November 13, 2024 • 48 mins
We're going back to Megan's previous assignment in this episode that's all about recruiting. We found outstanding recruits, who have gone on to do incredible things in the Army and in their own lives. So, what is a Unicorn in recruiting and where do you find one?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's staff Sergeant Hearn and I'm Sergeant Megan Terry,
and welcome back to another episode of a g R
Alabama Guard Radio. Recruiting is down nationwide, if you read
(00:20):
the headlines, it's becoming more and more of a struggle
to get young people to join the military. And we
could kind of go back and forth all day and
why that may be. But the interesting thing is in
Alabama that's not the case. In fact, we're killing it
where our numbers are up and we're having one of
the best recruiting years ever in what is a nationwide drought.
So decided to talk to and recruiters find out what
(00:40):
we're doing different than everybody else. But a term came
up they kept saying, which was unicorns. Megan used to
be a recruiter. Can you tell me what that is?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I was a recruiter and I wished that I was
a recruiter in Alabama because they're doing so good. But
a unicorn is basically an applicant who comes into your office.
They want to join, they're ready to join, they have
everything taken care of that they need to have taken
care of, and they don't have any disqualifying factors. So,
for example, if you walked into a recruiting office, you
had no medical issues, you had all your education squared away,
(01:12):
and you didn't have any reservations or doubts, and everything
was cool, and you could enlist this in as possible,
you're a unicorn.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
So basically they don't exist, not anymore.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
They don't.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Well, they're changing some things though, because now you can
join with ADHD and other things. They are expanding. But yeah,
pretty much in today's day and age, post COVID, they
don't exist.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Well, I was really interested in the term. So today
me and Megan decide to go hunt down our own unicorn,
and we came across retired First Sergeant Sandra Lucas. She
was prior Navy. She joined the album National Guard at
forty one years old at a time where the military
wasn't really kind to women. She also had a very
successful civilian career going on, and she'd already done her time.
(01:55):
But we kind of wanted to know what made her
make this life decision.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Hi, I'm Sandra Lucas, retired first sergeant Army National Guarden
and started off in the Navy back in the late seventies.
I joined the Navy, I guess to see the world.
I was hoping to go to the West Coast. I
had a boyfriend out there, but things turned out that
(02:22):
I ended up on the East Coast in working at headquarters.
This young kid didn't know much. Really really kind of
a fun time. People were coming back from Vietnam. We
were in a peace state, if you will. We had
the Cold War going on. But as young as I was,
(02:43):
and given where my head was at, I really didn't
I didn't put all that together again until later in
life what that all meant. But we were still having
some protests around then. People would spit on you if
you had your uniform on and out in public. So
we wore uniforms once a week during that time period,
(03:05):
and you went to work and straight home. You didn't
stop for groceries or gas or any of that because
it just was too dangerous. It was a very different
time when I first started out. I spent four years
in the Navy, grew up there, really learned a lot
of discipline from some really great people, But we didn't
(03:27):
have a value system that we eventually would grow to
have in the military. I think people before us had
a really great value system. They were very honorable. You
look back to the Korean War in World War two
and Vietnam started to change things. In post Vietnam, you know,
(03:49):
things were really getting kind of weird in the military
while I was in. One of the big fiascos that
took place was something called When We Began. That really
does mark the day we began to look at sexual
harassment and the role of a woman in uniform and
(04:10):
how she gets treated. Although a lot of women had
broke through that glass ceiling and were doing great things
in the military, it was still a difficult time for women.
They were harassed, touched, threatened, and there was just no
place to report it because the mentality was if you joined,
(04:34):
because it was all volunteer, then you were asking for it,
and it just wasn't always a good place to be.
I was pre women at Sea while I was there.
One of the programs that Congress eventually would vote and
give to us was permission for women to go to sea,
(04:56):
And just toward the end of my enlistment, I was asked,
or actually I was given my next set of orders,
which would have been my first set of orders after
being in the mech Pond's office, and the Chief Naval
Personnel's office, and I was going to the USS Lexington,
which is now something everybody's using to shave with because
(05:17):
she's all scrap. But she was down in Pensacola and
the pilots would use her to do touch and goes
old aircraft carrier. I drove down to Pensacola and took
a look at it. It was a RUSS bucket. I
was going to be the first and probably the only
female for a little while to go on the ship,
(05:39):
and something in me just said, no, this just is
not the right thing for me to do. I had
read many cases that we processed about women at sea
and what was happening, and it was a tough transition.
It was hard. Today it's much better, and we have
things in place now for women to be able to
(06:01):
go to and talk to others to prevent that from happening.
We we have open discussions that old mindset is simply
not acceptable, and if anybody is out dealing with it,
then by all means say something, because that's just not today.
