Oral History Interview with Jane E. Brannan

00:00:00[TRANSCRIPTION BEGINS]

00:00:00SPRAGUE: Today is March 27, 2025. This is an interview with Jane Brannan, who served in the United States Army Reserve from 1989 to 1991, and on active duty Army service from 1991 to 2018. So, this interview is being conducted by Luke Sprague in La Crosse, Wisconsin, at the County Administration Building 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, Jane, where did you grow up?

00:00:43BRANNAN: I was born in Milwaukee, lived in Hartland, Wisconsin, until seven, and then we moved up north to Merrill, Wisconsin where I think of as growing up and graduated from high school.

00:00:57SPRAGUE: Okay, what was that like moving from Hartford to Merrill?

00:01:02BRANNAN: Or Hartland to Merrill.

00:01:03SPRAGUE: Oh, sorry, Hartland.

00:01:06BRANNAN: I was young enough that it really wasn't impactful. It was kind of exciting, you know. I was going into second grade, so between that first and second grade. So it was just an adventure, the house being packed up and going to a new house. So it was-- but Merrill, I think every town felt like a small town. And at that time, Hartland was a small town, at that that time. And then Merrill 10,000 people, was a small town. In high school it felt even smaller just because it was very rural and farming and dependent on the wood industry.

00:01:47SPRAGUE: And what did your family do in Merrill?

00:01:50BRANNAN: My dad was a sprinkler fitter. So he did the automatic fire protection. He was on the road usually Monday through Friday. Mom stayed at home. Up until sixth grade, we lived in town, and then after sixth grade we had a hobby farm. So raised sheep and chickens, had some ducks, geese, guinea hens, goat once, turkey once. So, we had, it was kind of a menagerie of animals, but mainly sheep.

00:02:25SPRAGUE: And, what got you into thinking about joining the military?

00:02:32BRANNAN: It was after, or at the end of college.

00:02:35SPRAGUE: Okay.

00:02:36BRANNAN: I went to college, worked on my, you know, with my education and I was going into agriculture education. And then I had one friend that was in the National Guard while I was in college. I learned later that one of my professors was a brigadier general in the Wisconsin National Guard, which was transparent to me. But then I met two other individuals who had been in either Guard or Reserve while going to school.

00:03:12SPRAGUE: And just to confirm, do you remember that general's name?

00:03:17BRANNAN: Yes, Gerald Madison.

00:03:19SPRAGUE: Okay. And then you were attending UW-River Falls?

00:03:24BRANNAN: Correct.

00:03:25SPRAGUE: Okay. Yeah, tell me a little bit about that, a little more about that. Your interest of going in after you, looks like you completed?

00:03:37BRANNAN: I did, I had graduated and I was in my first year of teaching, high school. And teaching still doesn't pay a lot, unfortunately. It was something that I was, they were, it was really the college benefits, the, "Oh, we can do student loan repayment," some of those pieces that were very attractive. This was 1989, so it was peacetime, there was not a lot, there wasn't much going on in the defense world, or at least not that the country paid attention to. So it was truly the benefits that attracted me. And then also it was the, "Oh, I can go and I, you know, a weekend of work and that'll pay my car insurance for the month."

00:04:28SPRAGUE: So when you got in, your thought was, I'm gonna be a drilling reservist or drilling guardsman?

00:04:35BRANNAN: Correct, yep, just part-time.

00:04:37SPRAGUE: Yep. What-- where did you go for basic training?

00:04:46BRANNAN: Fort Dix, New Jersey. I went in the summer of '90. We had arranged the split option so that I did basic training one summer and I was supposed to go the next summer then for the job training.

00:05:00SPRAGUE: Okay. What was Basic Training like for you?

00:05:08BRANNAN: I was already twenty-three, I had lived on my own, I already had a year of teaching under my belt and so I hated it. [Both laugh]. It was challenging, I was strong, because I was used to farm work and such, but I wasn't strong in the right ways for the Army, so becoming-- I didn't run until I went into the Army. So, I mean, it was, I had to develop those skills, and I had the stamina, but I had to develop the strength in the right areas to pass the Army PT test.

00:05:51SPRAGUE: And that would have been in the summer of '90?

00:05:52BRANNAN: Yes.

00:05:53SPRAGUE: Just so I have it right. And at the time, in 1990, did you train with other genders, or how did that work?

00:06:02BRANNAN: It was single-gender.

00:06:03SPRAGUE: Okay.

00:06:04BRANNAN: But it was all races, people from everywhere, so all different states. It was just a melting pot from people from across the US.

00:06:17SPRAGUE: And what was that like coming from northern Wisconsin?

00:06:22BRANNAN: It was okay, it was a little, sometimes it was jarring, because you think everybody thinks the way that people in Wisconsin do, and then you find out that that's not the case. [Sprague laughs]. Or you assume that everybody has similar experiences growing up, and then, you find that's not the situation.

00:06:39SPRAGUE: Okay. So '90, the summer of '90 ends. You finish Basic. Did your family come out for graduation?

00:06:49BRANNAN: They did not.

00:06:50SPRAGUE: Okay. You come back to Wisconsin. Forgive me for not, were you in the Army Reserve or National Guard?

00:06:58BRANNAN: Army Reserve.

00:06:59SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember what unit you were in?

00:07:02BRANNAN: The 44th General Hospital.

00:07:04SPRAGUE: Okay.

00:07:05BRANNAN: Out of Madison.

00:07:06SPRAGUE: Okay. Well known, okay. Any particular unit within that, or just the General Hospital?

00:07:13BRANNAN: I was with the patient admin division.

00:07:15SPRAGUE: Okay.

00:07:16BRANNAN: So that department.

00:07:17SPRAGUE: Okay. And any particular reason you were choosing patient administration, what was that? Tell me about that if you can.

00:07:28BRANNAN: It had an eight-week AIT.

00:07:29SPRAGUE: Okay.

00:07:30BRANNAN: And so that would fit into a summer for training.

00:07:33SPRAGUE: Okay, so you chose that field because it had that shorter AIT.

00:07:40BRANNAN: I did.

00:07:41SPRAGUE: Okay, interesting. That answers that question. And where did you go for AIT?

00:07:49BRANNAN: It was Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

00:07:51SPRAGUE: Okay. And when you went to AIT and Fort Sam and at Fort Dix the year before, how did you get there?

00:07:59BRANNAN: Well, Desert Storm, Desert Shield had kicked off in August of '90.

00:08:04SPRAGUE: Okay.

00:08:05BRANNAN: And so that was our last week or two in Basic Training.

00:08:10SPRAGUE: Oh, wow.

00:08:12BRANNAN: So, and I had gone back to Wisconsin after graduating, and I wasn't particularly happy with some of, the treatment from within the school structure. And I talked it over with my dad. And I remember him saying to me, because I was like, "Well, if I break my contract now, I have to pay a penalty." And he goes, "Well, how much is the penalty?" And I said, "$100." Well, that was a lot of money. You know, back then, that significant. And he says, "I'll write you the check." [Sprague laughs]. So I actually went down to the, you know, traveled down for the weekend. I didn't have, all my stuff was already packed up, wrote the letter of resignation, dropped it off with a check in person, and then came back home. And I actually worked with the local recruiter to get an earlier date for AIT. So I went to AIT in January of '91.

00:09:21SPRAGUE: Okay, well that would have been right the beginning of Desert Storm there.

00:09:25BRANNAN: Correct. The 44th had been, they had been activated, and they went to Germany. I was not MOS qualified, so I didn't, I got transferred to another unit to just administratively. But it was right after the holidays, like January 2nd, I headed down to Fort Sam Houston.

00:09:50SPRAGUE: And would, forgive me for not listening actively. You were breaking the contract with the timing of your AIT? That was the penalty?

00:09:58BRANNAN: No, the breaking with the school board.

00:10:01SPRAGUE: Oh, with the school board, okay.

00:10:02BRANNAN: Yes.

00:10:03SPRAGUE: My bad. Okay, that helps. Okay, so you're, you're, you're getting to Fort Sam and AIT, probably what, the day of or the day right around when Desert Storm kicked off?

00:10:19BRANNAN: It was prior to, but it was during CNN, so I remember in the, in the orderly room, they always had the news stream on and about the troop buildups and things are getting ready and the scud missile attacks. So it was constant news coming through, come either stop and watch a monitor or somebody was relaying information.

00:10:45SPRAGUE: And did you have any sense at that time that you wanted to be part of that? Or that you didn't want to be a part of that? In terms of participating in time

00:10:57BRANNAN: It was more a sense of that, that I was not contributing. They accelerated our AIT slightly. We graduated in March, and I think it was accelerated by, it probably wasn't much. Everything was pretty much over by the time we got done. But the intent was, "Oh, you're going back to your units and you're gonna join them," and it was like, "Okay."

00:11:23SPRAGUE: Okay. So in your listing of your duty stations. After AIT, so you go back to Wisconsin then?

00:11:33BRANNAN: I did. I went back to Wisconsin.

00:11:35SPRAGUE: Okay, and you're with the 44th again? Or not?

00:11:37BRANNAN: I was still with the other unit, I think it was out of Milwaukee, administratively, because the 44th had not returned yet. And it was the, "Okay, now what am I going to do?" I'm not teaching, I don't have, you know, I don't have, my unit's gone. I actually liked AIT. Found in there some of that structure and the bonds that really appeal to me. And so I worked with the recruiter to go on active duty in May of '91.

00:12:13SPRAGUE: Wow, so that was a pretty quick, you know, relatively speaking, realization and then decision to do that, in May of '91. So you had listed in your sequence, and forgive me for-- help me out with this, the Womack Medical Army Center out of Fort Bragg? How does that fit in this?

00:12:36BRANNAN: That was my first duty station, Fort Bragg.

00:12:40SPRAGUE: On the medical side. Or

00:12:42BRANNAN: Well, I mean, I was patient admin still, enlisted.

00:12:45SPRAGUE: Okay, okay. And was that as a drilling reservist or on active duty?

00:12:49BRANNAN: As active duty.

00:12:50SPRAGUE: Okay. My bad. I'm just trying to understand the sequence, that's all. And so you're on active duty at Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg, May of '91?

00:13:07BRANNAN: Correct.

00:13:08SPRAGUE: Forward? Okay. And in looking at what you've got going on here, you've decided you wanna go active duty. Did you, had you already decided that you wanted to become an officer or were you just okay with being on active duty or?

00:13:25BRANNAN: I had just initially joined, just enlisted, and it was in my mind about that. And my dad again was, "Well, you've got your degree. You might as well be an officer." And I went, "Okay." So I had to, you know, let him, he worked on that.

00:13:46SPRAGUE: So it was with your father's encouragement, and obviously he understood that because you had a bachelor's degree you were eligible to become an officer

00:13:57BRANNAN: Correct

00:13:58SPRAGUE: Was that from prior service or just general knowledge or?

00:14:02BRANNAN: He had served from 1958 to 1960. He was drafted two years in Germany and he always saw that the officers lived better. I mean, that was the time when you went to the field and they still brought a chest of china and the officers had their mess hall with china and it was like, yeah, that changed. But he just knew they lived better and they also, it was, you had more control. to some extent, being more of a leader, having more responsibility, so encouragement there as well.

00:14:43SPRAGUE: Okay. So, yes to active duty, yes to becoming an officer?

00:14:48BRANNAN: Correct.

00:14:49SPRAGUE: Okay. Interesting, okay. So, next stop, Fort Benning, Georgia, OCS.

00:14:58BRANNAN: Correct.

