Oral History Interview with Jennifer L. McFall

[Interview Begins]

SPRAGUE: So today is August 12th, 2023. This is an interview with Jennifer McFall, who is serving in the Army National Guard, and she started entered the Army in 2007 to the present. This interview is being conducted by Luke Sprague at the Brown County Central Library in Green Bay. For the I Am Not Invisible project as part of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Program. No one else is present in the room. Okay. Jennifer, if you could tell me a little bit about where you grew up.

MCFALL: I grew up here in green Bay. I was with my mom for probably through sixth grade here in green Bay. We bounced around a couple different schools, a couple different houses. And then she moved us out to Luxembourg. Casco my seventh grade year. And I finished up high school there and then came back into green Bay for college.

SPRAGUE: And what did your. What what was your families? What did they do? What was their involvement in the community?

MCFALL: My mom was a CNA by trade up until I hit, I think, college, actually, it was quite late on. And then she finally went and got her LPN license. She was a single mom after I was probably 7 or 8 raising three girls, and she worked primarily night shift when we were really young, and then eventually moved to day shift when we were old enough to take care of ourselves, or I was old enough to take care of my two younger sisters.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And, what schools did you attend?

MCFALL: I attended how elementary, Baird elementary, Webster Elementary, Edison Middle School, and then eventually Luxembourg Castle Middle school and high school.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you have any, relatives or traditions of your family that served in the military?

MCFALL: I don't know a whole lot about, like, past grandparents, but I do seen from looking at gravestones. My great grandpa, Borden tall, was in the military. And then I do know my cousin Brock was a marine. He served either 4 or 6 years over in Japan and then got out. And he still lives here in green Bay. And currently now I have a cousin. Zach Shahar. He is a warrant officer in the Wisconsin National Guard.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And your great grandfather's name. You mentioned his name.

MCFALL: Robert Boles involved.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And your cousin's name?

MCFALL: Brock was involved.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. And how do you spell Rosenthal?

MCFALL: B o l t h a z l I believe.

SPRAGUE: Okay, cool. So what made you think to start thinking about joining the military?

MCFALL: To be honest, in high school, senior recruiters came in and I walked the opposite way. Wanted nothing to do with it. I was a very skinny girl. No physical fitness background. In college, I wanted to go to nursing school. I got a conflict of interest. How do you do that? Plus your clinicals. Too much to balance. And when I met what was to be my husband in 2004, he joined in 2007 and told me I couldn't make it through basic training. So challenge accepted. I signed up probably two months after he did and went to basic training and was very successful.

SPRAGUE: So, when, your husband enlisted and, what what timeframe was that after high school or during high school?

MCFALL: Nope. We both actually joined in 2007, right after we got married.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. Okay. So. He said you couldn't make it through basic training.

MCFALL: He did? He went infantry. I went truck driving. And at basic training. Obviously, male standards are harder, but at the same time, for equal reason, their capabilities are different. He came home with a 285 out of 300. I came home with a 299. I would have had a 3 or 2 if I had one more set up. Wow. And I actually came back 10 pounds later, and for the first time in my life, a six pack, I took my training very serious, I had fun. I smiled my way through it, but I went through with the intention to come back stronger.

SPRAGUE: Tell me also about at this time about, your daughter at that time.

MCFALL: Yes. So I joined in 2007 and she was born June of oh eight. So looking at the timeline, I probably was just barely pregnant when I went to mammoth. Enough for didn't show up. So I stayed at RSP for two years prior to shipping off to basic training. So I shipped off January of oh eight. Her birthday would have been June of oh eight, so she was about seven eight months old. I graduated I t July right after she turned one years old.

SPRAGUE: And for the civilians on the line, what is RSP?

MCFALL: I don't remember that what the acronym stands for exactly, but it's like a sustainment recruiting statement from a program, I believe. So essentially, it's where they take brand new soldiers until they ship off to basic training, and they teach them the basics of customs and courtesies, physical fitness and what, the military title. So when they get to basic training, they know some of those key aspects of what they're going to be looked at. So they're a little bit more prepared.

SPRAGUE: And when you enlisted, was it with the intent or plan to stay here in the National Guard or was it to go on active duty or.

MCFALL: Actually the intent was after my six year contract to get out and continue on with nursing school, maybe go on and be a physician assistant and to just have my normal life. Never thought I would stay in after six years.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So tell me about, your arriving at basic. What? That. What was that like?

MCFALL: So I had heard the horror stories of my husband down there, so I packed very lightly. I didn't bring really anything because I knew when you got there, they were going to make you toss it and get new stuff. So upon arrival, it seemed a little bit too good to be true at first. Where they brought you in at Fort Jackson, you're like, this is it. They're very nice. This isn't what you anticipated. Couple days later, as they then to push you actually out to the training area, completely different story. Tuck your head down in your bus. Don't look at where you're at when you get there. There's 50, 60 bags in one pile, and you have to try to find out where yours is. But yet they all look exactly the same because you didn't know at the time to make your look different, whether a piece of tape or something. And then you had to run up three flights of stairs to your barracks.

SPRAGUE: Now where these older barracks are, were these newer barracks.

MCFALL: They looked older from what I could. Tell us. I did learn after the fact. I was probably three blocks from the main gate onto Fort Jackson, but at the time I had no clue where I was because I drove around in circles with you up on the bus head, looking at the floor just to kind of orientate you from where you were.

SPRAGUE: And you were there at what time of the year at basic. If you remember.

MCFALL: See, my ex left January, I think February and March is when I went down there and then I got home in July.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And, what was it like being exposed to different people from all over the country?

MCFALL: That actually don't bother me with how my childhood was bouncing from school to school. I was actually the minority in most of the schools. So going down there, it wasn't a cultural shock. What was the hardest, I think for me was learning to bite my tongue when I knew information, just so I won't single myself out and be on the drill sergeants radar. I would I enjoyed actually, the camaraderie in the group activities. Well, down there.

SPRAGUE: And at this point, what year was this exactly? Roughly. Do you remember.

MCFALL: 2009?

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you at that point, were both genders training in the same company or platoon.

MCFALL: In the same barracks? Mixed fortunes? They had a gun steel door in the middle of the barracks that would separate male cyber and female side where you slept, but I was everything was mixed. Even when we did, like combat of the period, you would a female or if you were male with a male. But you learned all of those things together.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And, what, what were, were there any racial incidents or was that was that a factor at all?

MCFALL: Racial wasn't a factor of anything. It was more I would word child childish games. People played on each other. I came in, I was probably one of the older ones. I was the only one with kids. I was probably a little bit more mature than most of them there, so a lot of them took to me as like that motherly figure while we were down there. But the guys, for whatever reason, thought they could sneak things into the barracks, pee pee in people's boots on their bunks. So we got the fun fitness game, so to speak, because of childhood actions that people wanted to do, it soon became known to the drill sergeants. It wasn't us females, it was the males. So after five ten minutes, like. All right, females dismissed. Male, male. Stay down here. We're going to continue on because they learned kind of who was doing what.

SPRAGUE: And I have to ask, where are your drill sergeants? Both male and female or how did that work?

MCFALL: I actually had the only platoon out of four that was all males. Those that had the female drill sergeants tended to do more physical fitness activities just because. And I don't know if it was just a females way of proving that they belonged in the position. If it was the mindset, maybe the way they were trained. I don't kind of know that background story, but those were the platoons that tended to do more physical fitness in our classrooms, where the terminology always comes up to make the walls sweat. I had no clue what that meant. My drill sergeants didn't do it, but essentially do it in a room where it's hot until everybody's sweating and it looks like the walls are sweating around you.

SPRAGUE: How, what are some of the experiences that you remember from basic that when you think about basic training, you could go, I think.

MCFALL: The hardest one for me was the Repel Tower. I've never done Repel Towers. I took it as an opportunity to get over the fear of heights. But when I got to the top, I didn't realize the little C clip. When it locks. That's a good thing. I guess I didn't know that. So my drill sergeant said, well, you're fine unless you hear a click. Then your your your clip failed. So I got a couple feet down. I heard a click. I freaked out and climbed back up. He then pushed me off the Repel Tower and I cried the whole way down, thinking I was like falling to my death. Now with that said, with probably what, 20ft? 30ft? It wasn't very far, but because I didn't have that background knowledge, I was scared. The crap. And every reporter since then I do not take my hands off the rope and they're flaming hot when I get off the end, because I know subconsciously I'm not going to fall. But at the same time, you're scared. That kind of ingrained into my brain while I was there.

