Oral History Interview with Mary Ann Christopherson

[Interview Begins]

SPRAGUE: Today is January 6 , 2023. This is an interview with Mary Ann Christopherson, who served in the United States Army Reserve and Wisconsin Army National Guard from 1984 to 2014.

CHRISTOPHERSON: '13.

SPRAGUE: '13. Okay. Mary Ann entered the service as Mary Ann Rohde

CHRISTOPHERSON: Rohde.

SPRAGUE: Rohde. Okay. And this interview is being conducted by Luke D. Sprague at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Library in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, for the I Am Not Invisible project, as part of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History program. Her husband, husband correct? Roy is present in the room. Okay, Mary Ann, we talked a little bit about this before the interview, and I'm going to get to ask you again. Where did you grow up?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I grew up most of my life in Altoona, Wisconsin.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And what was that like?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Small town. Everybody knew everybody. I was in a class of maybe 00:01:0030 something. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: High school class.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: But I didn't end up graduating from there. I, my parents decided to move in my senior year, and so I ended up graduating from Eau Claire North.

SPRAGUE: Oh, okay. And what did your family do, if you don't mind me asking, in Altoona and Eau Claire?

CHRISTOPHERSON: My dad was a retired Air Force colonel. When he retired, we were living in San Diego, moved up here, and he then got a job. He had worked with the farmer store and eventually became a, the bookstore manager for the University of Wisconsin Stout. They never had a bookstore before they hired him, so he started and ran the bookstore until he retired. My mother was a beautician at the old Hotel Eau Claire.

SPRAGUE: What initially got you thinking about joining the military?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Well, most--a little bit, because Dad was in the military, but also because I knew if I stayed in for 20 years, I'd have a retirement and things like that. I wasn't even looking at massive benefits or anything like that. It's just it was something, it was a part time job. And so I, that's all I was looking at.

SPRAGUE: So you had mentioned your father served and had made colonel?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yes.

SPRAGUE: Did you have other family members who served as well?

CHRISTOPHERSON: My uncle, my dad's brother, he was in the Army, and he served in Korea. Dad was World War Two.

SPRAGUE: If you don't mind, for the record, could you mention your dad and your uncle's names?

CHRISTOPHERSON: My dad was Ray William Rohde, and my uncle was William Ray Rohde. I believe his middle name was Ray, yeah, William Ray Rohde.

SPRAGUE: Okay, so even with that background, what did your family say when you said you were joining up?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Not much. They didn't say anything. Nope. Dad was--Dad was just, dad was very calm kind of a person. My mother, she if she said anything, she didn't say anything to me, so.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Um, so when did you enlist?

CHRISTOPHERSON: It'd be March of '84. I joined the National Guard, served with the 13th Evac. Hospital out of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. And it was a 400-bed hospital, field hospital. I served there for ten years. We were activated in the Persian Gulf War.

SPRAGUE: Okay, we're going to. Yeah, absolutely. Good. Good intro. We're going to get, we're going to get to all that.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Okay.

SPARGUE: But I and I appreciate that intro. Yeah. For the 13th Evac, when you 00:04:00enlisted, was it with a specific purpose that your enlistment contract guarantee that you go to the Wisconsin National Guard and the 13th Evac. or?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah. As a medic.

SPRAGUE: As a medic. Okay. Where did you go to basic.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Fort Sam--Fort, Fort Jackson, Carolina.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And coming from north central Wisconsin, or western Wisconsin, what was that like?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Well, it's all interesting. It's all different. [Laughs] So. But it wasn't so bad. I was the oldest person, I think I was, I was about 30 years old when I joined, so I was older than anybody else.

SPRAGUE: Wow. Okay. So yeah, that, huh--Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: How did that make your experience for basic?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Well, I had the attitude I wasn't going to let anybody beat me.

SPRAGUE: [Laughs]

CHRISTOPHERSON: I sat in the chow hall and watched all these young men in their civilian clothes being mustering out. So, yeah, they were leaving, they couldn't make it. So I just. I felt proud of myself, I guess.

SPRAGUE: Wow. Okay. Um, any--What kind of--did you meet any interesting people while at basic.

CHRISTOPHERSON: A lot of people remember their basic. I don't remember anybody.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: I remember one person who was heavyset. She could knock out, pu--sit ups to beat the band, but she couldn't do pushups, so she ended up recycling. They had to run it through basic again. And, uh, but she was a chubby girl, and she could do sit ups like nothing. She could run, but she just couldn't do the pushups. But, you know, I don't remember her name. I don't remember where she's from. Don't remember, I don't pay attention to people that much, I guess.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Uh, any drill sergeants that you remember in particular?

CHRISTOPHERSON: We had, our drill sergeant was Sergeant Clayton. He did have an assistant that showed up a little while later, a little short gal. And I know 00:06:00that when we go jogging, on our six mile run, she would literally run circles around our, our platoon, literally. And she just ran and ran and ran. I hate running. [both laugh] I hate running.

SPRAGUE: At that time, that would have been '84.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Mm-hmm.

SPRAGUE: Were, were the units coed or--

CHRISTOPHERSON: No.

SPRAGUE: Were they split? How did that work?

CHRISTOPHERSON: They were split.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Split.

SPRAGUE: By squad? By company? By unit? How did that work?

CHRISTOPHERSON: What do you mean?

SPRAGUE: How did they segregate the men from the women?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Oh they're just totally gone on the others--They weren't even near us.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Um, moving on. Getting to becoming a medic, and AIT [Advanced Individual Training]. What, uh, what was your thinking about becoming a medic?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I signed up as a medic because I thought it would give you basic medical skills that one could use in everyday life. I wasn't good enough to be a 00:07:00nurse or a doctor, or anything like that. I didn't have the smarts for that, but I thought a medic would be good because that was good for everyday life. And so training down in Fort Sam was, it was, it was fun, and it was interesting. And we got to, back then, we were giving shots before even the EMTs here today could give them, you know, today. Now they can put in an I.V. and give shots, back when I was a medic, they weren't allowed to do that. And so I felt better than them or something because I was able, I had practice and giving shots and was able to put in IVs and things like this, and I thought that was pretty neat.

SPRAGUE: What was the training like at Fort Sam?

CHRISTOPHERSON: It was fun. It was interesting. We had all kinds of characters there in the class. Yes. [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: What was the length of the advanced training?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I wanna say upwards, almost six months, I think basic was, eight 00:08:00weeks, basic was eight weeks. And maybe advanced training was three months, then that's what, probably what, I think it probably was. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Um, and you were a 91A.

CHRISTOPHERSON: My contract actually says 91A/B, because back then they were, they were transitioning between making it a 91B, A to a B or whatever was vice versa. So my contract actually says a 91A/B because they didn't know what it was going to be. [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: Wow, okay. Any memorable experiences from advanced training?

CHRISTOPHERSON: We had one guy there who thought he was a ninja, so literally. So he was kind of weird. We had one guy. His last name was [Coffin??], and we would, on break, would stand outside under the overhang or whatever that was 00:09:00supported by I-beams, and he would stand inside these I-beams, cuddle right inside these I-beams during break and write really, really tiny in a notebook. And I looked over it, it's just the print's, probably the same size as what you have on your paper there. I mean, it's very small and that's what he would write. Apparently, I think he was writing a letter to his mother, or his aunt, or something too. But he was kind of an odd character, too. And then there was one character there that was supposedly a security guard in Washington, D.C. and by the question he asked, and I won't repeat it here, he asked in class one day, and we decided, I hope he's nev--we never need his medical assistance because he was just too strange.

SPRAGUE: [Laughs]

CHRISTOPHERSON: So, the, you know, the army, I guess, would take everybody and anybody, figure everybody's trainable. So here you go. [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: Huh.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Don't know what happened to these people. So.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Did you meet anyone in basic or AIT you saw later in your career?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No.

SPRAGUE: No. Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Nope.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So let's get back to where you were there with the 13th Evac.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Okay.

SPRAGUE: Coming back to Wisconsin.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Okay.

SPRAGUE: The first question that comes to my mind is why, why did you choose National Guard over, initially, over reserve, or just plain old active duty?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Actually, I think it's because they had an ad in the, ad--in the want ads section of the newspaper. Back then, they always had want ads for jobs and stuff, they don't do that anymore, But then I saw that and I thought, hmm, why not? You can serve Wisconsin. That's, you know, you know, called up for floods, or storms or whatever. That would be kind of a neat idea. And the person I talked to was real nice and, and helpful. So I thought, why not?

SPRAGUE: Just out of curiosity, where was that recruiter out of.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Where did I go to meet that person? I think in Eau Claire here at uh, prob--gosh, I don't even remember where I went, but it was here in Eau 00:11:00Claire. Don't remember.

SPRAGUE: Okay, and you were, you had mentioned you were part of the 13th Evacuation Battalion, but you served out of a unit in Chippewa Falls.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Right. 13th Evac Hospital was, it was headquartered out of Madison. We had three detachments. We were Det. 2 up in Chippewa. We had a Det. in Marshfield and one in--Madison, Wausau, I believe, and I could be wrong on that, anyway. Yeah, so we were Det. 2. And as I said, we were 400 bed evacuation, much like what you'd see on MASH, I guess as the equivalent to just better equipment, newer equipment, stuff like that. We still had inflatables and things like that. So it was, it was, yeah, it was nice. It was fun. Very, very, the people there all worked hard, played hard together.