00:14:59SPRAGUE: Sorry, go ahead

00:15:00BRANNAN: Nope I, no I reported for OCS in October of 1993. And that was, there was no, there couldn't be any indecisiveness there. Everybody wanted to be there, everybody wanted to graduate. You know, it was challenging, but it was tough. We had, I thought, an individual, a battalion commander, who was very fair and compassionate and took out some of the harassment that all the-- I had done some talking to previous graduates and heard about some of the silly games that were played. And the, "Oh, you never get a full night of sleep. You never," just all the harassment that went into it to essentially haze you out. And Colonel Chung actually came in, and he said, "No," from, he said times I think it was "9 p.m. to 5 a.m., we were not to be woken." We would be given, you know, allowed to sleep. Took out some of that harassment because he said it didn't contribute to training an officer.

00:16:17SPRAGUE: And Colonel Chung, C-H-U-N-G?

00:16:20BRANNAN: I think so.

00:16:21SPRAGUE: And was he a lieutenant colonel or a colonel?

00:16:24BRANNAN: Lieutenant colonel.

00:16:25SPRAGUE: Okay. While you were at OCS, that's an officer candidate, correct?

00:16:31BRANNAN: Correct.

00:16:32SPRAGUE: What did you ever doubt your decision while you were in that course?

00:16:36BRANNAN: I had moments. [Sprague laughs]. Yes. The, land navigation was one of those required, and so day and night, and I had not done that up until that point. So we had a week of learning and then we had the test. And day went well, and night was drenching rain and miserable, and I did not pass the night. And I've, you know, you feel down and you're kind of doubting yourself, and it was like, okay, well, I'm retesting. And the retest went fine. But it was still, you know, there was moments of doubt. The, you now, "How did I get into this? Oh, I did it."

00:17:22SPRAGUE: So later in your career, you worked with and you were ROTC cadre and professor. How would you contrast the typical officer candidate versus the ROTC cadet while they're in those roles?

00:17:46BRANNAN: Officer candidate school was unique because these individuals already were seasoned in the Army. They, at that time, they had to have 60 degree, 60 credits. So not everybody had a degree. Where, and I mean, and that was your job was OCS. So from 5 a.m. till 9 p.m., that's what you did. And there and it was it was, and there was stress built in purposefully to test you. ROTC is a different animal because it was classes taken in addition to being in college. So they're students with this additional commitment. And we really sometimes struggled with that because we were demanding a great deal of time from cadets. And we would meet at six in the morning for PT, at least when I was the professor of military science. You know, so six in the m-- you know, so that meant that they couldn't take a 7:45 class or if they did, they went in their PT clothes. They went all sweaty. There was commitments on weekends. So they really had to be very good at balancing academics and the ROTC commitment. It was, it was, we always say, you know, "Oh, it's a part-time commitment," with, you know, but it really wasn't, you had to be, they had to all in. So I don't think they had an easier route by going that, you know, that way.

00:19:34SPRAGUE: A more difficult question or interesting question, do you think soldiers or officers with prior enlisted service make better officers? Or do you have an opinion on that?

00:19:51BRANNAN: I think that gives them a different perspective. It certainly did me. I knew how to live on a specialist paycheck. And it wasn't like you were making tons of money. So trying to balance that versus, I remember getting that first paycheck as a lieutenant and I felt like it was like a $600 raise and I was from E5 to O1 and I like, "Oh, I'm rich." It was, there's things that go along with being enlisted about being called, having to do CQ duty. Being a, having to do police call, to being kind of at the whims of your NCOs or officers and adjusting to that. So there is a different perspective. I think it depends on the individual, because there are some people that, I know there's some cadets that graduated and went on to be phenomenal officers. There's also some OCS graduates went on to be phenomenal officers, but there was also some duds that slipped through too. So I think it came down to the person.

00:21:04SPRAGUE: Have you ever heard the term Mustang? And explain to the civilian users what that is.

00:21:12BRANNAN: A Mustang is an individual who is a person who has served as enlisted first and then had gone, has went on to be an officer, actually a Navy term. But they, usually the Mustangs were meant to be that they were. they had that perspective of being an enlisted, being an NCO, and then crossing over to the officer side.

00:21:42SPRAGUE: And other than the Navy reference, would you apply that term to yourself?

00:21:46BRANNAN: It wasn't as widely used for Army.

00:21:49SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay, when you got your commission, did you have a choice of which branch within the Army you'd serve?

00:22:00BRANNAN: We gave a preference list, and that was submitted before going to officer-- OCS. I was part of the packet, and I sat down with my senior NCO, who was a master sergeant, and I know we ordered it, but I truly think they used a dartboard. I mean, I was an agriculture education major, and I was branched signal, which is a very math, IT, engineering field. So [chuckles].

00:22:31SPRAGUE: What was your commissioning date? If you can--

00:22:34BRANNAN: January 27th, 1994

00:22:39SPRAGUE: Okay. And help me out with the sequence here. Did you then go to Airborne School?

00:22:47BRANNAN: I went to Officer Basic Course first at Fort Gordon, Georgia. And then after OBC, I went Airborne School.

00:22:57SPRAGUE: And what were your impressions of Signal Officers Basic?

00:23:01BRANNAN: It was a gentleman's course. We met in the morning for PT, had time to clean up, have breakfast, and then it was classroom, pretty much. I think there was some field time, but it wasn't extensive. It was truly a gentleman course.

00:23:17SPRAGUE: We were talking about it a little bit before the interview. You then went on over to Fort Benning, now Fort Moore, or Fort Benning. What was Airborne School like for you?

00:23:32BRANNAN: Airborne School was tough. It was very physically challenging. I got recycled. So the first group I was with, the standard was running a nine-minute mile. But that doesn't mean it was a nine minute pace. So you think "A nine minutes mile, oh, yeah, I could do that." But you would sprint probably between a six and a seven at mile pace. and then you'd slow way down. And there was somebody who was a timekeeper, and they actually had it so that it was a nine minute mile. But I fell out of two runs and I got recycled. And then the second company, they actually did a nine-minute pace. And that, I mean, that I was physically able to do.

00:24:26SPRAGUE: Did they have you running in jump boots or tennis shoes were allowed?

00:24:30BRANNAN: In tennis shoes at that time.

00:24:31SPRAGUE: Okay

00:24:33BRANNAN: During the very last week, which was jump week, so going down to the airfield, you were already in boots and you actually ran in the boots down to airfield.

00:24:49SPRAGUE: So what happened after that, after Airborne?

00:24:53BRANNAN: Actually, I went back to Fort Gordon, Georgia, now Fort Eisenhower, and that was my first duty station, and I was assigned to the 63rd Signal Battalion.

00:25:06SPRAGUE: And it looks like you've got about roughly four years there, at least? At a minimum?

00:25:10BRANNAN: It was four years because of the officer basic course. But I spent three years with the, well and at the tail end I had the officer advanced course.

00:25:20SPRAGUE: Okay. And help me out here with the sequence. What positions did you have in order in that, within that battalion?

00:25:32BRANNAN: I was assigned to HHC, and I was initially the platoon leader, and then moved on, was the XO, the company XO.

00:25:42SPRAGUE: Of HHC?

00:25:43BRANNAN: Of HHC.

00:25:44SPRAGUE: Okay.

00:25:45BRANNAN: And then I moved to the S-3 shop as the assistant S-3 for plans and training.

00:25:51SPRAGUE: Okay, so I'm going to ask you a little bit about both, each of those if I could. So from my experience, HHC is usually a pretty large company within a battalion?

00:26:03BRANNAN: It was. We had one unit with commo, or one platoon with commo equipment, and it really was two distinct sections. We had the, it was MSC equipment at that time, so mobile subscriber equipment, so we had a LEN, we have the radio van, we ended up with a rat rig at one point, and the person to run it. So we had, and we had some cable people, so we had the cable dogs. So we had that group, and then we had the TYC, which was a secure messaging platform. And there was actually a CW-2, a Chief Warrant Officer II, who was that subject matter expert in the TYC, and I was a platoon leader, but he truly ran that half of the section.

00:26:56SPRAGUE: Okay. Let me tell you back what I understand and make sure I've got it right. So within HHC of the 63rd Signal Battalion, you were the platoon leader of the communications platoon?

00:27:08BRANNAN: Yes.

00:27:09SPRAGUE: That had two sections? Okay. And then you explained. So for the civilian users, watchers, viewers, help them out with, explain to them what a LEN and a SEN is and nodal subscriber equipment is. because I don't think they know. But you and I know, and it might be of interest to them.

00:27:32BRANNAN: We were the mob bell, if you will. We went out to a field location. We would set up independently. The LEN large extension node was an actual, that was the brains of the operation. This is where the actual communication was being processed and being sent out. But then we had the radio van and using radio signals would communicate to another van some distance away to transmit that data and signal and the voice. And initially we started off with just voice and then it transitioned to what became more data heavy as the world changed. It was analog versus, and then turning to digital.

00:28:23SPRAGUE: Yeah, I, I have a little bit of experience with, originally, the GTE, MSC, nodal operations. And I kind of remember that as, parts of it as almost like a cellular network, kind of, maybe

00:28:38BRANNAN: Correct. And they would provide, we would, our battalion commander would try to find us customers because what good is a piece of signal equipment if you don't have customers actually using the phone lines, using the data lines. So we, on Fort Gordon, they had several, at least one military intelligence battalion, I don't know, I think it was battalion at the time. And many times they would go to the field at the same time, they became our customers. So we would set up the phone system for them, the data system, so that they could actually use the services. And we were able to work with customers.

00:29:24SPRAGUE: And because I don't understand, what was the echelon of command that the 63rd was designed to support, in the most general terms? Was it meant to be like a division signal battalion, or echelons above core, or what level, or?

00:29:48BRANNAN: It would have been an echelon above core in my recollection. Because we each. The line companies, I know they had a cable platoon, they had the one, they had a-- and then they had at least two other platoons with the commo equipment. And so internally with battalion exercises, they would create a network over you know, like the space to actually put together this communication network to be able to put in or to, if we were providing services to somebody.

00:30:37SPRAGUE: Okay, it's interesting to me, just as an observation that there's a, was your communications company focused externally or internally to the signal battalion? Were you serving customers like a line company or were you serving the battalion itself? It's interesting to me. Or both?

00:30:59BRANNAN: Usually externally.

00:31:00SPRAGUE: Okay.

00:31:01BRANNAN: I don't know, it was dependent-- they would determine where they would actually place the, you know, the command tents, the command location, the operations, and then the admin and logistical area. Those areas. Usually those were one of the line companies. They had the larger. The LEN was a step down as far as capacity, and it was kind of anomaly. I don't think we were supposed to have communication equipment in HHC, but my company commander fought for it. Don't know where, you know, wherever he scavenged it, and we put together a platoon, which was pretty amazing.

00:31:46SPRAGUE: Yeah, it's just an interesting observation that, okay. The rat rig, too, is interesting that you've got that within what you're doing there.

00:31:57BRANNAN: Oh, it was on its way out of the Army inventory. But we had gotten, we had received an NCO who was, that was his MOS, and we had found one, and I don't know if it was, how, you know, if it just found, or if it on it's way to being turned in, but he was able to get it up and working, and, we actually took it out on field exercises.

00:32:24SPRAGUE: Wow. So, okay, moving on, explain to the public, moving to your next position, as XO of a headquarters company. Tell me about that role.

00:32:40BRANNAN: Focused on logistics, supply, and training, well and maintenance. And so working with those different sections and the key NCOs to ensure that maintenance remained above whatever the standard was. Training, that we had planned out training, we conducted training meetings, we published that information in a timely manner. All the administrative reports that had to go back up to the command, so we had reports that had go back to the different sections, S-1 through S-4. So it was very administrative and logistic heavy.

