Oral History Interview with Angela L. Thomsen

[Interview Begins]

SPRAGUE: Today is October 13th, 2022. This is an interview with Dr. Angela Thomsen, who served in the United States Army National Guard from June 2004 to the present date. This interview is being conducted by Luke Sprague at the veteran's home in Tomah, Wisconsin as part of the I Am Not Invisible Project for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Program. No one else is present in the room. Okay, Angela, could you tell me a little bit about where you grew up?

THOMSEN: Absolutely. So, I grew up in Stetsonville near the town of Medford, as most people don't know where Stetsonville is. Went to high school in Athens, Wisconsin, and graduated in 2005.

SPRAGUE: And what did your family do in Stetsonville?

THOMSEN: Both of my parents worked in Medford at Tombstone Pizzas. Factory workers.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And for those of us who don't know the history of Tombstone Pizza, tell us a little bit about Tombstone's history.

THOMSEN: Sure. So, Tombstone was actually started by Pep Simek in a bar that he owned on the outskirts of town. And the reason that he ended up calling the pizza Tombstone was because there was a graveyard across the street.

SPRAGUE: Huh. I didn't know that and I was a very popular Tombstone eater. Yeah, okay. Great story. So, what schools did you go to?

THOMSEN: For high school, I was in Athens, which is not far from the Medford-Stetsonville area. We kind of-- my parents lived out in the middle of nowhere on the county line, so high school ended up being Athens. When I went to college, I went to the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, where I majored in psychology and human biology. After college, I took a couple of years off and decided that I wanted to go back to school in, I believe, 2014. And then I attended Northwestern Health Sciences University in Bloomington, Minnesota, where I got my doctorate in chiropractic.

SPRAGUE: Okay. We're probably going to come back to those topics.

THOMSEN: Sure.

SPRAGUE: Looking at your record, tell me a little bit more, I know you talked about it during the pre-interview, what drove you to want to join the military?

THOMSEN: Sure. I knew I wanted to go to college and with my parents being both blue collar workers, I didn't really want to take out a ton of student loans, so that was really the big driving force behind me joining the military, the college tuition reimbursement and all that sounded pretty good at the time when I was 17. So, I decided to sign up and go from there.

SPRAGUE: Now, in trying to put the pieces together, did you do the delayed entry program o how did your enlistment work?

THOMSEN: No, I joined, I signed the enlistment papers when I was 17, the summer before my senior year of high school. And then I had the opportunity to go to 00:03:00basic training, like do the split operation training. But instead I just drilled with my unit until I went to basic training the following summer after I graduated high school.

SPRAGUE: And I have to ask, what was it like drilling with your unit with not having gone to basic?

THOMSEN: It was super strange. I didn't know what was going on most of the time. I think one of my first drills, I'm in the medical section, so I stuck with the medics pretty closely. But they were teaching a combat lifesaver class, and I had a pretty slim idea of what was going on. So, it was really interesting. They also still did IVs back then in the combat lifesaver classes, which they don't do anymore. And so, kind of watching that training was almost slightly horrifying, watching people who don't have experience with needles try to give each other IVs. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: [Laughs] I can imagine. And what were your family's feelings? Did you get any reaction from them when you decided to join?

THOMSEN: So, my mom was worried. But, you know, that's kind of what moms do. My 00:04:00dad, he had a kind of a different reaction. It was always funny, is like his friends and people, friends of the family would be like, "Man, you had to sign the papers for your daughter to join the military," like, "Why would you do such a thing?" And my dad goes, "Well, I know my daughter, and if she wanted to do this, she would. And if I didn't allow her to do it now, she would at least join when she was 18. And if I let her do it now, at least I'll know about it."

SPRAGUE: So, tell me your first experience at basic training.

THOMSEN: Oh, man. Seems like an eternity ago. So, I got to basic training. It was the end of June. I went to basic training in Missouri, and I remember getting off the bus and thinking that it was hot. It was my first time really out of state, or at least out of the northern Midwest. And it was hot. And I 00:05:00remember getting off the bus and immediately getting yelled at to grab all of our bags. We were going to be going into a building where they held us for a couple of weeks prior to going to basic training. I don't remember a ton about it, but I remember them making us do stupid things like picking up rocks or filling sandbags and stuff like that. And I just remember they yelled at us all the time and I was like, 17-year-old me was like, "Why are you always yelling?" [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Oh, and we talked a little bit about this, I think, in the pre-interview, was it Fort Leonard Wood?

THOMSEN: Yup, it was Fort Leonard Wood.

SPRAGUE: Did you have the name for Fort Leonard Wood?

THOMSEN: Lost in the Woods?

SPRAGUE: [Laughs] Yeah.

THOMSEN: Yeah. [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: And that was June of '05?

THOMSEN: Yes.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. Yeah, so you mentioned it and it's interesting. I'm interested that you brought this up. Yeah. What was that like coming from North 00:06:00Central Wisconsin and going to Missouri in [Thomsen laughs] the middle of the summer?

THOMSEN: It felt like the armpit of the world to me. [Sprague laughs] I don't like hot weather. And it was hot and humid, and it felt like if, you know, why bother taking a shower? Because as soon as you walk outside, you're like, sopping wet anyway. And they have very large bugs. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: [Laughs] What kind of bugs?

THOMSEN: I specifically remember the cicadas, especially when they started falling from the trees in the fall. It was awful. Blech.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So, when you went there, what other differences did you notice being in Missouri?

THOMSEN: Well, they all have accents, which-- but they also said that I had an accent. They always, as soon as I said that I was from Wisconsin, they always assumed that I was from Canada, which is not far from the truth. And there was a diversity there that I hadn't experienced in small town Wisconsin before. So, it 00:07:00was a cool learning experience. And it really opened up my eyes to the world in which we live, more so than what my very tunneled vision Small town Wisconsin girl eyes had seen before.

SPRAGUE: So, people from different parts of the country.

THOMSEN: Oh, yeah, people from different parts of the country, people from different parts of the world. I went to basic training with a guy who had come from-- I think it was Italy, and he came and he naturalized in the United States and he joined the United States military for some reason. And I'm like, okay. But yeah, it was cool.

SPRAGUE: Were any of the people-- was there anybody there from Wisconsin?

THOMSEN: There were. Ironically enough, actually, yes. There were a couple of people from Wisconsin, but specifically there was a girl. Her name was Emily. And I still keep in contact with her today. Her and I joined the Wisconsin National Guard on the same day, an entire year before we went to basic training 00:08:00together. Not only did we end up going to basic training together a year later, but then we ended up in the same platoon at basic training, and we were like, not roommates roommates, but she stayed in the room next door. So, we were like battle buddies for throughout the entire time. And we still kind of refer to each other as lifelong battle buddies. Because what are the odds that you end up swearing in with somebody and then an entire year later, you end up in basic training in the same platoon together? I think it's pretty slim.

SPRAGUE: Yeah, those are small odds. Do you happen to remember what the training unit was?

THOMSEN: I feel like it was Echo Company, but I don't remember what the company numbers were.

SPRAGUE: Okay. In terms of how were the barracks set up? Were you training? Was 00:09:00it co-ed training with men and women together?

THOMSEN: Yeah, it was co-ed training, but we had a male barracks and a female barracks. We didn't have the large open bays like some places did. We had more larger rooms. So, the rooms were set up for probably about eight people. However, since I am at the end of the alphabet or towards the end of the alphabet with my platoon, I ended up only having one roommate. So, I stayed in a room meant for eight people with one other person, which was kind of nice. We had a lot of space, but that still meant that when it came time for cleaning days, we had a lot more space to clean than everyone else because we couldn't split it with other people.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What were some of the experiences at basic that still kind of resonate in your head, if there are any?

THOMSEN: There are two instances that I can think of. One was the gas chamber. I specifically remember that day. We had lunch outside, like on that range that 00:10:00day, and they kept pushing everyone to drink more milk. And at the time I didn't think anything of it. And me being from Wisconsin, I'm like, yeah, sure, whatever. I'll have more milk. Well, then after being through the gas chamber, I realized that the reason they were pushing everyone to drink more milk was because it built up more mucus. And then when you get out of the gas chamber, it's running all over the place, which they apparently thought was funny. And then the other exercise I remember was the NIC [Night Infiltration Course] at Night when they are shooting live rounds over top of you while you run through this obstacle course in the night. At the time, I remember being slightly terrified, but I kind of realized that there is no way that even if you stood up and had somebody on your shoulders, you probably still wouldn't be hit by any of these bullets. But I remember it being kind of crazy. Oh, I do also remember our final road march, because at the end of that road march, they did the "you're a soldier now" ceremony kind of induction, as you will. And I just remember we 00:11:00got-- our commander had given us a coin, and I thought that was pretty cool. And that was the first time that I had received a coin while I was in the military.

SPRAGUE: Yeah, that would have been a big experience. If you could quickly explain what the coin means.

THOMSEN: So, the coin is usually is a form of recognitions. It's either can be like a rite of passage or it's that specific individual thinks that you did a good job and the whole military rite of making sure that you always have a coin on you. Because if you end up in the presence of somebody also in the military and they try to pull a coin on you and you don't have one, then you owe them a drink.

SPRAGUE: Yup. Sounds very familiar.

THOMSEN: [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: Oh, so after-- how is basic graduation? I know you talked about the coin a little bit. Was there a formal graduation or not?

THOMSEN: There was a formal graduation. Again, don't remember a ton about it, 00:12:00but we had to go through the open parade field where we did the formal DNC and went through the inspection by, I think it was the battalion commander at the time. And I remember our drill sergeants were a little not at ease because of the whole inspection thing by the higher command. It was a hot day. We were out in the sun in the middle of this open field. My parents came down for graduation along with my grandmother. My grandpa wasn't well enough to travel. But grandma brought her old camcorder so that she could take it home for my grandpa to watch. Yeah, it was a good day. I remember being excited about it, but it was also kind of bittersweet because I wasn't allowed to spend any time with my parents after graduation. We got-- the day prior, we had like, a day pass where 00:13:00we got to go off post with our parents and spend some time with them then. But as soon as graduation was done, we were basically loading up the busses to go to AIT.

SPRAGUE: Wow. That's pretty quick.

THOMSEN: Yeah. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Just out of curiosity, did any of your other family, grandparents, have any ties to the military or not?

THOMSEN: Not the family that I knew. So, my dad's father had passed away when my dad was a teenager. And he did actually serve during World War Two. He wasn't overseas. He served as-- we believe it was like a company clerk type deal at a training site in Oregon, getting troops ready to head overseas. But I had never knew him. Ironically enough, a month or two ago, I was at my parents' house and I found my grandfather's green jacket and it was actually hanging in my dad's garage. And I was like, you should get this cleaned up and preserve this. But 00:14:00other than that, no other person that I'm close to, to my knowledge, served in the military. I think I had a couple of uncles in Vietnam, but that's about it.

SPRAGUE: So, it would have been your grandfather, then?

THOMSEN: Yup. My grandfather. Yup.

