then got cut out later on. But everybody on the ship got these black satin jackets with red embroidery and had a ship and a submarine on it. And it said Hunt for Red October. So that was one of the ships that we used one time for one of our my first sea trial. That was one of our ships.

BABCOCK: So I had actually had to carry my toolboxes.

BABCOCK: From one end of a cement pier to a very.

BABCOCK: Long out here to the ship.

BABCOCK: And set them down. Permission to come aboard? Oh, sure.

BABCOCK: Let me help you with those, ma'am. And I'm like, get out of my way. You just.

BABCOCK: Watch me walk a quarter mile.

BABCOCK: And I are ready.

BABCOCK: So get out of my way. They were like, What? And I said, Yeah.

BABCOCK: At that point I.

BABCOCK: Was sergeant, and this was like a I don't know what he was, but he was a lower enlisted man guarding the vessel.

SPRAGUE: So it's interesting to me. You were talking about doing navigational plots. Dumb question. Why would the operations specialists that's on the deck be doing that?

BABCOCK: I was actually on a civilian ship.

BABCOCK: Okay.

BABCOCK: We had the Navy along with us. We used the Navy submarines. But I was on a civilian ship, the famous West in the course West. We're contract vessels that we used.

BABCOCK: They were long flat bottoms because we used large containers. We had our labs and stuff in the containers.

BABCOCK: And then we also had our sound.

BABCOCK: Production.

BABCOCK: Equipment, which we couldn't take that.

BABCOCK: Those substances onto a Navy ship. So.

SPRAGUE: And it looks like I want to make sure of that. The company was bold. Bernanke, Bernanke and Newman. That was the name of the company.

BABCOCK: Bolt.

BABCOCK: Bolt, Beranek and Newman.

BABCOCK: Beranek. Yeah. Okay. That's okay.

SPRAGUE: And so okay, that's really interesting in that you knew or were there about two years and 11 months, roughly maybe three years.

BABCOCK: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

BABCOCK: They, uh, they had never hired.

BABCOCK: A person to do onsite maintenance.

BABCOCK: So they did that. And then, of course, once I got a good maintenance program, established.

BABCOCK: Equipment didn't break down nearly as often and they got their work done quicker. So I would get bored and I go, Hey, you know, well, so-and-so just left the company.

BABCOCK: And his office.

BABCOCK: Looks pretty dingy. I think I'll paint it.

BABCOCK: I go in and patch the.

BABCOCK: Hole in the wall.

BABCOCK: Paint it, and people would come by, go, What.

BABCOCK: Are you doing? I have a roller in my. What do you think I'm doing? Well, that's kind of your tech, and I'm going to say, Yeah, but I'm bored.

BABCOCK: So. Or I might paint a hallway.

BABCOCK: In the building or whatever. And they were just like, I don't sit still. Well, guys, sorry.

SPRAGUE: So during this time, if I understand correctly, you then you also came back into the reserves or not. Or were you on.

BABCOCK: Yes, actually, once I'd gotten off of my active duty while.

BABCOCK: I was still at dial com 11 months.

BABCOCK: After leaving active duty, I.

BABCOCK: Went into the recruiter and said, Hey, I miss.

BABCOCK: I miss the people.

BABCOCK: I miss, you know.

BABCOCK: The interesting parts of the job. And he said, Oh, you want to go back active?

BABCOCK: And I was like, Don't miss them that much.

BABCOCK: So I.

BABCOCK: Joined the.

BABCOCK: Reserves, was in a famous support.

BABCOCK: Unit in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

BABCOCK: And we got activated for things like Hurricane Hugo.

BABCOCK: San Francisco.

BABCOCK: Earthquake.

BABCOCK: Um, we were an old missile silo under the ground, so our building was smaller than this room.

BABCOCK: And you came in, you signed in with the guard, and then you went down the spiral staircase.

BABCOCK: And it was multiple floors underneath the ground. There was a couple of missile silos out in the field.

BABCOCK: And then we had big radial antennas.

BABCOCK: And stuff like butterfly antennas.

BABCOCK: And different things like this. And we could actually communicate from Gaithersburg, Maryland.

BABCOCK: To the California coast because we had ten KW boosters and stuff that would allow us to do that. So like when.

BABCOCK: Hurricane Hugo hit, it came across.

BABCOCK: The Virgin Islands. Well, it knocked them out.

BABCOCK: Because the guy we were listening in on the.

BABCOCK: Storm and all.

BABCOCK: Of a sudden he starts swearing on line.

BABCOCK: And it was like and he goes, there goes the roof. So he shut down. So originally the Virgin Islands would communicate to South Carolina, Well, that's the direction the storm was going. So we were up in.

BABCOCK: Maryland, we took.

BABCOCK: Over and did communications and we communicated. We would do.

BABCOCK: PUSH-TO-TALK radio with.

BABCOCK: Landline so we could. After the storm passed, we could take the call from the Virgin Islands or the radio from the Virgin Islands. They would talk to us.

BABCOCK: And we'd say, okay, what's your family's.

BABCOCK: Telephone number? We'd call that person. We'd say, okay.

BABCOCK: Now would you say something when you get to the end, say.

BABCOCK: Out, and we'll push the port. Yeah, over.

BABCOCK: And which gives permission for them to talk. We'll push the button so then you can hear them. And so we did this and we would say, okay, now.

BABCOCK: You know, because guys, they're we're going, well, send us.

BABCOCK: Flashlights and send us canned food and and we'd break in and go and send a can opener and batteries to go with it. We took I took a death call.

BABCOCK: Guy was caught here in the States for business when the storm hit and his brother called him to tell him that his the guy's in the States. His daughter had been killed in the storm. That was the rough call, you know, because I'd been on the radio probably about 14 hours that day. So tired.

SPRAGUE: So it sounds like and looking at this and what you just explained to me, you were doing handoff from shortwave radio or different types of wireline to wireline PSTN with the happy with the we had a name for that word. You did what you're talking about.

BABCOCK: Yeah, very much like the mast system.

BABCOCK: You know that's how I used to get my calls in once a month back home from Korea, of course.

BABCOCK: Yep. And then we did that.

BABCOCK: And we coordinated with the Pentagon. And the Red Cross and other organizations like that to get. Okay, because when the storm surge hit the islands.

BABCOCK: They couldn't bring the ships.

BABCOCK: In because then the water would.

BABCOCK: Recede.

BABCOCK: And the ships would be sitting on top.

BABCOCK: Of the piers.

BABCOCK: So they were sitting offshore. So we were doing communications back and forth for all that kind of stuff.

SPRAGUE: You had said you had mentioned missile silos in Gaithersburg. Were these decommissioned or are they okay?

BABCOCK: Yeah, They would allow.

BABCOCK: Farmers to bring older animals.

BABCOCK: Who eat the vegetation and kept the vegetation.

BABCOCK: Down. So we had old horses and cows up there. And every once in a while kids would come over the fence and they'd get curious and they'd open up the silos and, you know, and after a while, people in the subterranean part would go, What smells? And they go out. Sure enough, there be an open silo with a dead cow.

SPRAGUE: What do you happen to remember that the unit you said it was a FEMA support unit didn't have a particular.

BABCOCK: Yeah, it was an MP.

BABCOCK: Unit because that was their quote. Wartime mission would be to provide military police support. But we were there. Tamil people. Oh, you know, I could look at my old.

SPRAGUE: It's.

BABCOCK: Okay and ours and see.

SPRAGUE: Yeah, no worries. I can't remember. Okay. One of the things that you said was that you had it sounded like you may have been activated for a little while during that time for Desert Storm. Desert Shield or.

BABCOCK: Yes, we got activated. I was actually here on leave because, you know, when we knew things were getting hot over.

BABCOCK: There, I called my first sergeant and said, hey, I've got a plane ticket to go home and see my family for this time. And he said, Well.

BABCOCK: You may have.

BABCOCK: To turn around and come back, but at least you'll get a hug on the other end, like, okay. So I went and as we were circling La Crosse airport, the captain came on and said, Ladies and gentlemen, we are officially at war. And one big old cheer snuck out. And this woman next to me, she.

BABCOCK: Goes, Oh, do you have somebody in the military? And I was like, Give me. So she made a big.

BABCOCK: Fuss about it, and the stewardess hurt her and everything. And so plane lands and they're.

BABCOCK: Like, Ladies, gentlemen, we have a soldier on board that needs to get off the plane first. If you would, please remain seated.

BABCOCK: I'm like, Oh, why do you have to call attention to me like that? So I take off up the plane and everybody is like looking for a boy, you know, looking for a guy. And then they realize, Oh, it's you, you know? Yeah, me. So they clapped and I was just like, okay, this is stupid.

BABCOCK: I got off the plane and my.

BABCOCK: Dad, of course, was.

BABCOCK: Okay, what are you going to do? And I said, Well, I got called back to the shop first, but give me a hug. So I got my hug collar first and he said, You got 72 hours to.

BABCOCK: Report and okay, got back there and they said, they got us all ready. The next day we were going to go over to the Pentagon. We were coming support. So we went over there.

BABCOCK: We got in, and two days later they said.

BABCOCK: They're doing such a.

BABCOCK: Great job, you can go home. So I think all together, us on orders for, I think ten days. Wow. And I just got back on the subway, went over to.

BABCOCK: My boss and said, hey, I'll see you tomorrow.

BABCOCK: And he goes, What are you doing here?

BABCOCK: Why are you in uniform? Why are you in your dress uniform? Because I'm working at the Pentagon. Or was. So I'll be back tomorrow.

SPRAGUE: Huh? So where the plane landed, backing up a little bit was in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and declared war. Was that when we went from Desert Shield to Desert Storm? About that in there somewhere? Yeah. That transition?

BABCOCK: Yep.

BABCOCK: Yeah. We were all staged and ready to go, all packed and everything else. So I just got back. And then the next day we moved out.

SPRAGUE: So you went, you came home to La Crosse and then within 24, 48 hours.

BABCOCK: 48 hours, because I couldn't get a flight out the next day because the air situation. So. Wow. Then I did. Huh? Came back.

SPRAGUE: Do they consider that activation time for Persian Gulf or not or. Yep. I got to ask.

BABCOCK: Any time you're on duty 24.

BABCOCK: Hours during a period of war.

BABCOCK: Then you qualify for your VA.

BABCOCK: Wartime benefits. Okay. Which are different than just the standard VA benefits.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

BABCOCK: Wow. So that's when the war time veteran's pension comes into play, which. Also categorizes you differently inside the VA.

SPRAGUE: Okay. One of the things you had said about in the pre-interview and deciding to be in this this femur slash M.P. unit in Gaithersburg was that you missed being around Army people? Yeah. Can you tell me a little.

BABCOCK: More about that?

BABCOCK: That's how I ended.

BABCOCK: Up enlisting into the Reserves because I went in and told the recruiter I'd.

BABCOCK: Miss.

BABCOCK: The people.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

BABCOCK: And he said, Well, good thing you came in now, because at 12 months, if you're out for 12 months, then you have to go back and take a test.

BABCOCK: Of everything to get processed into a new unit. Once you're out for five years. You have to go back through basic training now. So when I.

BABCOCK: Became a recruiter later on, there were people that I had to send back to basic training.

BABCOCK: Because they had served more than five years prior to and they wanted to get back into the service or they wanted to get into the reserves. Okay. So.

SPRAGUE: Okay, So I have you down. Tell me what happened next in your reserve side and on the civilian side. I have some ideas, but I want you to tell me.

BABCOCK: At that point, I.

BABCOCK: Was working at the underwater acoustical research outfit and stuff, and I'd been there a while and. And then gotten activated and come back. And I realized I wanted to come back to Wisconsin.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

BABCOCK: So I left there and came back, got settled back in.