00:33:29SPRAGUE: My impression is that Company XO had a lot of responsibility.

00:33:34BRANNAN: Yes. I enjoyed it. There was a lot going on, but you also had individuals, well hopefully you had individuals in those key sections that were responsible and that you were a team.

00:33:51SPRAGUE: Did you do a lot of work with the first sergeant?

00:33:55BRANNAN: Some.

00:33:58SPRAGUE: Some, okay.

00:33:59BRANNAN: They usually stayed kind of on the enlisted side.

00:34:02SPRAGUE: Okay, yeah. Okay. So, moving ahead, S-3, Assistant S-3. What was that role and responsibility?

00:34:15BRANNAN: Um I know, plans and training. But I know that one of the big responsibility was to make sure that we turned in the monthly unit status report. That was painful, because you had to gather the data from each of the companies and input it into a secure system. There was a way that had to be done and I just remember it being very fussy. because you had to do things in a certain order or it wasn't going to go through. I know there was other things that we had to do, but that was one of them.

00:35:02SPRAGUE: As you're working as a, backing up here, as a platoon leader at the company level. What do you, what do you think you developed in terms of, what was your leadership style?

00:35:20BRANNAN: It was developing. Still was very much that NCO mindset of "Well, you know, we're just going to make this happen." But also realizing that when you gave an order, it had consequences. Having to trust, learning to trust your other leaders, having them trust you. So I think it developed a great deal as a platoon leader.

00:35:50SPRAGUE: Did you have any uh, gender discrimination issues working at the 63rd?

00:35:56BRANNAN: There were some. I had a company commander, that the initial one, that we really meshed well, we worked together well. So, and I appreciated that. The next individual coming in, was not so great. And one of the comments that they made to me at the time of, "Well, how long are you here for?" And I was like, "What do you mean?" He goes, "Well you're just here until you find a husband." "Okay," he was constantly, it was just, it was very unnerving to have somebody that was, he would nitpick me on my weight or things that I wasn't feminine enough or, and it was, yes, the eye roll. So I was actually really happy to be moved to the S-3 shop.

00:36:55SPRAGUE: Any experiences with sexual harassment or assault while with the 63rd?

00:37:00BRANNAN: No.

00:37:01SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. So, 63rd, you next get orders to the advanced course?

00:37:10BRANNAN: I did.

00:37:11SPRAGUE: What was that like?

00:37:12BRANNAN: Another gentleman's course. [Sprague laughs]. We met earlier for PT, I do remember that. And I think part of it was because of the timing for the classrooms. So we met earlier, but it was classroom work.

00:37:33SPRAGUE: And what happened after you get out of SOAC, where did you go next?

00:37:42BRANNAN: Fort Leavenworth in Kansas for a year.

00:37:44SPRAGUE: Okay, tell me about that.

00:37:47BRANNAN: I actually had orders for Korea. I was a single parent at the time, and I just realized that this was at a critical point for him. So I was going to get out of the Army. But because I started the advanced course, I now had an obligation, a service obligation. Even though I didn't finish, I said, "Well, I don't have to finish." No, still have a service obligations. So they actually worked with me to find a different duty location where we could remain together. And Fort Leavenworth was amazing. I worked at the Command and General Staff College in the S-3 shop. It was, we planned many of the event, or worked with the event planners for room scheduling and for sometimes putting on those events, but there was a large number of foreign officers that came for the course, or visited the college. And so it was interesting to kind of see these other foreign officers, to interact with them. I got to meet a number of the majors that were attending the course and kind of look at them and what made them successful.

00:39:20SPRAGUE: I'm going, I'm going to ask you, and you can go with it where you want. What was your experience of being a single mother in the Army and working, working through that and that?

00:39:35BRANNAN: It was tough. I think I held myself to a higher standard than others would have. So I tried to make sure that I always, at Fort Gordon, I mean, we went to the field at least usually one week out of the month for some sort of an exercise. So I always had to have not only the day babysitter, but I had to a night babysitter. And having every, and then sometimes a backup babysitter. Being able to plan ahead for those pieces, it was, it was tough. It was long hours. So I realized that sometimes that getting the call from school that they're sick and they have to be picked up or from daycare and they had to be picked up, there was times that I went and picked him up and I came back to work with him. Because there was a project that we were working on and we had to get it submitted. Especially during unit status report time, because that was time sensitive. So, there was moments that it was frustrating, but there was also pieces of it that I knew that he wasn't getting from, if we were, I don't know, somewhere else. He had an opportunity to meet kids from all races, all countries, you know, I mean, just because we lived on post. And in housing, it's such a melting pot. So there wasn't, it was a different perspective for him.

00:41:20SPRAGUE: How accommodating, how much was the Army willing to work with you in terms of bringing that child into the workplace at the time? Late '90s, was it good to go? What was the, what were some of the reactions you encountered?

00:41:40BRANNAN: They-- it was more, they didn't care how I got the work done, but I had to get the work done. There was still that adage of, "Well, if the Army wanted you to have a child, they would have issued you one." Sometimes there were that. There was once that, I do remember that the, he had gotten sick and I needed to go pick him up. And my boss was like, "No, you can't go." When I was just kind of dumbfounded, I remember. And he was like, "No, you've got something to do." So, I mean, I was like, "Okay," so I mean I, that's where the backup to the backup babysitter and you start to get a call and you kind of activate that network. So I was lucky I had that, but it still was stressful at times.

00:42:39SPRAGUE: Anything else you want to talk about about that?

00:42:46BRANNAN: The kids grew up as military brats, meaning that they moved, you know, as much as-- we moved around. And I think that gives them a unique perspective. It was tough on them because changing schools, they had to make new friends, but also they got to experience different places. I tried to get out and at least play tourist, if you will, in that area. So, you know, try the foods in that are, and what were the local customs? And try to enjoy some of those pieces that were there. So I think it gave them that resiliency that they could, and adaptability that maybe other kids don't have.

00:43:30SPRAGUE: Okay, so you're at Fort Leavenworth. At some point you go to CAS Cubed [CAS3].

00:43:35BRANNAN: I did while I was there at the very tail end.

00:43:37BRANNAN: What was that about?

00:43:39BRANNAN: CAS Cubed was, and there was an acronym, but it was, it was to teach captains about the Arm-- oh, geez, it's been so long.

00:43:52SPRAGUE: Sorry [laughs].

00:43:53BRANNAN: No. But I mean, I remember we focused on writing, on staff structure. I think it was to prepare you for going into more senior staff roles. The course doesn't exist in its form anymore. It's been absorbed into the other courses. But it really was a great opportunity to be with other captains, to other peers, and to kind of get the juices flowing again, hear kind of their experiences and to cross-level information.

00:44:33SPRAGUE: Okay uh, looks like in June of '99 you went to Marquette University?

00:44:40BRANNAN: I did.

00:44:41SPRAGUE: Tell me about that.

00:44:43BRANNAN: Marquette University with the Army ROTC, and I was put into the recruiting officer role. So not being an ROTC graduate, I first had to learn what ROTC was. And a big part of that program was scholarships. And the Army at that time, the way that they awarded certain, a specific number of scholarships to the school, but weeding through the candidates and finding them. And I do remember just it took, there was open scholarships that summer when I arrived and calling down, you know, kind of, it felt like dialing for dollars, finding somebody who wanted to come to Marquette. We had one that it was filled at the very end of August and they were like, "Well, I didn't apply to Marquette." And I said, "That's okay, we can get you accepted." I mean, we could because the scholarship money and they turned out to be a phenomenal person. and I got a chance to run into them years later when they were pinning on major. And it was just the fact that they were interested, and at the last minute jumped into an opportunity. But it was challenging trying to figure out what this organization was, and then to sell it.

00:46:03SPRAGUE: That must have been a pretty big lift.

00:46:07BRANNAN: I think it's the same way at any unit. It's a steep learning curve, and then you fake it till you make it, and you get into a pattern where you learn it and you understand it.

00:46:22SPRAGUE: What was it like being back in Wisconsin?

00:46:25BRANNAN: It was nice to be closer to family. So I got to see my parents more often. I got see family more often, I could take part in family events, which before, it was usually twice a year, I'd come home in the summer, I'd home at Christmas time. So I get to be more of that part. There's also something unique with Wisconsin, just the culture and the being around, I guess in football season, being around other Packer fans. Down south, they're very big on their college football. And I had my little Packer emblem, and they were just, I mean, it was one of those that it was a different feel. So it felt good to be back in Wisconsin.

00:47:15SPRAGUE: Anything else you'd like to talk about regarding the Packers?

00:47:21BRANNAN: [Laughs]. I, when I was in Georgia, and we got down there, and I'd see the G, but it was in black and white. And I was like, "Are there that many Packer fans down here?" [Sprague laughs]. And no, when, then I saw it in color and it was for the Georgia Bulldogs. And I just like, oh, it looks very similar to the Packers G. But I made sure, so I made that I always got one in color so the people wouldn't make that mistake.

00:47:54SPRAGUE: Were there any particular strategies you used to recruit cadets that worked well for you?

00:48:05BRANNAN: A great deal of the information came through that national scholarship process. And so you looked for the top student, they got good grades, they were athletes or athletic. You looked for those top candidates and then you fought for them as well. What was not-- interesting is we were fighting for the same, if they were going for an ROTC scholarship, we were fighting for the same kids that were interested in Madison or interested in Notre Dame. And so some of it came with, what is the package that we could offer? What could we give? And at that time, the university gave an incentive package for the people that had ROTC scholarships. So it made it very attractive to go there. And so we leveraged that as well.

00:49:02SPRAGUE: Okay. Were you also training the cadets, or teaching them at all, or?

00:49:09BRANNAN: I worked, well, some of the training, if I did, it was with the first year students. But I had limited classroom time.

00:49:20SPRAGUE: Okay. And it seems like, given the timing of it, you were with the Marquette University Army ROTC during September 11th?

00:49:31BRANNAN: Yes.

00:49:32SPRAGUE: What was that like?

00:49:34BRANNAN: It was. I think it just-- it was frightening in some senses, because you didn't know what was, we knew what was being reported on the news, but we didn't know if it was part of a larger effort, or what was more to come. We didn't what we didn't know. After that, they had advised us not to wear our uniform to and from work. So, you would, you know, I'd carry it to and from and I'd change at work. And then I'd changed back into civilian clothes and to go home. But it was more to reduce that impression of a military presence, or make yourself a target. And we didn't know what the extent of it was.

00:50:39SPRAGUE: Were you at any particular place? Were you in the battalion the day that happened or what?

00:50:45BRANNAN: It was. We were just finishing PT. And so we were kind of milling about before I went downstairs. They had locker rooms in our building and before going down, and they said, "Hey, something happened." So we went up to the cadet lounge and turned the TV on. And I mean, and that's when we saw the second tower go down and it was like, "Oh my gosh, what is going on." But I do remember that our battalion commander got all of us together, probably mid-morning, and said, "Hey, if you want to go home, you know, that's fine. You can. If you want stay here and work, that fine too." And it was like, "Well, what am I going to do at home?" So I just stayed and worked. I think most of us did. But there was other individuals, I think, that had maybe closer ties to people in New York or in other locations. and they headed home.

00:51:47SPRAGUE: When that happened a little further on, maybe a week, two weeks, a month from then, did you start thinking about, "Oh, something's happening here with the military. Maybe I don't want to be in an ROTC battalion. Maybe I want to serving somewhere else." Or maybe not. What were you thinking at the time?

00:52:12BRANNAN: It didn't waver about being in the battalion. But you realize that we are training, the cadets were training, that they, the world was shifting. So the Army before being peacetime, and you'd just have a large exercise. Preparing for war, we could be preparing them to go to war. And many of them did. They didn't get the, any type of a reprieve. They went to their Officer Basic they went to units and then they and they went into action.