SPRAGUE: And his name for the record was?

THOMSEN: Clarence Thomsen.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And was he also from Wisconsin or from somewhere else?

THOMSEN: He grew up in Wisconsin. I think he might have been born in Ohio or something like that.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

THOMSEN: The family history with his side of the family is a little bit more difficult for me to follow, mainly because he had already passed by the time I was old enough to care. So, I don't know a ton about that side of the family. But yeah, he grew up here, in the Perkinstown area, I believe, and then but was maybe born in Ohio or something like that. I'm not sure.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So, you get on the bus to AIT.

THOMSEN: Mm-hm.

SPRAGUE: And tell me about that.

THOMSEN: So, AIT for me, because I'm a medic, was in Fort Sam Houston, Texas. So, we're getting on a bus in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and riding it to Fort Sam Houston. And again, I had never been on any significant road trips. So, that was the longest time that I spent in a vehicle, a passenger vehicle going somewhere. Most of our travels occurred in the evening time. And so, I think I slept for a good portion of the trip, but we went straight through only making stops to grab food and go to the bathroom and stuff like that. So, rest stops. And then it was late the next day, I think, we'd gotten to San Antonio.

SPRAGUE: One of the questions that I had in researching you, one of the 00:16:00curiosities I had was that your planned intent to go through and become a combat medic, if that's correct, and then continue on in the medical field? Is that--?

THOMSEN: Yeah. So, when I was in high school, I had actually wanted to go to medical school. And my recruiter at the time, I know there's a lot of horror stories about recruiters, but I actually loved mine. He and I had a lot of long conversations and decided if I'm going to go into medical school or the medical field, being a medic would probably be a really good transition into that. And truthfully, it has helped a lot. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: In the moving forward, would that tie into your doctor of--

THOMSEN: Chiropractic.

SPRAGUE: Yup.

THOMSEN: Yeah, yeah, kind of. Chiropractic wasn't always what I had wanted to do. I had dreams of going into anesthesiology, actually, and going to true medical school and getting my M.D. and my deployment kind of changed that. And 00:17:00I'm sure we'll talk about that more later. But once I had gotten back from deployment, I did a lot of soul searching and I was like, yeah, I don't really want it. I don't think I really want to go to medical school. And there is multiple reasons. One being that if I plan on staying in the military, being part of the military medical system wasn't really something that I wanted anymore. And then also I had a couple of friends that actually had some issues while overseas, and they came back addicted to pain meds. And so I had wanted to find a way to help people manage their pain without the use of the pain meds, because I know that the opioid pandemic had been quite a big deal. And like I had mentioned earlier, I'd taken a break in between my bachelor's degree and my doctorate. And that's kind of when this whole soul searching time happened and for me to figure out what I was going to do. And in that interim, I had worked 00:18:00in a hospital, a lab, as a phlebotomist and specimen processor, and a lot of things that I had learned through the military medical system and during my deployment aided me in getting that job. Otherwise, I don't know what I would have done. Like being a phlebotomist, they don't require you to go through schooling for that, but they usually prefer it. But since I had been a military medic, by that point in time, it was probably close to eight years and probably longer, probably like ten years. They were like, "Oh, you have training in that." So, they pretty much hired me on the spot.

SPRAGUE: Okay. We're going to come back to that just to make it more chronological, but definitely good interesting points there. So, you get to AIT. Now, one of the questions I was curious about because I was looking through this and I've worked with other combat medics. Did you enter as a 91 Whiskey or a 68 00:19:00Whiskey or how did that work?

THOMSEN: It was a 91 Whiskey. I was at the tail end of the 91 Bravos. I was one of the first 91 Whiskeys. And then a couple of years later is when they transferred to the 68 Whiskey series.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Tell me about your combat medic training at Fort Sam.

THOMSEN: Well, so, the first few months were not any different than basic training. And at that point in time, we still had drill sergeants at AIT. I know that they don't have that now. So, they also operated everything in phases. And so, the first phase of AIT was a lot like basic training. We were still very restricted. We didn't have a lot of privileges. They still yelled a lot. They worked us really hard. And it was also during that time is when we went through 00:20:00the national registered EMT program. And normally when one is going through that program, they go through it in a matter of months. We went through it in a matter of weeks. I believe it was like, two weeks. And then we were taking the national registry. So, it was pretty intense. I remember being in-- I think we are doing blood draws or IVs. I'm not sure. Must have been blood draws because I don't think our EMT included IV stuff. But there was one lady that was in our class and she was deathly afraid of needles. And I remember thinking to myself, like, how and why did you decide to become a medic? [Sprague laughs] She was literally in the back of the classroom crying. But yes, I remember the first month or so, it was pretty intense. Mostly the civilian education. And then after that, we moved into more of the combat medic stuff, and that's when we learned how to do more of the advanced medical skills such as like crikes, chest 00:21:00tubes, working on amputations and what we do in massive trauma situations and stuff like that. And I remember really, really enjoying it. It made it feel like I had joined for a reason and let-- there was a purpose for me being there and it wasn't any less intense. We did have at that point in time, once we had passed our nationally registered EMT exam, we were granted more privileges and then school had become-- It had become more like school, like a Monday through Friday. And then we had weekends off where we were able to go explore San Antonio a little bit. And I believe the training was almost six months, not quite. And so, I had started there in-- it would have been August-ish and then graduated in January.

SPRAGUE: If you could, tell the-- sorry, tell the listener a little bit about-- 00:22:00so, the combat medic is a little bit different than in terms of what they're authorized to do and what they do. If you could explain that to the civilian listener.

THOMSEN: Sure. So, a combat medic in the Army is a lot like maybe a trauma nurse in the E.R. We're able to do IVs, blood draws, administer medications. We take care of severe trauma and if we were in the battlefield and somebody had been in a blast, we take care of blast injuries or amputations. It's a lot more than just applying tourniquets. And we do this all under the guise of our medical officer's license. But as long as-- and a lot of times units don't even have a medical officer. So, it gets to be a little bit of a gray area on what we're allowed to do. But pretty significant lifesaving measures. In the civilian 00:23:00world, we aren't able to do that. So, if you work as in the medical field, on the civilian side with our same credentials, you are basically just a basic EMT. So, that's going to be making sure that their airway is clear, stop any significant bleeding, and then you want to pass them on to the next level of care quite quickly. More like paramedic stuff. So, we're somewhere in between like paramedics and trauma nurses in the E.R..

SPRAGUE: Any interesting experiences at AIT that you remember?

THOMSEN: [Laughs] Yes. The one specific time I remember, we were going through a mass casualty situation and for our IVs and our training medic bags, they gave us micro drips, which means that they drip a lot slower. So, if you were given an IV, typically you're able to set the drip rate, but these ones, you couldn't get up past a certain drip rate. So, the flow of fluids was very, very slow. And 00:24:00I, during this particular situation, was playing a casualty. And so, some of my other medics had to triage me and they started fluids and then they get you to the battalion aid station, which is the next level of care. And I remember lying on my cot and I looked up and I noticed that my IV fluid bag was kind of pink and I was like, what the heck is going on with that? And then I looked at my arm and realized that they had started the IV in my arm, but they had started it in an artery instead of a vein. And the flow of the artery was higher than what venous blood flow would be. So, my blood was actually pumping back up into the IV bag. So, I grabbed the IV bag and had to squeeze it to get everything to go back where it was supposed to be. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Oh, my God.

THOMSEN: Yup. One fun thing about new medical personnel. [laughs] Don't always 00:25:00know where you're sticking that needle. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Was that both men and women on the same course?

THOMSEN: Yup. Yup. Again, we had-- I believe we stayed in bigger buildings down in AIT and so instead of having a men's building and a women's building, we had floors, men's floors and women's floors.

SPRAGUE: Mm-hm. So, did you go on to any follow on training or specialization training at that time?

THOMSEN: Nope. After that, I had completed all training, came back home, and I believe I graduated on a Friday. My dad had come down to graduation. We flew up from San Antonio to Chicago because we had some relatives in the area at that point in time. They picked us up from the airport. We stayed there Saturday, drove home Sunday. Monday was Martin Luther King Day and so I packed up my stuff and then moved to Green Bay to start college on Tuesday.

SPRAGUE: Wow.

THOMSEN: Yeah. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: I'll bet that was a really tiring experience.

THOMSEN: It was. But that's kind of how I roll, if you like. Everything is always happens at once. And I feel like I thrive a little bit off of the crunch. And it was, I mean, it was good. Everything worked out well.

SPRAGUE: So, coming out of that environment from AIT to college, college freshman, I'm assuming.

THOMSEN: Mm-hm.

SPRAGUE: What was that like?

THOMSEN: To be honest, aside from the training being a lot different and the independence being there, it wasn't hugely different. I was already used to staying in large buildings with a large amount of people. So, staying in the dorms was pretty standard at that point in time. But it had been like, the first time I'd been really on my own and able to make my own decisions and have the 00:27:00freedoms of the everyday American adult. [laughs] So, that was a little different. And trying to-- I think it took me a few weeks to kind of get into my groove and figure out like, okay, now I have to prioritize things because I'm not being told what to do and I just have to take the initiative and do it. But I got it.

SPRAGUE: Now, you had said earlier, or you can correct me on this, did you start out with going for a Bachelor's of Science in psychology and human biology?

THOMSEN: Yep. I had planned the whole time to double major in human biology and psychology. UW-Green Bay at the time did not have a strict pre-med program, and so that was kind of the closest that you could get to the pre-medical program, and it fulfilled all the requirements for medical school at that time.

SPRAGUE: Any particular reason UW-Green Bay?

THOMSEN: Well, UW-Green Bay was a smaller college. I think when I had gone there, it was only about 5,000 people. The campus itself is on hundreds of acres of pretty desolate forest land. It's right up against the bay. So, they have an arboretum with a lot of trees, a lot of nature. You could walk all the way up to Green Bay and have a picnic on the water if you wanted. And so for me, being a small town Wisconsin girl, that was kind of up my alley. Also in the dorm rooms, all of the campus housing, the dorm rooms and the apartments on campus had their own bathroom. So, I didn't have to share a bathroom with anyone else. And then once you walked to the nearest educational building, everything was connected by tunnels. So, in the dead of winter, you walk to the nearest building, which I believe for me was the student union. And then you didn't have to go outside the rest of the day to get to classes. So, those were kind of the three big reasons. 00:29:00I was like, yeah, that sounds great. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Okay. And so, I understand was how did that work with you being in the Army and drilling? Was your education at that point under the G.I. Bill or you still had to put in more time? If you could explain that to me, please.

THOMSEN: I had a state G.I. Bill and I was very new to the whole system and didn't really understand it until after I had deployed a little bit. And even then, it was still kind of fuzzy. But I had state G.I. Bill and tuition reimbursement, so I got a stipend every month to help with books, housing, basic sustenance and stuff like that. And then at the end of each semester, I had to submit my grades because they wouldn't pay for any classes that you got under a C in. So, as long as you had a C grade or better, they would reimburse your tuition. And so, I would get that tuition reimbursement for that semester that I 00:30:00had just finished and then put that towards my tuition for the next semester.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And then at this time, you're drilling in Wisconsin.

