Interview with Veteran Steven Witt

Veterans: Steven Witt & Cecily Buckley 

Interviewed by Rachel Swensen 11/9/2015

RS: Why did you decide to join the Military? 

SW: At the time it was beneficial to join for schooling and my family has a history of Military. My Dad served during Vietnam.

RS: Why did you choose the service branch you chose?

SW: The benefits for schooling mainly. They offered tuition assistance and GI bill and the GI kicker. Also access ability because it’s a lot easier to stay closer to home then it would have been to join active Army. 

RS: Where did you serve? 

SW: I have drilled out of Marshalltown Iowa and Elkhorn Nebraska then I did a tour in Afghanistan. Kuwait next year. 

RS: What was your job assignment? 

SW: Until last year I was a 31 Bravo which are Military Police. This last year I switched over to a 32 Echo which is a Corrections Specialist. 

RS: Did you see combat? 

SW: No. 

RS: Were there any causalities in your unit? 

SW: There were no causalities in my unit directly. While we were overseas we lost one individual

.

RS: What was your highest rank achieved? 

SW: So far it’s just E5 Sergeant. 

RS: How did you stay in touch with family? 

SW: Computer. I had brought my own laptop. They also had a USO where you could rent computers, phones.

RS: What did you do while on leave? 

SW: When I came home on leave I met my daughter for the first time and just pretty much chilled out at home. It was January so there really wasn’t much going on. 

RS: What did you think of your Officers and fellow Soldiers? 

SW: That’s a hit and miss type thing; either you like them or you don’t. Either they like you or they don’t.  It depended on the individual; I’ve had good fellow Soldiers, I’ve had good NCO’s and on the flip side I’ve had bad Officers, I’ve had bad NCO’S and I’ve had bad Soldiers. 

RS: How did your service and your experiences effect your life? 

SW: I would say it made me a lot more independent with a lot of people. I’ve had a lot of experiences and seen a lot of different places. I’ve been to Italy, I’ve been to Mississippi, I’ve been to California. Germany, Kirgizstan, Afghanistan, Kuwait. I’m a lot more of an independent thinker. A lot more confident in myself. 

RS: Did your Military experiences effect what you think about War or the Military in general? 

SW: It opened my eyes a lot to the different aspects to the Military. War is a broad term, people think War and they think fighting and everything. There’s a lot of behind the scenes stuff people don’t see. I may not have seen combat but I have seen my fair share of bad guys. I’ve seen people who have killed fellow Soldiers. It’s not what people think War is. 

CCB: It’s not glorious it’s ugly. 

SW: War is hell.  Everybody thinks War and they think front line combat there’s a whole lot more to it.

CCB: They don’t see refugee camps or field hospitals. 

SW: They don’t think that either. Homes that were burned down and destroyed.

CCB: Fields that were burned.

RS: What was the hardest part of it all?

SW: Being away from my kids about the only other hard part is staying in shape. 

RS: Do you have any regrets from it all? 

SW: I have enjoyed my career so far, I’m hoping to keep going and finish it out and retire. 

RS: Would you do it all again? 

SW: I probably would do it all again. Would I do some of it different? Possibly. But you know all the experiences you get from doing it, the comradery, the friendship-you just can’t replace it. Some of my best friends I still chit chat with are fellow Soldiers that I served with.

RS: Was coming back hard at all? 

SW: It was hard because I was easily agitated. I couldn’t deal with stupid anymore. Basically, you go overseas your lifestyle simplifies but you have a lot of other stresses that people don’t think about, are we going to get attacked. I was in the middle of a shower and a mortar went off. I was just sitting there showering away and *EXPLOSION* and it actually hit like 20 feet from my Captain at that time. 

CCB: You have all those stresses but life is simple. It’s regimented, you have rules for every situation where your response it predetermined. Then you come back here-

SW: -There’s all these choices. One of the biggest choices I still have issues with is what I want to eat. There you go and they have it set out with your options you come back here and it’s like alright, what do I want to cook, do I want to eat out? 

RS: Was it hard to settle back into normal life? 

SW: I have a few friends who suffer because they did a different mission and they see things a lot differently than I did. My experience wasn’t so hard, I just couldn’t go from being a Sergeant of my own little section to going back to being a grunt, a nobody.