BABCOCK: First job because, of course, I get back to Wisconsin. They're like, Well, we don't have a lot of acoustical research work out here.

BABCOCK: And I'm like, Yeah, I don't really need to do that. And they're going, And we can't afford to pay you what you were getting paid before. And I said, Well, you know, the rent is a third. What it was.

BABCOCK: Cost me in Washington area, so I don't really.

BABCOCK: Need that much money. But it took me a while. So I ended up.

BABCOCK: For a while. For a while back, I was a shift manager at a McDonald's. For a while I was a waitress. I worked at a resort in the Dells at the front desk for a while.

BABCOCK: Things like that.

BABCOCK: Just piecemeal things together to pay the bills.

BABCOCK: And then I.

BABCOCK: Got back involved with my high school sweetheart and we got married. I started.

BABCOCK: Doing May to.

BABCOCK: September tours at Fort Ritchie excuse me, Fort McCoy.

BABCOCK: With the Intel school.

BABCOCK: And they ran a schoolhouse doing all sorts of military intelligence training. I worked for the major. I was CISO for the network there, and I was also working with the training group. So I would work.

BABCOCK: During the winters with trade shock, getting everything, the changes to the training we wanted to make, the new training tools and things like that all situated and multiple copies. I'd get the students off the army training system and send them their welcome packets and stuff on drill weekends, but I usually worked the Friday before and the Monday after.

BABCOCK: So that.

BABCOCK: The instructors were there all weekend doing their.

BABCOCK: Classes. And then I was doing the computer work and stuff for the major in the training materials and everything else. And then I made a September. I was there straight through and one.

BABCOCK: Summer I actually attended.

BABCOCK: The 96 Bravo course while I was also working. So I would go to school during.

BABCOCK: The day, run back at lunchtime, work at the office, run back to the school, then work for a couple of hours afterwards.

BABCOCK: And then go home.

SPRAGUE: So I'm going to try to piece this together. So 96 Bravo is.

BABCOCK: Military.

BABCOCK: Intelligence analyst.

SPRAGUE: That's what I thought. Yeah. And you were with what unit here at wherever it was at Fort McCoy.

BABCOCK: Yeah. Used to be in the fourth I task, but now it's the second of the 84th.

BABCOCK: In my battalion.

SPRAGUE: Fourth I task. When you are in it, what does that stand for?

BABCOCK: Uh, intelligence training.

BABCOCK: Something command.

SPRAGUE: Oak.

BABCOCK: Something.

BABCOCK: Army command.

BABCOCK: Intelligence training. I think it had two A's.

SPRAGUE: Intelligence training.

BABCOCK: Something. Army Command.

SPRAGUE: Army command. Okay.

BABCOCK: But.

SPRAGUE: Okay. I'm just curious.

BABCOCK: Yeah. Okay. And then.

BABCOCK: Later it.

BABCOCK: Changed and became the second to the 84th.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

BABCOCK: Fell under the 84th out of Minneapolis. Okay.

BABCOCK: But they did language training, using a satellite.

BABCOCK: System to the Presidio, San Francisco. They also did the military intelligence training and other trainings.

BABCOCK: Because I was a document.

BABCOCK: Custodian, I learned that as an additional duty when I was out at the FIMA unit. So I became the document custodian for classified documents and stuff like that. And so then I had to train, teach that during their military intelligence training course, I taught that that block.

SPRAGUE: And so you've got to be 96. You re re classed 96 Bravo. And you're probably an E six by now at least, I would guess.

BABCOCK: Yeah. While I was with them, I made my.

BABCOCK: Seven.

SPRAGUE: OC and ISO Information Systems operator. So. And it sounds like you're making a narrow band or some type of shot back to California over Satcom or over fiber or whatever you.

BABCOCK: I would go in in the morning and get the system turned on and make sure everything was working. So when the class got there, they could just sit down and learn.

SPRAGUE: So what did you think of that job? It's fun. Yeah, I would imagine so.

BABCOCK: I was.

BABCOCK: I.

BABCOCK: Was on the run a lot because I was like, Oh, did this classroom.

BABCOCK: Get this equipment, go on and go back over to the, you know, check with the major, then run back over and in process students or out process students or.

BABCOCK: You know, stuff like that.

BABCOCK: So I was doing a lot of different hats.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

BABCOCK: But no one thing that I did required a full time person.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

BABCOCK: So that way.

BABCOCK: You know, I took three or four little jobs to keep me busy all day.

SPRAGUE: Do you think your primary driver I'm always curious about reservists is was that you wanted to be in Wisconsin and you were looking for something to fit fit that?

BABCOCK: Yeah, because I did want to stay in Wisconsin, you know, coming back from the East Coast. Coming back to where? Oh, well, I forgot.

BABCOCK: To lock my front door. No big deal. Didn't lock my car. No big deal. As opposed to Washington, where you made sure you locked your car. You made sure you locked your apartment, you know. No, You're not going to go out for a walk at two in the morning, you know.

SPRAGUE: So what were some of the special experiences that you remember from that role and four five task.

BABCOCK: No. I think for me I enjoyed one of the aspects. I enjoyed the people themselves, but many of the.

BABCOCK: Students that I worked with were new to the military system.

BABCOCK: What they had, they'd been through their original active duty MOS training, and they had maybe served on active duty and then gone to a reserve unit. And like myself, well, there's no slot in my M OS, but the unit's willing to send me to school to now fit into their unit.

BABCOCK: So a lot of them were younger, very young, you know, like 20. And so.

BABCOCK: It was.

BABCOCK: Interesting to listen to them and their hopes and expectations and their commitment to the country and things like that. It was nice and inspiring to hear the desire to keep, you know, serving. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So was this during the time frame when you had mentioned during the pre-interview you had picked up a bunch of skills by camping, or was that at a different time?

BABCOCK: The ISO position that I had was because I had picked up through the access program.

BABCOCK: The information systems operator, and that was try to think what the master was. 7474 35 No. 35 was my maintenance.

BABCOCK: So, yeah. 74.

BABCOCK: Bravo. I think it was.

BABCOCK: Information.

BABCOCK: Systems operator. Yep. And then.

SPRAGUE: So. So you had that as well?

BABCOCK: I picked, yeah. Okay. I actually held five different analyzes.

BABCOCK: During my 21 and a half years. Wall Street as.

BABCOCK: Crypto tech became a.

BABCOCK: 31 Charlie radio operator when I was.

BABCOCK: With the FEMA, I operated teletype.

BABCOCK: Operator, but I never actually submitted to.

BABCOCK: Get that put on and then picked up the caspe.

BABCOCK: And.

BABCOCK: Went through.

BABCOCK: The 96 Broadwell course and then later became a recruiter. So I guess I yeah, because.

BABCOCK: It teletype.

BABCOCK: I never actually got him but.

SPRAGUE: In the okay so going to the recruiting tour okay were were there. So what was that on active duty. EGR H.R..

BABCOCK: Okay. Guard and Reserve.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And that was about 1997. 97 to.

BABCOCK: 2000. January.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And tell me about being a recruiter and what that was like.

BABCOCK: Well, if you look out the window, catty corner across the building we used.

BABCOCK: To be in.

SPRAGUE: Oh, okay.

BABCOCK: Yeah. So it's one block up and catty corner.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Gotcha.

BABCOCK: That was where our recruiters offices were. There was also.

BABCOCK: A Navy.

BABCOCK: Office in there. I'm trying to think, was there a marine office? No, there wasn't a marine officer marine up.

BABCOCK: They had a office, but they didn't man at full time.

BABCOCK: The guy would come up from Sheboygan.

BABCOCK: But got stationed here in January 97. I give a lot of.

BABCOCK: Credit to my husband because while I was down at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

BABCOCK: He was coming.

BABCOCK: Over here with our two children that weren't in school yet and looking for apartments and doing all that kind of stuff ahead of time.

BABCOCK: His family was from Mostyn, Wisconsin, and while I was in.

BABCOCK: Fort McCoy, that's where we lived. Wow.

SPRAGUE: So why recruiting? Just curious.

BABCOCK: For me, it was a more challenging, more stable career.

BABCOCK: My husband worked and is at a factory making forklifts and stuff like that.

BABCOCK: So he had a good, stable job, but it really financially wasn't going to get us ahead. So with my ability.

BABCOCK: As an E7 to make a better paycheck, we talked about it and that's what we decided.

BABCOCK: To do and actually put myself.

BABCOCK: Forward for recruiting once.

BABCOCK: And then that's when we.

BABCOCK: Found out I was pregnant with my daughter.

BABCOCK: And they said, Well, we can't put you on active.

BABCOCK: Duty while you're pregnant. So I had to wait until and then, oh, I guess.

BABCOCK: That would have been the second time. That would have been.

BABCOCK: Even the first time they turned me down on recruiting was because I was pregnant with them. And then after he was born, a year later, we I put forward again and they selected me.

SPRAGUE: Tell me tell me about not being able to go on active duty because you were pregnant.

BABCOCK: Yeah. They can't put you on active duty because.

BABCOCK: You're going to go off to training and all that stuff. And then they're also going to be financially obligated, after all, what have you. What would be the situation if.

BABCOCK: A female came on active duty and the stress or whatever caused complications.

BABCOCK: Or if.

BABCOCK: She had complications?

BABCOCK: And now there's all the medical responsibilities, not only for the soldier, but also for the child. Yeah. So, yeah, you can't come on to active duty as pregnant, which, you know, like Desert Storm and everything else. They had females deliberately getting pregnant because they didn't want to go.

SPRAGUE: What? I've heard different things and people have their stories about recruiters. I want to hear from you what your perspective of it is sitting on the other side of the table.

BABCOCK: Recruiting sucks.

BABCOCK: That's the best I can put it. I was lucky in that most of the time I made mention.

BABCOCK: Reserve.

BABCOCK: Recruiting is really rough because generally speaking I would be on missions.

BABCOCK: Of like 2 to 4 and the active duty guys were on missions of one and two. And as a reserve recruiter I could talk to about joining the Reserves.

BABCOCK: But they would hear about the active duty side for.

BABCOCK: Me because you know, what's.

BABCOCK: Basic training like, what's it like or what did you do after that? And okay. And so sometimes I was handing.

BABCOCK: Off contracts to the active duty guys.

BABCOCK: Because the kid would say, You know what, I think I want to do the full training.

BABCOCK: And experience thing first. So I want to go active duty first and not very often. Did the guys talk a kid about active duty? And then the kid said, No, I want to go reserves. Once in a while they handed me a contract and.

BABCOCK: I was different than most because I was.

BABCOCK: Older and stuff.

BABCOCK: Like that.

BABCOCK: I sat down and, you know, I would go.

BABCOCK: To the high.

BABCOCK: Schools and.

BABCOCK: Stuff and talk with kids and say, Look, it's not for everybody, so I'm okay if you say no.

BABCOCK: Which most recruiters, Oh, that's death on a platter. Don't do that. Yeah, but two or three.

BABCOCK: Months later, that same kid will come back and say, You know what I have now? I've had time to think about it. I want to hear more. And sometimes they would come back in contract.

BABCOCK: So a.

BABCOCK: Lot of times it might take three or four months for me to go from.

BABCOCK: The first introduction to the contract.

BABCOCK: I wasn't pushing to get that 30 day window like.

BABCOCK: Most recruiters did, and I got.

BABCOCK: Such a good rep with the high schools and stuff that even years after I finished.

BABCOCK: Recruiting.

BABCOCK: I would get high school counselors call me up and say, Hey, look, One of my kids met with a.

BABCOCK: Recruiter from whatever branch.