SPRAGUE: Where is it a Swiss cedar? Was it OSI style or a Swiss?

MCFALL: Yeah, because you had the one behind and one in front. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: And then probably a lay person down low.

MCFALL: Yeah. Yep.

SPRAGUE: Okay. You were talked about in the pre-interview about, you were in basic. And forgive me if I'm wrong on this, but. But your husband was deployed at the time. Is that right?

MCFALL: Did he left in January and I had left. Like I said, it was like February or March for training. So he was down originally at Primo when I got there and then deployed while I was currently at basic training. So they did give me the exception to jump on their computer once while there to send out an email to family members and to him giving them my address where I was, and just to check up on our oldest at the time. And I took that as a sign. Well, when I get my phone, I'm not going to get it. I already had that opportunity given to me. No, the drill sergeant still gave me the phone, just like everybody else did. As long as I passed my fitness test, I just had that one additional that I was given just because of the uniqueness of my family life.

SPRAGUE: Now you had how many children in the family at this point?

MCFALL: At that time, just the one. Just the one.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And what was that like? And how was the army in and accommodating that or what was that like.

MCFALL: Being fully Travis had an aunt where her husband was in the military at the time. He's now retired. So she completely understood what that family life looked like. So she actually took our daughter in for the first couple of months, until my sister was done with college for the summer, and then she took over the care of our daughter.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What, what? Not to put you on the spot, but what was your impression of, married spouses with children and how the Army at that time, oh nine, dealt with it?

MCFALL: I was actually very foreign to it. I didn't know what to expect, so I was very thankful. My drill sergeants, so to speak, had a kind heart when it came to that. I got lots of letters with pictures. My wall locker was top to bottom of pictures of my daughter, and most people would get made fun of when they got mail. Oh, is that from your boyfriend? Or that this mine were always pictures that got to the point where they're all sort of like McFall. Pictures of your daughter. Don't open it. Like I didn't have to open my mail anymore just because they knew and they knew who I was. They knew I wasn't sneaking contraband in. And then that felt good. Because you didn't know what you're walking into. A basic training. After hearing how some of the other ones, like Fort Sill or Fort Benning, treated their soldiers. Now, granted, those were combat focused typically, and I wasn't a combat, job description.

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

MCFALL: You know, I think just in general, like the meeting people from all over, like you had mentioned, I think that was a great experience. Now, with the knowledge I have of the military and some of the different ways of getting in. I think basic training should be for everybody. Whether you do college first through ROTC, I think basic training should be a standard for everybody. Yes, it can be stressful, but it's also very rewarding at the end. Like I said, I went in there with a mindset thinking in the worst case because my husband went infantry and I came out actually really enjoying it. I learned a lot. I was in the best physical shape I'd ever been in my life, and the friends that I met there, I still probably talked to 2 or 3 of them to this day through social media, and that's something that you can't get anywhere else.

SPRAGUE: Okay. One of the things you had talked about in your pre-interview also was seeing your seven month year old at, I'm assuming, basic graduation. And what what was what would you what was that like?

MCFALL: It was a flood of every emotion hitting you all at once. I was happy to see her. I was nervous, I was scared. I just remember looking back at pictures, the big blubber face I had, and she's looking at me like, who the hell is this woman? Why is she crying? Why is she holding you? I don't think I don't know if she recognized who I was at the time. And after that, we went to the park and I played with her, and she started to warm up. But at first she's like, I don't like this woman. Like, why am I here? But just all those emotions flooded when I could fear. And to just starting to learn how to walk wasn't walking very well yet. And my sister and mom had brought her down for me to see. And then after that went to I t and that's when I actually got her to physically walk in the middle of food court, where we put her in the middle of the food court that night. You're going to walk. And she walked, not to me, but to my sister.

SPRAGUE: O.

MCFALL: Which I understood. She had been with her for at that point, almost 16 weeks.

SPRAGUE: When you think about your military service and that kind of separation from family, what I mean, what is that like?

MCFALL: I've had many employers say, why is your family not? First, why is your military career first? And I always have to correct them that my family is first. My family has what they have today because of my military career. I have two girls. They grew up in this life. It's second nature to them. Do they like me being gone? No, but they accept it and they're okay with it. They are stronger, I believe, because of it. They see what I have accomplished as a single female, and they know what they can then potentially accomplish with that same mindset.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Moving on to i.t. Where did you go to? I here at.

MCFALL: Fort Leonard.

SPRAGUE: Wood. Okay. And that was immediately after Fort Jackson, right?

MCFALL: It was we took. Hello. Was it a 24 hour ride on the bus there? But this was a coach bus. Probably not 24 hours, but, I mean, it was a good hike because I know from here to I've never driven to Fort Jackson, but I'm driven in Virginia, and I was 16.5 hours, so it was an overnight bus ride with anybody else that was leaving Fort Jackson to go to Fort Leonard Wood. And my battle buddy from Fort Jackson happened to be going to Fort Lauderdale with me for seat mates on the way over. Wow.

SPRAGUE: So. What, what did you decide to get trained in at it?

MCFALL: I took truck driving only because at the time, it was the quickest to get through with a brand new baby. I wanted to do medic, but when they told me how long the training was, I was like, oh, I can't do that to her. I can't be gone too long. And there are some days where it's a regret. I love my medical training. I wish I would have gone medical, but now fast forward to where I'm at. It is a nice balance having multiple tools in your tool belt, so to speak. I do medical on the outside and then truck driving transportation on the military side.

SPRAGUE: And you had mentioned during the pre-interview, what were some of the vehicles that you learned about and got qualified on or.

MCFALL: At basic or at 80? They just gave you a familiarization of what they had there. So they had Humvees. They had your basic five ton, whether it was an MTV or an alum TV. And then they had an LA. So you just got a very small overview of each of those vehicles. To me, actually, it out of the two, I it's probably the most fuzzy earth, and I feel like it was just because it wasn't as structured. There was a lot of downtime where soldiers could get themselves in trouble. I like more the structure of basic training. I'm what we had. But since then, I've been exposed to all the tractor trailers. At one point I had the 900 series old ones. I had to learn how to drive so we could turn them in. Never drove the habit. I didn't switch to a heavy transportation company, but it enables lower ones and the tractor trailer was probably my favorite. Nice long bed like what you would have on a semi. Little bit harder to turn, but that was the fun part of it. Trying to figure out how to turn, how to back up with it just right where you want, what they call jackknifed. So like your truck and your trailer being in opposite directions. I loved the challenge of it versus a Humvee. Like driving a car.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. What? What else did what were what, things did the classes cover in addition to the vehicles?

MCFALL: It went over your basic components of the vehicle. How to properly check your vehicle. Inspection wise, it's called a PMCs. So looking at any deficiencies in your vehicle before you drive it, while driving it, after driving it, it went over like the statistics of what it could carry, measurements of the vehicle. And then from there, that's when we started doing like the driving piece of it. But that was only five weeks long of training versus the basic training. So we did that for a couple weeks, and then they pushed us out into the field. And I feel like out in the field, because of the lack of instructors available, a lot of us just kind of sat around and only few people actually got out into the vehicle and drove them often. I was not one of them that got to do that, but I remember going back and forth from the field for that.

SPRAGUE: And you had mentioned, a second eye to you. What was that or is that a different idea?

MCFALL: The the two of those. For one, I was enlisted, but then when I went, officer okay, we had specific schooling that we did for that, and then it'd be equivalent to an enlisted eight. I did bulk basic officer leadership course.

SPRAGUE: Okay, we'll come back to that. I was just curious, because sometimes you have people who. Yeah.

MCFALL: Yeah. If you have two different job descriptions.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Multiple assets. Anything else from it that you're like, you think about daily like that one.

MCFALL: Like I said, it was more fuzzy, but I remember having a lot of downtime. I remember being able to go to the local stream and swimming. So I did pack of some sort of my training. We don't need assistance. I had a go by actually, in the kid's section, a swimsuit, because that's the only one I could find that would fit me. And we would go swimming almost every weekend. And then 4th of July weekend when they brought my daughter down. And I've got pictures of her, on the blankets with my fellow soldiers. And we're just having fun. Relaxing every weekend with downtime is just Monday through Friday training. You know, it's kind of more like your banker hours, eight hours a day.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Anything else from it?

MCFALL: No.

SPRAGUE: Okay, so you get done with it. What happens next? Where do you go next?