SPRAGUE: About what was the size of the unit in Chippewa Falls the Det. 2, 00:12:00roughly the size--?

CHRISTOPHERSON: 100.

SPRAGUE: 100, okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Maybe.

SPRAGUE: Wow. Okay. Wow. And where was the National Guard post in, in Chippewa?

CHRISTOPHERSON: We actually had a, we met in one of the buildings at the Northern Center, and then we were rated number one in the country, so the state decided to build us a new armory, which is up there. It's up on Park Avenue near the Chippewa Falls Veterans Home.

SPRAGUE: Okay, so 1984, 1985 were pre Gulf War or pre 9/11. What was, what was drill like?

CHRISTOPHERSON: A lot of simulation. [both laugh] Yeah, well drill, drill was drill and we would work on things at training, obviously. We did our two-week 00:13:00annual training we went to we'd gone to San Francisco, we went to South Carolina, I think it is. And we were able to go around different places, a lot of time at Fort McCoy, an awful lot of time at McCoy, but it was just your basic training. Nothing great.

SPRAGUE: Mm. On the civilian side, what were you doing at that time?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I worked for Cray Research, and I was, I had just signed up with the National Guard. I was also looking for another job. For a job. And I had applied at Cray Research for the Security Department. And I told them, straight up, that I had signed up with the National Guard, and that summer I was going to AIT, I believe, and if they didn't want to hire me, that was fine, but I was going for AIT. I explained to them what my AIT was and stuff like that, and they still hired me anyway. So I was appreciative of that.

SPRAGUE: What, I'm always curious, how does the dynamic work out between working for that civilian employer and drilling a weekend a month in that two weeks a year, in this case with Cray? How, how does that--

CHRISTOPHERSON: Cray was very, very good about military leave and stuff like that. There was no issues at all. Not at all. So and, you know, if, if I had to, being security, you're there 24/7. So if I had to switch or anything like that, we can switch and, and or, the unit was just up the road a piece, so I could get done with drill on Saturday and go to work. You know, I'll work till 11 to 7 or something, whatever it was, go home and then come back to drill. So it was not an issue at all.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Literally up the road in that case.

CHRISTOPHERSON: It was, yeah.

SPRAGUE: You mentioned monthly training and then AIT, or not AIT sorry, annual 00:15:00training, AT. Was there any particular annual trainings that you remember that stick out in your head?

CHRISTOPHERSON: [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: That you care to remember?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Oh yeah. We had, my very first annual training. We head down to, I guess South Carolina, Fort Jackson. Is that where South--is that where it's at? Okay, South Carolina, Fort Jackson. And it was what they call an external [??], it was a test, okay, to see how good we were. And that was, that was quite fun. That was, that was interesting. But we yeah, it was interesting. It's a lot of fun. We had a lot of play, play acting. You know, we you know, we had a soldier that came through, he's supposedly psychotic and one of our nurses was chasing, I mean it, it was crazy some things. And then, when we got all done, we were at, at the end of every annual training, we always have a picnic, and a volleyball games, and stuff like that, and found out that one of the girls there 00:16:00could actually do a cartwheel without sp--spilling her drink. So she, she was one of our cheerleaders at our volleyball games. We had a couple of girls pretend to be cheerleaders, and we found out she could do a cartwheel without spilling a drink.

SPRAGUE: Wow.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah, that was good. [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: Oh, you had mentioned during the pre-interview with us, um, the work hard, play hard thing, and also the family like connections you had with your unit. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

CHRISTOPHERSON: We always, we always got along really well. All of us got along really well. We're all good friends, like family. We worked hard during the day to get the work done, and then at night we would play hard. Everybody showed up the next day. We had a first sergeant that could drink anybody under the table, but he was there before anybody else the next day, standing tall in front of the group. And so we played hard, and worked hard and played hard. When it came time 00:17:00to like the picnic after annual training, family was always invited. So we had good camaraderie with the fam--wives and stuff like this. So it was just, it was one great big group of really nice people. We all got along really well.

SPRAGUE: What was the relationship in the National Guard between the officers and the enlisted?

CHRISTOPHERSON: They played right along with us. They worked side by side. When we were learning about the new medical, what they called DEPMEDS, medical buildings. We went to training down at Camp Bullis, right outside of San Antonio there. And, all the, all the nurses and doctors worked right side by side with us. And we, when we had break, we would be together. And yeah, there was no animosities at all. There was nothing but friendship. So that was, my favorite 00:18:00was, was the National Guard was my favorite unit, of all units I belong to.

SPRAGUE: Do you think that was a function of it being a National Guard unit versus being a reserve unit?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yes, because they do function differently, even though they have the same standard operating procedures, same SOP, same rules and regulations as the reserve side, there are just very minimal things that are different. And yeah, the, the reserve side, it was totally different.

SPRAGUE: So you're working at Cray, you're drilling with the guard. Tell me about, tell me about when you got the word and you knew about what was going to happen during Desert Storm, Desert Shield.

CHRISTOPHERSON: I was at work when I got the call, So the first thing I do is call my parents, of course, and it just takes off from there. You start 00:19:00planning. I was renting a house, but I didn't want to lose it. You know, and so you got to shut down the house. Make sure you make--I had my father make su--have the rent paid every month, and, and then we had to pack everything that we were going to take with us, and we went down to Fort McCoy and stationed there before takeoff, and we had a team of people that would, when it came time to leave, would load up the plane with all our gear, three times before we actually took off. So what was funny was we were the 13th Evac, our flight was number 13, and we landed like on the 13th. So we didn't know if that was an omen or what, [both laugh] but that's the way it ended up. But yeah, and so while we sat down there, we sat down there. Let's see, we got activated somewheres around Thanksgiving time and we sat down there till January. So it was quite a long time.

SPRAGUE: Did you have a moniker for the 13th? The lucky 13th?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No, no, no. Nothing like that.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And I have to ask, what, when you finally went down to McCoy, what was it, when the last time when you left your family, what was that like?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Not a big deal for me. Like I says, my parents are, you know they're, didn't get upset or anything, like this. And besides, we had, there was one weekend they just let us go home. So, you know, family come down, pick us up. We all went home for the weekend. And so it was, yeah, it was not a problem. Like I says we were down there six weeks or so. So you had time to call home and talk any time. So. But for me, it wasn't anything.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Um. And where did you leave out of, from Fort McCoy you went to--?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Douglas. Camp Douglas and I flew out of there.

SPRAGUE: Where'd you go after that?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Where did we fly to?

SPRAGUE: Yes, ma'am.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Probably. No it wasn't King. Some--it had to of been in Saudi. I don't know if it was like [Riyadh??] or what it, where it was. And then from there they bussed us to, a place we used ca--what's it called? We used to call it--it was just a group of buildings that the Saudis had for us. All the troops were there. If you remember the Kuwait Towers and stuff, that's what it looked like. It was all these buildings, seven floors, eight floors tall, all the same. And that's where we all were placed, stationed there until they could move us out to the site. And when it came time to finally move us out to the site, they were rushing us. So we, everybody had two duffel bags of stuff. And so they wanted us to hurry. So here I am. I'm just five foot tall. I got a duffel bag on 00:22:00my back and one on my front, and I'm trying to run to this deuce and a half, and you throw your crap up on it, and that's the last you saw it. You can only hope that, that you'd see it again. And being 400 bed hospital, we had several hundred people to, to move with their gear and everything else. And that was not a fun trip, that, they, they put us armpit to armpit in the back of this deuce and a half closed down the flaps. We never saw where we were going. The drivers drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and when they stopped, it was obviously nighttime, and the drivers never told us why we were stopping. We just sat there for the longest time. Finally, someone comes around and looks in the back to see if we're still there, and we says, "well, why'd we stop?" "Well, we had to get something to eat." Like, you guys got something to eat, but none of us in the back here got an MRE [meal ready-to-eat] or anything to eat. We nev--none of us had anything to eat. And then we got to this one point and then they loaded us up on choppers. And the first grid coordinates that the pilot 00:23:00got, there was nothing but a heard a camels. The second grid coordinates there wasn't nothing at all. And I think the third one was just on the other side of the, what they call the front line, whatever that was back then. And they drove us out in back of deuces to our site. And it was a dark, middle of the night, cold. So they said, just grab a tent, go inside of the tent and lay down and go to sleep. Well, thank God I, I had bought a small aluminum pot and a little stove type thing where you burn the, what do you call the thing you burn? The little--

SPRAGUE: Sterno.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Sterno type thing. It wasn't Sterno like that, but it was a, because it was a chunk of something. But anyway, you're right. So I cooked up some soup. I had this smart stuff to buy some soup, and everybody was real happy that was in that tent because we shared that with everybody, because we sure, we didn't have anything to eat. And that's what we had. And then we finally went to 00:24:00sleep and we all just bunched together. And when you asked about officers enlisted, it was like officer, enlisted, officer, enlisted, as many as we could get side by side because it, like I says, it was cold. We had to stay warm. So.