00:52:57SPRAGUE: About, it looks like July 2002, while you were at Marquette University, it appears that you were also a trainer, manager, curriculum developer.

00:53:13BRANNAN: Well, not at all at one time.

00:53:14SPRAGUE: Okay, help me out with that, please.

00:53:15BRANNAN: I PCS'd, so I did, I went from Marquette and I was assigned to Fort McCoy to the Army Reserve Readiness Training Center. That was the name at the time. And initially went into just an XO role. And, switched around roles as they did number of reorganizations and restructuring. The Army was also grappling with its new existence and then with BRAC, with the Base Realignment and Closure, so some units were moving around. Went into a, was able to go to the training developer course while I was there, so for developing training. They did have me teaching--

00:54:10SPRAGUE: Is that the five kilo identifier? ASI?

00:54:12BRANNAN: I think so, yes.

00:54:14SPRAGUE: Sorry for interrupting.

00:54:15BRANNAN: Yeah. I went to the instructor's course. They had me teaching for a while with the pre-command courses, which was pretty fascinating. And that was a gentleman's one-week course for Army Reserve officers. I think it was one week. It might have been two. I don't remember. It was really that first introduction to being an Army instructor, and being, they call it being "On the platform." And so there was a curriculum and following it, and you didn't necessarily develop your own curriculum, you followed what was prescribed. And gaining that confidence, and then getting the, being comfortable about where you can add in additional information or experience or something that's going to add to their knowledge level.

00:55:15BRANNAN: After-- I had my second child while I was at Fort McCoy, and at the very-- at that time the Army provided six weeks for postpartum leave, and I had saved up enough vacation days, so I was able to tack on another six weeks so that I could have that three months at home. But it was a week or two before my leave was supposed to end. My boss called, or they said, "We've got an opportunity. Would you be willing to come back a week early?" And I was like, "Okay, what am I going to be doing?" And it was going out to evaluate a course, and then develop it for the R-Tech, for, you know, there. and I would be on that team to develop it. And I was like, so I actually did. I took that, came back a week early, flew, the course was in Sacramento. There was, and there was a couple other folks that went with me, and we evaluated it, and it was a company team leader development course. So for the, in the Army Reserve, they have your company commander and first sergeant, but then also there's, they have a civilian that's in that mix. And the civilian is usually the full-time person in that Army Reserve Unit. So we went out there to observe the course and we went as participants. And I remember the time change really kind of messed with us because that's a couple hours difference. But then what was funny is, I'm coming out of maternity leave, and I got more sleep at the course than I did at home. So it felt like a little bit of a vacation. But it was an interesting course. And it was something that they had grown in the, it was under the 63rd Readiness, RRC, Readiness Something Command, but they had grown out there locally. And so we came back. and we gave our thoughts, and yes, this was a good course, and then how do we develop it, and how do roll it out for the Army Reserve? And so that's where we actually developed that course with the team, and then started to roll it out.

00:57:54SPRAGUE: And again, just for the record, what was the name of that course? Company Team Leader Development Course. And I was on that team for six months because you could be detailed, you could borrowed out for six month, and then you had to go back to your original position because I wasn't assigned to the actual team. So I was on loan. So I did six months with that team and that was fantastic, and then I went back to being an XO.

00:58:29SPRAGUE: While you were at Fort McCoy, were you on-post? Were you off-post? Where were you housed?

00:58:37BRANNAN: We lived our first year off-post and then we moved into housing.

00:58:41SPRAGUE: Okay. And you would have been the executive officer for the training center? Is that--

00:58:49BRANNAN: A training center, so it was a department.

00:58:51SPRAGUE: Okay, okay. And does it come with a particular unit number or identifiers? It's just a--

00:58:59BRANNAN: Within the training, within the unit there were essentially departments.

00:59:04SPRAGUE: Okay.

00:59:05BRANNAN: And so this department taught the physical security, there was a couple courses that they taught, and that was essentially the department.

00:59:21SPRAGUE: Got it, okay. It also looks like, during this time, you were working on your first master's? Your --

00:59:30BRANNAN: I did.

00:59:31SPRAGUE: Tell me about that. It seems like a lot with everything else. [Laughs]

00:59:35BRANNAN: It was. It was just, it was one of the pieces that I thought would make me competitive for the next rank, for the next. So I started an online master's course in organizational management and started it before I was pregnant and then after the birth I took a little bit of a couple months break and then I finished up. So

01:00:02SPRAGUE: Okay. And it looks like you were at Fort McCoy through July of '06, roughly?

01:00:08BRANNAN: I was.

01:00:09SPRAGUE: Okay. And at that point, you were a senior captain or a?

01:00:16BRANNAN: I was a major. I got promoted there.

01:00:18SPRAGUE: Major, sorry.

01:00:19SPRAGUE: Okay, wow. What were your thoughts upon making major and getting the oak leaves pinned on?

01:00:29BRANNAN: It was, there's always that anticipation coming up to, you know, a board and then results coming out and am I going to be on it? So it was kind of a relief, but also it was the, it felt good that they, that they, whoever was sat on that board saw the potential in me that I could serve at higher grade. There was also a distinct, it was night and day, like wearing captain and you interact with individuals, but then after being promoted and wearing the major rank, there was a higher bar. And it was just, it was seamless. And I'm like, I'm the same person. And it just, one, it was very distinct. I had not noticed it going from lieutenant to captain, but from captain to major, it was a just a higher standard that they expected.

01:01:26SPRAGUE: Okay. And then it looks like you PCS'd to Fort Gordon?

01:01:30BRANNAN: I did.

01:01:31SPRAGUE: And what was the unit there?

01:01:33BRANNAN: The 359th Signal Brigade.

01:01:36SPRAGUE: Okay. And you had listed operations and plans. Help me out with that. I have some ideas of what I think that is. Help locate me in the unit, or you in the units.

01:01:50BRANNAN: This was a Reserve unit and I was full-time. So everything, and I was the most senior person full-time for the S-3. So everything plans, everything day-to-day, we handled. So writing op-orders, coordination. There was units that were deploying and so we worked closely with the other sections to make sure that that was coordinated and that they-- for resources, for personnel, for support. It was a busy time, but it also was a really fascinating unit because we had a large number of senior females in the unit. We had a sergeant major, command sergeant major who was female, our senior staff advisory person, who was the most senior civilian in the unit was female, a female lieutenant colonel, she was female. I was a major, female. The logistics sergeant major was a female. I mean, so it was, we had such a group of senior females. It was amazing. And it was kind of, it was good. Because everybody worked really well together as well.

01:03:17SPRAGUE: So to help me understand, this was a Reserve unit, but you were on active duty in the unit. Were you AGR?

01:03:26BRANNAN: I was AGR.

01:03:27SPRAGUE: Okay.

01:03:28BRANNAN: Yeah.

01:03:28SPRAGUE: And then they were located out of Fort Gordon, Georgia?

01:03:31BRANNAN: Yes.

01:03:33SPRAGUE: As part of ops and plans at the brigade level, were you, not that it's particularly relevant, but were you in the HHC company or? Help me out with that.

01:03:43BRANNAN: I was, yes.

01:03:45SPRAGUE: Okay. And then I've got to ask this question. Before you deployed, did you have multiple different positions or where you had ops and plans up to O-10?

01:04:00BRANNAN: I was in Ops and Plans.

01:04:01SPRAGUE: Okay. And forgive me for not knowing this is the does the brigade so you're, are you the S-3 or do you report to an S-3?

01:04:11BRANNAN: There was an S-3, yes. They were a reservist, but there was an S-3.

01:04:20SPRAGUE: What was, I have to ask, because I talk to a lot of veterans, what was that relationship while you're on active duty and you have this drilling reservist come in? What was that like? What was the, how did that work? I know that's a big question. [Laughs].

01:04:36BRANNAN: It is. The first, I had three. So the first two were phenomenal. They were, you know, we would talk, we would communicate, and it wasn't, I mean, they did not limit themselves to "I'm only being paid on this weekend and that's when we talk." It was, there was good communication flowing back and forth. One, to make sure that they had the, if they had any direction or if they wanted to make, you know, that we could pivot, and that was phenomenal. The third one, was the, like about six months before we deployed, maybe even a little bit longer, but they were able to have themselves put on orders. So they came on active duty orders, and they were there. So, it was good relationship and it was a good working relationship. It was just different because they were present.

01:05:45SPRAGUE: In either your pre-interview or in some of the documentation you provided, you talk about training battle captains in this role. Can you tell the civilians on the line what a battle captain does?

01:05:59BRANNAN: Battle captain is your person that's running the operation center, and it should be during an exercise or during while deployed. So understanding their responsibilities, where they're getting their statuses, who are they giving, who do they have to keep informed, and what, you know, the tools at their disposal.

01:06:22SPRAGUE: And with those battle captains, did you have like a night shift and a day shift when you were deployed? Or was it, how did that work? Or maybe three shifts?

01:06:34BRANNAN: Depends on the unit. It did. It truly depended on the unit and how they organized. But it was these younger officers for assuming that next level of responsibility.

01:06:54SPRAGUE: And then for a signal brigade. Help me out here that a signal brigade acts as support for what size element? Or help me out with that, roughly.

01:07:10BRANNAN: Well, a brigade size element could provide it to a larger, much larger theater. 359th did deploy, and so they ran the Joint Communications Center for Afghanistan. So coordinating across the board, as well as signal assets within country. So it was a much larger role.

01:07:39SPRAGUE: So a core or theater level type of theater type of--

01:07:42BRANNAN: Theater.

01:07:43SPRAGUE: Theater.

01:07:44BRANNAN: They were echelons above core.

01:07:45SPRAGUE: Okay, so they probably reported that person reported to that theater commander

01:07:54BRANNAN: Yes.

01:07:55SPRAGUE: Or something like that maybe? What, for your experience, how was it different being at the brigade staff versus at a battalion staff level.

01:08:08BRANNAN: There were so many more moving parts at a brigade level because you had multiple battalions. They were in different, you know, different spots for their training, for their deployment. So there was more to be done, not a large staff to do it with, and just, it still had to be well.

01:08:35SPRAGUE: You, as some of your coursework, did you, it looks like you might have taken a joint operations course, Cyber Staff Course, what can you tell me about that?

01:08:46BRANNAN: That was a good course. It was really an introduction in working with some of the other services, because it was held on a Navy base, and there heavy, there was more Navy, there was a few Air Force, I think there might have been a token Marine. But it was being able to work with the other Services. It had become the military had. had and continues to evolve on being more joint so that things are seamless, that they're using the same technology, same type of equipment. They may use it slightly different, but to be able to, so the interoperability and to communicate. And so learning at a higher level and with these other officers, it was an introduction kind of in some of those customs and courtesies and how they worked.

01:09:45SPRAGUE: While you were at the 359th, I know you've spoken a little bit about a lot of female, senior female leaders, officers. Did you still encounter any gender discrimination in terms of roles from other male officers or female officers, anything like that?

01:10:03BRANNAN: I did.

01:10:05SPRAGUE: Do you want to talk about that or not?

01:10:09BRANNAN: I would prefer to pass.

01:10:11SPRAGUE: Okay. Then we'll leave, absolutely. So let's talk about the deployment. So tell me a little bit about finding out about it, what that was like and that, before you, before you mobed, what was that about?