MCFALL: I was originally slotted for the Sussex unit in southern Wisconsin. I drilled with the, I believe it was two drills, and they asked me. Well, why are you driving down here? You live in green Bay. There's a kosher company. I go, oh, I didn't know. This is just where I was told I was going. So they actually had me drill in Oshkosh with the 11, five, seven, and I took a boat nine months to a year to actually get on their books as a permanent soldier. But they allowed me to drill there in lieu of going down to Sussex until it was finalized. And I was pushed under their books. And that's where then I stayed for my whole entire enlisted career.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What? What were you doing on the civilian side when you weren't drilling? If you don't mind me asking.

MCFALL: I knew right from the get go in high school, I wanted to go into nursing, and I actually mimicked my civilian career, like my military career. With my mom being a CNA, she always said, Jennifer, one day you'll be above me and you need to know what everybody below you does. So I started actually in Central Supply. I and learning what all the medical supplies were. Then I became that CNA and I tried nursing home didn't really care for it. So I went into the hospitals which worked very well with the supply background. Got to do paperwork side, CNA side. And then I went to LPN and then eventually to R.N.. So I worked my way up the ladder. And then now since I've been our own, I've worked the floor and I've also done management roles and have worked with my mother and has overseen her. So. Oh really? I took her advice to heart. I knew what everybody below me did. I didn't just bark out orders, not knowing what they already had to do.

SPRAGUE: Jumping forward but thinking about that. Does that go into your leadership philosophy as an officer?

MCFALL: Most definitely. You can always see two different types of officers, those that are your people, person with prior enlisted experience and those that were your ROTC. And not all ROTC are the same way, but you can typically tell those two different officers are very different than how they approach people and how they approach their situations. And I'm probably that one that might be just even a little bit lower than some of your other officers in that aspect, where it's not a bad thing. People come to me with their problems. They come to me in confidence, knowing that I will help them, and I'll point them in that right direction. Because of my time enlisted and the relationships I've built with many of those enlisted soldiers. And I think then with having that nursing background, that empathy and sympathy that that radiates off of me, and I kind of draw some of those people to come to me versus other soldiers that they may not have that personable touch.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So on the enlisted side, tell me about, if there was what a typical drill was like in the 1157.

MCFALL: Oh, I loved it. I don't think we truly knew. What life could be in the Wisconsin National Guard if I sobered up that way while I was there. We did not work in the field at all. Our time for annual trainings were in the barracks and just taking care of ourselves. We had so much time to actually teach those basic soldier skills in our warrior books, but we made it fun. We didn't just sit there rattle off a task. So, for example, medical tasks, there's a good dozen of them sort of just sitting there teaching in a classroom. We would set up different points at Fort McCoy, and you would do mountain land nav in your vehicle to those points, and then you would learn the task. We made it fun. For driver's training, our platoon sergeants, we would do a convoy up to their house. We'd have a barbecue convoy back. Everything we made for as much fun as we could. We all went out for dinner after drills. We all stayed in the same hotel after drill. There was a lot of camaraderie at that unit. So when I switch the officers side, you'll see it was very different. We had more field time, completely different styles of military, and I was a little bit of a culture shock, I guess, when I switched.

SPRAGUE: So the, we'll come back to that for sure. You had mentioned during the pre-interview, you enjoyed, training your soldiers, and that was a common thing. Can you tell can you expand on that?

MCFALL: I did, I loved teaching, and I loved trying to better others and give them the tools to better themselves. So I was the weight NCO, and I was one of the primary instructors for our platoon when it came to medical tasks, for sure. And then some of the other tasks, everybody's got their own subject matters radios, not as much of my forte, but when it came to the medical stuff, because I did that on the outside, I talked a lot of those classes, and it got to the point where the readiness NCO, when there was a medical issue that arised, I did like a basic assessment before we shipped them to the ER to make sure whether it truly warranted or if we just took basic first aid at the unit level. So they took to heart a lot of with what we did on the civilian side and utilize that at drill as well.

SPRAGUE: I've heard this from other soldiers, the ability of a National Guard soldier to be able to take their civilian skill set and their military skill set and basically combine them, use both of them. And sometimes many of them would argue more effectively than an active duty soldier, but that's their opinion, of course. What what is your experience of that?

MCFALL: And that's where I was saying, it's nice that I have two different type of jobs, because the way I have is leadership and the way I organize myself for transportation of supplies I can totally use. On the nursing side, for example, the way you organize yourself paperwork is your checklist of tasks to accomplish. Not every nurse is that organized. They just go off of what does the computer tell you to do? I have an organizational sheet that I do every morning that tells me what are my blood sugars, what are my weights, what are my treatments? What are my nebulizer? Is everything is color coded. So as I. Accomplish those tasks. I can cross them off. Do the same thing on the military side. I have a running record of what do I have going out each day for commodities. Who is taking them out? So for me, it went very hand in hand. And then being able to teach medical tasks on the civilian side or on the military side. I could pull in some of those aspects of what I've learned that the military hasn't quite caught up with and kind of intermingle them. So knowing that our company didn't go out into the field and I had to teach, for example, the military, the version of CPR and what not to do if somebody is not breathing. I'm like, well, I go, sir, we don't do this. We're not in the field. I'm in. Can I teach them field versus armory and show them how to use an IED? I go, that's nowhere in our book, but if we're here in the armory, that's what they need to know. And he goes, yeah, teach them what's going to benefit them. So then I added in different classes like that that would actually teach them here versus in the field because they are very separate.

SPRAGUE: You had mentioned during the pre-interview, on the enlisted side, you were probably sound like an E-5 Promotable or you were about to make E-6 when you were making a decision to become an officer before you stepped over that. What, as an NCO? What were some of the challenges that you faced as a sergeant or in the Three Rockers?

MCFALL: I was a sergeant for the longest time because I didn't want to take that E-6 slot and then have to push my work under somebody else while going through training. And that was just me being me looking out for others. But as an E-5, I was in charge of at times up to eight soldiers. And that's where my checklist came into handy. I had wrote down what month I was doing my quarterly counseling, what month each person had their evaluation do, and I would checklist as I did it. And I think the hardest part was having some soldiers that were great. They wanted to be there. They wanted to learn. They wanted to do. And then the other that they tried to find the one corner to go hide in and hope they weren't found. And it was trying to find from them. How can you pull out of them what's going on? Because typically it's something on their home life that's causing this. We all signed that line for a reason. We all wanted to be there for a reason. But what changed? And so a lot of times I would sit down every other month and put all the military ID aside and say, hey, what's going on at home? How's life with the wife or the husband with the kids? How is school going? And kind of get to know where they're at on that side of the well, not just their military side. And I would actually document down some of that. Oh, I'm at school. This is my goal. This is what I want to accomplish. And then I would take notes afterwards on what was the wife's name or the kids names. That way you could be personable with them as well. That is an moment to them when you're talking to them and they go, oh, she remembers my wife's name. Remember, they have two kids. It's just a different relationship you can build. And by doing that, I was able to get some of my soldiers to participate more. And. The nurse and bring lights to know the why behind everything. Soldiers. They want to just be told do this. Some of them don't want to know that. Why? But I found in that instance, if you told them the why behind some of the training and why you wanted them to teach it what they would get out of it, they're more open to do those suggestions. And so I just took a different way of mentoring, so to speak. My my lower soldiers.

SPRAGUE: Did you see any generational differences and people who are willing to just accept orders on the surface versus those who wanted it explained to them?

MCFALL: The younger soldiers were more eager to jump in and just do. I didn't have to give that. Why? Behind it? Some of them were like me that they just wanted to know it. But our older generations, those are the ones that more. I noticed one of the wise, especially knowing that I was younger, overseeing them. But I also think after a while they got to know that was who I was, and they just wanted to know for their general knowledge why I was asking them to do that so they could put it in their toolbelt for when they became that rank as well.

SPRAGUE: What were some of the funnest moments that you had? Well drilling? Well, enlisted.

MCFALL: I just loved going to Fort McCoy at the time, like I said. We slept in the barracks, but we were all over north and south post driving at times, probably in areas we probably weren't supposed to drive, but we didn't. We didn't know. We didn't care. The driver's training aspects were very one on one and fun trying to get up these big steep hills, not getting stuck because, let's face it, how are you going to get unstuck? Who are you going to call? They were larger companies, so you'd fill the whole entire bay of females and you chit chat for hours after training, getting to know each other and the moi, morale boosting events that we had. Like I said, going up and doing picnics in the middle of a convoy at your sergeant's house or even at Fort McCoy, you would have a full day of just relaxing, drinking, swimming, playing games, movie nights. It just built that camaraderie that I had never seen. I just really enjoyed being able to do those basic soldier skills there.

SPRAGUE: What was one of the scariest moments during drill?