SPRAGUE: So you had mentioned taking off from those buildings. Why was that? Why were you in a hurry?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I don't know. I have no--because the choppers were gonna leave. The choppers were set up. They says, "the 13th is going. Go get 'em." So they busted tail and everybody's running to beat the band.

SPRAGUE: Did, at that time, the Iraqis were launching Scuds. Any experiences with those?

CHRISTOPHERSON: We, we had a lot of alarms and stuff like that, but a lot of us were just figures, if its got our name on it, its got our name on it. Nothing we can do about it. But yeah, there is a couple of times that we had to duck and cover whatever, you know. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: How about getting into your MOPP [mission oriented protective posture] 00:25:00gear? Any experiences with that?

CHRISTOPHERSON: We did not have to do that.

SPRAGUE: Oh, really? Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Nope. We always had to wear our mask. But no, we never got into our MOPP gear.

SPRAGUE: Okay, did, just out of curiosity, did the army order you to take the, the anti-nerve agent pill?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yes. And some of us took none of them, and some of us took one, some took all. I took maybe one and we said nah, forget that stuff, so.

SPRAGUE: [Laughs]

CHRISTOPHERSON: We weren't going to do that anymore.

SPRAGUE: Why, why did you give up after one?

CHRISTOPHERSON: It was--

SPRAGUE: Just out of curiosity.

CHRISTOPHERSON: I think it's probably because what we'd heard about the pill, and don't ask me what it was, because that's the only thing I can think that it was, is the only reason that we didn't hear anything good about it. So we just said, no, we're not going to take it.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So you get out in deuce and a half's, you go set up your tents.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Tents were already set up.

SPRAGUE: Tents were set up. Were there cots? Was there anything on the ground?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Uh-uh, nothing yet. Nothing yet. We had a couple, we had some con--well at that point, that's when we started having to fill the tents with the cots and, and whatever medical gear equipment we needed and stuff like that. And we built from there. There was a team that was there earlier that set up the actual hospital itself and then some of the sleeping tents and such. And but then very minimal, I guess. And then after that, once the rest of us all arrived, then that's when we loaded up the tents with whatever equipment and gear we needed.

SPRAGUE: What was, what was unloading like or, what was that like?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I was NCIC of minimum care ward and one of them we had ten minimum care wards. As it was, we only used one, but they had dropped a connex back behind the minimum care ward. And all we had to do was unload that connex 00:27:00and set up the tent. We had the old fashioned green GP larges for the minimal care ward, the rest of the hospitals, the new DEPMEDS that they had.

SPRAGUE: So about, about when would you say you were roughly, if you remember, when you were set up, do you remember?

CHRISTOPHERSON: We, we were set up and we still ended up waiting for any patients to come in. We had a few, you know, some, some unit out there somewhere, heard there was a hospital. So they, you know, came over if they needed a checkup of some kind, something wrong. But we were set up quite a while before the war started. And so we, actually we were kind of almost bored. The--we never got any mail for a while. The officers took off one day. They were bored, so they took off and went to the mail drop center and helped them. And, 00:28:00because they wanted mail for us, so because they had gone and helped, they'd said first big box that comes in with, to any soldier. Back then they addressed everything to any soldier. And so they came. They dropped off for us a box that was like three by three by three, was a huge box. All kinds of stuff in there. I found cheese.

SPRAGUE: [Laughs]

CHRISTOPHERSON: I like cheese. So yeah, that, that took a while even before we got mail because it was just totally inundated, that for any soldier stuff.

SPRAGUE: How did, were the GP larges, were they air conditioned or not?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No.

SPRAGUE: Was it--

CHRISTOPHERSON: No.

SPRAGUE: How was it out there? What was it like out in the desert out there?

CHRISTOPHERSON: It wasn't bad. At night it was cool. In fact, you'd find frost on the, on the tents in the morning oftentimes. So it wasn't bad. Because it was spring, so it was cooler anyway, when we were there.

SPRAGUE: What, what did you eat? Just out of curiosity.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Whatever. We had a mess sergeant that would go to the area that supplied the food. He'd have to go get the food, bring it back to our tent, or back to our, our site. So apparently, this is what I was told, that there was two lines where there was fast food and stuff that nobody wanted. And then there was this line that was really long and people wanted this. Well, guess where our mess sergeant went, he went to the line where--so there was, there was times when we had, he would take canned things and drop them in boiling water. So how you heat it up and then serve it to us. And so I have not yet to this day been able to eat like Hormel chili out of these little cans or something as individual serving things. Yeah. No, that wasn't good, it wasn't. And no, there 00:30:00wasn't a whole lot that was real good.

SPRAGUE: I've listened to some other veterans from the 13th Evac. and they mentioned that they didn't even really have a chow hall they would just, you eat where you were at. What was your experience?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah, you grab it and bring it back to your tent. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: And then the patients would get a decent meal and you still had to go get it and bring it back to the hospital section, which is understandable. Um, I have to tell you, there was one day, I told you there was ten minimum care wards, and I went out the front of ours, and I happened to look down, and there was someone down there at the end buttoning up the, the tent. I said, "there's nobody in there. Why is he doing that? What's he, who is he?" So I went down, I asked him. He says, "I was going to go get my wife some lunch." I says, "what do you mean you're gonna go get your wife some--" "Well my wife is in here." Says, "no she isn't. There's no, there's this isn't even a functioning part of the 00:31:00hospital." You know, we never, never needed it. He says, "No, she's in there." I says, "You got to be kidding." So he opens up, I look inside, and dang nab there she is. Some doctor had taken them and told 'em to go in there, and that's where they were to go. We have absolutely no clue why, because it's obvious the functioning one was down at this other opposite end. So that was kind of an odd little thing.

SPRAGUE: Was, was that his wife?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah it was his wife. He, him and his wife both served in the same unit, I guess, and she'd hurt her ankle or something, whatever it was, hurt her foot somehow. And she had come to the hospital and he with her. It was interesting.

SPRAGUE: Mm-hmm. Was your spouse present while you were serving there?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Oh, heck no, I didn't even know him back then.

SPRAGUE: Okay, okay. Um. Did you get any care packages from home?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I got one 'bout a week before I left. My, my aunt was a member 00:32:00of the VFW Auxiliary up out of Hayward, and they had put a box together for me and I think I got it on the day I was leaving. I came home on emergency leave, and so I let all my tentmates have at it. Have what they wanted.

SPRAGUE: Can you maybe tell the civilians that are listening what, what is mail like if you're deployed? What in terms of um, you receiving it, is--?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Oh, I don't know. They just, um. I don't even remember if they passed it out or if we had to go look for it, go ask for it. I'm thinking they passed it out, you know, by tent. Maybe a representative from each tent would go. Maybe that was what it was. I got a couple from my folks. I always wrote them once a week, let them know what was going on. Draw 'em pictures. But it was I don't even remember how they distributed it.

SPRAGUE: The reason why I ask is I can remember, myself being a veteran, when we got mail downrange, we were always excited and pumped and I just wondered if your experience had been similar or?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Well, yeah, you always like to get mail from home, obviously, but I didn't get upset over it if, you know, that particular day if I got one once a week or something like that. Great.

SPRAGUE: Yeah, okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: 'Cause you know the, you know what the mail service is like. I mean. And after telling you that the, the mail section, department, the unit, mail unit was totally inundated with that for any service member, you know they, to get the letters, you know, distribute--it was a mess for them, felt sorry for them.

SPRAGUE: Got to ask for the newer listeners on a--watching the video, how about email?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Oh, no, there's no such thing.

SPRAGUE: [Laughs]

CHRISTOPHERSON: Every day, and you had to get, you had to sign up for it, but 00:34:00every day a deuce and a half loaded with troops would drive off site and go down to where AT&T had set up a tent, and they had a bank of phones tables twice this length and phones on both sides. And, and you wait your turn. You go and, and use the phone. So I decided I'd do that one day and my parents weren't home. So I called a friend, and I says, "well," who lived in the same building, I says, "you just tell them that I called and everything's okay," and yada yada, "I'll try tomorrow." And if I could get on the deuce again the next day, which I think I did so. But yeah, you had to drive several hours just to go to a phone bank that AT&T had put up.

SPRAGUE: What was the name of the camp you were at? One of the dozen?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Oh, they called it, I believe, Camp Badger.

SPRAGUE: Any particular reason why they call the Camp Badger?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Only because we're from Wisconsin.

SPRAGUE: [Laughs]

CHRISTOPHERSON: I guess.

SPRAGUE: Um. What, how did you know, once the air war kicked off. Desert Storm. 00:35:00How did you, how did you find out about that?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I'm sure, I'm sure the admin tent had to have found out from someone and. And then then they just told us, I guess I don't really know, exactly.