THOMSEN: Yep.

SPRAGUE: Tell me if I have this right. Tell me what unit were you in when you came back initially?

THOMSEN: So, I don't remember what the unit was called when I was first there, because I had gone through several transitions during my time. When I deployed with them, they were the HHC for the 32nd BSTB, the battalion special troops-- or brigade special troops battalion out of Wausau. I know prior to me being there, they were an armor company, but they weren't armor like in that interim between armor and the BSTB. I'm not sure what we were. We were at headquarters company for the battalion, but to be honest, it was kind of a hodgepodge. Yeah. So, I was there for about ten years.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So, that's kind of what I came up with, too, in trying to do my homework for the interview was HHC, I also had debt one HHC.

THOMSEN: Yup.

SPRAGUE: 32nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion.

THOMSEN: Yep.

SPRAGUE: So, which within, it would have been the 32nd later Infantry Brigade Combat Team.

THOMSEN: Mm-hm.

SPRAGUE: Okay. We had another, just out of curiosity, there was another unit listed on one of your records. And this may have been what you were talking about in terms of armor, but there was something listed, and this could be completely wrong. Alpha company engineers? [inaudible]?

THOMSEN: Yeah. When I deployed, Alpha Company was in our battalion and my company became rear det and anybody who was deployable within my company got kind of piecemealed out to other companies within the battalion that were deploying. So, Alpha Company was the actual company I deployed with, but it was 00:32:00mostly made up of a lot of people that came from the headquarters company out of Wausau.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So, you're drilling with the Headquarters Company in Wausau in '06. What did you do there? What was that like?

THOMSEN: When we got-- well, when I got there in '06, the company was also a rear det for the-- oh, well, it was-- I would have-- yeah, no, they were rear det for the '05 deployment and so, there weren't a lot of people there. And I don't remember doing a lot during that time for at least probably the first eight, nine months as being the rear debt, because we didn't have a lot of people and at that time we didn't have a lot of equipment because it was mostly with those that deployed. So, yeah. I remember we goofed off a lot. [laughs] 00:33:00That's pretty much it. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: So, this would have been rear det '05. Was it for OIF or OEF?

THOMSEN: OIF, yeah. It was when the 32nd had deployed for the '04, '05 deployment.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What was that-- yeah, I'm curious more than anything. What was that like going to college and then drilling on the weekends? And what was that about?

THOMSEN: It wasn't-- to me at the time, it didn't seem like anything significant. It was one weekend a month. I kind of joked that it was my fun money. So, I would go to drill and then I would have extra cash to spend when I was done. I don't remember it being anything significant. I do remember begrudgingly going to drill sometimes because there was other things going on, you know, being first couple of years in college that I'd rather do. But, it was 00:34:00like a job to me.

SPRAGUE: Did you have any other jobs while you were going to school and in the Guard?

THOMSEN: Yes. After my freshman year of college, I became a resident assistant. So, I did that in addition to drilling in the Guard.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So, in terms of that in before you deployed, any memorable experiences you wanted to share with that unit?

THOMSEN: [Laughs] I could think of a couple. I don't know if they're all appropriate-- [laughs]

SPRAGUE: The ones that are-- yeah.

THOMSEN: I remember doing-- so, we would do mounted navigation on our-- which was just, you know, finding specific points like map navigation, but we would do it in vehicles. And at that time it was still pretty popular. We still had bars 00:35:00in the armories. They don't have those anymore. We still were allowed to drink after the duty day, not during training, but when we did that mounted land navigation, one thing I specifically remember is that there was a couple of guys in our unit that would go to the points and they would put a case of beer or a six pack of beer at the point to incentivize people to get there first. So, whoever got to that point first would get the beer. I was underage, so they didn't usually let me have it, but-- [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Wow. Huh. So, you're in college. '09 you get orders. Tell me about that.

THOMSEN: Yeah. So, it was-- I think we got our warning orders at the end of 2008. So, I would have been finishing up my sophomore year of college. And I 00:36:00just remember thinking, man, this is going to put a damper on my education. Like, I'm going to have to stop everything. And I was pretty nervous. I didn't know what I was going to do. And I remember I was working as a resident assistant at the time, so I had to go to my supervisor and be like, "Yeah, so come January, I'm not going to be in school and I'm not going to be able to work for you." And it was pretty typical for them to have some staffing changeovers at the middle of the year. But I remember my supervisor was pretty-- like, he seemed pretty crushed. He was like, "Man, you're not going to be here. What are we going to do?" But everyone figured it out. I was in one of my general kind of elective classes that I took every year I was in college. I took choir and we were putting on a big Christmas concert that year with combined choirs and the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra. We performed the Christmas version of Handel's 00:37:00Messiah. But I was drilling with the unit out of Onalaska, so I had to drive from Green Bay to Onalaska like three and a half hours across the state. And so, when we would have extra rehearsals for choir, I would have to come back from drill and basically go straight into these rehearsals. And I showed up in uniform one time. And I remember my choir director was kind of impressed when I explained to him like, "Yeah, I'm getting deployed. We're putting in extra drills and so there's going to be some times when I'm either late or rushing in for rehearsals." At that time, I didn't really know much about the choir director, but then come to find out that he was active duty Army and served in Germany for a number of years. So, he was very supportive and understanding when it came to me not missing things every once in a while. And then I remember I was pretty deep into my psychology program and was working very closely with one of the psychology faculty who was also my faculty advisor, and she was pretty 00:38:00worried and concerned. But we had a good long conversation and she agreed to let me do an independent study while I was overseas or at least. It wasn't a lot, but it was a few credits towards me finishing my degree, and she was very flexible and allowed me a lot of time to complete it. And I'm pretty thankful to her for that because I don't know that I would have come back to school necessarily if I didn't have her encouragement and like I was working on felt like I was still working on something towards my degree, at least while I was gone.

SPRAGUE: What were your thoughts when you got the mobilization order and wha were your feelings on that?

THOMSEN: It was very mixed. Part of me was like, okay, I knew this is a possibility. Joining the military, this is what I'm here to do. But another part 00:39:00of me was pretty scared and terrified and even somewhat a little angry because I was in the middle of trying to finish my degree. And I just wanted to be done and move on with my life. And I knew that this was going to put a big pause on everything. And then I also thought a lot about I had already started school a semester behind my peers. And I remember thinking like, great, this is going to put me even further behind everyone else who I went to school with. Like, my best friends were already going to be closer to graduating college and moving on with their lives, getting their adult jobs and here I was still going to be like that bum still in college when they were done.

SPRAGUE: I assume you got some kind of free mobilization or before you actually deployed to Iraq. What was that like?

THOMSEN: Yeah. So, for our pre-mobilization training, that August prior to us 00:40:00deploying, we had instead of our normal two-week annual training, we had an additional three week annual training which ended up being right before school started. So, that worked out. So, I was able to at least finish that last semester. And then come January is kind of when we had our pre-mobilization stuff going on and I knew I wasn't going to be able to continue school past that. So, we had started in January. Most of the brigade went down to Florida for their training but the medics stayed in Wisconsin at Fort McCoy to complete pre-deployment medical training is what they called it at the time. It was to make sure mostly that we still had our CPR and EMT licenses renewed. But then also they did a lot of the combat focused medical training after that. I think that was like a three- or four-week training in January, and there was multiple states there. And then come February, we started drilling full time Monday 00:41:00through Friday with our deploying units. So, we would do training, we were packing up equipment, making sure that everything was ready to go. And then I think it was in March is when we went down to Fort Bliss for a couple of months for our actual pre-deployment training.

SPRAGUE: And was this still HHC?

THOMSEN: It was with Alpha Company.

SPRAGUE: Alpha Company.

THOMSEN: Yup.

SPRAGUE: Alpha Company, and that was Alpha company within the Brigade Special Troops Battalion?

THOMSEN: Alpha Company, 32nd BSTB.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Thank you. Okay, so you get down to Fort Bliss. What happens there?

THOMSEN: Well, the first couple of weeks is pretty confusing because a lot of the units had already received their assignments and what they were going to do in Iraq. And for some reason, our company specifically didn't have an assignment yet. So, I remember we were sitting in an in-processing briefing and our 00:42:00commander was like, "Well, what if we don't know what our assignment is?" Because they were talking about what kind of training we were going to be completing. And they're like, "What do you mean you don't know what your assignment?" And he's like, "It's been changed half a dozen times and we don't really know what we're going to be doing." We knew that the rest of the brigade was going to be doing detainee ops, but we were like, we may be, we may not be. And so, it ended up turning out that we because they didn't know what we were doing, we were still just going to be doing all the detainee operations training that everyone else was doing. So, we kind of fell into that training cycle with them and that ended up being what we did anyway. But it was kind of a strange few weeks, the first couple of weeks when we were like, I don't know what we're doing.

SPRAGUE: And then did you deploy out of Fort Bliss or how did that work? Tell me about that.

THOMSEN: We finished our couple of months of training. We had to go through-- it 00:43:00was a lot of, to me, it felt like military police training. We were maced. We were tased. We had to learn how to use the rubber bullets out of the shotguns. A lot of prison type stuff and military police type stuff that I really wasn't used to being a medic. They even said that as a medic, we probably wouldn't be working as a medic. We'd probably be working as the detainee prison guards. And we're like, but I'm a medic. [laughs] So, it was a little hard to digest. And once we were done with that training, we had a four-day pass to kind of visit family and do whatever we wanted. And we flew directly out of Fort Bliss to head overseas.

SPRAGUE: And when you flew overseas, where did you land initially or where did you go initially?

THOMSEN: I think from Fort Bliss we landed in Maine for a refuel and we landed 00:44:00in Leipzig, Germany for a refuel, and then we ended up in Kuwait.

SPRAGUE: Okay. How long were you in Kuwait?

THOMSEN: I think it was about three weeks. It was mostly climatizing to make sure that we got a little bit used to the heat. And then we also did some-- I remember they were doing range training. We did some sort of special range that we're not-- like, they don't usually do in the States. It was like, moving while shooting and stuff like that. We did some other training and then from there we went up through Baghdad and then our final station was Taji.

SPRAGUE: Do you remember the name of the camp or FOB in Kuwait?

THOMSEN: I don't.

SPRAGUE: Okay. When you went to Taji, did you convoy or did you fly in?

THOMSEN: We flew.

SPRAGUE: Tell me about that.

THOMSEN: Well, that was fun. So [laughs] we flew from Baghdad to Taji, which 00:45:00isn't a very long flight, but we were crammed into the back of this plane that, you know, military aircraft. We had our rucksacks on our laps and it was tight. It was really tight. We were very, very sardine in there. And it was a combat landing once we got to Taji, which they didn't warn us about. [Sprague laughs] And so, we're landing and I thought, my gosh, this plane is going down [laughs] and very fast. And then we hit the ground and it was a very abrupt stop. I remember we landed in the middle of the night, and when I got out of the plane, I looked at the landing strip and I like, how in the heck did that large plane land on that tiny airstrip? [laughs] But yeah, it was crazy.

SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember what kind of plane it was?

THOMSEN: I think it was a C-130. Not sure, though.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What were your impressions when you first got off the plane, other than the short airstrip?

THOMSEN: It was hot and it stunk.

SPRAGUE: So, you get off the airstrip. Where did you go? Where did they-- tell me about getting you set up there.

THOMSEN: Oh, so, I remember we stayed in some transient housing. Not even close to the detainment center. We were more on the kind of south post. It was more in-processing stuff. And I don't really remember a whole lot about it, but it was-- we stayed in transient housing. We did some in-processing. Most of the stuff that we did was at night. And then once we moved up towards the detainment center, we kind of got our assignments on where we were going and what our shifts were going to be and we stayed in more permanent housing at that point. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Dumb question. Why at night?

THOMSEN: To be honest, I don't know why we did our in-processing at night. To me, it kind of-- it was a little bit more nerve wracking, like, okay, are we going to be doing everything at night in the dark all the time? Is this a really dangerous area? And nobody seemed to be able to answer that question on why we did everything at night. I think ultimately it probably was that they had two different shifts and we happened to be on the night shift doing our in-processing and pre-- like, I don't think-- it was minimal training but it was just a way to split the group up because there were so many people coming in all at the same time.

SPRAGUE: So, we're talking, you talked about it in the pre-interview about detainee ops and about moving towards that or being placed up there. Tell me about that situation.

THOMSEN: Sure. So, Taji was one of the several detainment facilities in Iraq that the U.S. was running. It was in a remote portion of Taji, kind of in the northeastern corner of the FOB. And when we got moved up there, the housing itself, we were in shoes. There was three, they were kind of like trailers. There's three rooms per trailer, two people per room. So, not too bad. Again, kind of like living in the dorm rooms for me. And then the compound itself was a secure compound. So, you had to go through security checkpoint when you were going from housing into the compound. I was lucky enough there were two different housing areas. I was lucky enough to be at the one right off the compound. Some people were at one further away, so they would have to take a bus into work. And I don't remember how many actual detainment compounds there were. 00:49:00I think there were eight different detainment facilities, and that was to keep the different sects separated, the Sunnis and the Shiites. I think they had eight compounds and they were kind of divided up amongst each of them. And then they also had a-- I can't remember what it's called. COVID, post-COVID, I want to call it quarantine, but it's where they would go into solitary confinement if they were misbehaving or something like that. So, they had a separate compound for that. And then they also had an intel building in section where they would do interviews or interrogations with the detainees to gather information. Then they also had a hospital and a dining facility within the actual-- they called 00:50:00it a TIFRC. Theater internment facility.

SPRAGUE: TIFRC. Can you give me the acronym?

THOMSEN: Yeah, it was T-I-F-- so, it was theater internment facility. And then there was the RC part, and I can't remember what that actually meant.

SPRAGUE: Like Rick, like--

THOMSEN: R-I-C.

SPRAGUE: R-I-C. TIFRC.

THOMSEN: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Was there a dash or was it altogether? TIFRC.

THOMSEN: I can't remember.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So, it sounds like the TIFRC sat within Camp Taji?

THOMSEN: Yeah. Mm-hm.

SPRAGUE: And then as you describe it, in order for you to go to work, did you work at the TIFRC or did you work outside?

THOMSEN: I worked at the TIFRC. So it was-- when I said they weren't sure if we were going to actually be serving as medics, it turns out that we were. So, I ended up being fortunate enough, like I was separated from the rest of the company. They were in charge of one of the compounds or one of the buildings, and all of the medical personnel got separated out into the clinic. And yeah, I 00:51:00got to walk to work because we were on the housing portion that was attached right next to the facility.

SPRAGUE: So, tell me about if there is such a thing, a typical day of getting up, walking over there, going through the gate.

THOMSEN: Sure.

SPRAGUE: Help me out with that.

THOMSEN: So, for me, when I first got there, I was working as what they called a line medic or whatever, so I would get up. I think our shift started at 7:30, 8:00. Would walk to work, and then we would go into the compounds and do sit call with the detainees. And that was really interesting, particularly being a female, because most of the detainees didn't want to talk to me. We would take an interpreter with us into the facility and they would-- even most of the detainees could speak English well enough, but they wouldn't in front of us. It 00:52:00took probably a couple of weeks for them to actually start coming to me for sick call. They learned rather quickly that if they didn't come to me as a female, they weren't going to have their medical needs addressed. So, it was kind of a I'm your only option, so you have to talk to me or you're not going to get anything. We would have some basic medications like stool softeners, Benadryl, Tylenol, ibuprofen, that we could hand out at the wire. But then, if they had any more serious issues, we had to bring it back or they could complete what they called a 510 request. And then there would be this whole rigmarole through the clinic where they would have to put in a movement order to get them to the clinic to see a doc at the clinic later on. And I think I did that for a couple of months, but then I moved into a different position that wasn't working 00:53:00directly with the detainees. And that position was more. So, the 510 requests that they were able to put in, it was just a basic request form that any detainee had the opportunity to put in. It didn't have to necessarily be medical related. They could put it in for pretty much whatever they wanted. And the outgoing unit had somebody that was kind of monitoring those and handing those out to the line medics. But since they were leaving, they needed somebody to take that over. And I got I don't know if it was the short straw or something. So, we were responsible for receiving those requests, tracking them. So, I had to come-- like, they didn't have any sort of tracking system before I started. So, I came up with a tracking system and then I would have to give them to the medics, the respective medics for that specific compound. When I first started that position, I was getting like, thousands of them per day because the person 00:54:00who did the job before me would just go through and hit yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Regardless of what the request was, as she said. I remember her saying, "You know, it's not up to me to deny these requests because I'm not seeing these patients." But I remember thinking like, no, some of these requests are pretty ridiculous. Like, I had someone who put in a request for wanting plastic surgery because he gained weight while in prison and he was getting released soon and he didn't want to go back to his family fat. And I'm like, no, that's not a thing. So, I actually started going through and reading the requests and would deny them. And then I remember some of the medics coming back and they're like, "These detainees are getting pretty mad at you denying their requests." And like, well, tough luck. Tell them to put in an actual legitimate request. I'm not going to give you stuff that's going to waste your time. So, the medics were happy about it. The detainees weren't, but they got used to it. I think by the time I left and was training my predecessor, we were getting maybe 5, 10 a day. So, from thousands to a handful I think was pretty respectable.

SPRAGUE: Do you feel there would have been different treatment if you had been a man and asked those questions initially?

THOMSEN: Oh, absolutely. Being with the radical Muslims in Iraq, they did not want to talk to females. They didn't want to deal with females. And a lot of the prison guards, people from my own unit that were working with them every day, if they were a woman, they would often get feces thrown at them or they would get spit on. And the men, sometimes the men would have these experiences, but it more often happened with the women because they just-- women aren't respected in that culture.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What were some of the other unique experiences that you can share with respecting patients privacy and who they are that you can tell me that you remember?

THOMSEN: Yeah. So, as far as interesting patients go, we had one in particular. I think we called him Snowball. We had nicknames for all the frequent fliers, but he would find random things around his compound and ingest them. He had ingested mortar from it between the bricks. He had swallowed some pine-sol. He had tried swallowing a piece of razor wire. And he did all of this in attempt and thinking that he would get him released from prison, when in reality I had gotten him a trip down to Baghdad because the prison down there had more advanced medical treatments or capabilities. And then he would get sent right back to us after he was recovered. But he kept doing it. I don't know why. He thought he was going to get released, but he just got a free trip to Baghdad. I 00:57:00didn't specifically work in the-- we had two parts of the clinic. We had a coalition forces where we saw the United States forces and those that were helping us. And then we had the detainee half of the clinic where we saw the detainees. And so, when I wasn't overly busy with the 510 requests, I would try to pop into each side of the clinic and kind of learn different medical things from the doctors that were there. So, I know I shadowed a doctor on the coalition side of things, and he was a dermatologist. And I just remember the people would come in with these complaints, like, "Oh, yeah, my truth hurts." And then they would leave with a prescription of doxycycline because he was a dermatologist and that's what he prescribed for it. He's like, "Yeah, your tooth hurts, but it looks like you also got this sort of skin condition going on." So, I would always kind of chuckle because they would walk away with that uselessly. And then on the detainee side of the clinic, they were able to do, under the 00:58:00supervision of the doctors, they were able to do minor surgical procedures there. So, I got to remove lipomas and lipomas are like a fatty cyst under the skin. Normally, if they're not bothersome, like here in the States, doctors won't remove them. But in the detainees, they insisted that they had to be removed. And since we were there, they were like, okay, well, we may as well. So, I got to remove some lipomas, which was a really cool experience for me, because I had never done that before. I can't think of anything else specifically as far as patients. We did have a couple prison riots, so that was interesting. When the prison riots happened, if you're not on shift, normally the prison riots happened at night and I was working during the day. The compound alarms would go off and they were very loud. And if you were sleeping, you heard them and you woke up in a flash and then everyone has to report to the 00:59:00compound. For us, we would have to report to the clinic. We would have to then put on all of our gear. We didn't normally walk around with our helmets and our vests and everything, but we'd have to put on all our gear and hunker down in the bunkers until the all clear was given. I'm sure that the people that worked on the actual compounds had different protocols, but for the clinic, that's what we did. And then after that, we always had an influx of patients that would get hurt or did crazy things during the riots and would warrant a trip to the clinic in the hospital and need to be treated. So, that was kind of interesting, too.

SPRAGUE: How many riots were going on when you were there?

THOMSEN: I remember three or four of them happening. So, not a ton. But they were very highly coordinated, which is interesting because these compounds weren't supposed to be able to talk to each other. They were separated enough where they wouldn't be able to be like, "Hey, we're doing this tonight." But somehow they always got word out.

SPRAGUE: The multiple compounds, were they separated by physical space, by fences, by barriers?

THOMSEN: Both. All of the above. To me, the buildings kind of looked like silos on their side. They were big, like half circle, say, domes on the sides, and they were separated by physical space. They had fencing and they had concrete barriers in between them.

SPRAGUE: So, were you involved at all or were these detainees just kept there statically or were there actual-- I've got to ask this from a dumb civilian side-- interrogations going on there as well.

THOMSEN: They had interrogations going on. I don't really know much about them because it wasn't my department. But they did have an interrogation center where they would either do interviews or interrogations to kind of get information from them. They had large recreation yards, again, that were separated by physical space, fences, and the barriers. So, in theory, they weren't supposed 01:01:00to be able to communicate from compound to compound. So, they had specific recreational times during the day so the detainees would get out and do exercises and socialize with those within their building. But other than that, there wasn't a ton else going on the compound.

SPRAGUE: You mentioned using an interpreter.

THOMSEN: Mm-hm.

SPRAGUE: Did you have any interactions with any other Iraqi nationals?