MCFALL: I would say there were too many, but the one that stood out the most is some of the stupidity from the soldiers that could cause injuries while we're out there working on our vehicles. If you would just remember the basic PPE or getting in and out of the vehicle, use three points of contact. Some of the injuries I would see when that wasn't being done. I'm like, you're lucky. It could have been worse. I think what would have been scary is because I like to plan the deployment in 2012, if I would have went on that. I'm not sure how that would have impacted my life. At the time, my second baby, she was born March of 11, and we got the notification, I believe it was about October November time frame to deploy in 2012. I remember when that first came out, I was shocked, like, how am I going to do this with my two kids? Is my husband going to be able to handle this? Is my marriage going to be able to handle this? And that shock hit harder than I anticipated because I knew my job very well. Come January, February 1st, when they were finalizing those lists, there was four of us that had had babies in the last year, and they just go, no questions asked you for. Stay back. You're running. We're dead. And I just remember an immediate lift off my shoulders of relief because my marriage wasn't the best. My kids were young. They needed mom. I didn't know going overseas if I was in the right mindset for my soldiers, knowing for myself I wasn't where I needed to be, and I didn't want to put their lives at risk. So I think if I would have gone, that would have been one of those scary moments for me. What? I've made it through it most definitely. I would have leaned on my different resources I had available, but my family and being able to talk through things was a key factor I had. And you wouldn't have had that over there. I would have had to find a battle buddy that could replace them.

SPRAGUE: And that was 2012 or 2011, 2012. And the unit, the 1157 are part of it. Deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

MCFALL: Where we are told Kuwait, but I believe it ended up being Afghanistan.

SPRAGUE: Okay, okay. Which, within the 1157 are there? I'm assuming multiple platoons. Which platoon were you in at the time?

MCFALL: We had two transportation platoons, and I would believe I was the second of the two. I had bones between them at one point.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

MCFALL: When I was an E-4, I was in one, and then I switched the other one. I was a sergeant.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

MCFALL: But I knew upon coming back from deployment, they shuffled a lot of it because of the things that had gone down with leadership. They revamped the whole entire company when they came back.

SPRAGUE: In, couple thing. So you stayed back with rear Dead. Did you ever have you explained why that was beneficial? Do you have ever think to yourself, I wish I had gone on that detachment.

MCFALL: Or definitely when I became an officer, I was like, man, the valuable lessons I could have taken from that. And I really beat myself up for a while, going through OCS and then at a brand new lieutenant that I wish I would have done, that I'd be able to teach my soldiers differently. And it took a few of my senior and seals. And then, Lieutenant Colonel Helen. Brenda, tell me, Jennifer, you don't need a deployment to take care of your soldiers. You have doctrine, you have just basic life skills, and you have just soldiering skills. That's all you need. I go if you. They go. If you lean on those senior NCOs, you'll get through it whether you've deployed or not. And that really hit home because I thought I was at a disadvantage to my soldiers as an officer, not have deployed.

SPRAGUE: Were there, any experiences with, gender discrimination at that unit as enlisted?

MCFALL: Definitely not. We got along very, very well. Like I said, because of the downtime we had afterwards, we would get together and we'd go to different houses that lived right in Oshkosh, and we'd have dinner and we'd have parties playing fun games. We would meet up off of drill and we would do, like, Pampered Chef parties or just meet up and play volleyball. The camaraderie was at a different level there. And even while the guys were deployed, and I think guys being males and females, both of us that were back, we got together outside as well, just to kind of keep the group of us tight.

SPRAGUE: And what was your sense of as the unit was deployed to Afghanistan and you were in rear debt? Tell me about being rear that what that's like?

MCFALL: It was different. It was like you took a step back on training because it was all your brand new soldiers coming in, that it was on the couple of you guys pretty much to get them up to par for whatever buddy came back from deployment. So as you train, you go through untrained, trained proficiency, these different levels on your tasks. And it was like you had to take a step back. And no, we're not going to be up here. We're going to be down here because these are brand new soldiers that it's like teaching like a baby, a child. You're you're you're there. You're the primary teacher. So that was a little different. But because of my background of wanting to be that helper, I liked that. I liked it, with it being slower, you had that opportunity to teach them what was right, what was correct, and that was a really good feeling versus if everybody was there because the unit would be up here and they're here, you're not going to just come down. You're going to try to get them up here quicker. And that would have been a disadvantage to some of those soldiers.

SPRAGUE: So, your E-5 promotable I'm assuming that's the case. And then what what year did you start thinking about becoming an officer? So 2017, 2019 about when was that?

MCFALL: I took my commission in 17. So I would have started OCS in 2015.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

MCFALL: So shortly after they got back from that deployment, that's when I already started picking the commanders brains on how do I do this? How do I know what MOS available, what does that training look like? And it took. That commander and then the following commander to finally get my answers. I don't know if that commander just didn't care or what was going on, but I felt like I was never getting the answer to what I wanted. And so the next commander that came in, I believe, was actually an ROTC graduate. But you could tell there's a different, different mentality on how to run the unit. And he goes, oh, here, I'll make a phone call. Well, the next day I'm being given the. Packet on what to fill out and how to go about it. And I want to say it was probably only there a couple months after he took command and boom, I was over and up or things already, like it was very quick and it was just having the right person to ask the right question to.

SPRAGUE: What, what was your motivation, for becoming an officer?

MCFALL: I was at that point of an E-5 going to an E-6, where I loved what I did, but it wasn't a full satisfaction of being fulfilled. So I was like, well, do I go officer route into more of the planning and still impact lives, or do every class now at this point, because the kids are a little older medic. And I was like, wow, they didn't like it that a step back. Like I really went back and forth. Yes, I want to medical, but I didn't want to set myself backwards either, because by this point I was done with my nursing program. I was a bachelor. Amen. And I was trying to make both my careers halfway match. And that's what made me finally decide let's go, officer route. If they have something medical available, I'll go that route. If not that, I'll stay. Transportation background with what I've been doing for the last ten years.

SPRAGUE: What is your sense of. And I realize you're you're actively you're drilling now, of, within the guard unit, not on active well drilling. Drilling, actively drilling of enlisted who become officers within the guard unit. What? How is that perceived by the unit? I mean, yeah, it's a big question. I know.

MCFALL: You know, it's going to very low, but I think on each unit, and it depends on that individual's personality. Like I said, a lot of us come in with a lot of knowledge, which is great for planning purposes, but they still have to be open to listening to those senior NCOs if you're not willing to listen to them. That NCO community is a lot larger than us, and they're not going to perceive you as being welcomed in. And I say that because if you come in and just say this is how we're doing it, no ifs, ands or buts, that's going to get them wrong. Like, you have to have that flexibility at least to hear them out. And then if it's not what you think is the right plan, explain to them, no, we're going to go with this. But because of x, y, z. And if you have switched MOS or as an officer and A or C afterwards, in my own opinion, you need to listen to them. That's their subject matter expert, not yours at this point. I think we stayed in the same path, so I had a lot of knowledge, and I think that's surprised a lot of my younger enlisted because they didn't know that of me at first. They're like, well, ma'am, wait, you know what this is like? Well, yeah, I'm like, I used to drive with all the time. And that's where they're like, wait, pump the brakes, ma'am, wait, explain this. And I would explain that to them. My enlisted career and that opened then that comfort level and that trust level that I may not have had.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So tell me about, your experience at, was, at Miami at what we used to call whammy, but now it might be it was something.