SPRAGUE: What were the, in terms of casualties, what were they, what were they thinking? What was the Army getting you ready for as a unit?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Well, I says we had 400 beds. We had dental, X-rays, we were a full, full hospital unit. We kept patients for, try to stabilize them 24, 48 hours, and then we move them out to their next station, to a hospital unit. Um, but we had some of the guard, uh. Iraqi guard, whatever they call them. We've 00:36:00had children. We had children there. I didn't see really any of them, not being assigned to that section. A lot of, a lot of sick call people, a lot of that.

SPRAGUE: So what tying into that, minimum care ward, I think you called it.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Mm-hmm yep.

SPRAGUE: Tell me about what that, what, what that role is that you did?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Minimum care ward was you know, if, let's say, sick call or somebody comes in and they've got or they--wounded. Oh. Or should I say, I don't want, say, not wounded so bad or whatever that would require them, just come to minimum care for another couple of days or so before they're released back to their unit or so. And we had several people in there. Uh, one that I was 00:37:00impressed was the, the Cav. unit. We had some members from the Cav., and their superior officer came in and actually said hi to all of 'em. I mean, that was the first officer I saw come and talk to his troops, none of the other ones had had that. So I was, I've always been then--since then, impressed with the Cav. section unit of the, of the military, of the army.

SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember the Cav. unit?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Uh-uh. No, not in the least.

SPRAGUE: Okay, and you said, you didn't have any interaction with any of the Iraqi nationals?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I didn't. No, no

SPRAGUE: Okay, did you ever have an opportunity to, it would have been a ways, to go into town?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No, I did. I, I did ask to go for a ride. And one day we went for a ride. Um, I don't remember what it was [Jen or Jan??] wanted, but we had to find a fueling point. So you went out, we went out, and we headed towards 00:38:00wherever. Ended up meeting up with a M.P. unit. We says, "Well, where's the--where? We heard the fueling unit's out this way." So he says, "Well, go down this way, go over this way, go that way," whatever. So we did. We went down that way, we went over this way, went over that way or whatever, and danged if we didn't find the fueling unit. We got out of the truck. We looked over this way, and there was the M.P. unit. That M.P. unit guys had us driving all over Kingdom come when all they had to say is straight over there. Yeah. And then we went did go into town and so I did, not into town. I shouldn't say that. On the corner intersection from where we were, there was a small store and I did get myself like a little tea kettle type thing. I said, "That's my souvenir."

SPRAGUE: And do you remember the name of the road you were on by chance there?

CHRISTOPHERSON: It's the only road that travels along the northern part of Saudi.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: It's the only road. And right off the road there's this huge rock. We call it a diamond, because that's about what it looked like. You made a 00:39:00left hand turn off the road on that diamond, at that diamond and drive down a little ways, and you came into our site, and that's where we were.

SPRAGUE: Was your site flat?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Is that why they picked it, maybe?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah. There was also a unit about a football field next to us. They were not very nice people. [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: Okay. Um. What, when the DEPMEDS arrived, were you involved in setting that up? Or once you had your ward set up, you were focused on that?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I was just focused on mine. DEPMEDS were already put up when--

SPRAGUE: Oh.

CHRISTOPHERSON: When we got there, because they had, before we had left, they had to design what they wanted, how they wanted it laid out and stuff. And so that team that made the design and was also the one to help set it up. So they had gotten there before we had. It was all done. In fact, one of the kids, a sergeant, I think he was back then, uh, because he had worked so hard on the design lay on and all this, was able to go home. And that's what he did. he went 00:40:00home before the war even started, or we were able to put our outhouses up and he was already going home. So that was his award.

SPRAGUE: Uh, did you have to pull guard duty?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Oh, gosh, yes. [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: What was that like?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Boring. And you're staring out into nothingness. How do you not fall asleep?

SPRAGUE: [Laughs]

CHRISTOPHERSON: When you're staring--I mean, there's nothing out there. And I've decided that's why people don't like to vacation in Saudi, other than the fact that you're not allowed to. But there's nothing there to see. Nothing but desert.

SPRAGUE: You mentioned, latrines. What kind of latrines did you have?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Those were fun. Three seaters. They were wood plank up about yay high, whatever, big buckets underneath. And as part of the guard duty, you had to pull those big old metal water buckets out, empty them into one larger one. They took it, well they took 'em then, and they burned 'em out. You know, 00:41:00[inaudible] brought them back. Put them back under. Yeah, one of those big--they're like metal wash--remember the old wash bins? Yeah, that's what it was.

SPRAGUE: Any experience you mentioned burning, did they, any burn pits near you?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yep, on the outside of the berm in the back, there was one.

SPRAGUE: Mm-hmm.

CHRISTOPHERSON: That's what they did with body parts and whatnot, yeah.

SPRAGUE: And he experiences with that or remembering it?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Nope, we saw it and such. But, you know, there's no big--and I've dumped things back there but never was standing near it or anything like that. The worst, the worst smell we ever had was outside our berm. Some kind of an earth mover, hit a pipeline. And so we had the smell of oil, just horrible, horrible smell of oil for the day or so. That was not fun. But that's, that was it, that was, for me that was it.

SPRAGUE: How about once the war got underway and the Iraqis were treated and set 00:42:00the wellheads on fire? What was your experience with that?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Nothing. That was too far away.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Um. What did you do in your downtime while you were at Camp Badger, if you had any?

CHRISTOPHERSON: One of the nurses was trying to teach me cribbage, but I just never liked that very well. And one of the girls was an artist, so she took the board and made a game board. So we had, like, checker, chess and whatever type thing. Other than that, nothing much, really. We might do our laundry in a five-gallon, ten-gallon bucket. But that was about it. Nothing too much. One of the guys built a gym of some kind for pull ups and such like that. So we got, you get really creative. We took the like, MREs come in this whatever size box, really solid, heavy cardboard. So we were able to make, we made dresser drawers, you know. So yeah, you just get creative, do things. One, one lady, a Japanese 00:43:00lady, she made a nice little Japanese garden outside their tent. So you just do what you, your mind comes up with.

SPRAGUE: I've had some other veterans mention, from the 13th, mentioned making that cardboard furniture and how intricate and how specialized you can make it. It sounds really interesting.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Well, like I say, the MREs are, how many is in a MRE? A 20, 24 bags a in a box. So and then they had like three boxes within a case. So you took that case, set it up on side, and you took the three boxes and set them up on top of each other and cut out the ends. And so you've got drawers, you know, and such like that. Yeah. And then um, oh, someone took a, someone took a wood crate, just a small would crate and use that next to her bunk, you know, to put things in. So yeah, we take all kinds of things.

SPRAGUE: Let's pause there for a moment.

[Break in recording]

SPRAGUE: We're back on the air. Sorry. We were talking about furniture and making furniture with MRE boxes. Did you, were there, were there sand floors in 00:44:00the tents?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah it was all sand until they given us, like, pallets type things. And we had a pallet running down the center of our tent. So of course you'd trip on it. But when we finally did get enough, there was everything was fine that way, and it was just, you were up about six inches, whatever it was, four inches.

SPRAGUE: Any experiences with spiders or scorpions?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Nope. Never saw one. Saw a dog. Someone took on a little puppy dog of some kind there. They say you shouldn't do that because they're wild. Don't know what happened to it. Don't know if they just let it go or if they took it home. I don't know.

SPRAGUE: Any other pets. Soldiers or sailors picked up?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No, nope.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Um, did you end up were--how many, did you have to treat people at all in your, in your ward or?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah, we had a few, geez, I couldn't tell you how many. No, I 00:45:00couldn't. I didn't, wouldn't want to guess. Probably at any given time we'd have five. And if it's minimum care, they probably stayed a day or two, a couple days, and then were gone.

SPRAGUE: While you were there, did, were you, at any time did you, did your detection tape or gas alarms go off?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No. Never had anything like that.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Uh, you had mentioned a teapot. Were there any other souvenirs that you happened to pick up?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I got a, um, a bill of currency, some currency. Got a piece of shrapnel out of a Iraqis back or whatever, and that was about it. Nothing real exciting.

SPRAGUE: That piece of shrapnel, uh, was that from your treatment or from your work?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Oh, I was allowed to go in and watch surgery. That's another thing, if you had so much downtime, you know, you're allowed to go into other 00:46:00areas of the hospital and either learn or watch. Observe. And so that's, that particular day, there was one that had come in and had some in his back. And so I got it.

SPRAGUE: And that was from an Iraqi national or from--?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Uh. Any alcohol gets, get into the unit while you were there?

CHRISTOPHERSON: We tried.

SPRAGUE: [Laughs}

CHRISTOPHERSON: Some people brought yeast and so they tried making a mixing water and Kool-Aid type thing and tried. I don't think it worked. Didn't sit long enough, wasn't hot enough, or whatever outside so.

SPRAGUE: Any good parties while you were there in the desert?

CHRISTOPHERSON: There was one that, I was not privy to or anything like that, but there, there was some people that had, were visiting the unit, the hospital, and decided to have a little party.

SPRAGUE: I've had some 13th Evac. vets talk about, and I don't know the context of this, it may be stateside, or may be downrange, the Black Cat Bar?