01:10:30BRANNAN: We had known we were on the list for quite some time, and so we had been preparing. Internally, at least mentally, with different training, with getting the unit ready, it was still, going with the Reserve unit, over half of the people that came in were cross-leveled, so they had not been with the unit before. And trying to figure out how to create those bonds and how to integrate and that was challenging at times. We left Fort Gordon, and we actually did a pre-mobe training. We had to get certified out of Fort Lewis, so final training and medical clearance, et cetera, and then left out of Fort Lewis at the beginning of May. We spent three weeks, I think, in April at Lewis. And we were housed in the worst barracks. They were the old ROTC barracks.

01:11:40SPRAGUE: North Fort Lewis? Wow, they were still standing in 2010?

01:11:45BRANNAN: I think they've been taken down.

01:11:48SPRAGUE: They're gone.

01:11:49SPRAGUE: Yeah. But they were-- I remember we looked around and going, this is horrible. And then I was like, well, it is what it is. We weren't going to change it. So

01:12:02SPRAGUE: So, when you deployed out of Fort Lewis, Washington, did you fly out of McCord or did you fly out somewhere else?

01:12:11BRANNAN: We must have flew out of McCord.

01:12:13SPRAGUE: And then what was your first hop?

01:12:16BRANNAN: We stopped somewhere East Coast.

01:12:19SPRAGUE: Okay.

01:12:21BRANNAN: And then to Palomas in Portugal, probably to refuel, and then Romania, because they let us off the plane in Romania, and then into Manas Airfield. And Manas, we were just there until, you know, we had transportation in country.

01:12:52SPRAGUE: And forgive me for not knowing this, Manas Airfield is where?

01:12:55BRANNAN: I'm not sure, it's one of the -stans.

01:12:57SPRAGUE: Okay. Oh, gotcha. One of the -stans, got it.

01:13:01BRANNAN: Yeah.

01:13:03SPRAGUE: Okay. How, mobe-ing for this, how did you prepare your family, the children, for the mobilization, and what was that like?

01:13:18BRANNAN: Um, I made sure that everything went to the ex-husband so that the paperwork and that every-- as much as I could prepare for them. We packed out the house, you know, tried to make sure that there was-- just tried to prepare and make the contingency plans as much as I could.

01:13:47SPRAGUE: Yeah. Okay. So you get to Manas, whichever of the -stans that it's in, what brought you in country? What type of aircraft or mobile, how did you get there?

01:14:04BRANNAN: I don't even remember.

01:14:05SPRAGUE: Okay [laughs].

01:14:07BRANNAN: Military aircraft. And we landed in Bagram and that's where we were located.

01:14:13SPRAGUE: Okay. And help me out with this, 359th Signal Brigade, at some point it looks like you become the Theater Tactical Signal Brigade or TTSB?

01:14:30BRANNAN: That was the formal name. It was. It was just easier to say 359th Signal.

01:14:34SPRAGUE: Okay.

01:14:36BRANNAN: But yes, theater tactical. Ran that comm center for theater, also other signal assets. There were several battalions that reported directly to the brigade.

01:14:57SPRAGUE: Directly to the Brigade? Okay. And it looks like the SIGSEN, I'll call it, signal center, you had a different communication center. And this is up online, it looks like it's a JNOC-A or joint, or is that a different place? It looks like it's unclassified, yeah [laughs].

01:15:19BRANNAN: There was an acronym, and it was a joint, because there was Air Force, I don't recall any Navy, but it was, I mean, it was joint environment.

01:15:35SPRAGUE: And it sounds like to me, on the fly, it sounds a big facility, maybe.

01:15:43BRANNAN: It was a big operation.

01:15:44SPRAGUE: Yeah.

01:15:45BRANNAN: It was.

01:15:46SPRAGUE: Okay. And help me out here and doing my research. Was this something, did you know anything about something called Task Force Thunder?

01:15:57BRANNAN: That was us. We got to choose our name. And there's a lightning bolt in the patch. And we went with Thunder, our 335th Signal Command, there's is Ready Lightning. So they were, and so they didn't choose lightning for the task force name, but they said the thunder gets, the thunder is the more deadly of the two. So they went with Thunder.

01:16:25SPRAGUE: Okay.

01:16:27BRANNAN: I don't know. It was like, "Okay."

01:16:31SPRAGUE: Yeah so uh -- What was that like working with the Air Force and maybe a little bit of Navy? What was it like?

01:16:42BRANNAN: They were in that communication center, so I didn't have a lot of interaction with them. It was, I guess, Bagram was kind of a fascinating place because you had all the different branches. Navy and Air Force and Army all wore the same uniform because Army had the, it was flame retardant. So there was time, but they have different standards for grooming. And I remember looking across and seeing a female and I'm like, "She's wearing earrings." Army was not allowed to wear earrings in their tactical uniform. And I went buzzing up to her, and then I saw the tape, U.S. Navy, and I was like, "Target not to be engaged, move on." Because they were allowed to wear earrings. So it was interesting that way, and it was fun to kind of talk to the other branches because there was differences. And there was so many similarities, but there was also differences.

01:17:44SPRAGUE: Any other uniform things that you noted with the other branches in addition to the earrings?

01:17:53BRANNAN: Yes, I know Marines had taught [OOs??], one of the, they had shared that when they put their hair up, none of the stuff they use, like the bobby pins and that can't be visible. Whereas with Army, it could be. So she had shared that she found an Army NCO and she could see the bands and that holding up the hair and just be, you know, dressed 'em down about, "This is unacceptable and unprofessional," and then they didn't know there was a difference in standards. Learned afterwards, she said, "I felt a little bad." So it was interesting the different branches and how we handled it.

01:18:41SPRAGUE: And it looks like your position there was Chief Operations Officer slash Communications Liaison and Integrator

01:18:52BRANNAN: I started off as the S-3 and then moved down, I went to Kabul and actually served at the at the, under the G-6 there, as the U.S. comms integrator because they had, we had also other foreign military comms. There, I had a lot of interaction with foreign officers because it was truly a joint environment. We'd have a staff meeting, and our G-6-- boss was an American officer, the XO was Canadian. There was a French officer, there was an NCO from Germany, there was, I don't know if the gentleman from Romania, if he was an officer enlisted, but I mean, it was a truly a joined environment. And that was a great environment.

01:20:02SPRAGUE: What does an integrator do?

01:20:06BRANNAN: Part of it is to the, on that level, is ensuring that our communication. we are able to, we're working with the foreign countries that were able to bridge those gaps to communicate. It was higher level work. I wasn't actually doing the, you know, figuring out how to plug wire A to where it goes, but on a high level working with, to make sure that policies and that the equipment and what did we need.

01:20:51SPRAGUE: Did you, what were your involvement with FOB Gardez?

01:20:58BRANNAN: Um, right after Christmas, I think it was after, yeah, it was right after Christmas. Left Kabul, went to Gardez, which was on the eastern side of Afghanistan and the higher, our higher headquarters, the 35th, they were putting in these communication shelters where they're hubs in these different locations. And so it was kind of the communications in a box, but think shipping container box. But you had to have somebody go ahead. They had to, you know, find what's the real estate, getting it leveled, setting up the resources for getting wiring, bringing this in. So I only got so far because we redeployed and I handed the project off to my replacement. But it was -- it was fascinating to be able to go in, and you essentially truly started from the ground up.

01:22:04SPRAGUE: What did you think of doing that in that role?

01:22:08BRANNAN: I enjoyed it. Gardez was small. At that time, there was an Iowa National Guard battalion that was there. And I mean, it was a small, and they were infantry battalion so they did their operations out of there. But it was another group that they were Midwest. So you shared a common work ethic and similar culture. Sorry, we had mapped out the land and I talked to somebody and I said, "Hey, can we get that graded, you know, shipping containers should be here in a week." "Yep, we'll get it done." And I would walk by the next day and I'm like, "It's done." And they go, "Well, you we're farm boys." Fair enough. It was just, they had a great work ethic, small team, and it worked really well.

01:23:07SPRAGUE: Did you, were you at Gardez most of the time or part of the time or how?

01:23:13BRANNAN: from January through redeployment, and we came back in April.

01:23:23SPRAGUE: So were you there on the September 24th when they charged the gate that day?

01:23:30BRANNAN: No, I was after that.

01:23:31SPRAGUE: Okay, okay. Any other interactions while you were there that you're okay with talking about?

01:23:39BRANNAN: I got promoted to lieutenant colonel while I was there. 'nd I really wanted my boss, that was at Kabul, to promote me. And it just, he couldn't, it was, he, I mean he was a very busy person, so it, so it was he couldn't figure out the travel, or whatever, I don t know why. It didn't work out. So then I was like, "Okay, here's my second person." Well, they couldn't get clearance to travel. It was hard to get there to begin with. Yeah, I guess travel and theater was hard, period. So it was not, unless you were a general and had your own plane or your own assets, it was hard get around. So what we did is we did it by VTC. So we did by video, and the first lieutenant of the commo unit there, he slapped that on. And it would-- I went to, we had these little shops that were run by local Afghans and they had one that did, um, we'd a little coffee shop and we had a sewing and we'd one that did sewing and sold stuff. And so I took my hat in to have the new rank sewn on. And he had a sewing machine and it was an old model, but not the electricity to run it. So he did it by hand, you know, pushing the wheel. So that one we're kind of went, "Okay." I-- and he thought, they thought nothing of it. So it was, it was some of those differences.

01:25:24SPRAGUE: So that would have been in February of 2011, the promotion of Lieutenant Colonel?

01:25:27BRANNAN: Yes.

01:25:29SPRAGUE: Okay. Do you remember October before doing the shout out video?

01:25:40BRANNAN: I did, for, we did them in Kabul and we did it on the top of one of the rooftops of one of the buildings to do kind of the "Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays." Yes.

01:25:53SPRAGUE: That's still available on DVD, yes, if you're wondering. And you're saying "Go Packers." And sending a home greeting to Merrill, Wisconsin,

01:26:05BRANNAN: Well, Packers won the Super Bowl that year. And we had, I mean, it came on like at three in the morning, and I was like, "I don't know if I'm gonna get up." But one of the guys in the, where they, I was sitting, you know, with the commo unit, he was a specialist, and I had a jersey that I wore as my pajamas, oh no, oversized, And I said "Okay, so let's make a bet Packers win, you're wearing that jersey around for a day." And he goes, "Okay, but if whoever," I don't even know who they play, "If whoever wins, you're gonna wear this jersey around, deal." And then we won, which was awesome. And then I was like, "Dude, I think you're going to stretch out my jersey. No, you not wearing it." [Laughs]. The thought was there, he was willing.

01:26:59SPRAGUE: And that, at the time, was it in Kabul or Gardez?

01:27:01BRANNAN: It was in Gardez.

01:27:03SPRAGUE: Did you have much interaction with DOD civilians or DOD contractors?

01:27:12BRANNAN: There were quite a few contractors on Bagram, and then there was contractors in Kabul. Kabul was where they had, I mean, that was General Petraeus's headquarter at the time. So I mean there was a great deal of contractors there. But they had a job to do, and people kind of, they stayed in their lane, they did their job.

01:27:43SPRAGUE: What was your feeling in terms of security while you were working in Afghanistan?

01:27:51BRANNAN: It varied. The-- on Bagram, we had rocket attacks, they had mortars. We, very early, the base was attacked by insurgents and they actually breached the wire. And it was contained and minor, if you will, but still I remember the shock and the fear of, "Oh, this is real." Um, the, Kabul was-- it felt, on the compound, it felt very secure. The, we would walk over once a week, usually to the American base, and it was part of the green zone. So you know, you'd walk over there, but you still had your weapon. And I remember that they had these kids that were begging and they were probably orphans. and they all, you know, looking for money or something. And I remember that we had one point, they got a little aggressive and they got in close. And I remember having to grab my weapon because they were jostling us. And I was like, "Oh no," you now, I don't, "That's not your weapon, that's not your souvenir." I mean, it was, and that was minor. I know that the, I think after I left, but they had the Embassy attack because the compound was attached to the Embassy as well. But I mean, so that any time you went across the street to the little American base, because it wasn't attached, is you had to go in up-armored vehicles. So you always knew there was a threat. Gardez just felt like the edge of the earth. I felt better sitting with an infantry battalion. but it did, it felt like the edge of the earth.