MCFALL: We still do. That's the whammy up. When I first got there, I'm like, yes, I'm going to be an officer. Like, I got this. And going through the I chose the traditional track, which is the 18 months, because it mimics what you already did from drilling for your weekends and your annual trainings. Because of the factor of now being divorced and having two kids, I wanted what the kids already knew, and I knew by doing it that way. If something happened, my body had time to recoup in between each of those months. And the phase one is your annual training. Phase two would be your drill weekends. Phase three would be like another annual training. So that phase one, oh, maybe I had a easier basic, but that was like basic training on steroids. I loved it, but I hated it at the same time, I had said if I ever got hurt and got sent home, I was going back and listed. I was not doing it again. Having to go and be yelled at by not just one. What would be a drill sergeant? They're called tacks, but five of them surrounding you at one time. And I was like, I have earned respect. I have been in the military at this point, 8 to 10 year. I'm like, what am I doing? I'm like, why am I back at square one again? And I it really took a lot to step back and say, well, not everybody has had as many years experience. This is their way of like a basic training, breaking you down and building you back up. But man, it took a. Hold on you as a person. Like. To have to actually be like, I can do this. Like mentally, it's like I thought I was going with this. To be treated with such a little respect after all those years. Like, that's where I'm biggest pride. Having to suck up that pride again because of basic training, I never was at that lowest of a level. Like, I could walk around smiling, which usually the no, no, and they didn't yell at me. So this was just a completely different level for me. And I was like, oh, do I really want this that bad? I made it through it, didn't get injured, went back to phase two, and that's where you do your classroom trainings, where they teach you history, writing, operation orders, fundamentals of how to be an officer. And then you have an exam each month and then you have intermingled in that different physical aspect. So you still have your fitness test. We had road marches that were timed six mile, ten mile loop, nine mile and a 12 mile. And that was my weak spot doing those road marches, full battle rattle, 40 pound pack. So after you had everything on your 60 to 80 pounds extra and I just could not keep up. So I picked the tallest guy in our group and I said, do not let me fill. You're my battle. You're going to get me across this. And our class just we meshed very well. We pulled on each other's strengths. We backed up each other's weaknesses where we didn't let people fail. If they failed, it's because they wanted to. We started with believe it was 14 of us. One got out because he just didn't want to be there. One was because of an injury, and he later went on to the accelerated course and still graduated. And then one, after we completed all three phases, got himself in trouble on the civilian side and said something to our academy. So they revoked him graduating with us. But he's an officer now, today. So he went back. He finished it. So that was phase two. And then phase three was Washington State again, two weeks annual training. And they're all you were graded on with your mission. But it was a lot of teamwork to get through everything.

SPRAGUE: Where were you in Washington state? Happen to remember.

MCFALL: Lewis for coil joint force base.

SPRAGUE: Fort Lewis? McChord? Yep. Yeah. Joint base. Now it's a joint base. Yeah. Okay. Where were you on Fort Lewis to remember?

MCFALL: Oh, I have no idea.

SPRAGUE: Were there big trees and ants and.

MCFALL: In the field? There were. Well, we were actually in cantonment. It wasn't, but we worked on containment a whole lot. That was primarily field work. They flew us out on Black Hawks and landed in what looked like a fresh burnt field. Because I remember kicking up in my eyes and we just land out there. We did a wait no wrong one. That was phase one. That was land out out there. It was pretty much running. Like I said, all those missions, we slept in the field and we didn't use tents. We stopped just in our sleeping bags. And then at one point we went through like a little village and we had to clear rooms and stuff. That was actually the most fun I'd ever had.

SPRAGUE: So backing up a little bit, what was it like to, be doing phase two while you're it's like you're drilling once a month, but is there more to it that adds additional stressors beyond a normal drill cycle or.

MCFALL: Yep, depending on where you were in the cycle for leadership, you had outside prep work to do writing operation orders, coming up with the routes for the road marches, and then just the physical aspect. Being a female, you're wanting to keep up with your male peers so that I pushed a little harder for and. Prepping for those road marches. My kids, they weren't super young, but they weren't old either. And their men, their endurance was probably only about three miles of a bike right at the time, which is nowhere near your six, 9 or 12. So I would road march while they'd bike ride three miles. And I just, I would try to do it as fast as I could. So when I had to do a longer distance, I was able to do it. So that way where on the outside part, prep work took a lot. It got to the point though, those those operation orders got a little bit easier because we shared with each other what we already had done. We didn't start from scratch. Like I said, that's what was unique with our group. We. We're a very tight group. We worked well together. Coming in for those weekends. Making your bunks. Making your closets. Dress. Right. Dress. We pulled on people's experiences myself. And then we had one that was a medic. We were in charge of the beds because we had the tightest corners. Others were really good at making the closet look perfect. So we all had one area we focused on so we could pull together and parcels inspections.

SPRAGUE: Who are your instructors at whammy! Where they NCOs were the officers.

MCFALL: We had in phase one, it was NCOs. But before we went to phase one, when we came back, we had. A warrant officer, an officer, and I think two enlisted. And then when we're in the field aspects. The commander actually worked a lot with us. He was infantry background, and he was like a walking encyclopedia of everything, but he knew how to put it at the lowest level and teach it.

SPRAGUE: On the civilian side, what were you doing opposite of women in phase two?

MCFALL: At that time, I was a floor nurse working in nursing homes. I didn't start to go into the management side until after I was done with OCS. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Tell me about, your last two weeks and phase three and sleeping in the rain.

MCFALL: Thankfully, it did not rain in Washington. You lucked out. But you carried your rock everywhere you went. And if you packed according to the packing list, it was heavy. Your shoulders hurt. Your feet hurt. And I think that's what helped us sleep a little bit better, knowing you didn't have a tent. But there was times where I'm like, I think there's mice by me. The critters you could hear. And we would joke that shrub is for females, that shrub is for males. So that you had a spot where you could pee in the middle of the night or change or whatever you needed to do. And we'd come in and we'd stomp down, like the pecker bushes and do what we could with our eternal shovels, clearing it out. And you just sleep in a circle or in a triangle, depending on where we were. And we were supposed to pull there call like a fire watch in the field, and we'd start on one end and work our way to the other. Never failed by morning, we never made it. Halfway through, somebody fell asleep and didn't wake up the next person. And we kind of got to we shouldn't, probably shouldn't have. But we learned who those people were, and we put them at the beginning so we'd all get sleep at night.

SPRAGUE: That's smart.

MCFALL: They could attack. Never walked in. We would have been in trouble.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. For sure. Okay. So, when were you commissioned?

MCFALL: We finished in 2017.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And was your commissioning ceremony at. Where was it? Out.

MCFALL: It was over at me. We were promoted in September outside in front of the Minuteman. And then October was actual graduation in the big conference room.

SPRAGUE: What was that like? I that.

MCFALL: Seemed real long at the time, but now that I look back at it, I think the ceremony went pretty quick, was very efficient. We were able to pick who we wanted for our first salutes. And so at first I thought, well, I want my first sergeant that was in charge most of my enlisted career. And then the more I thought about it on my wall, yeah, he helped me. But who's helped me the most through officer schooling? And that was my battle from the gym. He he owned the CrossFit gym I had gone to, and he was also in the military. And so I had him come out of the field, come be my first salute. And at his gym, he actually had until he sold it, the picture of our first salute hanging on his wall. Wow.

SPRAGUE: And what was his name?

MCFALL: Grant Solecki.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

MCFALL: He is now a recruiter out of green Bay.

SPRAGUE: How do you spell Solecki? Do you? I'm putting you on the spot.

MCFALL: O s o l e s k, I believe.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

MCFALL: Yeah. And his son is currently in as well. And his sister had been in the military at one point as well.

SPRAGUE: Wow. Yeah. And for the civilians on the line, what's the first salute about? What's that tradition? Hey.

MCFALL: I don't remember the whole piece about it, but essentially dates way back when, when that senior NCO mentored that officer. My assumption would be they didn't have the same training we have today. And it was on those NCOs and those lower enlisted to groom and mentor those officers to be who they became, and they were paid very, very little for that first salute was almost like a sign of appreciation of how I took it. And then you give them a silver dollar as well. And that was like your way of paying them. And we gave those to all of our first salutes. And he held on to it. It hasn't in this house.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So you get your commission. What happens next? Did you go back to your unit? Did you go to Officer's Basic?

MCFALL: At that point you go to a completely different unit. They pick where you go based on what now it's called an AOC versus an MOS, what they give you. So an area of concentration because now you oversee a larger group of people. And I was to given golf company for support and that was who overseen your 212 seventh Infantry Battalion. So I went there in November of 17. And immediately we were prepping for the big movement in 2018 exit, Michigan, where the whole state of Wisconsin thought we were deploying because they had never seen that great amount of vehicles on the road before. And so when I got there, the commander, I think, was about halfway through his time at the unit, I was their executive officer. We had known just from platoon leader. So I overseeing that at the same time. And then we had a brand new maintenance officer. I think he'd only been an officer for a couple of months as well. So from the officer side, we were very young, but a lot of finger and NCO to lean on for guidance.

SPRAGUE: So just so we have it right for the record, because that's what people will be asking 100 years from now. Golf company. Yeah. Forward support battalion. Company company. So it's a company within a company.

MCFALL: So at battalion level you have your HHC okay Alpha Bravo Charlie which are your main components. Okay. And then after that you have what's called Ford support companies. So that's your f g h. And technically we have an AI that's in, Michigan. And those are the ones that oversee a maneuver battalion. So whether it's engineers, field artillery, infantry, those support their battalion, but also the maneuver and battalion.