CHRISTOPHERSON: [Laughs] Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Can you tell me anything about that?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Every time we'd go down to Fort McCoy, Madison would have one vehicle that came up there loaded with nothing but alcohol, beer and alcohol. And so when we rented the, signed for rooms or buildings down at Fort McCoy. One building, which was a kitchen, was our bar, was our club, and they called it the Bat--Black Cat Club. So that went everywhere, wherever we went. And but no, it wasn't over there. They obviously couldn't get the alcohol over there, that kind of thing. But yeah, that's what that was. It was their bar.

SPRAGUE: What were, what were gender relations like in the unit? Between men and women?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Fine, just all friends.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Nothing that I know of that would, ears would perk up or anything like that, no.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Any pregnancies?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I don't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, and you're asking me if there was--

SPRAGUE: [Laughs]

CHRISTOPHERSON: Someone who got pregnant? Not that I can remember.

SPRAGUE: Okay. No problem, gotta ask. Any, another one I've got to ask, any sexual harassment issues.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Minimal, yeah. Yeah. We took care of that, though.

SPRAGUE: Do I want to dig in to how you took care of it or not? [Laughs]

CHRISTOPHERSON: Actually. Well, I was just thinking of one thing, but another thing was, there was a, oh, gosh, I shouldn't even tell this story. Somebody else from Madison might see this.

SPRAGUE: You can withhold the names if you want.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Well, I don't have the names. I know the, I know the person though, kind of. We were down in Madison for training and one of the Madison's troops decided to walk around the girl's sleeping area. We had the top floor, 00:49:00one huge section off here, cot side by side by side, you know, kind of thing. And, and my girlfriend next to me says, "Mary Ann, there's somebody in here." I says, "you're kidding." "No over there." So I look and this guy is going around just looking at all the girls sleeping. So when he got close to me and my friend, we jumped up, grabbed this poor sad, skinny, creepy little kid, and dragged his butt downstairs. Yeah, we raised hell. Yeah, we took care of him. [Laughs] I don't know if, what, if he stayed in after that or not, but. No, you don't get away with crap like that with us from the 13th up in Chippewa, anyway.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Uh, tell me about, and you had mentioned too, maybe some emergency leave. Tell me about when you left Saudi, or how that went down.

CHRISTOPHERSON: The war was over already, and we were sitting around, I guess, and packing stuff up. But my father was having surgery, and they'd gotten the Red Cross to search me out and see if I couldn't come home. And seeing as how the war was over, there was no need for me to stay. So I came home, about a month early before the rest of them got home.

SPRAGUE: Tell me about coming back to the United States.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Well, it was kind of a long flight. Flew out of King [Fahd??], I think it's called, to Spain and stayed there for a little bit, not long, I don't--it wasn't even 24 hours, and they says, you know, they gave us the option and says, "We got another plane leaving. But those who are going home on emergency leave should have first dibs on it." And I, I think I, I don't remember if I went first or if I waited, but then we flew into Dover and got-- they gave us a hotel room for a few hours, and then flew from Dover then to Eau 00:51:00Claire. Yeah, it was a long, long haul.

SPRAGUE: Was your family together when you came back?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yep, my parents were. They were at the airport waiting for me.

SPRAGUE: Which airport?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Eau Claire.

SPRAGUE: Eau Claire?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: What was that like?

CHRISTOPHERSON: It was fine. It was good to see them. They were happy to see me. But, you know, I just, I was kind of embarrassed. I like to just kinda sneak in and get out of there, but.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Uh. What was it when you came back after deployment? What was that like coming back to the civilian world?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No big deal. Got into my house and stayed with my folks, of course, for a while and got the house set up again. Water running, and electricity, and all that stuff turned on, and moved back in there. And I don't know how long it was before I went back to work, maybe a week or something like 00:52:00that. I, there was no reason for me to stay, stay away from work, so.

SPRAGUE: Any demobilization counseling or anything like that?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No, no. Very boring. Go do your job. Come home. [both laugh]

SPRAGUE: Okay. Um. Any issues, we found out about this after the war, with Persian Gulf War syndrome. With exposure to, they conjectured later, with the exposure to nerve agents or anything like that? Any--

CHRISTOPHERSON: Nothing like that. Although I did go down, I did. They recommended that everybody should go to the VA and get checked out kind of a thing. So I did that. I haven't had anything since. Back then, it was probably, I think, sleep issues or something, not being able to sleep at night or whatever, but nothing like that still.

SPRAGUE: Any particular people from the 13th Evac. that you remember, or you 00:53:00recognize or you--?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Oh, I recognize all of 'em. Remember all of 'em. Yeah. From the from the Chippewa one, we've been trying to have reunions and we've had three of them, but they're kind of small. Not too many people are coming. But yeah, we even, we even put together like a, similar to a yearbook, with all the pictures of the different sections and different activities and things. So we each got a yearbook out of that. So yeah, I remember all of 'em.

SPRAGUE: Mm-hmm. So I'm going to mention a couple of names. Um, we have, that we have records for that came in and, uh, that were in the 13th based on--and just if you have any comments or anything to say, that would be great. If not, that's okay too.

CHRISTOPHERSON: I probably don't remember the ones you got but--

SPRAGUE: yeah, no and that--we're just try--

CHRISTOPHERSON: They're out of Chip--out of Madison.

SPRAGUE: Some of them are, not all of them.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Okay.

SPRAGUE: Uh, first one. Stacey Jalowitz.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah, I remember her.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah. Pretty girl.

SPRAGUE: Okay, and feel free to jump in with any comments.

CHRISTOPHERSON: [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: Any commentary or polite--

CHRISTOPHERSON: No, nice girl, yeah.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Okay. Uh, Patricia Leahy? No?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Patricia Leahy, yes, I remember the nam--yes, Patricia Leahy. Yes, I know her. She's actually in the VFW. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Um, Helen Gurkow.

CHRISTOPHERSON: I know the name.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Michael Ely?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I know the name, that's it. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Louis Harned.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah I remember him. He's a doctor.

SPRAGUE: James or Jed Engeler?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No.

SPRAGUE: Okay. If you wanna comment or you have anything you, people from the 13th you'd like to recognize or?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Well, the friend that I mentioned a moment ago, that was Lana, her maiden name was Mrdutt, M-R-D-U-T-T, Lana Mrdutt. The one who could do the 00:55:00cartwheel was, oh crap. Never mind, we'll go to somewhere else. You got, Sue Cook, she works up at the Veterans Nursing Home. Uh, Jim Meyer. He just passed away from COVID complications. His wife is Debbie, out of Hayward. Laura Gronski. That's the one who would do the cartwheel and not spill a drop. That was her maiden name. Lisa Miller, she's from like Stanley. Oh, God. And then there is Cindy Knight. We used to say Cindy Knight Knight, Lewis Knight [??], wiggle or something. She, she got married all these. She was a Knight, she married a Knight, got divorced, married somebody else, became a Knight again. And then. I don't know. So it's just kind of a joke with us. She's, she's up 00:56:00around Thorp, Stanley area, somewhere up that way. Um. Yeah, that's.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you have any feelings about the Yellow Ribbon Campaign?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No, I just thought it was a nice thought, a nice idea.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Are you talking--you're not talking about the--

SPRAGUE: The one during the Persian Gulf War.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah, but you're not talking about the, uh, when they would get together and at group, as a group. They used, they had a yellow campaign, Yellow Ribbon Campaign. Several months later after the war, that, where people could get together with spouses or whatever, and they'd go to a, and do a seminar, at a camp, do a seminar type thing. You're just talking about the yellow--yeah, that was, that was cute.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Just on the trees.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah, it was nice. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay, So you're back from the Persian Gulf War. Um, and you had talked 00:57:00about this during the pre-interview, about post war the 13th Evac. being deactivated. Tell me, tell me, if you could please, expand a little bit more on that.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Couldn't figure out why they would want to deactivate the number one hospital unit of the whole United States, rated number one. And when we come back, they wanted to deactivate us. And I tried, I even spoke before, there was some representative from Congress, state Congress up here, I spoke before them, um, asking them, why are you doing this? And can't you do something else? If you want to change us, change us, but leave us here. Because what was happening, is you have all these medical people with medical training, now having to go to the four winds, you know. And so, some of them, there was no other hospital go to. We couple of us joined, 4552, I think it was, 4559, something like that, out of 00:58:00Madison and we had to travel then to Madison if we wanted to go to that hospital unit, and we found that hospital unit, not very nice people. So what we did is we then, that, at that time is when we transferred over to, some of us transferred over to the Nation--Reserve. So here in Eau Claire is the 397th they were, the Reserve was just now allowing female into an engineer group. And so me and two other friends, uh, Mary and LeAnn joined the 397th here in Eau Claire, and we were their medical section. They didn't have it before. They didn't have a medical section. And now with the three of us there. Um, and so it was kind of funny. The poor guys had to give up one of their bathrooms for us, and, you know, they had to get their lecture on sexual harassment and all this other kind 00:59:00of stuff, I'm sure, because now you're going to get females in the unit. So it was fun. They're a good group of guys.

SPRAGUE: Uh, the, the medical section. Which company was that within the 397th?