BABCOCK: And he was telling me this, this and this. And I'd say, Well, this is this aren't right, This is right. And this is what.

BABCOCK: The first two should have been. Okay? Because I was honest about it.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

BABCOCK: You know, So, yeah. Did I have a couple.

BABCOCK: Months during my three years that I rolled a donut.

BABCOCK: Got nothing in the contracts and would have to go to the extra.

BABCOCK: Training you.

BABCOCK: Have. Go down to the battalion and you have to show them your books and say, I made this many phone calls, I did this many interviews, I did this many meetings with parents.

BABCOCK: And I still came up with zero. What's your problem? Why aren't you trying harder while you're doing the numbers?

BABCOCK: Okay. Just keep plugging away at it, because the next month, some of those kids that I talked to would come back. And now, instead of getting the two that I needed, I got four.

BABCOCK: So I never really got yelled at.

SPRAGUE: Yeah, it sounds largely like a numbers game to me.

BABCOCK: It is. It is a large numbers game. But the the thing is, depending on your market, it's in certain markets like L.A. and stuff. It's hard to qualify someone because of health.

BABCOCK: Prior medical stuff, you know.

BABCOCK: If they've had mental health care or had taken certain ADHD meds or things like that, that could disqualify them.

BABCOCK: They also have, you know, of course, the criminal aspect. But like here in Manitowoc, I found it somewhat.

BABCOCK: Difficult because there's no military.

BABCOCK: Post nearby.

BABCOCK: So these kids really don't have an affinity or an understanding.

BABCOCK: Of the military, although there was a large Navy background.

BABCOCK: Here, because they had the shipyards that made minesweepers and stuff.

BABCOCK: Here in Manitowoc.

BABCOCK: So there was a lot.

BABCOCK: Of more.

BABCOCK: Understanding of the Navy. But, you know, parents would ask me, how can you take the chance of putting my son in danger's way? And I said, Well, you know what? It's your fault.

BABCOCK: And they look at me and say.

BABCOCK: You raised him to be a decent person that wants to help the less fortunate, that wants to protect society. You know what? If he doesn't go in the military, he's probably going to become a cop or a firefighter.

BABCOCK: Or, you know, maybe a nurse.

BABCOCK: He wants to protect and give. You raised him that way.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

BABCOCK: Parents would kind of go, Oh.

SPRAGUE: Do they end up issuing a recruiter badge for that or not or work? Yeah. And that sticks with you, doesn't it? That badge. That's a permanent award, isn't it? Yeah.

BABCOCK: Yeah. Listening to those dreams and expectations. And why are you doing this? Oh, I need college money. What do you want to become or.

BABCOCK: I want to, you know, I want to design bridges, engineer. Oh, cool. And I come from a farm family. I can't afford that kind of college, but I can get some training and get some money. Or I want to go in because it's the right thing. My dad was a police officer, and I want to do the I want to help. Yeah. So it was nice to hear.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. You get to hear people's motivations. Yeah. What makes them tick and what motivates them. Okay, so you get out of r you go back on the on the military side to the reserves. Hmm. June 2000. And you become the maintenance chief or at some point.

BABCOCK: Yeah. Platoon, mama and.

BABCOCK: Maintenance shop chief.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And that was at which I have a down here. The 377.

BABCOCK: 377.

BABCOCK: But detachment two down in Milwaukee.

SPRAGUE: Okay, that too. And as the platoon sergeant there or Platoon Mama was that was that the fit had to have been the fit for you at the time to drill down there, I would guess.

BABCOCK: Yeah. Yeah. When I first came off a recruiting tour, they slotted me.

BABCOCK: The only slot open for the MLS is that I had it were was over at Fort McCoy, but after three months, the slot opened up down a deck too, so I transferred over. Mm.

SPRAGUE: So at this time, I would imagine you're out of it. You're, you have been for quite a while thinking about making retirement points for the. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

BABCOCK: The whole time.

BABCOCK: Oh.

BABCOCK: My intention when I first went back into the reserves was to do 30 years like my grandpa term. And I'm going to stop.

BABCOCK: You right there.

SPRAGUE: Okay, let's take a break. So this is segment two. I'm here with Jane Babcock, and we had started to talk about her tour as the platoon sergeant or platoon mama at that two 3/77 Maintenance Company out of Milwaukee. And tell me a little bit about that, if you would, and what that was like.

BABCOCK: Well, the.

BABCOCK: Detachment was pretty new when I first got there.

BABCOCK: I think they'd.

BABCOCK: Been up and running for maybe two years.

BABCOCK: If that. And being a.

BABCOCK: Small detachment on Silver Spring Drive down their Milwaukee.

BABCOCK: Campus, they didn't have a first sergeant slot. They didn't have an XO or anything. It was just a couple of senior NCOs, E seven types and myself, and then a whole bunch of young soldiers.

BABCOCK: And they did everything from sewing machine.

BABCOCK: Repair to night vision goggles to heavy.

BABCOCK: Junk track vehicle and stuff like that.

BABCOCK: We didn't have any track vehicle on site, though.

BABCOCK: Because the compound wasn't made for tanks, but we had trucks and earth scrapers and everything else.

SPRAGUE: Wow. That's a really wide range of things to do.

BABCOCK: Yeah. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Even by the Army standards, that's massively. Wow.

BABCOCK: Yep. So sometimes.

BABCOCK: REIT.

BABCOCK: Was concentrated I.

BABCOCK: Indiantown Gap. I went there one summer for my 80 and that's a.

BABCOCK: Very small compound up in the mountains and we focused on the night vision goggles work and things like that, the smaller.

BABCOCK: Detail, the electronic work. And then the next year we were in Germany and I was in charge of a shop that had.

BABCOCK: Earth scrapers and tanks. Wow. After Desert Storm.

BABCOCK: We kicked the kicked off we went.

BABCOCK: Or not Desert Storm, but Afghanistan.

BABCOCK: We went to Germany and our it was three weeks and we spent the entire time in a German shop cannibalizing equipment.

BABCOCK: That had been damaged overseas. And we were just taking the parts off that were usable and sending them back over to the sandbox so that they would have corp repair parts. Okay.

SPRAGUE: Just out of curiosity, this was a reserve service. What were you doing in the on your civilian side or.

BABCOCK: I had started out after I came off.

BABCOCK: My recruiting tour with Cola Company.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

BABCOCK: You think the toilets and all that stuff. But they are very.

BABCOCK: Large privately held company that also.

BABCOCK: Or does sterling shower stuff and.

BABCOCK: They have kitchen cabinets and they have baker.

BABCOCK: Furniture and sacks tiles and they're just all over the place and everything. So I was a maintenance person for their telephone systems. I could do all those.

BABCOCK: Terrible programs of when you call someplace that says, press one to go here, press two to go there, press three to go here.

BABCOCK: So I did the programing and then I would have to do things like set up the program where if it's after 5:00 or here, listen to this recording saying We're sorry, we're closed, blah, blah, and all the holiday stuff.

BABCOCK: And in fact, it was really funny about two years ago, one of the guys that I used to work with mentioned to my husband that they still had my back up holiday message. Each department was supposed to put out a message and said, You've.

BABCOCK: Reached the caller call center or you've reached the plumbing or the generator position or whatever. So we're closed for the holiday. We will reopen on such and such.

BABCOCK: A day at such and such a time. Well, if they forgot to record their message, I had a backup that simply said you have reached caller company and its subsidiaries and we are sorry we are closed.

BABCOCK: For the holiday and will reopen on the next business day. So it was very generic. Apparently my voice was still out there as they were emergency backup and they were still using it and it was like.

BABCOCK: I left there in 2015 or 17.

BABCOCK: Or seven. 20? Yeah, 20 or seven? Yeah. How can you still.

BABCOCK: Be using it three years after I left. But okay. But I went to call the company, did that for a while. Again, one of these situations where they'd never had a maintenance tech on site. Every time their phone systems failed or something went wrong, they would have to get somebody from Chicago.

SPRAGUE: Oh, wow.

BABCOCK: And it could take hours for them to get here, Whereas my being on site, I could start troubleshooting right away.

BABCOCK: So this did that for a couple of years or three.

BABCOCK: I went on active duty for a 45 day period to do some training out of the high tech in California. And I was in a really dumb training accident. Dumb on my part, part I.

BABCOCK: Zigged when I should have zagged, finished my training in a cast.

BABCOCK: Because I fractured the ulnar head in my elbow and also torn out my shoulder. I didn't realize at the time that actually teared some things that tore some things in there.

BABCOCK: And had bruised upside my face but didn't think anything of that until two days later.

BABCOCK: I started throwing up and couldn't stop.

BABCOCK: They sent me back in. They did a CAT scan on my.

BABCOCK: Head, said no closed head injury, so that was good. But the monster.

BABCOCK: Headache I had, they treated me.

BABCOCK: With morphine, which was not.

BABCOCK: The right treatment because it turned out it was a.

BABCOCK: Massive migraine because I blown out a disc in my neck.

BABCOCK: But having not done an MRI, they couldn't see the soft tissue disc injury, went back to the unit, came back here to Wisconsin. We had a few months.

BABCOCK: Before we were supposed to go.

BABCOCK: To Afghanistan.

BABCOCK: And during that time we'd gone to Germany for two weeks and I started having more migraines and more issues with my shoulder and.

BABCOCK: Things like this. So I finally went to the civilian doctors back here and they said, Well, you've.

BABCOCK: Torn up your shoulder and you've blown the disc in your neck.

BABCOCK: So I went to the unit and I said, Hey, guys.

BABCOCK: You know, they want to cut my throat because they cut you in front to work back here.

BABCOCK: Which is amazing to me. But it has something to.

BABCOCK: Do with avoiding some of the nerves and stuff.

BABCOCK: In your neck. So they went in and they did the dissect to me and they put in a.

BABCOCK: Cadaver disc and they put in some metal structuring and screws and stuff and determined that I actually torn the rotator cuff. And one of the tendons in my shoulders.

BABCOCK: Went back to the unit just before surgery and said, Hey, they've got to do the surgery. We're supposed to be leaving in 45 days. And they went.

BABCOCK: You're not leaving. You're going to have to recover.

BABCOCK: And then you can join us. And by the way, sign here. You're in the retired reserves.

BABCOCK: Because you got 20 plus in. And I'm like.

BABCOCK: Okay. And they said, well, when you healed up, if you're good, they'll do a physical and you can join us over in Afghanistan.

BABCOCK: Not knowing better and having always trusted my leadership.

BABCOCK: I signed.

BABCOCK: They had my surgery and then I found out that once you're in the retired reserves. You can't come back on active duty unless it's a state of emergency or congressional order or things like that.

BABCOCK: So and that turns out later on, when I became a county veterans service officer, I should have been.

BABCOCK: Medically boarded for a medical retirement because.

BABCOCK: I had over eight and a half years of active duty time.

BABCOCK: Between all my duty to 14.

BABCOCK: Plus I had.

BABCOCK: Additional duty work that I had done, which all together.

BABCOCK: Came out.

BABCOCK: To 12 plus years of points. So I qualified to potentially receive an active duty retirement, which would have meant.

BABCOCK: Immediate pay and immediate TRICARE.

BABCOCK: For.

BABCOCK: My family. But having not requested it before they transferred me.

BABCOCK: I was pretty much jammed up and so I had to wait till I was 60 to get my bennies from the military side of the house.

BABCOCK: And because no one had said VA to me, because I don't I don't feel any I.

BABCOCK: Don't harbor any bad feelings toward the guy that was my UAI.

BABCOCK: Two years before that, the man had been.

BABCOCK: In a military occupation of choo choo.