THOMSEN: We did have some of the Iraqi Army with us for a time period because we were training them. I didn't specifically because they didn't really have medical personnel, but we would run into them when they were training with our unit prison guards and stuff like that.

SPRAGUE: What kept you going during your deployment?

THOMSEN: A good question. It's going to fall a lot on wanting to get back home, 01:02:00wanting to spend time with my family, trying to finish college and kind of move on with my life. But definitely my family, for sure.

SPRAGUE: What kind of contact were you able to have?

THOMSEN: We had calling cards and payphones, so any time we'd get care packages, we got a lot of calling cards so that we could call home. So, I would try to call home at least once a week. We had Internet but it was kind of shoddy. Sometimes I was able to video chat via Skype or something back home. But a lot of times it was just more efficient to just use one of the payphones and call.

SPRAGUE: So, you had your one course that you were able maybe, were there more 01:03:00college courses you were able to do remotely or--?

THOMSEN: No, I only worked on that independent study while I was gone, and that actually ended up taking a lot longer than I expected and had to be extended. But we got it done. [laughs] It was an independent study that I actually did on how PTSD in female veterans and how treatments were different and how it affected female veterans at the time. It was a research project and it was pretty interesting because when I was working on the research for this, there hadn't been a lot of studies done on this at that point in time. So, a lot of my-- I had to do the research and then I wrote a paper on it and a lot of my paper was based on basically saying more research needs to be done in this department. There isn't any conclusive evidence because the research hasn't been completed or isn't done. And then I offered suggestions on areas where it needed 01:04:00to be expanded and why.

SPRAGUE: Did you have any downtime?

THOMSEN: Some. We usually had-- they usually tried to get us one or two days off a week, so we were only working five to six day weeks. It didn't always work, but it did sometimes. We weren't allowed to go anywhere on our days off. We would go to the main post of Taji. Like I said, the actual internment facility was kind of off in this remote section of the FOB, but we could go down to the main PX and Camp Taji actually did have a pool. I had never gone to it, but they had one. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Did you ever get off post or camp?

THOMSEN: Only a couple of times. And the way that that happened was if we had detainees that needed further medical care that we couldn't provide, they would 01:05:00get air medevac down to Baghdad. And so they would always need medical escorts for those flights. So, there was, I think, one or two times I volunteered as the medical personnel to fly with the detainees down to Baghdad and back.

SPRAGUE: What was that like?

THOMSEN: It was interesting. They only did the flights at night for security reasons. And so, when they would load the detainees up, it was pretty ominous. Everyone would kind of sit there in silence and the guards were very-- always on really high alert. But as soon as we offloaded the detainees in Baghdad, everyone kind of relaxed and took a big breath. I got to hang out with the tail gunner. They always flew in Chinooks. And so I got to hang out with the tail gunner of the Chinooks afterwards and as we were flying away, you couldn't see 01:06:00much in the dark, but they would be able to kind of point out different landmarks or notable places. Every once in awhile they'd had you their night vision goggles so that you could see a little bit better. But that was when we were able to actually talk and socialize and breathe a little bit. But the way down there was pretty tense all the time.

SPRAGUE: While you were at Taji or at any time in Iraq, did you have any experiences with being mortared or shot at?

THOMSEN: Mortared. And the mortars usually coincided with the riots. So, again, these detainees weren't supposed to be able to talk to each other within the compound, nevertheless people outside of the FOB completely. And so, then these riots would happen and we'd also be getting mortared from the outside. So, it 01:07:00was always interesting on how these sorts of things happened. The mortars were never very accurate and they always-- they never hit anything important. So, it was usually not a concern. Like I remember the first time it happening and being terrified. But once you realize that they were still pretty far off in the distance and not accurate, it kind of just became normal.

SPRAGUE: What was your reaction when you got the alert that mortars were coming in?

THOMSEN: It was a lot at the same time because we had the riot going on, the mortars were coming in. It was kind of just a-- there was a-- panic was in the background a little bit, I guess, like the tense panic like, is this going to be okay? But it was always something I was able to not let overtake me. I was always able to keep a pretty cool head and focus on like, okay, this is what 01:08:00needs to be done next.

SPRAGUE: Did you have to shelter in place or in a shelter or not?

THOMSEN: Yeah. So, when the riots were going on, whether or not we were being mortared, we would always have to hunker down in one of the bunkers around the clinic. That was just our SOP during riots, regardless of mortars or not. So, it was kind of we were already there to begin with.

SPRAGUE: Did you have any friends or people in the unit injured during the mortarings?

THOMSEN: Nope. No. Everyone made it out unscathed.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Any other friends injured or killed in action while you were there?

THOMSEN: Nope.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Any other memorable people while you were there that stick out in your head while you were at Taji?

THOMSEN: Yeah. The chief medical officer of the clinic that I worked in, his name was Colonel Hepburn, and I think he came to the clinic a little bit after 01:09:00we had started there because our units were offset so that there was continuity and there wasn't any gaps in in coverage. But I remember him coming in and I'm like, oh, great. This full bird is going to change everything and take over and it's going to-- you know, it's kind of the same thing that always happens when there's a change of command. But he didn't. And he actually took the time to learn each of our names, learn how we did things and why. He would offer suggestions for improvement but he wasn't overbearing about it. And I really respected him. I learned a lot from him. He was a medical provider civilian side as well, because he was also National Guard. I'm trying to think. He was like-- the pandemic stuff, like public health, is what his specialty was. So, he always had a very unique perspective on things. But definitely one of the commanders 01:10:00that I definitely remember. And he was pretty significant to me in the fact that he wanted to take the time to know his people and didn't want to make all these radical changes or my way or the highway type stuff, and instead kind of offered suggestions where he thought fit instead of overtaking everything.

SPRAGUE: And Hepburn spelled H-E-- Hepburn like the actor Hepburn?

THOMSEN: Yeah, I think so. H-E-P-burn.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

THOMSEN: Yeah. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Do you have a first name with that?

THOMSEN: I can't remember his first name. Nope.

SPRAGUE: No problem.

THOMSEN: It was Sir. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Nope. I get it. So, did you have any experience there? One of the things that's come out with veterans actually pretty recently, any experience with the burn pits there?

THOMSEN: Oh, yeah. The burn pit for Taji was just north of the detainment compound.

SPRAGUE: So, do you want to talk about that?

THOMSEN: Sure. Okay. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Tell me your experience with the burn pits.

THOMSEN: So, with the burn pit being just north of the detainment compound, not only did I work under the smoke of the burn pit, but I lived under the smoke of the burn pit because my living quarters was right next to the compound. And it was like, yes, we would get dust storms and sandstorms in Iraq and you wouldn't be able to see, you wouldn't be able to breathe, but the smoke was worse. It would, as you're walking up and down the alleyways or street-- there weren't really streets, I guess, in the compound or even in between the shoes where we lived, it was thick, it was smoky, it smelled. And I just remember it being stifling. And I didn't know any better. I was an E-4 at the time, so I didn't really know any better of what they were burning there or what the purpose of this was. I assumed it was for trash, but I didn't realize all of the other things that were in these burn pits. And I had always kind of had allergy and 01:12:00breathing problems. But they definitely got worse after that experience. And the VA is where [laughs] I actually had some-- it was 0% ratings for some breathing issues prior to this PACT Act and everything coming out. I haven't gotten everything together yet to refile and get it reevaluated, but I plan on it.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Yeah, that was my next question. [Thomsen laughs] Regarding the PACT Act and that coming out. What do you think of that as an Iraq veteran?

THOMSEN: It's a very significant move. I'm on the legislative committee for the VFW, so I had worked towards it a lot, probably not as much as national representatives would have. But it's huge for us. They took decades to take care of our Vietnam vets with Agent Orange. And it was still decades for some. And my 01:13:00deployment was '09, '010-- not '09 '010, 2009, 2010. So, it's still over a decade. But I'm happy that they realize the large toll that the burn pits took on us and hopefully we'll be able to take care of all those issues going forward. I know that there have been people in my unit that have come up with weird cancers. And there was a couple that had gotten married and had a baby that had birth defects that they were able to attribute towards the burn pits. But the VA, of course, wouldn't listen at that time. And so now with the PACT Act being passed, I think it's a huge win for anyone who had to deal with that, for sure.

SPRAGUE: Wow. While you were in Iraq, did you have any experiences of sexual assault?

THOMSEN: No.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So, what was it like coming back [Thomsen laughs] from Iraq? 01:14:00Coming home.

THOMSEN: It was weird. So, well, one, we came back from Iraq in January, so we left the 80, 90-degree weather, which seemed frigid to us at that point in time and landed in Volk Field, Wisconsin, in January. And it was-- I think it was 20 degrees. And I remember making a comment to my dad. I was like, "It's cold." And he goes, "Oh, no, it's warm. It was like, below zero last week." I'm like, "Great." [laughs] So, there was that aspect of it. But I know for me personally, I was planning on going back to school to finish my degree. We had gotten back at the end of January, so the spring semester had already started. So, I just personally-- I moved in with my parents and got a job for that time frame 01:15:00because they didn't pay for me to get my own place for a couple of months before I went back to college. I was working through things. I don't feel like there was anything overly traumatic that happened during my deployment, but I know for the first probably 4 to 6 weeks of being home, I hunkered down on my parent's couch and I didn't move. My mom would be like, "Oh, do you want to go to the grocery store?" She did anything that she could to try to get me out of the house. And I'm like, "Nope, I'm good. I'm just going to stay here." But at that time didn't realize that even though my deployment wasn't traumatic, I was still kind of processing and working through things. And that's really why I didn't want to have any social interactions with people or go anywhere and do anything. But eventually that changed and I was able to go out and do things and that's when I got the job for a few months to earn some money before going back to school. And that was all pretty well and easy. It was really-- it didn't really 01:16:00hit me, I don't think, until I went back to school, because then again, I was living on my own. I didn't have meals provided for me. There wasn't somebody like in Iraq doing my laundry or, you know, I had to be fully self-sufficient again. And that was a little bit strange. But then I was also older than most of the people I was going to school with because I had missed the last three semesters of school, three or four semesters of school. And I had started late to begin with. I remember walking to class my very first day. And there was a couple of girls in front of me and they were having a conversation about how it was the worst day ever and they almost didn't go to class today because it was just terrible. Her hair straightener stopped working. And I was like, really? That's your worst day ever? Okay. So, that's when I knew, yup, I'm definitely [Sprague laughs] amongst people who don't know my experiences and it's a little 01:17:00bit foreign of an experience to me, again, to be amongst people that didn't know. So, very quickly I sought out a veteran's group on campus and that's probably the only reason I survived my last year of college. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: And which veterans' group was that at UW-Green Bay?

THOMSEN: Yeah, it was like, we called it Vets for Vets. It was the local UW-GB veterans' group that was on campus.

SPRAGUE: Any other that you're willing to share post-combat experiences that when you came home that you'd be willing to share?