CHRISTOPHERSON: It was headquarters.

SPRAGUE: Headquarters. Headquarters. But not the forward support company. No. Okay. Headquarters company.

CHRISTOPHERSON: I think later became HHC, right? Headquarters. Headquarters, Company. Something like that.

ROY CHRISTOPHERSON: [Inaudible] it was HHC.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Oh.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So, um. You come over, you're in the medical section at HHC 397th Engineers Battalion. Um, you mention during the pre-interview, tell me about what your role was when you first you, the, uh, the medical section. Uh, what were you doing in the civilian world at that time? Would be '92, in that timeframe.

CHRISTOPHERSON: I don't know, but I may have been still with Cray Research.

SPRAGUE: Still at Cray?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay, okay, and then what was your experience of moving from the National Guard to the Reserves, the Drilling Reserves?

CHRISTOPHERSON: The Reserves are really different than the National Guard. And they, they were stricter. They would not allow us to drive ourselves down to Fort McCoy, whereas the National Guard trusted their troops to drive down. We did. They had a designated parking lot, and everybody showed up on time, signed in. Reserves wouldn't allow that, and the Reserves didn't allow, when we went down there, I was the only one, my first drill down at Fort McCoy with the reserve unit, I took civilian clothes. Not a, not another other soul did. And I'm going, why don't you want to go to the club, or something? Well, they were 01:01:00allowed to go to the club, so that's, that's another thing. They just, very different. So anyway.

SPRAGUE: What, being put on active duty by the National Guard to be deployed, how did that change your thinking about being a reservist and being potentially called up again? Did it change--

CHRISTOPHERSON: Didn't, nah, not in there, nah.

SPRAGUE: No? Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: I was in there for the long haul, so it didn't matter what was gonna to happen.

SPRAGUE: Okay, and you wanted, you were still, you had been on active duty for a while, for that short time while you were deployed. It didn't, at any point you said to yourself, I want to I want to stay on active duty or--?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No, no.

SPRAGUE: No, okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: I did do two years of active duty down at Fort McCoy, when I was in the retention section, 2005-2007. So there was some time, but it was right 01:02:00down there in Fort McCoy, and the weekends I was home. So that wasn't an issue either.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So getting back to that, before we jump to that, any other reactions from having females in that engineering battalion initially? Because you would have been there right when that change occurred, it sounds like to me.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Mm-hmm, yeah.

SPRAGUE: Other than getting the bathrooms changed out.

CHRISTOPHERSON: No, I didn't. I didn't. I. I don't think we had any. I don't remember any. He might. My husband might, but I don't remember any, any anything bad. Nothing happened to us, you know, as females. No. If they said anything, they're taking their life in their own hands. [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: Okay. By this time you were probably what a E-5, or?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Something like that, yeah.

SPRAGUE: Or a E-4?

CHRISTOPHERSON: So I, when did I leave, I was E-5, I think when I left the 01:03:00National Guard. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Uh-huh, so you made sergeant. Okay. Were you ahead of that section, or?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah, I think I was. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay, any mentors from that reserve unit that you remember, that stand out, as an NCO?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Probably the unit administrator, Kenny [Erickson??]. He was a good guy, and I did it--I did eventually go from the medical section to the admin section. I got a full-time job as a MILTECH [Military Technician] then, doing admin for the unit.

SPRAGUE: Okay. When you made that transition from medic to admin MILTECH, did you have to go get, go back to get reclassed or go back to--?

CHRISTOPHERSON: The military has a fun way of training their people. You spend a year doing the job, then maybe you'll go to school.

SPRAGUE: [Laughs]

CHRISTOPHERSON: So Kenny is you know, he's, he's the trainer right there. He trained me, and then you go to school later.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Forgive me for not knowing this. What's the MOS [Military Occupational Specialties] of an admin MILTECH?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I don't know.

SPRAGUE: Okay. I'm just curious.

CHRISTOPHERSON: I don't remember. And, and knowing the military, what, it's, it's changing constantly.

SPRAGUE: It's changed, yeah, but that's what you would call it--

CHRISTOPHERSON: 71.

SPRAGUE: Maybe a--

CHRISTOPHERSON: Was that a 71.

SPRAGUE: 71 or a 71L, maybe.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Something like that. Yeah. Now that you're mentioning, sit here and think long enough.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: Okay. So, um, what drove your decision to go from being a medic, combat medic, to an admin?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I like doing admin work a lot better.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Uh, where were you on 9/11?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I was working for Harmon Auto Glass. I was working for Harmon 01:05:00Auto Glass at the time, if I remember. Was I? Was I a MILTECH? I was a MILTEHC. Anyway, my mother was, my mother--my father had passed away, and my mother was living alone. And every morning I went and saw her, to make sure she was okay every day, and would get her squared away for the day. And when I got there, she had the TV, the news on, and I'm doing dishes and I go, "what is that noise? What are you watching?" I turned around and looked, and that's, that's what was going on at the time. So, went to work and everybody, of course, was looking and, looking at the news, at the TV. And then after that, of course, we had to take care of all kinds of security lockdowns and this, that, and the other thing. But that's. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Now, while you were an admin MILTECH, you were still drilling and working in the civilian world?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: You weren't full time?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah, I was full--a MILTECH, you have to be a member of the reserve unit in order to, to have that civilian job. So I was doing both. I was, 01:06:00that, that chair in the admin office was mine for seven days a week. [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: And so the civilians understand who are on the line, and I'm going to try and summarize it, you can correct me on this. So you were in the reserve unit as a admin, but you were also working for the unit as a civilian?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yes.

SPRAGUE: Full--full time or?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yes.

SPRAGUE: However you want to look at it. 40 hours a week.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yes.

SPRAGUE: And is that--

CHRISTOPHERSON: But then on weekend it comes drill time then I did my job is as, as a, as a soldier, which was admin.

SPRAGUE: And that's called, the civilian portion of that's called a MILTECH?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yes.

SPRAGUE: Okay. I want to make sure we get the terms right.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Milit--it's a military technician.

SPRAGUE: Got it. I've heard of it before. I just it's, it's every once in a while.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: It's not everybody does that, so it's kind of interesting, yeah.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Well, there are some that have the civilian job, and they do not have to belong to a reserve. That's totally, that's different, too, so.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: I was a MILTECH, though.

SPRAGUE: Yep. So you go through the security procedures after 9/11. Did your unit get alerted or status upped?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah, we had to, we had to have people that stayed there at the unit overnight and, yeah, make sure everything's secured.

SPRAGUE: Did at any point other than when you were on active duty, as in another point in '05-'07, were you activated any other time in that from 9/11 to '05 for a short time for active duty or?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No. Nothing I'd related to that, No.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Uh. So let's get up to June 1st, 2005, when you were put on 01:08:00active duty, um, and you had to May 31st, 2007, were you in the 397th or were you at the Regional Support Command?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Regional Support Command.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: I was doing retention.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And help me out here, tell me a little bit about, because I don't know, what, what a retention sergeant does.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Retention is someone who tries to keep the soldier in, when it gets down--you should be interviewing these soldiers like a year out or so before their ETS [Expiration Time of Service] or the end of the contract time, and talking to them and ask them what they want to do. Do you wanna stay in? Do you want to get out? You wanna change? Whatever type thing. And retention is just exactly that. You trying to retain these, these troops and you, we typed up contracts. We perform ceremonies to, you know, re-enlistment ceremonies, things 01:09:00like that. You know, and that was do--that was down at Fort McCoy. That was during--the wars were going on at that time, too. So they're trying to keep 'em in.

SPRAGUE: Uh, help me out with this. Were you, did you decide you wanted to be put on active duty, or the Army decided?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah, I did. Yeah. I just had to ask at that time.

SPRAGUE: Okay, any particular reason why or? I'm just curious.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Points.

SPRAGUE: Points, okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Points, yeah. The more points you got, the more retirement points you got, the better your retirement check at the end.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you have to attend, again the question, did you have to attend a reclass training or--?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah. Before this was, it was a while before this that I joined the retention forces, and unit. And, yeah, the time you go to classes.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Are you gonna ask me the MOS on that one too?

SPRAGUE: No. Well, I've got, I think--

CHRISTOPHERSON: An 80 something.

SPRAGUE: Oh, I--I could--then I'm wrong because I have down 79V.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Oh, I don't know.

SPRAGUE: I could be wrong. And yeah, I have you, 79V, 40.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Okay.

SPRAGUE: Which would be V7 I'm pretty sure.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Okay.

SPRAGUE: Yeah at that point. You sa--this was in support of Operation Enduring Freedom?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. What was that--any thoughts on that? You're, you're down at Fort McCoy. You're on active duty. You were on the 88th patch. What was that like?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Just, general, everyday duties. We would get a list of the troops that are coming up on ETS and we'd go talk to 'em. And so, that's all it was, interviewing and trying to get 'em to stay in.

SPRAGUE: Any problems with trying to get 'em to stay in?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Not really. Some of--it, it's just a matter of their, I think, their lifestyle, what they're doing, what's going on at home has a lot to do 01:11:00with it. You know, if they, would rather not stay in then you couldn't retain 'em for nothing, you know? Well, some of 'em stayed in as long as they had the bonuses and whatnot. And maybe if they like their unit, they, they'd stay in.