BABCOCK: Choo choo.

BABCOCK: Train driver. He did loading trains and moving trains and stuff, so he.

BABCOCK: Didn't know.

BABCOCK: The regulations on what to do with a broken soldier. Nobody in my detachment did.

BABCOCK: I do blame my command because they knew better when they.

BABCOCK: Saw my separation paperwork. They should have said, Wait a minute, before we transfer her, we should do an exit physical and see whether or not she should be medically ordered. But they weren't real friendly toward those of us in the detachment. So I wasn't. And nobody said VA, not even my command. I could have gone.

BABCOCK: To the VA for my.

BABCOCK: Surgery, my.

BABCOCK: Physical therapy, and I would have been eligible.

BABCOCK: For compensation because it was on duty. Injuries.

BABCOCK: Nobody said anything. A year later I left Cola company. But excuse me. A year later, I left Koehler Company.

BABCOCK: To go to school and I worked part time at the job center helping people that had just gotten laid off to either go to school or to help them get familiar with how to job hunt, build a resume. Things like that. And then one summer, I.

BABCOCK: Actually taught at the.

BABCOCK: Koehler obstacle course.

BABCOCK: Koehler company has what they call.

BABCOCK: Experiential Learning center. It's where both their.

BABCOCK: Employees and other.

BABCOCK: People, other businesses can contract.

BABCOCK: To do.

BABCOCK: Teambuilding on the obstacle course. And so that's what I did for a summer, is climb up the phone poles, hook up all the cables and the police and everything else in the ropes.

BABCOCK: So my 40th birthday, I climbed a telephone pole, stood on the top and jumped off to ring the cowbell that.

BABCOCK: Was taken up there because I was on belay by a team that was on the ground.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

BABCOCK: Cool.

SPRAGUE: So sounds like fun.

BABCOCK: Yep.

SPRAGUE: So let's just quick recap here and back up a little bit and then we'll move ahead. So you had mentioned what happened and where were you on 911 when that happened?

BABCOCK: I was at Koehler Company. I was actually on my way into Koehler because I had worked late the night before. So I was late going in and I got in the office and my boss looked at me and she goes, What are you doing here?

BABCOCK: And I just like, I still work here, don't I? She said, No. She goes.

BABCOCK: You don't know yet, do you?

BABCOCK: And I was like, What? And I looked around the office and I saw all the computer screens and everybody, like, glued to their computers. And I was just like, okay, what's what's that plane doing? That's when I found out. Yeah.

BABCOCK: Because it was a 45 minute drive.

BABCOCK: In the morning to work. And I enjoyed not having the radio on. And just so I had no idea. One of my coworkers was actually.

BABCOCK: Trying to get to the Milwaukee airport.

BABCOCK: When it happened, so.

BABCOCK: He was stuck.

BABCOCK: In dead stop traffic trying to get into the airport for hours. So, yeah.

BABCOCK: It was an interesting day.

BABCOCK: So I said.

BABCOCK: I think I have.

BABCOCK: Got to go. And she looked at me and she goes, See, I had no problem. But I don't think you can get down to Milwaukee right now. So I called down there and they said, Stay where you are. We don't know who's going to be doing what.

BABCOCK: But at that point, I was an E.

BABCOCK: Seven with quite a few years in, and they were.

BABCOCK: Like, Well, we can put three.

BABCOCK: Guys on deployment or on orders for what it costs for you so you just can stand down for now. And I did some work, but not, you know, just for points only kind of thing. But then they didn't activate us and we were such a small detachment, they would pick one or two guys and say, okay, you're going to go plus up this unit. You're going to go plus up that unit. So we didn't get called as a unit.

SPRAGUE: And then jumping ahead to 2003 and that 45 days you were put on active duty. Was that a pre mobilization or what was that or what?

BABCOCK: It was another electronic school. Okay. It was.

BABCOCK: To take me from the old equipment.

BABCOCK: To the new equipment. And so I was back out at the school, but we had gone out. I was the oldest.

BABCOCK: Senior in the class, so I had to.

BABCOCK: Be class and supervise. Yeah. You know, there you go, class in CIC. And so that day a bunch of us had decided, Hey, I said, Guys, let's do something other than standard. So once a week we would do something different.

BABCOCK: That particular day we.

BABCOCK: Decided we'd bought bikes at the Goodwill Shop and we were going to go for some bike riding out in the desert.

BABCOCK: And I was checking behind us because.

BABCOCK: We want to cross traffic. And this guy was in a car and.

BABCOCK: They have bicycle lanes out there, but they have no curbs.

BABCOCK: Their sidewalks pretty much just progressed from the roadway because of the run off of rain and everything. Well, as I look back, I lean my bicycle handles over and I snagged a pole, slammed into the pole, came up on the pole with my arm and my shoulder and my body weight, broke my elbow did this. So it was, like I said, dumb on my part.

SPRAGUE: But you are on active duty at the time. And you were training, right? You were?

BABCOCK: Yeah. I went to the emergency room, got the cast, got some pain meds, went back to.

BABCOCK: Duty, huh? That's just what you do.

SPRAGUE: Yeah, but then it turned out to be more later. A lot more. Mm hmm. Now, you had mentioned not going to the VA, at least initially. Who did the surgery with the desk or who was that, or is that?

BABCOCK: It was done.

BABCOCK: In Aurora right here. It was on my civilian, my bipolar company, insurance. And, you know, I.

BABCOCK: Didn't think anything of it. And the unit left.

BABCOCK: For Afghanistan and then.

BABCOCK: Because they had fragmented our unit prior to Benghazi, was our lieutenant. He was our baby lieutenant. He first came to us.

BABCOCK: He was a brand new better buyer, and.

BABCOCK: He got snatched.

BABCOCK: Up.

BABCOCK: When they flagged.

BABCOCK: Us and he was assigned to another unit and he went over and he was killed over there.

SPRAGUE: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

BABCOCK: The worst part about it, it was not the enemy that killed him.

BABCOCK: He apparently the story we got was that he was sleeping in his Humvee.

BABCOCK: And some officer.

BABCOCK: Over there kept insisting to a private that he move.

BABCOCK: A deuce and a half, two and a half ton truck.

BABCOCK: And the young man didn't have a ground guide and kept telling.

BABCOCK: The officer, you know, sir, I need to have grown guys. We're in an area with a lot of vehicles and a.

BABCOCK: Lot of activity. And the officer was insistent. And from what we understand, the young man gave in and he tried to back.

BABCOCK: Up in turn the deuce and a half and wasn't successful. And he went up the back of the Humvee. So yeah, that was just before deployment. And he. That was.

BABCOCK: Well, I guess it was quite a.

BABCOCK: While before deployment. So a lot of my guys were real nervous about the idea of being deployed. But here.

SPRAGUE: So at the time, Lieutenant Jansky was in your detachment commander or he was in that other unit, or.

BABCOCK: We didn't have a detachment.

BABCOCK: Commander slot.

BABCOCK: For sake, but that's what his acting position was. Very nice. Young man, good dad.

BABCOCK: Husband and stuff. He had a couple daughters, so they brought him home and then our unit got involved in their activation and everything and packing and doing all the other stuff and been.

SPRAGUE: It meant Lieutenant Chatzky.

BABCOCK: Well, he became captain while he was over there.

BABCOCK: Okay, So he.

SPRAGUE: Is in huddle out of respect for his family. How do we spell his last name correctly?

BABCOCK: J and S.K..

SPRAGUE: Okay. Just like I thought. Yep. And he was out of where.

BABCOCK: You have a Neenah Menasha Appleton area. Okay.

SPRAGUE: Got it.

BABCOCK: He really nice young man. A very, you know, fresh out of college, kind of, you know, kind of kid that he really wanted to do, Right.

Unidentified And so, yeah.

BABCOCK: But then of course.

BABCOCK: Our deployment came up and everybody got active with that.

BABCOCK: And that was one of.

BABCOCK: The hardest things was to watch the to know that those guys were leaving without me, because I know some of the boys in my platoon. I know it was scary for them.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

BABCOCK: And I wanted to reassure them. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Well, you're there, Platoon. Mama, you're there. Detachment Sergeant.

BABCOCK: Yeah.

BABCOCK: I was the one that kept the clippers in my desk drawer. So if they showed up on Saturday with such long hair.

BABCOCK: Sarge, can you help me out here? Sure. So down. Just buzz their hair off for him. Okay. You're good to go.

BABCOCK: Get out. Oh.

SPRAGUE: Well, that was nice of you.

BABCOCK: Oh, yeah. You know.

BABCOCK: Hey, I want my guys to look good.

SPRAGUE: Absolutely.

BABCOCK: Even if it means no hair.

SPRAGUE: That's their problem, not yours.

BABCOCK: Exactly.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Huh? So. And yeah, I mean, I think I think of this as having served on active duty. If I had been injured in the line of duty. The immediate thing is you're going to the hospital, you're going to the med center, and we're taking care of you while you're on active duty. And if you're not able to continue, we're going to medically chapter you or retire you.

BABCOCK: That's how it should have been. Yeah, but, you know, I finished my training.

BABCOCK: Got the cast cut off, came home. Nobody understood VA at that time. I don't I don't even know if they had the VA clinic in Cleveland yet. So there wasn't anything around here and no education.

BABCOCK: On it for the unit here, which is the company headquarters here in Manitowoc. And the.

BABCOCK: Detachment, we knew even less.

BABCOCK: We just knew how to report in and do our job.

SPRAGUE: It sounded like and I'm going to try to summarize it it it, it you didn't feel like the command took or gave as much information as they could have Maybe to.

BABCOCK: No, I know they didn't.

BABCOCK: But higher up, they still don't know and they still.

BABCOCK: Don't push the information down.

BABCOCK: After leaving the 377.

BABCOCK: Which I left there in 2004.

BABCOCK: And then in 2007 after being.

BABCOCK: Finishing up a COLA and going to the part time work and working at the obstacle course and finishing up school.

BABCOCK: Which that's the thing with.

BABCOCK: School.

BABCOCK: Is the because I had so many different messes that I had so many unique experiences.

BABCOCK: Both active duty reserve and civilian jobs.

BABCOCK: I went to Lakeshore Technical College.

BABCOCK: And met with Dr. French. Awesome lady Shinola. She's retired now, but she was in charge of the adult learning where they take your experiences and your.

BABCOCK: Previous training and they create.

BABCOCK: Degrees for you.

BABCOCK: After all, why sit in a soldering.

BABCOCK: Class if you already know how to solder?

BABCOCK: So I have electronic communications and.

BABCOCK: Networking specialist, associate degree. I have an associate's degree in organizational training and development because of all the my training and the training I taught and the training stuff that I did for getting my soldiers set up and trained and everything. And then.

BABCOCK: I had to take.

BABCOCK: Some elective course until they did a certificate in network security. So I walked out of there taking nine classes with two associate degrees and a technical certificate.

SPRAGUE: Wow.

BABCOCK: Rock on.

BABCOCK: So that education and all those mosses and the volunteering to change jobs.

BABCOCK: Came in really handy for me educationally.

SPRAGUE: So tell me you actually retired in oh four. Correct. And then you you go you went to college, got those. And I have. Absolutely. You're more than qualified for all of those, I know, from just talking to you. Tell me about. In oh seven coming into being the CVS. Oh, here in Manitowoc.

BABCOCK: Yeah. So I've lived here in.

BABCOCK: Manitowoc since 1997. So 20 years in at or excuse me, ten years.

BABCOCK: And I saw an ad in the newspaper for CVS.

BABCOCK: So really, it's like.

BABCOCK: What is a CVS? So what is a county veteran's service officer? Didn't know they existed. I knew that I would go to the courthouse and register my dad to 14 says I.