THOMSEN: There wasn't-- I don't think there was really anything else that was significant, or that I remember anyway.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So, one of the things that you talked about earlier in this interview and you talked about pre-interview, you talked about having the deployment help decide what you are going to do as a career. Maybe if you could 01:18:00flesh that out a little bit, if you're willing to.

THOMSEN: Yes. So, prior to the deployment, I had wanted to go to medical school, become a doctor. I was kind of leaning towards anesthesiology or family practice. Getting in, you know, and I'd also planned on staying in the military and becoming a medical officer. And once I had worked in the clinic, and I know that the clinic is a very small section of military medical medicine, but I didn't like it. It felt to me like, I had mentioned the dermatologist that I would always hand out doxycycline. Doxycycline is fairly harmless, but it was other things like the opioids that they were just handing out like candy. And they would be like, well, if you have pain, take pain meds. And that to me seemed ridiculous. Like, no, this person is coming to you because they have this pain. Yes, the medication could help and put a Band-Aid over it, but shouldn't 01:19:00you take the time to figure out what's actually causing the pain and try to correct that instead? And so that kind of put a sour taste in my mouth. And I realized, all right, maybe I don't want to go to medical school anymore. And I definitely don't want to become an Army medical officer if that's what it means, is just handing out medications and sending them on their way and not doing anything to follow up with them or actually solve their problems. And so, I continued with my pre-med degree because I knew that in some way, shape or form, at some point I would want to help people with their pain. But I didn't quite know how. So, I finished my degree. At that point I had dropped my double major. I dropped human biology down to a minor so that I could get out of there faster. [laughs] Especially after the whole "it's the worst day ever because my hair straightener stopped working" ordeal. I knew I needed to kind of finish school and then figure out what I wanted to do. And I ended up graduating in the May of 01:20:002011 with my bachelor's degree and didn't end up going back to school until January 2014. So, it took me a while, but I figured it out.

SPRAGUE: First of all, one of the things that is interesting is that dichotomy of worrying about the hairspray versus what you had experienced. Did you have any other experiences like that? It sounds like it really kind of echoed with you about, okay, now I know I'm different.

THOMSEN: Yup. Nothing so vivid and specific such as that. I know that there were conversations, like discussions within certain classes that I took. I think I had to take a couple of political science classes for gen eds just to finish those up before I graduated. And I know that's like some of the conversations in there had struck a chord a couple of times, but I'm not the kind of person that would necessarily say anything about it if I knew it was going to cause 01:21:00friction. But one of the members of the veteran's group was also in that political science class. So, we ended up kind of gravitating toward each other, and then we would have our sidebar conversation that was like, "Yeah, that person's full of crap," or, "They don't know what they're talking about," or how naive and inexperienced they were and they've never probably been out of Green Bay in their entire lives. So yeah, there were those smaller instances, but nothing that sticks out quite as vivid as that hair straightener not working that day. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Okay. Let's take a quick break. This ends segment one of the interview with Dr. Thomsen. We'll be right back. We're back on the air. This is Luke Sprague with the Wisconsin Veterans Museum and Dr. Angela Thomsen. This is segment two of the interview and we're going to pick up in May of 2011 following 01:22:00her graduation from the University of Green Bay. So, tell me what happened after that.

THOMSEN: So, after graduation, like I said, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. So, I moved a little bit closer to home, moved to Wausau. I was still drilling out of the Wausau unit, so it seemed kind of logical that I end up there. It was half hour, 45 minutes from my parents house, and then it took me five minutes to drive to drill, which was the first time in my life, which was kind of nice. I worked for a portion of that time right after college full time National Guard orders for my unit as a supply clerk. It was only for a couple of months while I was interviewing for other jobs. Nothing super significant with that. And then I took a job, like I said, working as a phlebotomist and specimen processor at Wausau Aspirus Hospital.

SPRAGUE: And was that still with Alpha Company or HHC?

THOMSEN: HHC was the one in Wausau. So, after the deployment, we disbanded from Alpha Company and moved back to our parent companies.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And tell me then about your decision to become a chiropractor.

THOMSEN: Sure. We had always had chiropractic care. Growing up, my parents always went to the chiropractor. They always had kids days, so I was familiar with it. But it wasn't really a path that I had thought of before. I had a friend from the military that I met when I was going through a course like-- it was the basic leader's course now. It was warrior leaders course then. Her and I had never met before, but we were both in the Wisconsin National Guard, ended up going to this course together and then kept in touch. And then a couple of years later, she ended up going to chiropractic school. And I was kind of talking to her like she knew my history and my background and knew that I had planned on 01:24:00going to medical school but didn't. And when she enrolled into chiropractic school, she was like, "Have you ever thought about chiropractic care? You know, it's a way to help people. It's a little bit different, but you know, maybe something you'd be interested in." So, I stayed with her for a weekend and shadowed her, went to a couple of classes with her Monday morning or Friday afternoon, and ended up falling in love with the program and did some more research into being like chiropractic care, what it does, the education behind it, and kind of fell in love and decided that that was how I was going to help people manage their pain without putting a Band-Aid on it and handing out medications.

SPRAGUE: So, tell me about going to school for that and how that changed your military career.

THOMSEN: Sure. So, around the time that I started school, I had also taken a 01:25:00promotion out of the Wausau unit. So, then I had started drilling with the 950th up in Superior, Wisconsin. And the 950th was that a route clearance engineer company and they get deployed a lot. And so, my first year of graduate school was pretty insignificant, especially when it came to the military. I was drilling in Superior, which for me was a little bit closer than Wausau when I was living in the Twin Cities anyway. I remember through the first year of grad school it was difficult and it was especially difficult when it came to drill weekends because I needed to spend a lot of time outside of class studying and getting ready for exams and I remember thinking to myself once, why did I quit my perfectly good job and just go to school? [laughs] Because being a broke college student again and then trying to fit in hours upon hours of studying 01:26:00with a military career was a little bit daunting. And then within the first year of me being in graduate school, the 950th got a warning order for a deployment. And my commander was gracious enough to come up to me and ask me like, "All right, I know that you're in graduate school. Is this something that you want to do?" He was Captain Red at the time. He is now Major Red, still in the Wisconsin Army National Guard. And I'm forever grateful that he was willing to have this conversation with me. And I was like, "Sir, no, I don't want to go on this deployment. I'm in the middle of graduate school. My last deployment was when I was in the middle of my bachelor's degree, and that was hard enough. And this school is infinitely harder and I don't want to go. But if I have to, I will. If you can't find anyone else to go, I will." Luckily enough, there was another E-6 01:27:00medic that was willing to take my spot because I was the senior medic for the company. I had a small medical section and there was another E-6 medic in the state that was willing to take my spot and go instead of me. So, they took him and I then became part of the rear det for the 950th while completing my doctorate.

SPRAGUE: What are your thoughts then on we have veterans in Iraq and OEF and we people, guard members, being called up continually. What are your feelings on that?

THOMSEN: It's hard and especially for those that have, you know, that are going to school, that are working, that have families, it puts a big toll on you. And I don't think I realized that quite as much until the last couple of years with the pandemic and how much the Wisconsin Guard has been activated for various 01:28:00events then. So, stateside deployments, because with the Guard, you're susceptible to stateside deployments and deployments overseas and it can be a lot. It's definitely not easy.

SPRAGUE: So, you're with the 950th Engineer Company out of Superior?

THOMSEN: Yep.

SPRAGUE: And that's while you were going to graduate school?

THOMSEN: Yes. Mm-hm.

SPRAGUE: What was that like driving from Bloomington to Superior?

THOMSEN: [Laughs] Most of the time, it wasn't terrible. When in the non-winter months, I will say, it was actually a really pleasant drive. It was a time for me to kind of unwind and let my brain unplug for a while. The winter months were a little bit more treacherous, especially once you get up by Lake Superior, there's a lot of snow and ice and all the things typical of Wisconsin, but it feels like it's amplified in the north. [laughs] So, usually not bad, but the 01:29:00winter months were a little bit more hectic.

SPRAGUE: You had mentioned that you had another E-6 go for your slot with the 950th.

THOMSEN: Mm-hm.

SPRAGUE: At this point, were you an E-5 or an E-6?

THOMSEN: I was an E-6. When I went up to Superior, I took my promotion. I was in the Wausau Unit as an E-1 through an E-5, and then I took my E-6 in Superior.

SPRAGUE: What was your experience as a junior NCO and then moving into senior leadership, what was that like?

THOMSEN: It was different. I had, to be honest [laughs], if I had not taken that promotion to Superior, I probably would have gotten out of those Guard. When I came back from deployment, drilling with the Wausau unit just wasn't the same. There was a lot of younger soldiers that weren't on the deployment. The unit wasn't as fun. A lot of my friends got out of the military and my leadership in 01:30:00the medical section in Wausau wasn't stellar. I don't feel like I got a lot of good training on how to be that senior NCO that was needed. So, when I went up to Superior, I was nervous. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I was at least able to fumble my way through it. And I had some really good medics that were able to help as well. It also helped, as it turns out, one of the full time NCOs that worked at the unit was a guy that I deployed with. So, he and I were able to kind of fumble through it together, like we had each other's backs and we were able to get through a lot of the gunk together, which helped.

SPRAGUE: So, what other, in terms of while you were drilling with the engineering company, going to graduate school, any other particular memories of serving at that unit?

THOMSEN: I do remember when it would come time for-- while I was there, when 01:31:00you're about halfway through graduate school is when you start taking your national board exams and with them being rear det at the time and my friend from deployment being the training NCO, he knew that I was going to be coming up on exams. And so there was one particular drill weekend where I remember he's like, "Nope, you're going into your medical office and you're shutting the door and you're studying." So, that was pretty awesome. I got to do things with the engineer company that I didn't get to do when I was with Wausau. They not only had like route clearance capabilities, but they also had demolition. And so, we would go out on the demolition ranges and being the medic personnel on the demolition range, they wouldn't let me do a ton because they're like, well, we can't explode you because we need you. But they would let me pull the det cord and stuff like that. I learned they also had heavy equipment operators, so they 01:32:00would go out on these ranges and do bulldozing digs or they learned how to use the graters for the roads or they had like these big dump trucks and stuff. And they would sit on these ranges and expect me to sit there all day, like in case somebody got hurt. And I would get really bored with that. So, I learned how to use the bulldozer. I'm not very good at it. I got licensed on the grader. Apparently I'm actually very good at grading roads. Who knew? And then I also got licensed on some of the like, extra heavy equipment just because I was there and I wanted to learn and I didn't want to just sit around and do nothing. I was one-- when I was in Superior, I was also the only female for a good amount of time with the rear det. It was an all-male unit and it was just as they were opening up those units to females and the combat arms to females. So, there was 01:33:00a period of time where I was the only female. And so, I remember one of the NCOs who was doing-- they were licensing people on what was called a LET, which was a light equipment transport vehicle. So, it was a big truck with a big trailer. And he's like, "Oh, great, I've been dealing with junior soldiers all day," and, you know, they turn the corners and drop the trailer into the ditch. He's like, "Now I have to deal with a female driver, ha-ha." And I'm like, okay, we're going to prove you wrong. And [laughs] basic geometry is a thing. And I knew how to navigate that trailer through the roads. And he was actually pretty impressed by the end of that. And I was pretty proud that I got to prove him wrong. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Did you encounter much of that?