SPRAGUE: For the people who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, what did those retentions issues look like? Was there, are they all over the place or is there a general pattern?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I couldn't tell you. I don't, I don't remember anything special.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Don't remember anything different.

SPRAGUE: Any, any particular challenges you faced that match up?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No.

SPRAGUE: No, okay. Um. What unit was that within the 88th?

CHRISTOPHERSON: It was just a, their retention section.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHIRSTOPHERSON: Stationed out of Snelling.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So a particular--so it's a regional support command. There was no subordinate battalion, or company, or where that retention section fit?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No, but there are different units that report up to the 88th. Yeah. There's like, 397th that at that time, reported up to the 88th, that was their senior, but the retention was part of the 88th itself.

SPRAGUE: Okay. It was organic to the--

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: To the, to that unit. Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Just like your, your admin section, your mess section, you have a retention section.

SPRAGUE: Gotcha. Um, any memorable people when you were serving those two years on active duty at McCoy? Any people that stick out in your head, or people who mentored you as a, you probably be a senior, on your way or if not already, a senior NCO, E-6 or E-7.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Just the guy I worked with, Kelly Bornhoeft. He was a nice guy, and he was from the 397th as well, and he had switched over. He's a good guy. Smart.

SPRAGUE: How do you spell his last name?

CHRISTOPHERSON: B-O-R-N-H-O-E-F-T, Bornhoeft.

SPRAGUE: Okay. You had mentioned, there's a bunch of things you had mentioned during the pre-interview, which is really helpful, by the way.

CHRISTOPHERSON: [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: And is useful because otherwise it's unwinding a knot.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah, how many pages have you got there?

SPRAGUE: Or we're getting down there.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Okay.

SPRAGUE: If you would like, we can take a break if you--

CHRISTOPHERSON: No, that's all right. Go ahead.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Just wondering how many questions you got? [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: The fewer, the better, hopefully.

CHRISTOPHERSON: [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: Um, so you, retention, you finish the two, two years of active duty. What happens next?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Just back on, back as a drilling soldier, I guess.

SPRAGUE: With the?

CHRISTOPHERSON: 88th.

SPRAGUE: 88th, okay. Um, you had mentioned you made first sergeant at the 88th. Was that way further in the future or was that close to your next?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No, probably was closer to it.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: And this would have been probably '07, I would guess, or '08 maybe a little later than that?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I don't remember.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Um, so tell me about um, we'll jump to it then and go from there. You then later in your career that, you were later with those ROTC cadets?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Or were they in their--

CHRISTOPHERSON: That was, I did a year as a E-8 first sergeant for the 88th. I was a first sergeant for them, um, at the end of that year, as a first sergeant, I transferred then back to the ROTC section under the 88th, um, teaching at UW-Stout.

SPRAGUE: Mm-hmm. Okay, so we're going to come back, we're going to, we'll flip back and forth between those. So let's go back to being the first sergeant. Tell me about being a first sergeant in that, in the 88th. What's that like?

CHRISTOPHERSON: It wasn't really great fun. I liked it. I like the people well enough. But as, when you get up into the higher echelons of things, you know, even in business, it's, it's not near as much. Nah. So I made it a year and that was it.

SPRAGUE: Oh, what that, that first sergeant was that first sergeant up at that headquarters at the Regional Support Command.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah, yep.

SPRAGUE: Okay. I'm just trying to understand where that position is. Okay. Uh, when you were in that position as first sergeant, were there times when you were, not only just drilling on those, on those weekends and that two weeks of AT, but 01:16:00there were, was there, was it required because of your position as a senior NCO, leadership NCO to be there more than that? Was that-

CHRISTOPHERSON: No.

SPRAGUE: No?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And what were you doing in the civilian world at that time, if you don't mind me asking?

[Inaudible]

CHRISTOPHERSON: Oh, thank you. [Laughs] I was working--I had left the admin section of the 397th as a MILTECH and transferred over to, what they call, the AMSA shop, Area Maintenance Support Activity. It's over on the north side here of Eau Claire. Um, they do repair on military vehicles for the reserves, so all the units surrounding Eau Claire would bring their vehicles in for service or repair. Um, that of course has changed some, lot of units have gone defunct and 01:17:00whatever. But yeah, sometimes even McCoy would have too many vehicles. They didn't have enough personnel or whatever, time or whatever. All these vehicles, they'd even been shipped up to Eau Claire and we worked on 'em there. I did, inventory, I did supply.

SPRAGUE: And that's AMSA out of, was out of Eau Claire.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Mm-hmm, yeah, it's still there.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: My husband worked there also.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So you were, in this case, again, you were drilling and working on a civilian side of an AMSA.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Mm hmm.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And as a supply technician or supply--

CHRISTOPHERSON: Just supply, yeah, logistics.

SPRAGUE: Okay, gotcha. Any experiences there that you want to share? Better--or not.

CHRISTOPHERSON: [Laughs]

SPRAGUE: That's fine, too. [Laughs]

CHRISTOPHERSON: Oh, it's interesting. You know, my husband worked there, and I 01:18:00worked there together, so. But there is no, nothing wrong with that at all. No, I just. I'm a very organized kind of a person, so working logistics was easy for me to do.

SPRAGUE: Okay, let's go on to becoming an ROTC instructor.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Okay.

SPRAGUE: At Stout.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Okay.

SPRAGUE: Tell me a little bit about that, what that was like?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I was, taught 101, um, very basic soldier skills. And we had a, our commander at the time was [Bowling??], what was his first name? He worked for, he works for Ron Johnson now though too. Can't think of his first name, probably Colonel [Bowling??]. Bolstad. That was his name. Thank you. Bolstad, 01:19:00B-O-L-S-T-A-D. He was very nice guy and he allowed me to, to teach and such like that. And we'd go out and do field exercise and such. When he retired and left, someone else came in and they wouldn't even allow me to teach 101. He was kind of an arrogant guy. He decided that no enlisted person was going to teach his future officers, and it was basic 101. I mean, you know, how to, how to read a compass, you know, and such. How to shoot an azimuth, things like this. And he didn't even wanna--so I said and, right back to my civilian things. I was back in inventory. Worked with another friend from the old 397th. He was doing a, he did the supply, he was the supply sergeant there at the time. And so I helped him organize his area, labeling and.

SPRAGUE: What were your thoughts on--were you on--first of all, first question, easy question. Were you on active duty while you were serving as anE-8 in that 01:20:00ROTC unit, or were you a drilling reservist?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Just a reservist.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What were your thoughts on, if you could, and give me your impressions on, training junior, potential future officers?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I only had one issue. And, and the thing is, is I did not want to be easy on 'em, because, when they get done with their ROTC and going to college, they're going to become an officer, not unlike those who graduated from West Point. And to get into West Point, you have to be almost a genius, you know, and be recommended, all that kind of stuff. To get into Stout, not so much. And I did not want these kids to get off the hook easy, you know. So I did, I, one of the tests I gave was almost like 100, the final was almost like 100 questions. And, and a lot of the students didn't do as well as they should have. And my boss told me, "Well just, see what you can do with these tests." So 01:21:00I set all the tests side by side and took a look at all the answers they got wrong, and to see if there was a trend, and there was a trend in there. So I just eliminated those questions out of there. So they all got a better grade. I didn't like doing it that way, but because like I said, they're going to be officers and I didn't want them to get off the hook easy.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

CHRISTOPHERSON: So.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Was there anything that, that you as a, as a mentor, thought you saw in terms of those cadets who would eventually make good officer material? Was there any patterns that you could pick out?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Not really. I think they were all good kids. Yeah, I think they're all good kids. There's no issues or anything like that. They're just young, just have to grow.

SPRAGUE: So if you, when you were talking with these cadets, what, what would be 01:22:00probably the number one piece of leadership advice you would give them, as now a senior NCO, an E-8?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Leadership was the section I ended up cutting out of the test, and I didn't appreciate that. But it is kind of a hard, it's a hard subject because there's many different forms of leadership and uh, uh, trying to study the psychological impact of each one of those sections is hard. I don't know what I would tell them. I just, you know. The, the, the leaders that I always liked best, and this, this even goes on my civilian job, the leaders I've always liked best are the ones who get down and dirty with you. They're not the ones that stand and says, "Go do this." And they turn around, go do something else, 01:23:00and go read the newspaper, go do whatever. I've seen that in the guard, but they'll get down and dirty with you. That's the kind of leader I've always liked, is one who gets there with you.

SPRAGUE: Okay, so you get done with the ROTC tour, you go back to the supply unit for a little while or not, or did you just get out after that?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I just got out after that. Yeah, that was it.

SPRAGUE: Okay, sorry, my bad. So tell me about your decision to leave the military to retire from the military. Why--

CHRISTOPHERSON: I was turning 60, so I had to.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Would you have stayed in if you could've?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Only a few more months, because I was just shy of 30 years. So I'm like six months shy of 30 years so.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: That would've been the only reason.