BABCOCK: Got them that I had registered.

BABCOCK: Previously.

BABCOCK: In Mostyn and Manor Lacrosse. MOSTYN And so.

BABCOCK: When I finished my recruiting tour, I did the same thing. But I never asked what else the office did. Turns out that county veterans.

BABCOCK: Service officers are trained.

BABCOCK: Tested, cleared, now have access to reading the claims files inside the VA's computer system. They teach veterans and their families all about the VA. They advocate for them. They assist them in filing their claims, filling out all the forms the right way, providing the right evidence and everything else to qualify for things like compensation, wartime veterans, pension widow's pension, widows, compensation.

BABCOCK: For service.

BABCOCK: Related death, how to order a headstone, how to order the brass medallions or the brass plates if they want to have their veteran buried in a national cemetery, a state cemetery, do all that kind of stuff. And because they're paid by the county, they're free. Not like these lawyers out there that advertise. They'll help you file your claim. Yeah, they're going to take a third of your money.

BABCOCK: So don't go to a lawyer.

SPRAGUE: So that sounds like a really good fit for you. I would imagine.

BABCOCK: It was because for me, it put me back in.

BABCOCK: Touch with my military family, you know, having retired in oh four and then late oh four, and then feeling like I was lost, that I was detached from my family. So I did the civilian test, the civil service test, and all that stuff.

BABCOCK: Went through the job interviews, got hired, and later on found out that the county exec hired me because I was a female. He figured I would go in my office quietly, do my job, and.

BABCOCK: Be respectful.

BABCOCK: If.

BABCOCK: He sure didn't know me. The blood spot on the wall from banging my head got bigger and bigger all the time because.

BABCOCK: He and I would.

BABCOCK: Argue every other year, you know, I want more staff. There's this many veterans in my county. I'm working from eight in the morning till six, seven.

BABCOCK: 8:00 at night, and then I'm out on weekends doing.

BABCOCK: Outreach and going to meetings to teach the posts about the benefits and stuff like this.

BABCOCK: In my 11 and a half years in the thousands of veterans and family members I met.

BABCOCK: No one.

BABCOCK: Knew that Ali.

BABCOCK: Is a presumptive.

BABCOCK: Of every three people to get Ali.

BABCOCK: Two are usually veterans.

BABCOCK: We are twice, nearly twice as likely to develop it as the civilian population. And because the VA cannot.

BABCOCK: Determine whether or not you would have gotten it as a civilian or military member.

BABCOCK: They make it a presumptive, which means all you have to do.

BABCOCK: Is show the diagnosis and you will receive compensation.

BABCOCK: And in most cases.

BABCOCK: You will be 100% service connected from the get.

BABCOCK: Go because it is an ugly, ugly disease that takes.

BABCOCK: You out within 12 months or puts you in a position where you are literally.

BABCOCK: Trapped inside your own body, can't talk, can't too, can't.

BABCOCK: Walk, can't do anything for yourself, and you will spend long, miserable years that way. I have two daughters that.

BABCOCK: Have been Ali's caregivers.

BABCOCK: One still is the other one, after losing her second patient, decided she can't cope with that anymore. But.

BABCOCK: They don't advertise this.

BABCOCK: They don't tell people this.

BABCOCK: So there are veterans out there spending their entire life savings on their health care, and they've lost a job. And maybe they have kids, maybe they're older, but their family is now destitute and they pass away and that spouse.

BABCOCK: Is left with nothing.

SPRAGUE: Huh. I hadn't heard about this before, this linkage with ALS.

BABCOCK: And yet a veteran that's 100% service connected will receive over $3,000 a month. Free health care. In-Home care. Nursing home care.

SPRAGUE: What it what thing do they think causes that or increases the incidence or.

BABCOCK: There's so many different variables between the branches and stuff. I mean, granted, the common factors are things like our shots, but they don't know if that causes it because realistically speaking, ALS is pretty.

BABCOCK: Small amongst the population.

BABCOCK: So because the people they study.

BABCOCK: Have so many variables, they can't get a clear picture of a common. There's too much overlap of other things.

BABCOCK: So I don't think they've determined it. But that also applies, you know, now everybody's all excited about the pacac. Wonderful, wonderful thing. Again, this is something that is an anomaly in the fact that VA generally take decades to get something through the system and get it approved. But between the push of the Vietnam veterans because it took them decades to get their.

BABCOCK: Presumptive.

BABCOCK: Established. And John Stewart and Rosie Torres and her husband.

BABCOCK: And just so many people did so much great work. There are multiple cancers, including brain cancer, recognized because, remember.

BABCOCK: Those burn pits took in. You know, they may say, okay, you can burn this material, you can burn these uniforms, you can burn this medical stuff.

BABCOCK: But when you're in the middle of a war zone and you got to get rid of a broken radio or a broken.

BABCOCK: Computer right into the burn.

BABCOCK: That means solder, led, mercury, all sorts of stuff that's in those things.

BABCOCK: Why do you think they make us take an old computer to the recycle guy and pay him money to take it away? Because what's in it is hazardous. So but you can't do that when you're.

BABCOCK: In a situation where you've got to, you know, move your butt or you're taking.

BABCOCK: Incoming or whatever, and you've got to be cautious about the enemy getting.

BABCOCK: Hold of it. So it goes into the burn pit, which means our young men and women, we're inhaling that stuff. And old solvents.

BABCOCK: And everything.

BABCOCK: Else.

BABCOCK: So that Pack Act is a great thing in that it gets. But all they do on TV is see the Pack act. They don't tell them what your veteran died three years ago of brain cancer. Do you know brain cancer is on the list? No. Or if you do. Okay. Now, how do you get help filing for those benefits for your child that's still in school? They don't advertise. So we, the family, have to educate each other. A brief, 32 states have county veterans.

BABCOCK: Service officers and the rest of the state.

BABCOCK: Excuse me, 32 states have county.

BABCOCK: Veterans service officers. Thank you.

BABCOCK: The rest of the states.

BABCOCK: Have state departments of military affairs or Veterans Affairs, and almost all of them employ veterans service officers.

BABCOCK: Accredited veterans service.

BABCOCK: Officers.

BABCOCK: Make sure they're accredited. They've been through all the training and that they go to training every year to maintain that accreditation. So and they are free. They don't cost the veteran of the family anything. Two thirds of all claims coming to the VA are.

BABCOCK: Through veteran service representatives, officers.

BABCOCK: They can be the VFW and things like that, but those guys are usually only located.

BABCOCK: At the regional office. So usually your county or state guy is closer.

BABCOCK: And they will help.

BABCOCK: You for free.

SPRAGUE: So what would you call a good day as a CVS? So and what would you call a bad day as a CVS?

BABCOCK: So a good day is a severe. So is when a claim comes back. An example Vietnam guy.

BABCOCK: Blue.

BABCOCK: Water Navy didn't get approved.

BABCOCK: Till just a few years ago for blue water.

BABCOCK: Guys. You know, the fact that the Agent Orange washed into the ocean got sucked up into the ship and the guys were.

BABCOCK: Showering in, it was denied and denied and denied until just a few years ago. My guy comes in, he goes.

BABCOCK: Blue water got approved. I filed again for a claim for my cancer.

BABCOCK: That was years ago.

BABCOCK: That I filed for back then got denied because I was blue water.

BABCOCK: Because and they're still denying saying I wasn't blue water, but I know I was close enough. Blue waters, the first 12.

BABCOCK: Nautical miles, which is about 13 million.

BABCOCK: Miles off the coast. I know I was.

BABCOCK: Within that.

BABCOCK: 12 mile zone.

BABCOCK: I said, okay. I got into his electronic file, went through it page by page, looking back at his.

BABCOCK: Old service records, his old medical records, all the.

BABCOCK: Records from his cancer treatments and stuff like that.

BABCOCK: And other stuff that he was diabetic and everything else.

BABCOCK: But I look through that and I found the one single slip, which you and I, as veterans know, is only a half a page of paper that showed he'd been on a different ship than his original ship. That's the ship that was in the 12 mile zone. He had some kind of infection.

BABCOCK: Respiratory infection thing going on, and.

BABCOCK: They took him to the other ship to treat it. And we put him on antibiotic IVs for 24 hours. I pulled up the ship log for that one out of the National Archive, looked.

BABCOCK: At it because you could see.

BABCOCK: Him online and plotted it out. And I went, Yep, you were two nautical miles inside.

BABCOCK: The zone on that ship. So we pointed it out to the VA and his case was one and he ended up within another year or so back on the 100% list because he was back in after cancer.

BABCOCK: But winning something like that, that the man has been.

BABCOCK: Denied for several times and has really gotten so.

BABCOCK: Angry at the government that he doesn't want anything to do with them. But he's willing to allow me one more.

BABCOCK: Try for him. Those are days that you, you know, or another.

BABCOCK: Case. I have a veteran.

BABCOCK: Jim.

BABCOCK: He came in my office using two four pointed canes.

BABCOCK: To walk.

BABCOCK: Because his legs were past his knees from neuropathy, from frostbite.

BABCOCK: In Korea.

BABCOCK: He had been shot, put in a field hospital. Then the field hospital.

BABCOCK: Was overrun.

BABCOCK: And he was left in the rubble for a day and a.

BABCOCK: Half. In the winter of Korea, he was army and as the next day a bunch of Marines came through. They pulled the survivors out.

BABCOCK: They warmed him up. They took him back to their unit. They got him good to go. They located his unit and sent him to his unit. There was no records of women being shot, much less having frostbite. So he had never used V.A. because like most of the guys.

BABCOCK: Somebody else needs it more than me.

BABCOCK: But he wanted to know if he went to the VA, could they give him a scooter because he was getting to the.

BABCOCK: Point where.

BABCOCK: Between his hands and his feet, he was going to have to.

BABCOCK: Stop using the canes and wouldn't be able to walk anymore. Well, the problem there was finding out the evidence.

BABCOCK: So we filed his initial claim, which marked the date for his claim. And then I went online.

BABCOCK: Posted a bunch of messages on different Marine Corp websites and stuff.

BABCOCK: And he remembered the unit and he remembered two of the guys nicknames. So I put up messages for that unit and things like that and said, I'm a veteran service officer working with Jim. And do you remember the events in this valley this time, this unit?

BABCOCK: Things like that.

BABCOCK: Contact me at and about six months later a marine called and he said, I think I'm one of the guys you're looking for. My grandson was doing a was doing an article.

BABCOCK: For school on my military career.

BABCOCK: And he saw your message.

BABCOCK: So I called I gave him Jim's number. And 4 hours later, Jim.

BABCOCK: Called me and he says, Bump this. I don't care if the VA ever gives me a thing. I finally got to thank.

BABCOCK: One of the guys. So Jim went from never having.

BABCOCK: Walked into a VA to 100% service connected.

BABCOCK: And a year.

BABCOCK: Later, when.

BABCOCK: He needed nursing home care, the VA was providing it for him.

SPRAGUE: Wow.

BABCOCK: They gave him a scooter. They gave him a ramp into his house and all that other stuff until he couldn't stay in his own home anymore.

BABCOCK: But like he said, he finally got to think one of the guys.

BABCOCK: And that veteran knew the other guys and they did a.

BABCOCK: Reunion every year. So that next summer they he took Jim down. He paid for Jim's tickets to pick Jim and have him come to the reunion. And he got to see all the guys that were still living. So that's the kind of thing that just makes you stand.

BABCOCK: Up on your desk and dance.

BABCOCK: Those are the days you walk home going, Yes, yes, yes, I.

