Great Thanksgiving Listen by Landon Van Cleave

Question 1: Who are you and what is your relationship to me?

vancleavelw — 2023-11-28 16:15:14 UTC

Sgt. First Class David Perales, US Army retired. Landon is my grandson.

Question 2: Where did you grow up and what was it like there?

vancleavelw — 2023-11-28 16:19:22 UTC

I grew up in the 70's on a farm outside of Gretna, Nebraska, which is close to Omaha. It was over 300 acres, we had animals. It was farm living, period.

Question 3: What did you and your friends do for fun when you were younger?

vancleavelw — 2023-11-28 16:25:11 UTC

We didn't have much fun, really. We had to take care of a lot of animals. When the bus came to pick us up at 6:30, all your chores had to be done by then. We had to feed the cows, slop the hogs, let the chickens out, and all that fun stuff. When we had a chance, we just hung out, went to the bowling alley. A lot of people knew everybody in the town. My graduating class was 65 people and 3/4 were involved in sports. We would go watch each other play ball, run track, or whatever sports were going on.

Question 4: What did you want to do after high school?

vancleavelw — 2023-11-28 16:27:42 UTC

Well I wanted to go to college, but my family didn't have the money, so I decided to join the military because Uncle Sugar was giving some cheddar away so I could go to college.

Question 5: Describe your job in the military.

vancleavelw — 2023-11-28 16:28:07 UTC

My job in the military was the MOS of Watercraft Operator, I was basically a seaman. The Army actually has more boats than the Navy does. My job was just working as a basic seaman, learning how to operate a ship, how to tie a vessel up. I worked my way up and decided to stay for 20 plus years, becoming a mate on the vessels. We sailed around, we did a lot of humanitarian missions. When a hurricane would hit, they would send our boats out to resupply and help the troops.

Question 6: What are some events you remember from your time in the military?

vancleavelw — 2023-11-28 16:50:33 UTC

Getting shipped overseas to Saudi Arabia to go fight in the Gulf War. I was also involved in Operation Just Cause in Panama during 1988 and 1989. But the most memorable was going to Saudi Arabia and seeing how the Iraqi just tore the place up. It looked to me like millions of oil fields all caught on fire as far as you could see. Our mission was to take ammunition to there and take the POWs back. Our main job though was to support the troops taking ammo and tanks up to them. One time, they put me up top with an M16, looking for people who might have bombs or something. There were so many people just running at us, hands up, no weapons or anything. They wanted to get taken in. They didn't want to fight anymore, they were so torn up from all the tactics they used. I remember on one mission, we were going down a river in Dumam, Saudi Arabia. We had a brand new officer, never been in the field. They put him in charge of taking us up the river. I was on watch and everyone was freaking out, running through the halls. Horns were blasting to get everybody up. He made a minor mistake and led us right through the middle of the minefield, with mines about 5 feet across. When we finally arrived at our spot, there was nobody there in the enemy camps. We went in the bunkers and they were all completely abandoned. They left everything, ammo, weapons, clothes. When they would see an American vessel, they would just up and leave.

Question 7: What was life like when you got out of the military?

vancleavelw — 2023-11-28 16:57:35 UTC

It was really different. When you're in the military, you have a lot of comradery. It doesn't matter what branch you served in, we were all brothers and sisters. It was hard to adjust. When I got out of the military, I was an instructor of the Advanced Nautical Commission Officer Corps. I was in charge of instructing our field basically. What was hard was getting out and starting again at the bottom of the ladder. All you know is the strictness of the military. When you get out you see all these slack-asses, like we have today, wanting something for nothing.

Recording

vancleavelw — 2023-11-30 15:53:46 UTC