SPRAGUE: So correctly there wouldn't be it is truly Korff Company forward support company or is it inside Perrins or how does that.

MCFALL: Yeah it's the Ford Support company okay.

SPRAGUE: And that's second Battalion first of the 27th Infantry Regiment. Yes.

MCFALL: The 2127.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. And that would have been part of the Wisconsin National Guard. Correct. So within the 32nd or not?

MCFALL: Yeah. Within the 30s.

SPRAGUE: Okay. I'm just trying to understand because.

MCFALL: You have and even myself, I didn't understand it when I first got there. I was going to planning like when you're talking about Bravo. Like what? I didn't understand that core company versus maneuver companies. There you have Bravos or Charlie's your different companies, and it could be the maneuver, or you could be talking about your own up at the corps company. It was foreign language to me as well. At that time. I really had to pick a lot of brains to wrap around the bigger structure. When I enlisted, we took care of only ourselves. Nobody else. Yeah, I didn't hear all these different acronyms and companies and levels.

SPRAGUE: So and golf company is out of where where are they? Were Packer or Packer okay. And they've probably been there for a while. Or not or.

MCFALL: Yes. I know they were originally a different, letter company. I just don't remember what they were, but it's always been Ottawa pack.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. So it sounds like you came in with a lot of challenges being Officer short into that unit. It sounds like to me, but. But senior NCO strong.

MCFALL: Yes.

SPRAGUE: And you were the battalion or the company XO.

MCFALL: The company.

SPRAGUE: Company XO. Okay. Okay. What? For the civilians on the line. What is a comp? What is a company? XO do?

MCFALL: So that's your executive officer or the right hand of the commander? My primary duty was overseeing the day to day function of the unit, making sure maintenance was done and any classes of supply that we needed were ordered and being pushed for, for me, being at the FRC level out to the maneuvers. So when you got your bigger exercises, I was forecasting and ensuring not just my company, but that whole maneuver battalion had water, food, fuel, bullets, building supplies. So differed a little bit when it was just you were on the weekends versus and big annual training exercise what I did.

SPRAGUE: What quick aside, what is the relationship between you as a company XO and the first sergeant? I know the relationship between the company commander and the first sergeant, but what is your role as the XO with that first sergeant?

MCFALL: I usually leaned on him more if tasks weren't being completed to be that enforcer. It can be perceived wrong coming from an officer to an NCO barking out some of those orders, whereas he is at senior mentor for those enlisted. So I allowed him to do that piece versus me just going in and saying, hey, why wasn't this done? I kind of just overseen, but then I let him be more that discipline area. If things weren't being done, I always pulled him in on those conversations when I did have them with my enlisted, because that's technically their most senior advisor.

SPRAGUE: Makes sense.

MCFALL: Yeah. And then for that particular company, he overseen a lot of our cooks because we had lower ranking in there doing a higher rank role. So, for example, normally that platoon would be overseen by what's called an E7. We had a five doing in that role. So he kind of overseen that area of our company a little bit tighter than what some companies would have done.

SPRAGUE: Wow. Okay. Yeah. On the civilian side, so are you are you still in this unit or is it a different unit?

MCFALL: I am not now. I'm now up at Battalion.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. So, you were XO. What was your next role within. Within golf company?

MCFALL: I stated through executive officer the four years I was there, but they did not get a distribution platoon leader until probably my last year. So I kind of overseen the platoon and the company for those first three years. And like I said, in 18, we had that big exercise up in Camp Grayling, Michigan, and it was myself and the company commander. We're the only two officers actually went to that exercise. And I would say 90% of the time I did not see him. So I pretty much ran all operations and made sure myself and 500 infantry soldiers were taken care of during that three week exercise. And then after that, it's when I finally went and actually got qualified through the Basic Officer Leadership course at Fort Lee. So at this point, I had had no formal training as an officer.

SPRAGUE: But you were in the unit for four years or three years.

MCFALL: I was in the unit for a total of four years.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. And I would imagine you would have made First Lieutenant during that time or not. Right. Yeah. Okay. Well, that seems like a lot of, responsibility for one lieutenant and 500 soldiers.

MCFALL: It was. Like I said, we've not have had that formal training. I lean very heavily at that time on Battalion. Their transportation NCO officer and their full, which is, a huge support company or not company. Section of soldiers. I say there's probably about ten within that actual area now that have different commodities they oversee, but I picked those individuals brains at length during that exercise to the point where when I would come in and brief, I made my own checklist of class one, two, three, four all the way through what I have on hand, what I'm going to give, what am I going to get 24, 48, 72 hours out? So when I got there, I had all the answers of what they possibly could ask me listed on a sheet of paper. But it took, like I said, a couple days of picking brains to know what do they actually need from me? What am I supposed to be forecasting?

SPRAGUE: Tell me about, going to Fort Lee.

MCFALL: Fort Lee for bulk. It was an eye opener. And I say that because at this point I really hadn't been around anybody that was ROTC. So I'm sitting in a class. We're all either first lieutenants or second lieutenants. And the questions people asked, I was like, how do you not know this answer? Like, I was just in awe. Some of them, they say there's no stupid question, but in the time my brain was like, there is a stupid question, how did you know this? And that's when I learned that ROTC doesn't do basic training. They had none of the fundamentals, and it took a lot to bite my tongue and not answer every single question, because at this point, I had been doing what they were teaching for ten years, enlisted, and now I think maybe about a year other officers, they were teaching you a lot of what I did at CTC of commodity tracking and the layout of in those field exercises where battalion versus company versus maneuvers are on that battlefield, what that environment looks like, and how do you get supplies from point A to B to C? And I could have easily gone and raised my hand and answered every question, but then what does I do for my classmates? And so I had a heart to heart with our captain that was teaching the class, who had been a drill sergeant. I had to ask him, I'm like, where's this coming from? Why are they asking these questions? And he sat down and explained it to me. So I learned them just to bite my tongue and go with the flow. But I would say there was probably only five of us that were National Guard or Reserve. The rest were active duty. And even that mindset was different. Active duty didn't have that same pool of camaraderie as what upset the National Guard and reserve level have. So I found it difficult to make friends, to do things outside of classroom with everybody, and we were usually done by about 4:00 every day, no weekends. So I took an advantage, and I succeed as much as I could in that area historically, to include going up to New York over to Assateague and Chattanooga Island. The only one I in DC, the only one I didn't do that I wanted to was Gettysburg.

SPRAGUE: You mentioned, multiple times. You talk about, camaraderie amongst National Guard. Why do you think that is?

MCFALL: Because we only see each other for a small amount of time each month, and we have to accomplish the same tasks that your active duty people do. You have to have that teamwork. You have to get along. And I feel because we're only there for that short period, you don't get to talk to them every day. So then we tend to lean on them outside of drill as well. We become friends and we hang out and build that camaraderie versus active duty. You see each other five days a week in the classroom. It's no different than your day to day job as a civilian. I'm sure some of them hang out, but not everybody hangs out, just like you don't at your normal job. You don't hang out with everybody you work with for the different. Different way of building friends, I feel. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: AC, TC that was the training exercise at Camp Greely. Correct. And that stands. What does AC, PC stand for? If you happen to remember, I'm assuming it's some kind of exercise.

MCFALL: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: It's a new term to me. That's why I ask may I.

MCFALL: I should know this because we just completed another one and we're on our cycle where we just completed another one. And next year that joint one RTC.

SPRAGUE: Okay. That's okay.

MCFALL: I can look at it. Yeah, I don't remember. No worries. Had but it's an essentially it's an outside group of people coming in and creating.

SPRAGUE: As.

MCFALL: Evaluators, as it, as evaluators, just like what a JTC would be. And at an exit, it's typically platoon level grading. Whereas I think JTC is usually company grading for the just a different level of grading to see if you're meeting your tasks as being proficient and trained.

SPRAGUE: Okay, back to Fort Lee quickly. Anything interesting else happened other than talking with the drill sergeant and getting the real story?