BABCOCK: Did something good today. Or getting a widow backpay underneath her. Agent Orange is the only thing that a veteran files a claim for something and 20 years later goes on the presumptive list. They only backpay. Well, that veteran passes away, but she survives. They walk through the office saying Is there anything from the VA? And you file her paperwork.

BABCOCK: To take over the claim and and.

BABCOCK: They owe him that money. She receives that money. Plus she goes.

BABCOCK: On to receive compensation for his service related death called the AIC, or some people call it death compensation. Hmm. Those are the days you go.

BABCOCK: Not only Mike did you get this, but.

BABCOCK: When I looked in the file. You know, you don't tell them because you don't.

BABCOCK: Want to tell them that something good is coming. Just in case the VA wants to fight it.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

BABCOCK: But when you get to say.

BABCOCK: By the way, you've got $100,000 with a backpack coming.

SPRAGUE: So why would you move on from a position like that? Just curious.

BABCOCK: Well, unfortunately, between my own service related injuries and the bad days and bad days are sitting in the office, kneeling on the.

BABCOCK: Floor, wrapping your arms around a.

BABCOCK: Veteran in the chair and holding him while he cries because.

BABCOCK: His demons are so vivid. Or holding the widow or holding the child. Adult child of a veteran that you know that you.

BABCOCK: Help them.

BABCOCK: Go through the whole process with getting their veteran's.

BABCOCK: Claim, getting him the.

BABCOCK: Nursing home care, ordering his headstone, ordering his battalion. And helping them.

BABCOCK: I love my guys and I've always told them, You can tell me anything.

BABCOCK: And I've had.

BABCOCK: Wives come into the office and go, Why can he talk to you? But not me?

SPRAGUE: You know.

BABCOCK: Because you're supposed to look at him like he.

BABCOCK: Is your knight in shining armor. He is bright and glistening and strong.

BABCOCK: And for him to tell you what he saw or participated in, or his weakest moment will put a shadow over your eyes. And he can't live with that. He wants you to look at him like your high school sweetheart.

BABCOCK: Like you just adore him.

BABCOCK: And for him to show you that kind of ugliness.

BABCOCK: He can't do it. But I'm outside of that. I don't have to look at him that way.

BABCOCK: He doesn't expect.

BABCOCK: Me to look at him that way.

BABCOCK: So he can come in and say. I said at the end of the bed.

BABCOCK: With a gun in my mouth the other night. Or I did something in wartime when I put a gun in somebody else's mouth. So, no.

BABCOCK: He's not going to tell you.

BABCOCK: You have to learn to accept it, who he is and keep on batting your eyelashes that you're knight in shining armor.

SPRAGUE: What was it like dealing with women, veterans and their experiences, recent veterans? And later, what's that like?

BABCOCK: Sometimes it's pretty rough. Of course, I've worked with most cases, both male and female. I mean, guys aren't any different when it comes.

BABCOCK: To sexual assault. It's not something that's supposed to happen. Their brain doesn't know how to process it, doesn't know how to put it down. So they carry it with them their entire lives. Some have good days and some don't have good days. So you have to respect the.

BABCOCK: Person who they are and you have to be able to.

BABCOCK: Listen.

BABCOCK: And you have to be able to take it and lock it away. I used to say that people come.

BABCOCK: In my office and hand me some of their baggage, lighten their load a little bit.

BABCOCK: So that they can have a.

BABCOCK: Little bit of a rest. And an hour later they might ask for it back and others might be able to say, No, I can leave that there and go on about. But no matter what.

BABCOCK: Even if they do.

BABCOCK: Quote, ask for it back. Do take it back on themselves. You don't lose it as a CPA.

BABCOCK: So you carry it with.

BABCOCK: You and you have to learn to process it and everything.

BABCOCK: Else. Even though it belongs to somebody else, it still stays with you. If you have any kind.

BABCOCK: Of a heart, then you could tell being.

BABCOCK: Called.

BABCOCK: Mom. Most of my military career, that was something that that was part of why I had to leave the office.

BABCOCK: I had too many painful things. I had had veterans commit suicide.

BABCOCK: I had had.

BABCOCK: Families.

BABCOCK: Break apart when it really, really wasn't the veteran's fault.

BABCOCK: So that mental stuff and I'd had a health scare. My VA doctors determined that my civilian.

BABCOCK: Doctors before.

BABCOCK: I got in the VA who had told me I had exercised asthma and had me on asthma medications for years.

BABCOCK: We're wrong. My primary care said, you know.

BABCOCK: I just get the feeling this is not asthma. And he sent me in for tests and they found I had eight blockages in my heart. So they literally saved my life.

BABCOCK: But it really scared me and my own service connected stuff was giving me some problems at the time. This was just before COVID hit, and they had determined that I had actually damaged my where my jaw and the roof of your mouth meets and my sinuses had dropped. And so we started the.

BABCOCK: Process of pulling teeth and putting in bone graphs.

BABCOCK: And lifting my sinuses and doing all this other stuff.

BABCOCK: And I still haven't got my teeth. I was supposed to get.

BABCOCK: Them in June, but now my.

BABCOCK: Doctor has to have a hernia repair. So we're rescheduling this.

BABCOCK: But it's been it's been a three year process. Yeah, but again.

BABCOCK: My care in the VA.

BABCOCK: Has been exceptional. The personal.

BABCOCK: Emotional and mental care that they have given me as people is just. Having been in the civilian world, medical field or of medical care and the VA, I'll go to my VA every time. So it really has to do. VA has a.

BABCOCK: Bad rep health care wise in some places.

BABCOCK: But out here, at least in this part of USA.

BABCOCK: They're awesome. Just a.

BABCOCK: Week and a half.

BABCOCK: Ago called my primary, said, Hey, I pulled.

BABCOCK: My back out again.

BABCOCK: What do I do?

BABCOCK: I'm in agony. I went to the emergency room. They paid for the emergency room.

BABCOCK: They did.

BABCOCK: X-rays. They said, You need an MRI. I called my primary back. That was a Friday. And on Wednesday I was in having an MRI. On Friday, my primary care was calling me up saying, You've got three bulging disks, we're going to start you in physical therapy, blah, blah, blah. So I know in the civilian world it takes at least.

BABCOCK: Two weeks to get an MRI, unless you were dying on the table.

SPRAGUE: So tell me a little bit about your. It looks like you went on to become the CBC in Killarney County. And you also and 16 became the CBC PR chair of the CBC. Can you tell me about that? Yeah.

BABCOCK: Look, I served in Manitowoc from oh 7 to 15.

SPRAGUE: Yep.

BABCOCK: And that was a severe.

BABCOCK: So County veteran service officer.

BABCOCK: During that time, Manitowoc County, WI enlisted enrolled so many people into the VA health care. We were the first county in the state to get community care.

BABCOCK: Just because I would go to.

BABCOCK: The county fair and stay there.

BABCOCK: All the open hours that the main building.

BABCOCK: Was open, handing out benefit box applications.

BABCOCK: Talking to veterans, getting them enrolled in VA.

BABCOCK: Health care. We had the fastest.

BABCOCK: Growth rate in the state for.

BABCOCK: Enrollment in VA health care, and our benefit increase rate of.

BABCOCK: Veterans benefit dollars to veterans.

BABCOCK: Was higher than state.

BABCOCK: Average for the last six years that I was here because first year I was just getting up to speed. But. My civilian leadership was not that great.

BABCOCK: We butted heads a lot. So I left here. But the office went from one and a half people.

BABCOCK: To three full time people, and our relief fund went from like $2,000 to, I want.

BABCOCK: To say, over.

BABCOCK: $8,000.

BABCOCK: So and but it.

BABCOCK: Was constantly fighting to get those increases. So I left after a very loud discussion with my boss and.

BABCOCK: I handed in my notice. And Taiwan County had just had their CVS, so transfer.

BABCOCK: Out a couple of months before they were in the hiring process.

BABCOCK: So they heard that I was leaving Manitowoc. They called me up and said, Can you come up and do an interview? So I literally left Manitowoc after two weeks and I.

BABCOCK: Started the very next Monday in Q1.

BABCOCK: So that's how I ended up in Kewanee.

SPRAGUE: Wow. So it sounds like you had some really incredible statistics while you while you were here in Manitowoc County. Yeah. On a statewide level, just unbelievable. Yeah.

BABCOCK: I'm a geek. I'm one of those people that actually read reads regulations. So the code of federal regulation, overseeing VA benefits and stuff, I'm pretty good at. So and I'm also one that the VA actually publishes its data. But you have to.

BABCOCK: Know where to look to find it on the Internet.

BABCOCK: Just like you have to know where to look to find the benefit.

BABCOCK: Information on those.

BABCOCK: Little tiny things like the add ons and the secondaries.

BABCOCK: And the bi lateral factors and all these other things that go along with it. So I would take the vet data every year, break it down and show county by county across the state.

BABCOCK: How many veterans they had, how many had passed away.

BABCOCK: You know.

BABCOCK: Because our.

BABCOCK: Loss rate is higher than our gain rate.

BABCOCK: Because we don't have.

BABCOCK: To throw millions of bodies at a war. A lot of it is done from a distance. And so and our older generations, our Vietnam guys and their Agent Orange are Korean War guys, and they're frostbite.

BABCOCK: Diseases like ALS and other things that are taking.

BABCOCK: Out our older generation.

BABCOCK: Up until.

BABCOCK: Three or four years ago.

BABCOCK: The over 65 veterans made up half the veteran population, so they weren't part of the younger generation. But we're losing them faster than we're.

BABCOCK: Gaining young guys in, especially now that we don't have the wartime situation and the recruiting numbers are down so severely, so we are progressively losing them.

BABCOCK: But at the same time, if you look at the compensation because of the diseases and the.

BABCOCK: Illnesses and the presumptive benefit dollars are constantly increasing, not just by the cost of living. Okay. So I would take the data and I would show them this is what we were making per veteran last year. And they go, Well, we're not making them money.

BABCOCK: Yeah, we are, because they're spending it on making their mortgage payment. They're buying the groceries, they're paying their utility bills. That's what's coming into your county and that's what's providing your tax dollars.

BABCOCK: Well, it's nontaxable income.

BABCOCK: Yes, that's true. But again, they're paying their mortgage every utility bill.

BABCOCK: And they're you know, so what you.

BABCOCK: Bring in is.

BABCOCK: What accounts for income.

BABCOCK: In your county, even if it's nontaxable. The problem is VA's own published data and my own experience of almost 12 years of saying to a veteran, well, do you know that this is a presumptive. Oh, your husband died how many years ago for me else? Well, two years after he died, they made it a presumptive. So I can file for you to get this dependent compensation. But I can't get the VA to pay you for the last ten years. I can only start from today forward. Oh, you're a veteran. One of the youngest.

BABCOCK: Well, I won't say youngest.

BABCOCK: One of the younger Vietnam guys filed for ischemic heart disease. He had his first heart attack.

BABCOCK: In his late twenties.

BABCOCK: In his early thirties, he had another one filed.

BABCOCK: For heart problems.

BABCOCK: It wasn't on the presumptive list. Well, when they finally put it on the presumptive list, I was still here, so it had to be before 2015. He came into the office, said, Oh, they finally put it on the list. So I said, okay, it may take VA a couple of years to go through the old files and get it, but what if you have a heart.

BABCOCK: Attack and die?

BABCOCK: So we went ahead and filed to get his claim expedited. So they went back, got his old paper file, went through it, went through his health records, said, okay, at this point you'd had a heart attack. This many months later, you were back at work. So we're going to drop the reading. And they did the scale. They figured it all out. They paid him $480,000 in back pay. Wow. You don't think that didn't make a significant financial impact in our founding and his family's life? Yeah, he maybe could have.