01:30:03SPRAGUE: When they were mortaring you or rocketing the-- at Bagram, did you have to get in a bunker or anything, or was there like a siren that went off or?

01:30:15BRANNAN: There was a warning that went off, you were supposed to go to the bunker, put on your gear. So there was a protocol.

01:30:29SPRAGUE: And what, when that happened, what did you think of that? What was that like?

01:30:33BRANNAN: The first couple times really kind of shook you. That's not something we have here in the U.S. or in our experience, at least in the US. So you had to adjust to a different way. Also, I mean, just even things like you didn't throw batteries in the trash. They had to be disposed of in another way because those can be reused. Anything with a name, or an address, you know, even mail from home, and people here will just throw an envelope in the trash. Everything was shredded. So it was getting used to those protocols as well.

01:31:18SPRAGUE: And I've got to ask, what was that like being downrange and being away from family back here?

01:31:30BRANNAN: It was kind of, it felt like you just lost a year of-- a year. I would try to Skype with the kids once a week and depending on how stable the, you know, the line was, I mean, sometimes I'd see them, sometimes I didn't. I think letters were kind of a lifeline. The, around Christmas it was surprising, there was like, I had an uncle and an aunt that sent a care package, and I was like "Oh, I didn't know Uncle Bill could cook," you know, but it was just touching on how many people remembered you.

01:32:17SPRAGUE: How do you feel your training in the Army had prepared you for what you did in Afghanistan?

01:32:26BRANNAN: The mechanics were there, the environment. I don't think you can prepare for that until you're in it.

01:32:42SPRAGUE: Did you have time to reflect at all while you were in Afghanistan on what the bigger picture was or?

01:32:53BRANNAN: I did when I got to Kabul. That's when they were doing The Surge, and it was kind of a pivotal time, at least, for the theater. It was also probably, I credit my boss, because he also tried to make sure that we connected to the bigger picture, and that this is a significant time in history. and they were bringing in more troops in The Surge, and they were making it headway. So I think there was moments there, yes.

01:33:31SPRAGUE: Any experiences with burn pits while you are deployed?

01:33:35BRANNAN: The air quality was consistently bad. There was that haze and you knew people, they were burning anything. So that, that was ever present.

01:33:52SPRAGUE: Anything else that you'd like to talk about in theater while deployed for Afghanistan that I missed that you would like to talk about?

01:34:06BRANNAN: We redeployed as a battalion through Fort Dix, New Jersey. And I realize, well, we'll come to it later. We really just wanted to go home. "Do you have any problems?" "No," I just wanted go home, and I understand that that was a disservice to our soldiers. And they didn't, I mean, and I realize it now, looking back in my current role, because it hurts them because they didn't disclose if they had any issues or problems and not disclosing it. So we just wanted to leave. And in fact we had an opportunity where they were going to bus the brigade down to the, I think it was the Philly airport, you know, in the morning, but if you wanted you could go the night prior and you had to pay for your own hotel room, But you could go the night prior. And I opted for that. And I was like, "Oh, thank God, a shower, I don't have to wear flip-flops in." And I had dinner in the, I mean, I had jeans and a t-shirt. You know, you had very limited, that's my extent of civilian clothes. And I went down to the bar, and they served a beer, and I had somebody across take a picture, you know, first beer right back from, you know, Afghanistan, because we were dry, there was no alcohol allowed. and just being able to take time to enjoy a meal and just relax and sleep soundly. And yep, and then I got on the plane the next day and headed home.

01:35:56SPRAGUE: So if I can grasp some of what you're saying, as you're talking about the demobilization process, and instead of just going home, as we all like to do when we're getting back, more of a thought out process being?

01:36:13BRANNAN: Well, I could have stayed at Fort Dix for that night at no cost, got on the bus in the morning and went to the Philly airport. But for whatever reason, they relented and had a van available that if people wanted to leave that night prior, you know, and get a hotel room. And it was just, after living in quarters that were shared or subpar, it was, it felt luxurious.

01:36:45SPRAGUE: I guess what I'm getting at is maybe the longer demobilization process of debriefing, winding down, demobilizing those soldiers, I think is where I'm going with that, yeah.

01:36:56BRANNAN: Absolutely. It felt very rushed. It felt kind of cobbled together. Whoever was working there, it felt like we were just, you know, they kind of they were just this is their job and then we were punching a number going through.

01:37:18SPRAGUE: So kind of, maybe a little unfeeling? A little

01:37:20BRANNAN: Hmm, yes.

01:37:21SPRAGUE: Yeah. Okay, so, where did you go after you came back? You fly out of Philly, do you fly back to Wisconsin? Where do you go?

01:37:40BRANNAN: I think I came back to Wisconsin. I'm almost positive I had, I took some leave and came back to Wisconsin because it was right before Easter.

01:37:49SPRAGUE: Okay. And then, did you choose or were you provided orders to your next duty station?

01:37:58BRANNAN: I had to go back to Fort Gordon to out-process.

01:38:01SPRAGUE: Okay.

01:38:03BRANNAN: Fully finish the process. I think, or did I? Ooh, memory doesn't, memory is faulty. So I might have gone back to Fort Gordon? I know I stayed two weeks with a friend there, a week with a friends to finish the out-processing. And then maybe I left there for Wisconsin? It was before Easter, so probably went back to Fort Gordon and then went to Wisconsin. but I finished that out-processing that was needed. I already had orders to the next location. I know I spend Easter up at my parents' with the kids.

01:38:40SPRAGUE: In Merrill?

01:38:41BRANNAN: In Merrill.

01:38:45SPRAGUE: Yep. And then I've got your next duty station at the Pentagon with the Army CIO slash G6

01:38:52BRANNAN: Yes.

01:38:53SPRAGUE: Pentagon National Capital Region. Tell me, tell me, as the department head, tell me a little bit about that?

01:39:01BRANNAN: Well, that, the first year I was, well first part of the year that I was there, I had a section within one of the departments. I mean there's, when you think of all the layers within an organization, I had one section. And actually, it was good. It was very much like, I would consider a civilian job. I went and I got there about eight, did PT at lunchtime, there was a gym in our building. Went home at 4:30, quarter to five, five. So it was a good to kind of, and it helped with that transition as well. where prior, I mean, you're working, deployed, you're all working hours. It was nice to have some structure and some routine back in my life.

01:40:07SPRAGUE: And maybe a bit of a drawdown from being deployed, like you're talking about?

01:40:11BRANNAN: Exactly, and it wasn't as stressful.

01:40:17SPRAGUE: What was it like working in the Pentagon as a lieutenant colonel?

01:40:25BRANNAN: You were one of many. We were the action officers there. It was very rare to see an NCO that wasn't a master sergeant or above. These were all senior officers, senior NCOs. I think if you saw, we saw a captain. It was kind of like an anomaly. It was like everybody kind of flocked around to look at them. So, I used to joke with my mom that, well, She'd say, "Well, what do you do?" And I go, "I make coffee and answer the phone." Well, in the Pentagon, when I worked in the actual CIO G-6 office, I did answer the phones. And I did make coffee. So you just realize at that level, you're one of many. But it was also really interesting to see that very, they were our, I look at the Pentagon as your, that's where the corporate office is. And to see those higher level workings and how policy and things were actually decided.

01:41:35SPRAGUE: Some of your bullets interested me and I was looking for a translation for lack of a better term on them. So you might be able to help me with this. Increasing CIO publications. Were those publications of the CIO? Did they have a, help me out with what that is.

01:41:52BRANNAN: In that very first section, Army, the communication, the IT publications, were under our purview. And there were so many memos and directives and stuff that just had been put out by successive individuals that there was so much stuff out there that it was, it was, I mean, I can't imagine units going "Well what do we follow?" And so getting our arms around that and collapsing it, and then what was relevant and then putting it into the actual regulation. And then we, our team oversaw the rewrite of one of the major publications. So that was, and that's interesting because of the staffing process. And you think, "Oh, this is easy." This, you know, the Chief Information Officer owns that regulation. Oh yeah, you do, and you have to have the G-3, you have the have the the G-4, you have all the other army elements signing off on it, and then the field gets to comment on it as well. So you had information, and then you have go through and you had to resolve all those differences before you can move forward. So, it was, it was at bird's eye view and how things operated at a very top echelon. And it made me appreciate why things take so long to publish.

01:43:32SPRAGUE: Okay. And then, same office, you were the, in 2012, December 2012, the Executive Officer or Assistant Executive Officer.

01:43:44BRANNAN: Assistant.

01:43:46SPRAGUE: And what is that? Tell me about that.

01:43:48BRANNAN: I moved into the main office of the CIO G-6, working for the CIO G-6. And there was an O-6 that was the Executive Officer there. And that was closer to the flagpole, so closer to the action. It got a more in-depth look on how things really operate at that general officer level, and how things are negotiated or how they resolve differences because everybody has an agenda. But it was also longer hours. I remember that I got to, I made sure that I took the 4:45 bus to get into the Pentagon, so that I could go to do PT in the morning, because they had a gym in the Pentagon. And then I was at my desk then, about eight o'clock. So I mean, it was longer hours, and then sometimes getting home later, so it was time, like it was like, "Oh, it's eight o'clock, the kids are going to bed. I can wave to them." But it was actually really fulfilling work, too.

01:45:04SPRAGUE: Did you get the sense that they were preparing you for bigger roles or other roles?

01:45:14BRANNAN: Not like I was tapped or I was, you know, but it was just every role there was preparing you for the next.

01:45:23SPRAGUE: You had mentioned, as an Assistant Executive Officer, planning and overseeing over thirty Three Star Engagements. What was that like?

01:45:35BRANNAN: You had to be very meticulous because our boss was a detail person and they wanted things to run very smoothly. So thinking through all the wickets and how do we, you know, even just a normal, this is so-and-so's retirement ceremony, okay. And just kind of, okay, what's the second, what else do we need to think about? What else do, who do we to tell? How do we, what do we plan in? It was actually, I think, excellent-- it appealed to kind of being organized, me being organized. But also it brought in, I had a, you know, our XO was a great mentor because he, 'Have you thought about this? Have you done this? Have you don't that?" The, so the way he mentored, the giving feedback, the making, but also knowing that he would give the feedback, but he'd-- they still had my back. You think, "Oh, it's not that hard to plan a, you know, just a ceremony or speaking engagement." And sometimes it's more difficult than you think.

01:47:06SPRAGUE: Your next posting, you wind up in Marysville, Washington. Tell me about that.