THOMSEN: No. Like, they would make, you know, they knew where the line was for 01:34:00me. I was very clear on where the line was. And they could make jokes about female drivers and that didn't really bother me. But at the end of the day, like if we went out or we were doing anything and somebody tried messing with me, they were like brothers and they were like, "nope, we got your back, this guy's going down" kind of thing. So, that was the most that the male-female taunting went.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

THOMSEN: Yeah. No, that was it.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So, you get through graduate school, you graduate, you become a chiropractor.

THOMSEN: Mm-hm.

SPRAGUE: What happened next?

THOMSEN: So, out of graduate school, the first job I took as a chiropractor was at Bronston Chiropractic in Sparta, Wisconsin. And I knew that I was going to be moving to Sparta. And I kind of had this conversation with my unit, and I was like, "Guys, I don't want to be driving from Sparta to Superior for drill." From 01:35:00the Twin Cities to Superior was about a two-and-a-half-hour drive. Going to Sparta was going to make it a three and a half hour or more drive, especially in the winter. And I'm like, "I don't want to leave you guys out, you know, a head medic, but we got to find something else." And at that point in time, I was attending continuing education for my medical stuff in Fort McCoy. There's a class that is like, 68 Whiskey sustainment class, which is intended to get you all the continuing education credits for CPR, make sure that your EMT license was up to date and then fulfills the military's requirements for the combat medic stuff. And the head-- the course manager for that was Sergeant First Class Peter DeVries, and they had an orthopedics class within this continuing education because they had the classes laid out where they have to have specific 01:36:00hours in certain topics. And there was one like, a couple hour black in orthopedics. And the person that they had teaching the orthopedics class was clearly inexperienced with orthopedics. Like, they kind of were like, "Well, you're here. Can you teach this," kind of deal. And so I ended up speaking up and I'm like, "Well, that's actually not really how that works." And I would kind of explain it. And by the end of the class, I ended up teaching most of it. [laughs] So, a couple-- probably a month or two after the completion of that course, Sergeant DeVries called me and I was like, "Oh, great." Like, "What did I do? Who did I make mad now?" He's like, "No," like, "We were really impressed with you during our last class, and we wanted to ask if you were interested in taking an instructor slot down in Fort McCoy." And I was like, "Really?" And he's like, "Yeah." So, you know, had that conversation with my unit. The unit was, I think at that point just starting to drill after their deployment. I think I drilled with them a couple of times once their deployment was done and 01:37:00then so I was like, "All right, you guys, you need to find a different head medic," like, "I'm going to transfer down to this Fort McCoy unit because it's right there. And I think it'll be a really good learning opportunity for me." So, I took the job in Sparta, moved to Sparta, and then simultaneously transferred down to the Wisconsin Military Academy, which is the 426th Regional Training Institute as a medical instructor.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And you had listed that on your pre-interview form. Was it the second battalion 426?

THOMSEN: Yup. The Wisconsin Military Academy houses multiple battalions. The battalions are like, 30 people each. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Okay. I wondered about that. I remember seeing that. I'm like, that's not a battalion.

THOMSEN: Yeah, no. The first battalion is their field artillery, second battalion is their modular, which is where they housed-- we've got 68 Whiskeys and 88 Mikes, which are the truck drivers, and they teach a unit movement 01:38:00officer's course.

SPRAGUE: I'm not familiar with the term modular leading a unit name. How does that work?

THOMSEN: I have no idea. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Okay.

THOMSEN: Your guess is as good as mine. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Okay. I had just never seen it used that way before. That's why I'm asking.

THOMSEN: Yup, I don't know why it is that way.

SPRAGUE: So, tell me about being that senior medical instructor there.

THOMSEN: So, I actually started out as a junior medical instructor there.

SPRAGUE: Okay, my bad.

THOMSEN: Yup. And so, it was on the tail end of it being a state led program, which is what the 68 Whiskey sustainment was. The unit was different. It was definitely-- you worked really, really hard when you were in courses and then when you weren't in course, there is still some work to be done. But you were 01:39:00able to like, let back a little bit, I guess. We would have more time within our sections, more training opportunities because we, being a schoolhouse, were a little bit better funded than, say, a line company. So, I had never had this before. Like, actually being able to do medical training at drill. And so, that was a new experience for me. Like, I had senior NCOs and senior medics and even an occasional medical officer that were willing to sit down and spend time with us and teach us how to do things. Whereas before I was kind of always figuring it out myself. And at first being an instructor was really daunting to me. I was like, man, I'm responsible for all these students learning this topic. And it was pretty intimidating. But I quickly learned that not only was I good at it, but I enjoyed it and it was a really fulfilling position for me. And I was able 01:40:00to stay in that unit. I'm fortunate enough that I was offered my E-7 in that unit and became the senior medical instructor. And part of me is kind of hoping I can ride it out until retirement. But I know that even if I can't, like, this is probably one of the most rewarding positions in the Army that I've done.

SPRAGUE: So, you had said in one of your pre-interviews you find passing that knowledge on is very rewarding to you?

THOMSEN: It is.

SPRAGUE: Tell me a little bit more about that, if you could.

THOMSEN: To me, it's kind of leaving a legacy. Even, you know, I'm getting ready to retire in a couple of years, probably two, two and a half, three-ish maybe. And I get to pass on knowledge to a class of 15 to 20 students, and then they get to take it back to their units and put it into practice. And that's stuff 01:41:00that's going to live beyond me and beyond my career. And it's, you know, maybe if I can influence even just one soldier and they can be like, in a situation where they need to use something and they're like, "Man, I remember Sergeant Thomsen taught me how to do this, and I'm really grateful for that." And that's, you know, it's really cool to me. It's fulfilling and it's that legacy that's not-- that's going to exist beyond my military career.

SPRAGUE: It sounds like you had some flexibility with your weekend drill dates, too.

THOMSEN: Yeah. So, if there-- I mean, we always have drill on a set weekend, but there's always opportunities to either pick up extra time or to kind of transfer time. So, we also, within the modular battalion, have an OCS in the WOCS program. So, a lot of times they'll drill on different weekends and they'll need medical support. Or if for whatever reason HHC is drilling on a different 01:42:00weekend and they need medical support or if we have a class going on. The classes are 14 days straight. So, if they need extra help, they are more than willing to be like, "Oh yeah, you can trade that drill for coming in and teaching with us."

SPRAGUE: You had mentioned Sergeant First Class Peter DeVries.

THOMSEN: DeVries.

SPRAGUE: How do you spell that again?

THOMSEN: D-E-V, capital V, he gets very particular about that. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: D-E-V, got it.

THOMSEN: R-I-E-S.

SPRAGUE: okay. Tell me about getting COVID orders and doing that.

THOMSEN: [laughs] All right. So, that's fast forwarding a little bit.

SPRAGUE: Okay, my bad.

THOMSEN: No, no, that's fine. Fast forwarding in my civilian career. I had 01:43:00already left the job in Sparta and moved up to Fall Creek in the Eau Claire area. And I liked the position. I liked being in private practice. But I don't think it was really where my heart was. And the opportunity for COVID orders came about. In the beginning, it wasn't super voluntary because being in the med-- they were calling up pretty much all the medical personnel that weren't like, working in hospitals and all the chemical personnel for like, become decontamination purposes. So, in March of 2020, shortly after the governor shut down the state of Wisconsin, I got called up to be on COVID orders. And it happened in stages. So, at first I was the NCYC of the group out of Camp 01:44:00Douglas. We had a group of medics that were on call, so to speak, in Camp Douglas in case the state needed us for a specific mission. And we were only given a couple of missions to complete while at that point in time, most of which be like, we had a couple of medics that were actually like, CNAs or registered nurses in that group, and they ended up going to help out a nursing home that had a staffing shortage because a lot of their medical nurses and CNAs kind of walked out and were like, "We're not dealing with this COVID pandemic," because COVID was running rampant through the nursing homes. And so we ended up being there supporting the staff and helping out. And then we kind of moved into the second phase of the COVID orders, where all the original groups had kind of gotten disbanded and we got formed into different teams. And then I became the NCOIC of a testing team. And so we were in charge of setting up COVID testing 01:45:00sites like community sites around the state. The first COVID testing site that we did was in Buffalo County. I had done one or two others, and then we kind of became permanently stationed in North Milwaukee.

SPRAGUE: First of all, what, for the civilians who are listening, what does state orders mean? What does that mean?

THOMSEN: So, we were activated by the state. Being in the Wisconsin National Guard, our commander in chief is technically the governor as well as the president. The president can put us on federal orders. But if the governor needs to activate the state for taking care of pandemic reasons or natural disasters, I know when I was in the Superior unit, they had a big storm that had come 01:46:00through with flooding. And so, they had activated specifically the engineer company to come and clear a lot of the trees that had fallen and help with a lot of the flooding repair. So, we were initially put on the state active-duty orders like in March, from March to April. And then President Trump authorized those orders to become federal after that. We might want to--

SPRAGUE: Take a break? [Thomsen laughs] Let's take a break. This ends segment two. So, this is Luke Sprague with Wisconsin Veterans Museum and Dr. Angela Thomsen and her son, Jackson.

THOMSEN: Mm-hm.

SPRAGUE: And we're going to continue with the interview. So, Angela, tell me about what you found rewarding about working the COVID.

THOMSEN: Sure. I don't think it was really until being in North Milwaukee that it kind of hit me. But we were working in our community, helping our neighbors. 01:47:00I remember because with it being North Milwaukee, it was a little bit more of an underprivileged area that we were working out of. And it's like, there were people who would sit in line at this testing station for hours. And I got to talking to some of them, and a lot of them were required to get tested either every day or every week because of work. Otherwise, they couldn't go to their jobs. And they were so very grateful that they had this service in their community where they could go and get tested so that they could continue going to work. So, to me, being on COVID orders, while quite stressful a lot of the time, was almost more rewarding than my work in Iraq because I was able to help people in Wisconsin and [inaudible].

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. That sounds good. So, you're still serving. Tell me about 01:48:00joining the VFW.