BABCOCK: Lived to wait for 3 to 5 years for the VA to get around to his claim.

BABCOCK: But because of the condition of his heart, he'd had to stop working in his late fifties because he had over 60% damage to his heart. He couldn't work. So maybe he would have dropped dead the next day.

BABCOCK: But knowing the rules.

BABCOCK: I could use that medical.

BABCOCK: Information to expedite his claim. And if you don't know the.

BABCOCK: Rules, you can't fight. You're going to court when you go to the V.A. You have to do the evidence their way. So those are the good days, though, when you get to call somebody up and say, hey, guess what, they figured it out. You're going to get a $480,000. It'll be in your bank tomorrow.

SPRAGUE: That has no effect on the county economy.

BABCOCK: No. Then, of course, there's the guys that check their bank account every day and they call up and they go.

BABCOCK: I've got $87,000.

BABCOCK: In my bank account. Do you think it's real? Should I wait until I find out if the VA messed up? Hold on. Let me look in the computer. Nope. They didn't mess up. In fact, they still haven't decided on two of your conditions. You might get more money yet. Those are the days.

BABCOCK: Make you dance.

SPRAGUE: So tell me, working about working at the CBC and Kewaunee County and looks like that 2019 and what happened there with COVID?

BABCOCK: Yeah, from 15 to 19 I worked there. Kewanee County is different to Manitowoc. They don't have a higher education system, so there wasn't a.

BABCOCK: Lot of younger veterans.

BABCOCK: So and they had lost several industries, so their.

BABCOCK: Economic picture was pretty depressed.

BABCOCK: So the young guys would come home.

BABCOCK: Registered to the.

BABCOCK: D. 214 We would give them the spiel. Okay, you know, you could spend the next hour learning all these, Well, I don't need to know about pension because I'm not old.

BABCOCK: No, no, no, no. The youngest person I put on it was 21.

BABCOCK: So being an older group of veterans.

BABCOCK: To work with.

BABCOCK: I had a lot of widows and a lot.

BABCOCK: Of older veterans, and some of.

BABCOCK: Them were peacetime. Some of them.

BABCOCK: Were blessed to have survived.

BABCOCK: War time, but without injuries. Maybe they were stationed in Kentucky or something. So the big benefit up there that was.

BABCOCK: Unknown was wartime Veterans pension, and it's also.

BABCOCK: Survivor's.

BABCOCK: Pension.

BABCOCK: The VA takes a list of all their incomes interest from the.

BABCOCK: Bank accounts and other accounts and stuff. Their Social Security and stuff.

BABCOCK: Then makes a list of things like Medicare, premium, health.

BABCOCK: Insurance premiums, dental insurance, cancer, insurance.

BABCOCK: Pharmacy.

BABCOCK: That's another big one. In some cases, you.

BABCOCK: Know, some of these people are.

BABCOCK: Paying $200 a month for one medication.

BABCOCK: So they take the household, they subtract the medical from the income, and they say you're living below poverty. And there's a lot of people out there getting Social Security that is below.

BABCOCK: Poverty before you take out the medical expenses.

BABCOCK: So once they've determined that, then they say, okay, nowadays today, if your liquid assets, not your house, car.

BABCOCK: Or personal belongings.

BABCOCK: But if everything you had invested and or whatever came out and was put on the kitchen table today, if that's below $140,000, you're likely going to qualify for the wartime veteran's pension. If that veteran.

BABCOCK: Served one day during a war.

BABCOCK: Time.

BABCOCK: On federal active duty.

BABCOCK: In other words, not as training, but say he got done with his contract the day the war.

BABCOCK: Started or sorry about that.

BABCOCK: Or he and Joe enlisted.

BABCOCK: And the next day it ended.

BABCOCK: He's and continued to serve his.

BABCOCK: Two years, four years, whatever.

BABCOCK: So that war time service allows them to go income minus medical expenses is below poverty.

BABCOCK: We're going to supplement your income and at least get you back up to poverty.

BABCOCK: If you're a veteran. 130% of poverty for the widow, the poverty line. So it can mean $35 a month. It could mean almost $2,000 a month, especially if they're paying for in-home care, assisted living or any, you know, big medical pharmacy bills or whatever. And sometimes it's just a matter of getting the veteran into the VA health care system. You don't need to pay $200 for that asthma medicine. We can give it to you through the VA for 15.

SPRAGUE: Right?

BABCOCK: Oh.

BABCOCK: You don't you.

BABCOCK: Don't you need glasses, but you haven't bought them for seven years because you can't afford them. The VA, especially if your income is low, it's going to given to you for free. And hearing aids for free.

BABCOCK: Oh, you.

BABCOCK: Weren't in the VA when you were working and making 60,000 a year, but now you've retired and you're only making $25,000 a year. Guess what? You no longer have to pay that specialist co-pay so you can get your glasses free.

BABCOCK: You know.

BABCOCK: What? You didn't tell the VA, you retired. What changed in your income or now you're paying for your spouse's nursing home care.

BABCOCK: And you're upside down income.

BABCOCK: To outgo. We can change that in the VA. Everything's going to be free. You can get just some supplemental income. But if you don't.

BABCOCK: Know these programs exist, how do you go and apply for them? That's my big anger with the VA. Your biggest problem is your failure to inform.

SPRAGUE: So looks like June of 2019. You got out of being the CVS owned Q1 account. Any particular reason.

BABCOCK: Or. Yeah, my health.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

BABCOCK: Bye.

BABCOCK: Physical health and my mental health. That was shortly after I found out about heart issues. And a year and a half before I found out about my heart. And then we went through the whole treatment program and stuff like that. And just a couple of months before I retired, they put two stints in me and and it was aggravating my other service stuff. And I was I was not in a good place mentally. So.

BABCOCK: Yeah, we were blessed between my compensation.

BABCOCK: And good financial decisions and the investments that we'd made over the years. Our finance guy said, You don't need to work, and I needed to go to a quiet place for a while.

BABCOCK: So. Huh.

SPRAGUE: How? You know, thinking about this as a as a veteran and a person who talks to veterans every day, how what did you find while you were doing that as a CPA? So was your most effective way of dealing with that? Both. Vicarious trauma is usually what they call it, and that stress from hearing other people tell their stories. What were the what methods that worked for you, if you had.

BABCOCK: Any, that what other than the. Most of the time I just try and remind myself how much good I was doing.

BABCOCK: My husband was constantly telling me, Yes.

BABCOCK: But look at the impact you've made.

BABCOCK: On some people's lives. You know, I had veterans. I had one.

BABCOCK: Veteran in particular. I helped him. The VA in Wisconsin, we have a state benefit for property tax relief for our guys that are 100% service connected. I had a veteran come in and at that time VA.

BABCOCK: Wisconsin would do personal loans and prior to that.

BABCOCK: They done home loans, but they stopped doing that many years ago. Then they stopped doing the.

BABCOCK: Personal loans, but at the time they would do personal loans.

BABCOCK: So he came in and he said, I want to find out if there's a way for me to get a state loan where.

BABCOCK: I can go ahead and.

BABCOCK: Consolidate.

BABCOCK: All my monthly bills, my credit cards and things like this and get a better payment plan going here.

BABCOCK: And I said, okay. So we got talking and I said, Wait a minute. Your record says you're 100% service connected.

BABCOCK: He goes, Yeah. And I said, Are you getting your property taxes back?

BABCOCK: What are you talking about? So instead of taking out a loan for him, I said the state will actually let you go back three years. Plus, we're going to get ready to file this year. So we file this paperwork.

BABCOCK: Now you can get the last three years, and in a couple of months you'll be able to file to get this year.

BABCOCK: So that's what we did. And we got him enough money to pay.

BABCOCK: Off those debts that he was back in control of his finances again.

BABCOCK: But he was such.

BABCOCK: A sweet man.

BABCOCK: And when he got his check.

BABCOCK: For his back.

BABCOCK: Property taxes, he went to Culver City, bought me.

BABCOCK: A turtle sundae.

BABCOCK: And by the time he got to my office, it was more like turtle soup. But he came into my office and he was so excited and so happy that.

BABCOCK: I sat there and I drank my turtle sundae.

BABCOCK: So those were the things I tried to focus on those, you know, people.

BABCOCK: Called up later and said, God, I don't have to make a decision between my wife's prescriptions and my grocery bill. I'm going to be okay.

BABCOCK: And now that you got me into the VA, we don't.

BABCOCK: Have my my pharmacy bills.

BABCOCK: So we're going to make it. Those are the things that I focused on. But they still.

BABCOCK: You know, those memories are still in a box somewhere in my attic. And every once in a while, the monster makes a little too much noise and gets out.

SPRAGUE: I understand. So tell me about your now what you're teaching online and your Jane Babcock site and all that.

BABCOCK: Yes.

BABCOCK: You can Google.

BABCOCK: Me, but six months after I left.

BABCOCK: The Kewanee office, I started doing articles on a platform called.

BABCOCK: LinkedIn because it is one of the.

BABCOCK: Largest platforms for.

BABCOCK: Military and veterans when years ago, when they started the TAPS training the transition.

BABCOCK: Out of the military training, because most of us older folks didn't.

BABCOCK: Get that kind of training, we had.

BABCOCK: No preparation and how to go out and write a.

BABCOCK: Raise me or do a job hunt, or how not to talk to the civilian world without speaking militaries. So now they've been doing this probably since.

BABCOCK: Oh, gosh, 2017, maybe longer.

BABCOCK: The military has been doing this where they do the transition training. And one of the things they teach them is get a LinkedIn account. Military and veterans get one for a year of LinkedIn. So if you don't use it and want to use it, you get a free year of premium LinkedIn. So it's a wonderful job. Site is much more professional than Facebook. Companies go on there. It lists jobs that they're looking for.

BABCOCK: You can look up.

BABCOCK: People that are working in your career field or for that company, you can send a message to say, I'd like information about your company. I'd like to talk to you about your job. I like advice on something, you know, this kind of thing. You can send messages to make connections and stuff. And now, once you've made a connection with somebody like myself, if we need to talk, there's a camera feature. So you can do basically face time. And so people will send me a message, say, Hey, you know, my husband is sick with this. And I could say, Hey, I've got a few minutes. Let's let's link together and talk and we can start talking face to face with each other right away, or we get scheduled for next week and then I can go to the VA benefits. And this is the kind of information you need to take with them. You need to take the D to 14. You need to take the doctor records. He's married his kids. Okay, Take your marriage certificate.

BABCOCK: Your children's birth.

BABCOCK: Certificates always got a stepchild that take that child, too, because they can go on as a dependent. He's financially contributing to their well-being. And here's a list of all the VSOs accredited VSOs in your county. Call them. Take this stuff to them, get an appointment, get that clean going.

BABCOCK: You know, Or my mother lives in Colorado.

BABCOCK: And I live in.

BABCOCK: Texas and I'm doing.

BABCOCK: Her financials. What do I need to do? Okay, here's the.

BABCOCK: List.

BABCOCK: In Colorado so you can get a hold of those people and you provide them with this information and they'll.

BABCOCK: Put her on the war veterans survivor's pension. And based on the numbers.

BABCOCK: You've given me since you're the one doing the finances, she's probably going to get about $120 a month. Oh, my God, What a difference that'll make. The VA doesn't advertise. So people I write these articles and people just message me like crazy. At this point, I've got over 12,000 followers and probably most of them I have sent them the links and attachments to tools I used to teach. I teach virtually. I'll teach in person.

BABCOCK: Through solicitors down.

BABCOCK: In the Milwaukee area. There's a mortgage company down there that sponsors me. I go down and teach different real estate groups about the pension and the compensation and stuff like that because you know how many people lose their homes when they get diagnosed with terminal cancer.