01:47:14BRANNAN: I went out to Marysville, which was north of Seattle, as the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-6. So running that communications piece for a sustainment command. And I think that was a role that I could have probably gone in and just sat back and coasted. I guess that's not my nature. So it was one that we, my staff came to me and said, "So here's things that we need to do." And I'm like, "Okay." And then we got feedback from the units, they had a project that was, it was just like at a snail pace moving along about the Army Reserve was upgrading the communication pipes, the mount, a bandwidth going to these different centers. And I was like, "Okay, this doesn't sound like it should be hard." And so, and I mean, even the speed at things run there at the headquarters, it was painfully slow. And I was just like, "What is going on?" So I called back to one of my contacts. I think the best thing about the Army is you make friends and you have contacts, and then you go back to them when you, I need some help, I need guidance. And I explained, and this, I had arrived August, end of August. And I was like, "I've got this project. I don't understand why this is so hard. Now why is this, I mean, the contract is already done. Isn't it a matter of flipping the switch?" And they're like, "It is. And you gotta find the right person who controls the switch." And I was like, "Okay." And then they warned me about, "Hey, end of September, we're probably gonna have a continuing resolution, then everything is froze, so, you know, and nothing's gonna happen." So then it lit a fire under me. But then I discovered that there was another peer who we had worked with probably five, ten years before was at the Army Reserve Command and he was really the person kind of overseeing these contracts and the integration. And so I started calling them for, you now, every day, dialing for dollars. "Hey, what's going on? How do we do this?" just to get this switched.

01:49:52BRANNAN: And arguing, we went-- they did, and it was really truly a matter of somebody authorizing, it was a digital switch to increase the bandwidth coming into the building. And it was like, "Oh, that's cool." And then they're like, "Well, you did that, what else can you do?" Oh. We did a visit of our units. The units were scattered over Montana, Idaho, Utah. and went and visited and it was just, some of them were just so painfully slow. I think you could have turned on your computer and while you're waiting for everything to load, you could've went and got a cup of coffee, drank it and come back, oh, it's ready. So, writing to get the priority raised and to get that increased and do that. While we were out in these units hearing from the individuals that were doing the work. about that they had computers that were woefully out of date. And so we had a team that went around, and they imaged computers, and then went out, and then set them up for them. And it was a matter of, we've got the computers, what's going on? Why hasn't this been done? And it was just -- the right people, and we had the right team that were ready to go out there and to help them, and to fix, and to get things, and they wanted to see things done. So it was, it was a good year. And that's where we had that, when I went to brief at the Commander's Conference, and I played a little clip from the Saturday Night Live, the cowbell, and said, "Hey, you guys, I came on board, I got you more bandwidth. But you know what? You guys earned that. For you, it's more cowbell. Always more cowbell." So, my parting gift they gave me, I got a cowbell, so the more cowbell, because that was signal for them, because even though we could get them more bandwidth, we got them more computers, we tried to get them capabilities, they always asked for more. And rightly so.

01:52:14SPRAGUE: And that was with the 364th?

01:52:16BRANNAN: Correct.

01:52:18SPRAGUE: Sustainment Command Expeditionary. Where did you live when you were in Marysville?

01:52:23BRANNAN: We rented a house.

01:52:25SPRAGUE: Oh, okay.

01:52:26BRANNAN: Yeah.

01:52:27SPRAGUE: Cool. And at some point here, you're, August 2014, you're doing the Sustainment Command thing, and then it looks like you're either in route to or about to start the United States Army War College? In there

01:52:46BRANNAN: I did. I started that summer.

01:52:48SPRAGUE: Okay.

01:52:49BRANNAN: So that first year, that year at 364th, I was doing the first year of War College.

01:52:57SPRAGUE: Yep. Remotely or now they call it distance learning

01:52:59BRANNAN: Yeah distance distance learning.

01:53:01SPRAGUE: Okay.

01:53:02BRANNAN: Yeah. And then I was selected to be the professor of military science in that spring. And I still remember that call, because they called and said, you know, "UW-La Crosse was your first choice." And I said, "Yes, it was." And they said, "Well, we've got an opening." And I said, "I haven't even unpacked the boxes from this move." He said, "Either you better get busy or just pack them the way they are." "Okay." We packed everything up and we moved to Wisconsin, and then that first year as professor of military science I did the second year of War College.

01:53:41SPRAGUE: Okay. And what was that like, getting La Crosse and getting, tell me about that, [laughs] it's gotta be exciting.

01:53:50BRANNAN: All good things. But there wasn't much bandwidth, I didn't have much bandwidth left at the end of the day after work and War College and unpacking boxes again.

01:54:09SPRAGUE: Tell the, so this was the Eagle Battalion, Army ROTC, La Crosse, Wisconsin, Department of Military Science, UW-La Crosse. Tell the civilians on, who are watching what the professor of military science does.

01:54:27BRANNAN: Professor of military science for the university, you're the department chair. So you have that responsibility for the department academically and the university budget, et cetera. On the Army side, it's a battalion. So you're in command of that piece, you're preparing these young men and women to, you're training them and preparing them to become lieutenants. And if necessary weeding out the individuals that are not suited to be officers. So you are making assessments on them and guiding, mentoring, coaching, teaching.

01:55:10SPRAGUE: What were some of the conversations that you would have had as that mentor with some of those cadets? Memorable ones.

01:55:19BRANNAN: Oh. Training um-- I think talking to them about things, you know, things that people don't tell lieutenants. "Hey, lieutenants don't salute other lieutenants. You just don't do it."[Sprague laughs]. But they don't tell you that. Being prepared, doing your research, being willing to you know sometimes you're not going to be the brightest or the smartest or the you know whatever the best officer in the room but you can outwork them, and that will serve and then making sure that they continue-- the Army is going to train you but they need to do their self-development. But also trying to, each of the-- I taught the seniors at this time. And one of the things I made them all do is to do a five-year, or I think I did a ten-year plan. Map it out. What does this look like? It doesn't matter if they achieve it. It's just having a plan is easier to adjust than having no plan. What were their goals? And to think through that. Kind of, you know, and help, try to help them think through, maybe this is something, is this a, they do their obligation, and then what? Or do they more, do they have other goals that they want to accomplish in the Army before separating? Or, you know, what do they want out of it? Maybe being more clear on that.

01:57:11SPRAGUE: What was, you, in 2015 the Eagle Battalion was one of the most improved programs, chosen over 40 other programs throughout the Midwest? What was that, why did that happen?

01:57:25BRANNAN: Um. We took over a pretty dismal program, the master sargeant and I. It had been on the chopping block, I think, the year before from the Army. They were going to close it. They rallied and got Congress, and I don't know who all involved, the local, you know, and they maintained it, but it was, it was just, it was not thriving. There was a new master sergeant and he was full of energy, came out of a line unit and smart and hardworking. And I was new. So, I mean, we really meshed well. We also, part of it was first form the team, because we had a cadre team. Form the team, and then you know, what is our mission? Focus on the students. And we did that. And I joke that I think I wore out a pair of boots that year just in visiting offices to mend the, you know to either make that relationship within the university and outside of the university, or to repair relationships. I made sure that I went to every academic faculty meeting, because I found out my predecessor didn't go to them. I don't know why. We were part of the university. We were also part, we were, you know, we were an Army unit, but we still had to play well. And I knew that that good will, there were times that cadets would miss classes. It's much easier to pick up a phone and talk to somebody and say, "Is there a way that you can excuse them for a day?" if there's already an existing relationship, or if they understand the intent. And so trying to build those bridges and make that, those positive connections.

01:59:35SPRAGUE: What was it like being back in Wisconsin?

01:59:39BRANNAN: It was good. [Sprague laughs]. This area is beautiful. And I, I mean I always said I wasn't coming back to Wisconsin. The winters are too long and cold. And I joked that I said, "Well, if I ever come back, be to the La Crosse area." And then I got assigned there, and I had a friend that pointed out very pointedly, like, "You got what you asked for." I did. I really did. But this area is beautiful.

02:00:13SPRAGUE: What led to your decision to eventually retire?

02:00:18BRANNAN: It was the area, and it was home. The kids were thriving, we were settled, and it truly was that overwhelming, no, this is it. and made a decision that I didn't want to move again.

02:00:38SPRAGUE: I understand that decision. We had talked during the I Am Not Invisible about -- you going through retirement and then very soon after taking your next job position as a civilian could you please recap that for us because that's an interesting story

02:01:00BRANNAN: Absolutely. I had planned the month of July as taking leave, and I spent part of it, I went down to Georgia and visited a friend of mine. And then I was still finishing evaluations, because you still need input from others to finish. So I was still writing evaluations, I was planning my own retirement ceremony. So it was not this nice, restful month off that I, in my dreams thought about. It was very, it was busy and I, you know, after the month of truly working and I went to Fort McCoy and signed out on my last day on July 31st and then August 1st, I started a new position as a civilian with the university. So I mean, one day I'm in uniform, and the next day, I'm in civilian clothes and going from lieutenant colonel to Ms. It was just, it was a big switch.

02:02:20SPRAGUE: What were your thoughts about what civilians did before you became one?

02:02:25BRANNAN: I didn't doubt the professionalism or their work ethic, it was just very different in the military, wearing a uniform. That uniform tells part of your story, kind of where you've been and some of the things you've done. And so people can readily see that. With civilians, you don't have that. I mean, everybody, you have a rank on a uniform, so you knew where you were in the pecking order. Well, civilians don't do that either. So my first staff meeting, I looked around and I was like, I know who's in charge, I know the boss is, but I didn't know where I fit in or who was, what the pecking order was. And I thought that was very unsettling.

02:03:21SPRAGUE: So tell us about your first civilian position in August of 2018.

02:03:29BRANNAN: I accepted a position as the Veteran Education Benefits Coordinator. And so working with the military and military-connected students, then their benefits, certifying those for payment, working with a registrar and the bursar's office, we were able to enact some policies, which was fantastic. But it was, I was still working with a semi-military community. The students have an energy about them and an optimism, and that was fantastic. They-- it was also nice because the military students, I could talk to them and if they were going the wrong direction, I can be very frank with them. We spoke the same language.

02:04:35SPRAGUE: What surprised you the most about those veterans who you encountered while you were doing that job?

02:04:41BRANNAN: I started to notice some patterns. That if they were a specialist or below when they got out, they were very much used to somebody telling them where to be, what time, what uniform, what they were going to be doing. And all of a sudden in a university environment, there was nobody telling them, where and what and when. There wasn't somebody, they had to direct themselves, and that was a tough jump for some. So trying to coach them on that. If they were in NCO, I noticed that the transition was easier. But it was still the, and possibly even maturity level. So trying to adjust that so that helping them make that transition. For our veterans or military students that were in the Guard and Reserve is how to approach a professor or how to talk to professors to let them know about absences. There's times that they will do their weekend drill, but their weekend drill is Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Or they might be a Monday, Tuesday. Or they're going to miss class for some reason, and it's a military related. And so helping them communicate with their professors. And so I did some ghost writing for some of them. Here's what I would recommend on how you approach it. I had some students that at the beginning of the semester, they would send a note to all of their professors and introduce themselves and then tell them that they are a student, not only what they're pursuing, but they're also in the Guard or Reserve, and they may have some unexpected absences, and it kind of primed the pump as a welcome letter. And that turned out very, that was positive. I actually started to advocate for people to do that.

02:06:44SPRAGUE: What did you encounter as a veteran advocate on campus? What did your encounter from faculty and staff, generally speaking?

02:06:57BRANNAN: Some didn't know what to do with me. They didn't understand the experience I brought from the military. They looked at my credentials, and they said, "Well, you've got a master's. And?" Um, so they didn't, they didn't always, you know, I didn't always have the understanding which I was, which you would have thought would have been there. But then, if they didn't have those experiences, then they, it would not be the, it's, it's understandable.

02:07:37SPRAGUE: Was that part of your impetus for pursuing your doctorate of education?

02:07:43BRANNAN: It was. I also had post 9-11 GI bill that I had earned and decided that I wanted to, I wanted to-- that was a goal of mine.

02:07:58SPRAGUE: And now tell us, as long as we're talking about it, about your doctorate of education, if you would?