MCFALL: We did try to do funny events, so like we did. At Halloween time, we set up our classroom as a station to come through for trick or treaters. We volunteered for a haunted hayride. Some of us females, we went out and we ate together. I did tend to get along well with the males, so I went hiking with them at Shenandoah Park. We did do. Like a formal dining. We did some of those camaraderie things, but if you didn't have a friend within the class, it was kind of I knew outside of class. I would say the biggest event that stood out the most for me during there was called capstone. And you take about 2 or 3 weeks planning for this exercise, and you've got a huge map that you're marking, like where your units are, where your enemies are, where your supplies are. And you're essentially briefing over so many days how you're going to accomplish this mission and get people from point A to point B, who's going in, what vehicles, what weapons, why you put them there, what route you're going to take and why you're taking it so the enemy doesn't hit you. So it was like a mini exercise, but you worked in a group to get the information, but then you briefed it by yourself. And the brief was almost two hours. You and a captain briefing and I had an infantry captain, which I found in the end was probably one of our harder, trainers when it came to grading because he got strong work, 85%. And I'm like 85 is strong. Like, shouldn't that be in the 90s? And by this point, we were almost done. I kind of knew where people were on the scale, and everybody's got their own learning and how they learn, and I knew kind of who was more in the bottom of the class versus I was kind of in the middle. And I'm like, wait, you got a 97? I got an 85. Like, how? Like it just it baffled me. But at the same time, like, even for the instructor, some of the terminology I was using I didn't realize was old terminology. So I was I was breathing mop gear. It's not mop gear. It's J list now for your NBC for different things like that. Where he goes, right, stop. Where are you getting these terms from? I'm like, what do you mean? I'm like, that's what we always call it. He goes. And then that's when I finally said I was enlisted for so many years. He goes, okay, well, it's now this, this and this. And he had to actually correct me on some of my terminology.

SPRAGUE: Wow. That's interesting. I wouldn't expect the terminology to be an issue is I mean, their terms just. Yeah. Yeah.

MCFALL: I think just at his point, maybe because there was very few of us that came through with prior enlisted experience, it was maybe just I hit the right nerve where he was like, wait, where are this coming from? Not so much that it was. Yes, it was incorrect terminology, but at the same time, a common person was like, oh, no big deal. They just they forgot what the new, new name is. But for him, I don't think he had heard probably those names used in quite some time because they hadn't been used and everybody coming through the brand new, usually their ROTC with very little experience. So he probably hadn't heard those terms, and I think for him was just more having a social understanding of where I was coming from in my brief.

SPRAGUE: So you get done with, the training? What unit did you come back to? Golf company again?

MCFALL: I came back to golf company.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And is that the current unit you're in?

MCFALL: No, I am now up at the battalion, so I'm at the 1/32 HHC, and it's still for the 32nd Brigade, but it's their headquarters. They originally pulled me up there to do what's called the S-1 or personnel officer. I did that up until April of this year, so I did it for two years.

SPRAGUE: And let me interrupt you here. So that's the HHC company of the.

MCFALL: 1/32.

SPRAGUE: 130.

MCFALL: Brigade Support Battalion.

SPRAGUE: There we go. I'm trying to place you on the battlefield. That's why I ask that question, because otherwise I'm. I'm toast. Okay. So, how did you get that position?

MCFALL: At this point, we had gone through the commander. I had an excuse, and we had a new one. And the brigade commander had got wind somehow that things just weren't going very well at our company, morale wise. And overall wasn't just us for some of it, the brigade or the battalion as a whole. After having the two, one, two, seven than the one to if come back from deployments are suicide risk was very, very high and that was one of her top priorities to fix this. So morale at every company was at the forefront of her brain. So when she heard that at Gulf Company, our morale just wasn't where it should be and it was hindering some of our learning experiences. She started to look at where she can. She moved her officers and her enlisted around to better support her. Organization and I had been there now about four years, so I was due for a new role anyway, so she brought me up to Battalion to better mentor me and give me that oversight of what I was missing at that level, because I didn't have really any good mentorship. I learned a lot of on the fly of my pants and asking those below me what right looked like.

SPRAGUE: So, you had mentioned in the pre-interview, being in the s one role, is is the at that HHC is and correct me if I'm wrong, isn't usually the S1A captain or it can be or and you're probably a first lieutenant. Promotable would be my guess. Are you made captain or you're about to or. Yeah, tell me about that.

MCFALL: So that is a captain role. And that was part of my discussion I had with the battalion commander is how long did she want me in this position and why? She put me there. And that's where she told me to better mentor me and develop me as a person. And she knew her soldiers very, very well, to the point where at the point she goes, oh, yeah, you're a director of nursing. How's that? How are your girls? She knew her soldiers very well, and she thought because of what I did on the civilian side, this would be a very good position for me based on my personality and me knowing HIPAA and what that entitles with personnel and. To become a captain in that role, I would have had to have had the 42 Alpha EOC. I was the 88 serious transportation. And so I actually did start working on getting those credentials. But she had moved out last year sometime in the fall, and we got, a new battalion commander in. And he had chose to move me into the sports section, which is more your logistical operation piece. But with that said, I did finish though my 42 alpha schooling, so I now have two or CS.

SPRAGUE: Areas of concentration. Correct. First question. You're out. Former battalion commander. Yes. What was her name.

MCFALL: Lieutenant Colonel Hillenbrand.

SPRAGUE: Oh, okay. You told me that earlier. Okay. What was her first name?

MCFALL: Shannon.

SPRAGUE: Shannon. Okay. And. Get your AOC 42 Alpha. What? Help me out with this. What is a, a small section I'm not familiar with? The term South.

MCFALL: Pole was completely different. They look at future operations on the battlefield, so to speak. So within. You have your major who oversees the section. He's got a senior NCO. And then you have your battle captain. You have a transportation captain. I believe that person's got somebody that's enlisted with them. And then you have two medical captains. You then have a maintenance warrant and an unlisted personnel, and then you have a salesman which is still trying to figure out exactly what they do. But it's your communications person that's a huge section of like 4 or 5 people. Then you have ammunition and then you have. Well, my current role is supply and support. And within that section I have a fuel sergeant, a mortuary affairs sergeant, and then just an overall sergeant that helps oversee it with me. So I oversee your class one, which is your food and water, your three that is fuel, and four, that is building supplies. And that is for the whole entire battalion. So once again, that's a captain slot.

SPRAGUE: Okay. I'm trying to picture this in my head. So is this the Pspo section? Is this. I'm just trying to grapple with it. Is it a company? Is it a platoon? Is it?

MCFALL: I would label it as a platoon. So at HHC, their makeup is different. You have your staff positions that work directly with the executive officer in lieu of the battalion commander. And then within that you also have HHC. So it's a very unique makeup. And within HHC your S1 personnel has their section. And then your two has their section. Your four has their section. SPO is a piece on that staff positions. They have their section. And I guess they'd be like mini platoons.

SPRAGUE: SPO spo.

MCFALL: Yes. Do you support planning officer I believe.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

MCFALL: So you're asked three would be current operations. We would be looking in forecasting future operations.

SPRAGUE: So part of the S-4 under the S-4 are actually separate separate separate okay.

MCFALL: It looks like the four does very similar forecasting. Okay. But there's in that section only four personnel versus we have buying commodity.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

MCFALL: Yeah. And I'm wondering if the four might be more future for early non-current and where future time.

SPRAGUE: What do you. What are your goals? What are you. What are your thoughts for your future? In the army.

MCFALL: So in March, when I was selected for the captain board. So my paperwork was submitted. I was told by fall I should hear back. But most people in the Wisconsin National Guard are being first time selects on the board. So I've been sitting in the captain role a little over two years, but I'll finally get to work. So with that, as soon as I make captain, I'd like to at least make it to major. I'm sitting at 16 years in as of yesterday, so I'll probably do at least another six years to make major. And that's where all. Then reassess where I'm at, because my kids will be grown up by that point. So how am I physically? How is my military or nursing career going? Can I stand longer? I thought maybe if I could get a third AOC as medical, then if I stayed in past major, I would go to the medical debt, and do the SRP that we do every January as a nurse. So that's kind of on the backburner maybe. I'm not sure yet, but at minimum, I want to do major.

SPRAGUE: So if you want to become a major, you're obviously want company command at some point, I would think.

MCFALL: That was a conversation we had. Lieutenant Colonel Helen Bread said personality. I'm much more fit up at Staff Brigade Battalion than company command, especially with how rigorous my nursing career can get. And she said, as a logistics, you need command. But as an at a general series, you don't have to command. It is not a requirement. So that is partially why I fulfilled getting that secondary EOC. Not saying I'm not. I object to getting it. I will gladly take it if they want to give it to me. However, if I don't need to add that extra onto my plate while balancing nursing with kids, I'm not going to argue. If I were to be able to get the third AOC as medical, that I would eventually probably take command, because as you get higher in ranking, I would eventually be taking command.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. One of my questions that ties directly into this is, yeah, how does that balancing act work with those senior roles? Drilling as a guardsman cards woman and then, taking on that rank, but also working as a nurse or as a supervisor? Management?