THOMSEN: All right. I think I originally joined the VFW right after my deployment in 2010. But I wasn't really-- I wasn't active at all. I didn't go to any meetings. I didn't even belong to a post. I was a member at large. And it wasn't until going to grad school where I had met one of the admissions advisors at the school was an Army veteran, and he had worked PSYOPs in like, the '80s and '90s and he was like, "Hey," like, "I'm a member of the VFW post." It was Post 426 in uptown Minneapolis. "Do you want to join our post?" And I'm like, "All right, I'll check it out." And so, I went to the first post meeting and I was like, "Yeah, let's transfer my membership." It was, to me, it was a group of people and a group of veterans and whether or not, you know, they served in Iraq 01:49:00or Vietnam or we even had a World War Two veteran, it was a community to me that had been missing throughout my grad school experience and even, you know, life before grad school. You know, people that served in different branches of the military or in different eras of war, but still had this brotherhood and this community and camaraderie that you couldn't find anywhere else. And so I became active with the post, and by that I had become like, the JAG officer or the adjutant judge advocate. It was the judge advocate and worked in that position for a couple of years. And there wasn't usually anything that the judge advocate at that post really had to do. But I did get involved with some of the programing that they did, and I ended up coordinating like coordination. It was 01:50:00with me and that admission adviser. We were able to coordinate like, a partnering event with the school that I was attending and that he worked at. And we put on an event a couple of times while I was in school called Feed Him and Treat Him. And so it was a free event at the VFW hall where veterans could come and get evaluated by chiropractors. We also had massage therapists and acupuncturists because those were other programs at my school and they can get like, treatments and samples of like, things that we did for free and then we would also host a meal for them. And so it was, you know, a way to give back to our communities veterans, but then also a way for them to hopefully find relief in those alternative methods instead of seeking out the pain meds and stuff that they might have gotten through their doctors or VA or whatever have you. So, to me, that was a pretty cool experience getting to see this, you know, Gulf War 01:51:00veteran that had, you know, low back pain for how many years. And we might not be able to take the low back pain away, but we could at least help him. And so once I finished grad school and moved to Wisconsin, I knew that I wanted to still remain active in the VFW. When I first took my job in Sparta, I didn't join a post then. I kept my membership up in Minnesota. It wasn't until I moved to Fall Creek in the Eau Claire area where I transferred my membership in and decided to become a more active member of that post. I kind of jumped in right away and became their junior vice commander, which is like, the third in charge. They have a commander senior vice and then the junior vice. And I stayed there for a couple of years. And then I actually just completed last year was my first year as commander. I was the first female commander of that post. The first OIF 01:52:00veteran, I believe, or there might have been one before me. But very, very few OIF veterans. And then I was also the first commander to lead the post to an All-State and an All-American Award.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So, which post was this in Eau Claire?

THOMSEN: Post 7232.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And what were some of the challenges you faced as the first woman commander?

THOMSEN: There were times when I felt like I had to beg people to get them to do anything. I had to, at one post meeting, I specifically pulled out the VFW bylaws and read them the VFW mission statement because I really wanted them to understand. Like, we are a nonprofit veteran's service organization that is here to help veterans. Not to serve ourselves. And it took me doing that a couple times before I think I got the point across. I know that there were some less 01:53:00active members of the post, we like to call them the barstool commanders, that had a lot to say about the way that I was running things, but they would never show up to meetings and voice these opinions. They would just sit at the bar and drink and talk about it. And then I, you know, they talk about it around the wrong people and I catch wind of it. But I think, you know, after a while they started seeing the good that the post was doing and the, you know, the things we were doing in the community, the things that we were doing to help veterans. And, you know, once we won that All-State and All-American Awards, they kind of started to shut up. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: So, for the non-VFW members on the line, explain to them what All-State and All-American means.

THOMSEN: Sure. So, All-State and All-American, they're kind of one in the same, but a little bit different. It's an award. It's a recognition saying that your post has done A, B and C to earn these awards and recognition. So, you have to 01:54:00do a certain number of volunteer hours. You have to do a certain number of like, poppy drives. You have to do partnering events with other organizations within the community. And really it shows that you're giving back and it gets your name out in the community and helps not only veterans but also community members in need, too.

SPRAGUE: We had talked about this a little bit before the interview. Tell me about being the, for the district, the junior vice.

THOMSEN: I'm the junior vice for the district. That's a new position for me. I became junior vice in the new command year, which starts in July. So, I'm still learning the position. As being the junior vice, there's not a ton for me to do, but I am going to be doing my first post inspection next week, so that'll be a new experience. But just being more involved at the district level, it's been 01:55:00kind of eye opening. You sit at the post level and all you think about and do is post level stuff, but then you get into the district and the district encompasses, you know, 20, 30 posts and it's more-- it's a little bit more focused on like, how to support the posts rather than how do we support the community. So, that's kind of interesting.

SPRAGUE: And that's district nine?

THOMSEN: District nine, yup.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So, you look like you were a national Aide-De-Camp?

THOMSEN: I was a national Aide-De-Camp last year. I was appointed by then State Commander Cory Geisler. I didn't actually get used for that position, but it was an honor to be recognized to begin with. They really use that as a way to recognize members of the state-- members across the state who are doing a good job and working hard. So, it was really an honor. And I was pretty like, 01:56:00baffled. And at first I was like, I don't even know what this means, but it is a position that they use more for honor. But if you do have to do anything, it is a position where if people from national come, you might have to, you know, help them out, show them around, spend some time with them, stuff like that.

SPRAGUE: Tell me about being state surgeon.

THOMSEN: [Laughs] Again, another new position to me. Again, I accepted that position with the new commander that started in July. I was appointed by now State Commander Michelle Rathke. I'm still getting-- wrapping my head around the position. I know that there is so much more that can be done with the position than what I have done and what the people before me have done. But you know, I haven't quite gotten there yet. One, because I'm still learning what I can do. 01:57:00But then also having an eight-week-old has, you know, put a little bit of a hold on some of the stuff that I envision and want to be able to do. But so far I've done-- I have to write a paper or an article for the VFW state paper. So, that's been kind of fun. The first article was more of an introduction. The second one I talked about suicide awareness and the new 988 hotline, and I'm hoping to, you know, be able to keep spreading, you know, health and wellness news that were out. I've been asked to help coordinate like, different hospital visits with the big VA hospitals within the state and the veterans' homes, which I'm still working on some of that and I'm hoping to just expand this position and be able to focus on, you know, health and wellness among our veteran community. Which ties well into my job.

SPRAGUE: Mm-hm. So, with the understanding, you're still drilling, you're still in the National Guard, but you're somewhere down the road, you're going to retire.

THOMSEN: Yup.

SPRAGUE: Up until this point, how do you think being in the military has changed your life?

THOMSEN: [Sighs] Well, there are a lot of times that I would like to look back on it and being like, man, that was kind of a pain in the butt. [laughs] But I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for the military. I am a first-generation college student and then I went on to graduate school. Like, for my family, that's unheard of. My parents both work in a factory and they provided us a really good life. But I knew that that's not what I wanted for myself. And had I not joined the Wisconsin National Guard and gotten tuition reimbursement and, you know, the other educational benefits, I probably wouldn't have gone to college. I wouldn't definitely have not gone to graduate school. And it's made me more aware of, you know, other people's situations. It's made 01:59:00me probably a little bit more diverse than, you know, what I would have been staying in central Wisconsin in a small town. And it's definitely made me more determined. I was always pretty determined and kind of, you know, did my own thing in the way I wanted it to. But it kind of gives me that drive and especially when people tell me that I can't do something in life, you know, watch me. And it's been, you know, pretty cool. There's a lot of people, especially going through grad school or even in my career, that are like, they can't believe that I'm in the Army and that I've done the things that I've done. And it's rewarding and it's fulfilling. And, you know, it helps me think that I'm fulfilling at least some small purpose in life.

SPRAGUE: Next month we have Veterans Day. What are your thoughts on Veterans Day 02:00:00and Memorial Day?

THOMSEN: I feel like people get it really mixed up a lot.

SPRAGUE: Yup.

THOMSEN: Yeah, they don't realize that Veterans Day is to honor our current veterans that are either still serving or have served. And Memorial Day is for those that have gone before us and passed away in whether it be the line of service or, you know, as a result of their service in some way. They also think of Memorial Day as this, you know, extra three-day weekend and it bothers me. I like to take my time on both Veterans Day and Memorial Day to honor those people that have served and have gone before us. And being involved in the VFW is, you know, a really good way for me to do that. Our VFW post in particular participates in multiple Meet Our Veterans Day services with the community. I know we do one with the high school and there's also a middle school we go to 02:01:00for Memorial Day and we work with the Boy Scouts in the area and place flags on the graves of veterans. And we have a specific graveyard or cemetery that we work with. So, we put flags out for them and we march in the Memorial Day parade in Eau Claire and we have our own Memorial Day service at our post and we participate in other Memorial Day services. So, those days tend to get really busy for us, but it's really important. It's very important. And to remember those that have served, to honor those that have served and to just take some time to reflect on what they've done for us and for our country.

SPRAGUE: What motivated you to do this interview?

THOMSEN: I don't feel like I had a choice in the matter, actually. [laughs]

SPRAGUE: Oh, no! That's not good.

THOMSEN: No, no, it was good. I didn't know what to expect, but it was-- we were down in Milwaukee for the state VFW convention and Commander Michelle Rahtke was 02:02:00like, "Hey, they're doing this thing for female veterans and we're going, and you're coming with." So, I was kind of kidnapped during the state convention [Sprague laughs] and I didn't know what to expect. So, I got to the University of Milwaukee and, you know, started filling out the paperwork and was talking with you and the other people there that were supporting the event. And I got to realize, like what it was all about. And I've been to the Wisconsin Veterans Museum, so I had like an idea of the history behind everything. And then I had heard about the I Am Not Invisible project when I had visited the Highgrounds. They actually had a mini women's veterans thing in their museum at the time that I had gone. And so I was like, oh, this is really cool. So, I took some time and went through what they had there at the time. And then, you know, it kind of dawned on me like, oh, I'm going to be on a poster for I'm Not Invisible and I'm going to be part of that project and that's really cool. And so, you know, I 02:03:00agreed to go forward after, you know, so jokingly being forced into it because being a veteran and being a female veteran in particular, it's important that, you know, I feel like I may not have done anything significant in my military service or not that significant, but it's important that we're seen. We're not invisible and that it's important that all female veterans know that and that we are important. And we have done something significant and important with our service.

SPRAGUE: Did we miss anything that you'd like to cover?

THOMSEN: I am starting a new position as a chiropractor in the Tomah VA next month, or in December. I, you know, as previously stated, have worked in private practice for since I graduated and it's been good to me. I've learned a lot, but it was never really where my heart was. And working for the Tomah VA or the VA 02:04:00in general, I applied for jobs all over the country, not even thinking I would get into the VA. But working for the VA has been my dream job because it combines my passion of, you know, chiropractic care and helping people manage their pain and, you know, maybe fix some issues and helping veterans. And I'm going to be able to do that every day. And I hope that, you know, day in and day out when the grind is really getting to me and, you know, there are some days where maybe I'm not so thrilled to go to work for whatever reason. Like, that's always going to be there and that's going to always be my motivation. Like, I'm going to work today to help a veteran and that's pretty awesome.

SPRAGUE: Yeah, it sounds like it.

THOMSEN: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Anything else you want to say about that?

THOMSEN: I don't think so.

SPRAGUE: Okay, then that will conclude our interview.

THOMSEN: All right.

SPRAGUE: Thank you, Dr. Angela Thomsen.

THOMSEN: Thank you.