BABCOCK: Or Parkinson's or ALS. And oh.

BABCOCK: Well, he served during Vietnam and he's got Parkinson's.

BABCOCK: Was he exposed.

BABCOCK: To Agent Orange while he was stationed in Thailand? Yeah, they used it there, too.

BABCOCK: So now you're going to get $3,000 a month. You can stay in your home. So I go.

BABCOCK: Down and I teach these things and the.

BABCOCK: Property tax.

BABCOCK: And all that kind of stuff to the real estate agents. They help people stay.

BABCOCK: In their homes. They help people.

BABCOCK: Buy a home because once they get that benefit.

BABCOCK: Going out, they can afford that mortgage payment.

BABCOCK: And I have done one TV remote with a station in.

BABCOCK: Texas, and.

BABCOCK: It looks like I may be doing another one Memorial Day with them. But at least survivor benefits. And a station out of Philly just contacted me about doing a remote with them. So now on the V.A., you won't advertise?

BABCOCK: I will say.

BABCOCK: That 50% of veterans who are entitled to these benefits have earned these benefits the hard way are eligible for these benefits. They're going to find out. And that 75%.

BABCOCK: Of our surviving spouses.

BABCOCK: Less than 600,000 spouses, receive these benefits, survivor benefits, but probably likely, based on my experience and the numbers from my own counties and the published data from VA, probably 2 million are eligible. So you tell me what.

BABCOCK: We're doing wrong, that we're letting people live below poverty when they don't need to.

SPRAGUE: Do you What do you do when you're not working on veterans issues?

BABCOCK: Well, when my back is allowing me to, I love to garden. Since every tired plant of flowers, two.

BABCOCK: Thirds of the way around my house, I have I have a half acre property that's.

BABCOCK: Long and narrow and I've got flower beds that.

BABCOCK: Run from halfway.

BABCOCK: All the way to the back. And wow. So I've got on each side and this year I go to put one in. I'm going to do a raised flower bed across the back of the property and wow. So I've put in all sorts of lilac bushes and everything else.

BABCOCK: We have our property.

BABCOCK: Is front yard house.

BABCOCK: A small backyard area, and then what used to be an old.

BABCOCK: Vegetable garden but overgrown.

BABCOCK: And it has a tree that kind of tilted a little bit and we've let that go wild.

BABCOCK: And so it's for birds, birds and rabbits, and that is now surrounded by lilacs. So they start blooming. It's just open the window and smell it.

SPRAGUE: Huh? Do you keep in touch with many of the people who you served with?

BABCOCK: Mm. Not so much. The people I.

BABCOCK: Served directly.

BABCOCK: With. There's a few. There's one or two people from each unit type of thing. But I haven't talked to Mike in over a.

BABCOCK: Year, but at least once a year, we usually send out a.

BABCOCK: Message. How you doing? Okay.

BABCOCK: How are the boys? They're good. How are your kids? Oh.

BABCOCK: We got a new grandbaby coming, that kind of thing. But it is nice to talk with. Ashley Smith.

BABCOCK: She started a veterans group here in town, and she knows.

BABCOCK: That she could always send people to me and stuff like that, especially if it's a younger guy saying, hey, my dad is, you.

BABCOCK: Know.

BABCOCK: Because we as.

BABCOCK: Military are often generational. And so a lot of times what a younger veteran learns, they're asking about for their dad or their uncle or something like that. So Ashley is a terrific person. She has done so much for the veteran community here, especially for our young guys.

BABCOCK: Our older guys are losing touch.

BABCOCK: So much because while they're passing.

BABCOCK: Away and.

BABCOCK: Or their posts and organizations are.

BABCOCK: Going by the wayside, you know, Vietnam Veterans of.

BABCOCK: America, they're starting to look at.

BABCOCK: Possibly having to disband. But that's the way their charters were set up.

BABCOCK: Is they're very restrictive to who can join. So that's but, you know, those guys all know me and they call me the mad hugger because.

BABCOCK: I used to say that if a veteran comes into my office and we spend an hour, hour and a half, 2 hours together.

BABCOCK: And I ask them at the end if I can have a hug, that tells me whether or not they're willing to let me in their space. So now Memorial Day, the Saturday before, I'll be up at Evergreen with my husband and my kids and grandkids, helping put out the flags at Evergreen and the other cemeteries in the county.

BABCOCK: And I'll I'll get a couple dozen hugs that day.

SPRAGUE: Wow. Yeah. That we interviewed Ashley already for this program.

BABCOCK: She's awesome. Yeah, she.

BABCOCK: Is an amazing young.

BABCOCK: Woman.

SPRAGUE: You know? And she also related the program that you're talking about, Manitowoc County veterans.

BABCOCK: Yep.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

BABCOCK: Yep.

BABCOCK: So if you're needing information about VA, find me on LinkedIn and connect with me and I will send you the tools and I'll be there if you need questions answered.

SPRAGUE: Search on Jane Babcock. Okay.

BABCOCK: Or you can go to YouTube and watch the videos from the podcast and stuff.

BABCOCK: But I'm working at it.

SPRAGUE: Yeah, it sounds like it. Okay. What if you. Well, what do you think that I don't know that you know, what do you think your life would be like if you if you hadn't joined the military?

BABCOCK: I would have stayed working.

BABCOCK: In jobs like factories and other places like that, unless I'd been wise enough to eventually get to school.

BABCOCK: But it was the Wisconsin GI Bill that let me go to school. When I first enrolled at Lakeshore Tech.

BABCOCK: I thought I was going to have to pay.

BABCOCK: Full tuition and I went down there and then she said, You know, I think there's something new for veterans.

BABCOCK: So I got a hold of Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs, and I said, What's up? And they said, It just got approved.

BABCOCK: At that point, it was 50% of.

BABCOCK: My tuition was covered. Four years later.

BABCOCK: They made it.

BABCOCK: 100%.

BABCOCK: So if you're a resident of Wisconsin, you are a veteran, served your federal active duty time.

BABCOCK: And you were discharged honorably, which means general and or honorable medical discharge.

BABCOCK: Maybe ahead of time, but it was medical.

BABCOCK: Or honorable discharge.

BABCOCK: Then you can go to school at any state school, technical or.

BABCOCK: College for free. Your tuition won't cost you anything.

BABCOCK: So go to school if you are a transfer in.

BABCOCK: In other words, you are not a home of record person and you.

BABCOCK: Entered, say, in California, but you've been living here for more than five years. You have that benefit too. And if you are a veteran that is over 30% service connected, disabled, your children under 26 and your.

BABCOCK: Spouse have that benefit too. We are a great state for veterans and we want you to have the.

BABCOCK: Best opportunities in.

BABCOCK: Life. So pick up your GI Bill.

BABCOCK: Find your County.

BABCOCK: Veterans Service office. They will help you get hooked up.

SPRAGUE: And I am personally familiar with the Wisconsin GI Bill because I qualify for it, and I found that out after coming back to the state after 26 years after entering the military from here, serving time on active duty, being discharged honorably, and then coming back and talking to the Wisconsin Department, Department of Veterans Affairs and saying, yes, you are qualified, here's your letter, have at it.

BABCOCK: And some reservists and National Guard members qualify for it. Because when I was a severe so here the way they initially wrote the legislation and I don't know if they've changed it. But when they initially wrote it, it says 90 days of active duty.

BABCOCK: With an honorable discharge. Well, if you're a reservists or National.

BABCOCK: Guard and you go off to basic training. Most of them have 90.

BABCOCK: Days.

BABCOCK: And they have that duty to 14 with a discharge of honorable.

BABCOCK: Or general under honorable or whatever.

BABCOCK: Then they qualify because the legislation, at least as far as I.

BABCOCK: Know, still does not list other than training Jimmy Stewart, their old lawyer, their old.

BABCOCK: Legal rep at WDBJ.

BABCOCK: And I used to bang heads on that all the time and it took me a few months.

BABCOCK: But he finally I said, Look, Jimmy, I know how to speak a lawyer language. It does not say other than training. My reserve guy has more than 90 days. He has a day to 14 that says honorable. He is went to medical training in the military and he wants to be a nurse.

BABCOCK: You open the GI Bill.

BABCOCK: And it took us a while, but they finally paid it for.

BABCOCK: Him.

BABCOCK: So even if you're a Reserve or National Guard and haven't been on federal active duty, you still may have benefits in this state that are amazing.

SPRAGUE: I also agree with the benefits from the state. Wisconsin. So exceptional. Oh yeah. Veterans.

BABCOCK: A couple of years ago I looked at New.

BABCOCK: Jersey at that time and I still think it's the same.

BABCOCK: Way. Their education benefit was $50 per semester toward books. That doesn't pay for one book. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: What motivated you to do this interview?

BABCOCK: I think because I realize now that.

BABCOCK: You know, with my dad and my grandpa being gone, there's so many more questions. I wish I'd asked them so much more about.

BABCOCK: Their life experience, not only their military, but also their military. I have my.

BABCOCK: Grandfather's World War One.

BABCOCK: Accolades of humanity.

BABCOCK: Which was the Purple Heart back.

BABCOCK: Then. They didn't have the medal until 1932. So the accolades of humanity is a picture of Lady Columbian knighting, a doughboy.

BABCOCK: And it says for the injuries received in the World War.

BABCOCK: And I didn't know why. So being the geek that I am.

BABCOCK: I use the Internet.

BABCOCK: And I actually found another soldier's write up of the injuries my grandfather received. He was taken off the battlefield.

BABCOCK: Due to German shrapnel.

BABCOCK: I knew my grandpa had some.

BABCOCK: Scars, little scars here and there, but.

BABCOCK: I didn't know what it was. Yeah, he was knocked unconscious and, you know.

BABCOCK: In the blast and they held him off the battlefield. And that's where he got his World War One, Purple Heart.

BABCOCK: I knew about his World War two one. He told me that one.

BABCOCK: But I hadn't asked him about the One World War. One war.

BABCOCK: So I thought to myself, this is this is the information our children need to see and hear. They need to know that, yes. Military service is scary. Yes, military service will do damage to you.

BABCOCK: But there's so much more to it.

BABCOCK: There is adventure and excitement and people just amazing. Pine good down to earth. Want to do something for my fellow man people? And then they quietly come home and they reintegrate into their community. And the guy that walks past you with that military hat on. Take the time to say thank you. Take the time to understand that he left everything familiar, everybody he loved. And he may have gone off to foreign lands and seen or participated in things that were just horrendous. Or he may have just gone down to Fort Knox and been part of the supply system that made sure the guy overseas got the bullets and the sleeping bag and the set in the next thing. But they all did something exceptional.

BABCOCK: They all deserve to be told they're appreciated.

BABCOCK: Because without them.

BABCOCK: None of us would have the freedoms we have.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Did we miss anything that you'd like to cover?

BABCOCK: No. I think you gave me a great opportunity.

BABCOCK: To stand on my soapbox.

BABCOCK: Okay. Just know you're county veteran service officer.

BABCOCK: They're state and federal trained, and they will. Good ones will bend over backwards, stay long hours, and.

BABCOCK: Do whatever they need to do to get you the benefits.

BABCOCK: They earned. And if they're not a good one, they have a boss. Find that boss. Tell them it was because the boss can fix what he doesn't know is broke.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Well, from an Army veteran to another Army veteran, I want to thank you for all the work that you've done, and I'm appreciative of that. Thank you.

BABCOCK: Hey, thank you. You left everything.

BABCOCK: That was familiar.

SPRAGUE: Okay, then that's going to conclude the interview.

BABCOCK: Thanks, Lou.

[Interview Ends]