02:08:04BRANNAN: It is in student administration-- Student Administration, and Leadership. But it is an EDD, so it's a practitioner's doctorate versus researcher. I did do with my, my topic for my dissertation was military-connected students and absences due to military. So looking at our Guard and Reserve students, that had absences due to military conflicts, those going on, and then, one, what were their lived experiences? And then two, looking for patterns, how do we make this better?

02:09:02SPRAGUE: And that was here at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

02:09:05BRANNAN: It was.

02:09:06SPRAGUE: Is your paper, the d-- thesis or sorry, dissertation available to read?

02:09:12BRANNAN: It is.

02:09:13SPRAGUE: Okay. Excellent. That must have been apropos to write a dissertation on that, and you're dealing with that on a daily basis.

02:09:24BRANNAN: It was. We had to be very careful to make sure that, like, I could not have any students from UW-La Crosse as my research subjects, to make that because I might have a personal connection with them. So we had to, we kind of made sure that we navigated those ethics lines.

02:09:44SPRAGUE: Interesting, okay. What, did you find that your past connection with ROTC on campus helped you out in your new role or how did that work?

02:10:00BRANNAN: It did. There were individuals that remembered me from being the department chair, or that we had interactions. And also, by that third year, I had a good understanding of how the university operated, because they have their own structure. And so, understanding that.

02:10:26SPRAGUE: What was, what was the Student Veteran Association like here?

02:10:33BRANNAN: Student organization, and I was in an advisor role, but it was meant to be a spot, a place for one, for camaraderie, peer support. For, you know, camaraderie, peer support, mainly. They did some volunteer work as well. We did a Habitat for Humanity. We did a work day with them, that was twice. And it was, but it was also about building those connections. One, so that they're not feeling alone on campus. Many times our veteran students, they're older than the normal population. So they're feeling a little bit disconnected to begin with. They also might have families, so they might not be living on campus, so they could kind of almost feel like a commuter student. They come, they go to school, they leave. This was another thread to help them feel connected, but also to have somebody that they could turn to if they had some questions.

02:11:46SPRAGUE: Did your SVA include faculty and staff, or was it just students?

02:11:50BRANNAN: Just students.

02:11:52SPRAGUE: Okay. So while you're in that role, I have to ask, 2021, August 2021, withdrawal, the United States withdraws from Afghanistan. What was your experience of that?

02:12:11BRANNAN: We had students that came to the office and they were very upset. But we also realized that this was, it's not the soldiers or the service members that are making the decision on whether to go to war or to leave. So it's a political decision. It was executed poorly. It was not to cast blame on those individuals.

02:12:45SPRAGUE: What did you think of it?

02:12:48BRANNAN: It was disheartening to see how it was conducted. I think this was something that we've had, that multiple presidents had said that they were going to remove the U.S. from Afghanistan. But the method, the way it was done, was poorly done.

02:13:12SPRAGUE: And then on the flip side of that, the Afghan refugees who came back through Fort McCoy, 2021, 2022. What was that like living in La Crosse and having these refugees at Fort McCoy?

02:13:29BRANNAN: There was no impact.

02:13:30SPRAGUE: Okay.

02:13:31BRANNAN: I didn't notice anything different here.

02:13:36SPRAGUE: Okay. So you then go on and in January of 2023, you become the La Crosse County Veteran Services Officer, services, yep, services officer. Tell me about that decision to go from UW-La Crosse to CVSO?

02:14:02BRANNAN: I was looking for an opportunity for more responsibility, for being able to-- I knew that at UW-L I had pretty much topped out. And I mean, I was good at my job, and I enjoyed it. But they weren't also willing to recognize everything that I did. It wasn't just purely a staff function. I did programming, we did some policy making, as well, it was expanded. So they weren't looking to expand the title, and they certainly weren't looking to expand the pay. And I'm sure they had internal constraints. So when this position came open, I, I had nothing to lose for applying for it. It intrigued me. It's certainly a much bigger population, very different responsibilities. So it was a challenge that I wanted to undertake.

02:15:15SPRAGUE: You had mentioned, pre-interview, roughly, forgive me for not getting this right, 76 or 7,700 veterans in La Crosse County, roughly?

02:15:24BRANNAN: Yes.

02:15:26SPRAGUE: And so then, I'm curious, as a veteran myself, what does a day in your office look like with your staff and how does that function, how does it play out if there is such a typical day?

02:15:43BRANNAN: There probably is not a typical day. But it was a, I had been in a university where you have a very young population. I mean, students tend to be younger. And all of a sudden, I went into a role where it was flipped, and now I'm working with senior citizens. And there was young people, but the largest population were older. And it was, it was another steep learning curve. The VA has many regulations and directives and policies and a way of doing things. So expanding, I had this knowledge of education, which is probably one-tenth of what I do, and then learning everything else to go with it. Also realizing that the population, the vast majority of them, had much different needs and wants compared to students. So it was, it was adjusting there as well. But it was also, it, it took probably four months to kind of go, "Okay, I can do this job." Little moment of crisis and then I can this job, and it truly took a year to get the base knowledge to feel like you're competent. So at least I've been able to take that knowledge and apply it to the individuals we're training and not think that they're going to walk in the door and they're ready to go. And also to caution them so that they don't have that expectation either.

02:17:48SPRAGUE: What are some of your current initiatives?

02:17:52BRANNAN: We are-- that first year walking in, we wanted to bring, reduce the wait time for appointments. They had, there had been months, they would, somebody would call and say, I'd like to get an appointment in your office. And they used to wait months for an appointment. Well, we can get you in this week. So we have it down to a week. Now, if you want a specific person, if you say, "I'm only working with Jane," it might be two weeks, but I can, we could still. I think we're more responsive. To be more responsive, trying to be more proactive. This work can be very reactive. And we put in a claim. We wait for the customer to come to us. We put in the claim. We'll wait for VA to tell us a decision. Okay, how can we be more proactive? How do we make sure these veterans are getting all the benefits they've earned? And there's many, many veterans that don't even know about all of them, all of the benefits out there. I hear this from all age groups. I mean, our Vietnam veterans that are, "Well, I don't wanna use that, I'm gonna save those benefits for somebody who really needs them." And they've earned them. So learning how to talk to them and how to make sure I get through to them, so that it's not just them, maybe it's also in their best interest for their surviving, if there's, you know, if there's a spouse involved or if there is a family. So current initiatives being more proactive. We got the wait times down. Making sure that our staff is trained and that we, I want to make that we stay on top of our game. So we're leaning forward with training and finding ways to, how do we use, how do we use the VA better? So bringing in a speaker from different sections to talk to us at our staff meetings, or finding other, how we find other resources that we can leverage.

02:20:06SPRAGUE: Some other topics that are related but may or may not tie directly to CVSO, but some of them do in some shape or form. Tell me a little bit about the La Crosse County Veterans Service Commission.

02:20:21BRANNAN: Commission is a group that meets once a month. We have monies that are designated in our general budget. And it is designed for county veterans who are experiencing hardship or financial emergencies. So we meet once a months. There's an application that they put in. Really look at to fund cases or fund individuals that keep a roof over their head, keep the utilities lights on, or enable them to continue to getting to work. So there's many things that come up unexpectedly. Somebody loses a job, and then they know they're not going to be able to pay the rent, or they're behind on the rent. And so that is an excellent use of those funds. and you'd think-- it was an eye-opening to realize how many of our veterans are living on that edge. That they're, you know, I guess the statistics are everybody's 90 days, or many people are 90 days from being homeless, but here they're really living on the edge. They don't have an emergency fund. So if something goes wrong, something breaks on the car, or an unexpected bill, all of a sudden then they don't have the money for something else. So this Commission is designed to help step in and assist with that.

02:21:56SPRAGUE: Great. If you could, help me out with the connection between the La Crosse County-- or La Crosse Area Veterans Court and the La Crosse Area Veteran Mentor Program.

02:22:12BRANNAN: The La Crosse Area Veteran Mentor Program is a completely separate organization, and they work predominantly with peer-to-peer counseling for veterans. And then they also have a role in Veterans Court.

02:22:27SPRAGUE: Okay.

02:22:28BRANNAN: We have a staff member that attends Veterans Court and is our rep there every week. Veterans Court is a unique function in La Crosse County, and it's not just La Crosse County veterans. They're from, they get referred from other counties. So they can go through it, and it's usually, and it's a sober treatment, rehabilitation. And it's a longer process. They have to go through and actually meet certain standards to be able to, you know, for successful graduation. And they typically stay within this structure 18 months, at least eight, eighteen months, a year. But our role in Veterans Court is to make sure that they are receiving the benefits they've earned. Some of them aren't, they have, they have disabilities incurred from active service, but they've never put in a claim with the VA. Or getting them connected into VA healthcare. Or in some of these, or even in state benefits. So making sure that they are also receiving those benefits that they've earned.

02:23:55SPRAGUE: Okay. I have to ask, you served in the Army, serving veterans afterwards, do you find that in a day, in any given day, you just need a break [laughs] from serving your fellow veterans or not, or what is that like? How do you live in balance with that?

02:24:18BRANNAN: There's time, I'm sure everybody needs breaks, yes. I have a hobby that is very un-military, so I do card making. Um, I guess I'm even thinking about the organizations I'm a member of, I'm member of the Legion and the VFW, so I'm around other veterans as well [laughs]. But the camaraderie in those organizations, that's why I'm there. And we also have a purpose. But I do try to find time and take time to decompress and to, just not think about veterans for a while.

02:25:13SPRAGUE: I understand.

02:25:14BRANNAN: Or not think about issues for a while.

02:25:20SPRAGUE: Do you continue any of the relationships with people you served with, maybe in active duty?

02:25:26BRANNAN: I do, yes. It's my roommate from Officer Candidate School. We went to War College together as well. We were in the same class and we're still in contact with one another. And she just retired two years ago. So that's a long time. I'm still connected with others that I've served with over the years, and it's good. These are individuals I think I would be friends with no matter what.

02:26:05SPRAGUE: So we're in March, coming up on April. What do you do on Memorial Day?

02:26:14BRANNAN: Memorial Day is usually a busy time for the Veterans Office. So usually we are, we, actually the last two years we've, my daughter was in band so I actually marched with the band as one of the parents who squirt water into their mouths as they're marching because they do a big Memorial Day, or they do, they did, well they do the Memorial Day Parade. So I worked with that, you know, so we did the parade and then the, usually the ceremony afterwards that they do. VFW and American Legion both have events, so try to pick and choose the places I go.

02:27:12SPRAGUE: What do you think your life would have been like if you hadn't served in the military?

02:27:19BRANNAN: Good question. I am not sure. I liked those aspects of kind of the adventure of being in the Army. I didn't like the moving part, but I liked being in new places and exploring new places. So I mean, there were some things that I really enjoyed, and I liked the, it always comes down to the people, the people and the purpose and the sense of mission. So I don't, I would think that I would have sought out something similar in the civilian capacity.

02:28:05SPRAGUE: What motivated you to do this interview?

02:28:11BRANNAN: Part of it is to tell my story. The other part is women do get overlooked, and we do become invisible, and even as a veteran. One of my very first veteran groups that I was in, I just felt ignored. predominantly men and older men, and they just didn't, they'd say hi, but that was about it. So making sure that there's-- I mean, the Army was a career for me, and I enjoyed it, and that is an option for women if that's what they choose. But it also can be a stepping stone if somebody chooses to do that as well. And I think bringing some visibility there is important to me as well

02:29:12SPRAGUE: Did we miss anything that you'd like to cover?

02:29:15BRANNAN: Not that I can think of.

02:29:20SPRAGUE: Then if you have nothing else, we're going to go ahead and conclude the interview.

02:29:25BRANNAN: Okay.

02:29:26SPRAGUE: Thank you for your service.

02:29:28BRANNAN: Thank you.

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