SPRAGUE: Okay, what was that like leaving the military?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Good. [Both laugh] Good. Didn't have to worry about things, you 01:24:00had your weekends free. It was inevitable that drill weekend was always on the weekend. You had a wedding, your high school graduation. You had something going on. Always. So, it was good to get out.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Uh. What did, what, what did you think about once you had, you know, you'd signed that retirement paper, what, what did that feel like? The next day?

CHRISTOPHERSON: You keep asking all these feely questions and it's like, nothing. [Laughs] I signed the papers, you know, what do I gotta do to get my retirement check now? What's the next step? You know?

SPRAGUE: Okay. Well, that's good--yeah, absolutely. Okay. Uh. What are your impressions of civilian life versus serving in the military?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I think everybody should serve in the military, like the Germans. You had a two-year commitment. Everybody did. So I think everybody should, especially nowadays.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Uh. What, what are your thoughts on Memorial Day?

CHRISTOPHERSON: That--I don't know. There's--we did get to Washington, my husband and I, and we did get to go to Arlington Cemetery and to see all these people that had served and, and have died since. And it is, it is thought 01:26:00provoking, I guess, to see all these. Uh, he has a--there's somebody he knew that was buried there, so we went and saw that. And I just think that it's our duty to, to--I help put out flags on the cemeteries, before then. Our VFW does, the one I belong to. And I just think it's, it's something we need to do, I guess, is to honor these guys, have just one day. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: How about, how does your thinking change, or stay the same, for Veterans Day?

CHRISTOPHERSON: My husband and I are kind of, we don't we don't go out and do the hurrah type thing, and all these freebies and stuff. We just say, no, we just stay home, that kind of thing. We don't like to bring it out front, whereas a lot of people, they like to go out to all these different things that they are 01:27:00celebrating for the veterans. We're kind of quiet that way. So for the other ones, that's fine, you know.

SPRAGUE: Do you continue any of your relationships or friendships with people that you've served with?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Somewhat. Lana, my friend Lana, she lives out by the Minnesota border.

SPRAGUE: Anyone else?

CHRISTOPHERSON: No, that's probably pretty much it.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Unless we get our reunion going.

SPRAGUE: For the 13th.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay, Tell me about, um. I'm looking at your, uh, you're in the VFW, um, tell me about where you're serving right now in the VFW, and tell me, tell me about that.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Um, my joke is, is that the person who signed me up for the VFW 01:28:00got to me before my parents did when I got off the plane. I mean, that's how aggressive this guy was. His name is Art Schultz. He was the best recruiter in the VFW there ever was. And he got me. And, uh, I know my dad was happy. He didn't say much, but I know he was happy because he belonged to the same VFW, 305 up on the north side here. And so I started there about '91, '92, whatever it was. And I've done all the different jobs within the VFW in the post. I've been district commander, I'm district quartermaster right now, statewide, I've had state positions, looking to someday maybe be state commander, we'll see.

SPRAGUE: You've had a number of roles as aide de camp at the national level. State level, Chairperson, 9th District Commander, Quartermaster. Tell me, why do 01:29:00you do that? Just curious. What, what, what drives you to do that?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I believe in what the organization does. It's all geared towards the veteran. So we're always. I mean, it's just everything. I mean, everything's for the veterans. No side hustle in there. It's just whatever we do, we're doing for someone.

SPRAGUE: What was one of the more interesting roles that you, you took on in the VFW?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Commander is always interesting.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Commander of the post. Because you never know what issues are going to come up and, what fires you have to put out or whatever. But I think commander is probably the most interesting, I guess.

SPRAGUE: And I'm showing you as a Post 305 commander and maybe there's some other posts that you were commander.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Nope, just always 305. I've been there the longest and, and, and 01:30:00when I joined, we were the largest post in the state. But as you lose your World War II vets and such, the numbers really go down and it's hard to recruit people anymore. Now into different organizations. All organizations have, find it hard to recruit members, but we're trying.

SPRAGUE: What, what do you think, for you, has been, as a VFW post and post commander, or past post commander, how, what do you find has been the most successful at recruiting younger veterans into the post? What technique is work best for you?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I don't know that I didn't recruit these three guys. I don't know that I have a technique other than just asking, but people, if they're gonna join, they like to join a post that's active and is doing things, not one that's, just does things because they have to or whatever, you know, to get by. So I think they liked our post because we were active and doing things and they 01:31:00wanted a larger, a larger post to belong to.

SPRAGUE: If you could give me just, for the civilian listeners, what, what is an example of an activity that the VFW does that helps veterans? And I know there's many things.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Well, as a as a post we'll do things like, anything would qualify for, any help to a veteran, you know, take a veteran grocery shop and take a veteran to a doctor's appointment. Just visit with a veteran, maybe in a nursing home, or assisted living, or something, or to his home, whichever, calling them, inviting them to a meeting, anything like that. But at a post level, there's a district, district nine that we're in. We have what's called unmet needs, and we've raised funds and people donated funds. We give veterans money if they're in need of something. For example, if a veteran doesn't have a 01:32:00job and his furnace goes out in the house, you know, and we, we do have a limit on how much we can give them, but we do give them funds to help them get that furnace fixed or replace. We've given money to help with funeral costs. We've given money for vehicles, and different things like this, hospitals, medicals, all these different things. But they have to, the veteran that is receiving these unmet needs, have to be within district nine. And it's not just a veteran per se. We'll give it to members of, say, the 128th or so, if they're, if they have an issue, but it's a matter of applying for it. State of Wisconsin has an unmet needs, and the national has unmet needs. So a person could in essence apply to district, state, and national and receive funds for some help.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Any other veterans organizations that you've been involved in that you'd like to mention?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I was commander, the American Legion on 53, down here on Water 01:33:00Street, here in Eau Claire. My husband and I are both there. We're both members of AMVETS. We're both members of TREA, which is the Retired Enlisted Association. VFW he's a member of as well, and one that's called the Military Order of the Cooties.

SPRAGUE: And what do the Cooties do?

CHRISTOPHERSON: You know how the Shriners are related to the Masons? The Shriners, in those little funny little cars and go around, and their whole thing is hospital work. Okay. That's what the Cooties are to the VFW. You have to be a member of the VFW to be a member of the Cooties. And their whole thing is hospital work, helping the veterans in the hospitals, maybe bringing whatever they might need, maybe playing bingo with them or something in a hospital section, or whatever. But that's their whole thing is their logo is, keep them 01:34:00smiling and beds of white. And they got the name Cooties because years, because obviously years and years and years ago, the veterans' beds were not all that great. They'd have cooties, and different bugs, and stuff like that. And so that's kind of where they got that idea from.

SPRAGUE: Wow. I didn't, I had no idea where the name came from.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Um. You had mentioned your husband Roy is also a vet. What's his full name?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Roy Lee Chro--Christopherson.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Christopherson. Got it. Um, tell me about, wrapping this up here, tell me about your experience of being married to another veteran.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Well [Laughs].

SPRAGUE: I know that's a big question.

CHRISTOPHERSON: It's. It's. It's easier to, it's easier to understand military 01:35:00issues if they're, if either one of us have military--we can--we've got each other to bounce ideas off, or questions off and, and where to go to, to look for this or that and stuff like this. So if you had just one who was a military person and the spouse wasn't, that person is almost virtually, in essence, alone in trying to deal with whatever he's got, or needs to, to get. And so a veteran married to a veteran, I would think, would be a lot easier because you understand, you've had the same experiences.

SPRAGUE: If you hadn't served, how would your life have turned out?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Boring. [Both laugh] I don't know. Boring is the only thing I can think of. What else is there to do, you know?

SPRAGUE: Okay. I'm just curious.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Well, I have no idea. I had gone to. Well, I, I've been in 01:36:00banking for years, and I had done banking overseas, and I did banking here and stuff, so maybe I'd still be in the banking world. I don't know.

SPRAGUE: How has serving in the Army changed over time, regarding women serving from 1984, '83 to the present? Or hasn't it changed? What is your impression?

CHRISTOPHERSON: Well, I think, I think the military's become wussified anyway, so, you know. You know, I don't think the military is as strong on the women as they used to be. That's, probably I should have joined now, and I probably don't have to do as many sit ups or something, I don't know.

SPRAGUE: [Laughs]

CHRISTOPHERSON: They get to where tennis shoes on the field, so. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Um. What, what motivated you to do this interview?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I probably would never have heard about it, except the state VFW 01:37:00commander Michelle had suggested it and, and says, "Mary Ann, come on." I says, "okay, whatever you want, I'll do it. I am here to serve you." [Both laugh]

SPRAGUE: Uh, is there anything that we didn't cover during this interview that you'd like to cover?

CHRISTOPHERSON: I don't think so. I think you went through plenty of paper there. [both laugh]

SPRAGUE: Okay, then, Mary Ann, if there's nothing else.

CHRISTOPHERSON: Is there anything else? There's nothing else.

SPRAGUE: Okay, then we're going to go ahead and that concludes the interview.

CHRISTOPHERSON: All right, bye.

SPRAGUE: Bye.

[Interview Ends]