MCFALL: Yes. It was a little hard because I was director of nursing when I was still at Gulf Company. And so I overseen essentially, I was the lead nurse in the building of a nursing home. I was in charge of everything, my license, overseeing the whole building. So that was a challenge when Covid hit. Thankfully my leadership, my first sergeant was a nurse as well. He knew what that entitled. So he had me labeled as a provider so I could get pulled for the random Covid missions. That way, I could focus on my civilian building in the midst of what was going on. Now that COVID's kind of calming down. I did eventually move out of management. It was a lot to juggle. And I am back to to working on the floor, which I do enjoy. Makes it a little bit easier to juggle both aspects, especially with us now entering paths, not pathway. We are, GTC next summer, a joint force down in Mississippi rotation. That training cycle is probably going to be for most of our soldiers are very high training here then compared to what they're used to. This will be the first time that our brigade has gone to that in my career. So probably 20 years. Maneuver battalions have gone through there for prep for like, molds. But we've never done this at a brigade level exercise in quite some time. So it's going to be instead of about 2500 soldiers that I'm helping support, it's going to be 4500 next year.

SPRAGUE: Wow.

MCFALL: So it's going to be a lot more on us. We're going to have instead of two day weekend drills, we're going to have some that are six days, ten days prepping in the field. So I chose this was not the time to go back into management with as much as I liked being in that role, that balancing act is going to be very difficult.

SPRAGUE: How do you think your civilian management experience and your military management experience? How do you think of them separately? Do you think of them together? How does how does that how does that work?

MCFALL: A little bit of both I. See they're very different jobs, but I have taken a lot of what I've learned in both areas, and I've meshed them. Lieutenant Colonel Hillebrand, like I said, is a very big people person. So I took that philosophy when I was a director, and I actually handed out personal data forms, and my nurses and CNAs looked at me like, what the heck is she doing? Like, is she off her rocker? But essentially, I wanted to get to know my workers better. So it asked, like, what type of education did they have? Do they plan on having any further education? Do they have kids? Are they married? Do they have grandkids? And then down to the bottom and asked, what type of pizza do you like? Ice cream? Candy bars? I just wanted to get to know them so that if I seen a change in how they were acting, I kind of could see maybe what was going on on their personal life or when people were retiring or having birthdays or nursing home week. You could pull some of those favorites and actually personalize your gifts as well. So I use that on both sides, my nursing home side and my military side to get to know my soldiers.

SPRAGUE: What? If you could encapsulate it in a paragraph, a short paragraph, what would you state to your soldiers? What would you tell them? What is your what is your leadership philosophy? If you could distill it all the way down to as small as you.

MCFALL: Could, that's actually on my to do list to make. Actually, the philosophy, could have become at that level or a command could be in my future. But people first to include family. You cannot accomplish your military mission. If your family doesn't back you up if you don't put those soldiers first. We are definitely a team. You cannot complete anything of an individual without some degree of failure. And I say that because there is no individual tasks in the military when you're actually overseas or at a big exercise. There might be individual tasks that lead up to that, but not collectively. And then just knowing your right and left limits. Don't be scared to ask those questions and gain that knowledge. Most people are a hands on learner, so we can read as much doctrine as possible. But until you actually physically do it, you're not going to know if it works. You're going to have to adjust and make tweaks based on that. And that's why I say you gotta lean on those with the knowledge. So yeah, people first, family first, and then just not being scared to grasp that knowledge piece, whether it's self-development, learning from those around you. I would say my top three pieces, because by doing that, then you're taking care of that welfare of every soldier as well. And I would say since we've been doing that, that suicide rate has gone down tremendously versus what we've seen when people first came back from deployment.

SPRAGUE: How have you dealt with, challenges while being in a leadership role?

MCFALL: I like everybody else. I don't show my emotion in front of the individual that I may be having a confrontation with, but I'm human. It does still affect me. I have had probably 2 or 3 times now in my, I'd say, my office, a career where it's really, really deep and I've had to just let it come at me, step off to the side, have that good cry, and then ask myself, where did this come from? What were they trying to get across? What lesson do I take from this? Because sometimes it may not have been something I did wrong, but something that maybe I should have seen that my soldiers did wrong. So to kind of grasp around the who, what, where, what and why, so that I could go back and actually fix that problem versus taking it to heart.

SPRAGUE: We had talked a little bit about this, before the interview. Tell me about beginning to think about yourself as a veteran and what that's like.

MCFALL: So at 16 years, and I would say up until 13 or 14 years of people asked if I was a veteran, I would say, no, I hadn't deployed. Why should I label myself a veteran with what I had said? Not thinking you have different types of veterans. I still signed that dotted line like everybody else. I've still made the sacrifice to my family, my friends, my country, but just in a different way. And it took multiple individuals to explain that to include even just something as simple as a friend who went to basic training got injured and came back for her to say, well, I'm a veteran. You've been in longer than me. So now I say, yes, I'm a veteran. But when I get thanked by somebody that was in the war, I say thank you. But you're the one that paved the way to where I'm at now because they're the true hero of a veteran. I would say I'm a stateside veteran. Because I can still learn from things and I can still impact those that are coming in, but it's in a different way.

SPRAGUE: How do you how do you see your role as, woman officer in the Army? How do you think gender plays into that role, or doesn't it tell me what what your thoughts are on that.

MCFALL: I think nowadays we have enough females in the military where unless you're at a combat unit, it's the norm. I have always been respected as a female in the military because of that, and because I've worked my way through the ranks. With that said, though, I did graduate OCS with a female that went to infantry. I'm sure her experience was a little different. Yes, the infantry guys respect us, but they've never actually had to work with us at the unit level. So I'm sure her going into there was originally a culture shock to them, but because of her personality and her thick skin, I know for a fact she'd made an impact. And I know they respect her without even have asked her that. But initially, I'm sure it took a little bit of push and shove to get to that commonality with them.

SPRAGUE: How do you think, your life would have been if you had not joined the military?

MCFALL: I first would have finished nursing school quicker, and I would think I probably would be either nurse practitioner or physician assistant. That would have always been a dream. But I'm at the point where, because the up tempo of the military has gone up, I didn't want to try to balance more schooling with it, and I'm enjoying what I have going on on both sides right now. We're not 100% sure that that's still my dream, but I think if I wouldn't have gone into the military, I definitely would have done that. Physically. I always say I have a sweet tooth. I would look like Violet from Willy Wonka. If it wasn't for the military. It definitely keeps me physically fit and on my toes. Or I can keep up with my kids and my nieces, my nephews. But I challenge myself more now to that. I wouldn't have done. Like I said, in high school, I was that skinny little girl that just went with the flow. I never questioned anybody. I never tried to better myself. This pushed me out of that comfort zone and opened my eyes to what the world is and what I actually could reach and accomplish. And I don't know if I would have seen that if it wasn't for the military.

SPRAGUE: What motivated you to do this interview?

MCFALL: I seen her visually. It posted for the picture thinking awesome, like I have to work, but you know, not a big deal. I can swing in on my way down to the Sheboygan kind of get to get it out there that there are more females in the military, not realizing there was an interview piece attached to it. And even up until coming into the doors today, I question, is this for me knowing that I hadn't had that combat experience? But I did go on the website and I looked at some of what was on there for interviews, and some of the females and one in particular hit home Miss Roth 100, maybe 100, when she did the interview. 102, I believe when she passed away, I took care of her, actually at the nursing home.

SPRAGUE: Oh, wow.

MCFALL: And yes, she was only in for maybe a year or two, but just seeing the light in her eye when she talked about what she did and any other person I take care of, whether it's rehab or as a nursing home vet or hospice, I have a separate connection with them being military and hearing what they went through, how it impacted their life, how it's impacted now, today's military. I love hearing those stories. So I was like, maybe something in my interview will spark that in somebody else, especially coming, that there's not many females that make it high up in the ropes. There is more now than what there used to be, but maybe that would push more of our females to take that leap and go to the officer side.

SPRAGUE: And, I know, I think I know who you're referring to. I want to say it's Rose. Kerstetter and Charles are there.

MCFALL: I believe that's the correct last name.

SPRAGUE: Yeah, yeah, she is of the Oneida Nation. She is? Yep. And she passed, I think, a year or two ago. Yeah.

MCFALL: Last year.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. Great.

MCFALL: Very proud woman and very proud of what she had done to the point where she almost didn't want to share some of the stories because she took such pride in what she did.

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

MCFALL: I don't think so.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Well, from one Army veteran to another Army veteran. Thank you for your service.

MCFALL: Thank you.

[Interview Ends]