(06:23):
Too many women fought hard to get that changed, and
I'd hate to see that anyone was suffering with that today.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
So Sandra's now out of the Navy, and she decides
to start working with this amazing new technology, which at
the time it was computers. And like Sandra says.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
That's a long time ago, but.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
She really had a knack for it though, and she
started training office workers in how to use word processors
and even spreadsheets.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
It was a wonderful time to train people to kind
of bring about this new change and to find efficiencies.
And that's really where I think I found nich was
one working with people to make them better and to
make them comfortable with the stress that the job was
bringing with the change. But two, just the ability to
(07:12):
create efficiencies and make something better just really excited me.
That took me to one job. You don't really plan
a career like the one I've had.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
She goes from teaching computers to working Navy finance, buying
engines for ships, and she ends up working her way
up into Navy Command of the Pentagon, working with them
to determine how they're going to shape and pay for
the future of the Navy.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
But anyway, so I made friends in the Pentagon, a
lot of friends, young people my age starting life, people
who had you real young families, just starting that kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
She stayed at the Pentagon learning, meeting people and making connections,
but never settling into her career.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, and eventually she caught the eyes of some congressman
on Capitol Hill and she started getting involved in politics,
working at their campaigns and helping behind the scenes. And
around this point she met her husband, who works for
the Air Force, and eventually they relocated to Alabama.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
And Alabama while she lived in Montgomery, she got involved
in state politics, even working with Senate campaigns and the
governor's office and officials in the Alabama National Guard. All
the while she starts getting this itch that she can
do more and that she's not quite finished with the military.
But at her age, I mean, that really wasn't an
option for her. But then something nobody expected to happen happened,
(08:35):
and that was ultimately her ticket back into the military.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
My friends, we had moved to Alabama by that time,
and my friends had said, you know, you just need
to calm down, stop watching the news so much, because
you know, getting national news all the time wasn't really happening.
You know, you get your pieces of it, and I'm
a news junkie, public fears news all that. So I
(09:03):
decided to listen to some friends I'd made my new
friends in Alabama and didn't turn not on. So I
called my friend Tracy and said, hey, you'd be so
proud of me. It's noon and I haven't turned on
the TV yet. And Tracy said, turn on the TV
(09:25):
and hung up. That was nine eleven. I did uh
call after the shock of it all, after you know,
you start to think, Okay, what am I going to do?
My husband was in lockdown over at Gunner and I had,
you know, it's like you got to do something. So
(09:47):
I called the congressman's office and they were shocked. They
didn't how did you get through because they couldn't get out.
The lines going out were all blocked. And I sat
there for about half an hour or so with a
cell phone and a landline connecting them so they could
talk to each other, putting the phones together, and then
(10:08):
you know, somebody else would get on the line, and
then I dialed their home and that way their loved
ones would know that they were okay, because it was
a concern that it was going to go to Capitol
Hill and might have had things not happened. With and
nine to eleven when the plane crashed into the Pentagon.
It took five of my friends out. And I couldn't.
(10:33):
I just I could volunteer, I could give blood, I
could donate, I could do lots of stuff. But I
just couldn't get whatever that thing is deep down inside.
I couldn't get that. I just couldn't get it to
go away. So we're sitting there with the Adjutant General
(10:56):
of the Army National Guard, of the National Guard and
having lunch, and he was talking about how difficult recruiting is,
and I said, well, you know, if you'd look around
you and look at the recruits, or look at the
potential recruits, maybe you wouldn't have such a hard time
finding them. And he said, what are you talking about?
And I said, well, you know, is there something wrong
(11:18):
with me? And he looked at my husband, who was
with us, and he said, is she serious. She's got
a job with the governor. By this time, I was
the deputy chief of staff. She's not serious. She wouldn't
leave the Governor's office to go to become She wouldn't
do that, would she. And John said, she is serious,
(11:39):
and she would do that if she was eligible, so
that was the question. Would she be eligible? It required
an age waiter by that time, and I had to
prove my physical fitness and I did. It was a
lot of fun. Some of the guys that found out
(11:59):
that I had been recruited and was going to become
public affairs thought, oh, no, we've got a prima donna
coming in from the Governor's office. You know what is
she going to know? And I could talk Navy, but
I couldn't talk army. That was a concern, and they said,
(12:19):
you know it's you. You'll go to a professional school's
a gentleman's school. You'll have the weekends and evenings off,
you'll wear civilian clothes. You know it'll be great. So
I did join, did get the age waiver approved. Didn't
think about a career that I just wanted to help.
(12:42):
So I was offered several opportunities, but what I wanted
was to start where I left off. So I insisted
that I be the same grade I was when I
got out of the Navy. So I went in as
an E five. That bothered some folks, but it didn't
bother me because I wanted to roll my sleeves up.
(13:02):
I wanted to do something. I wanted to be part
of the team. I wanted to be part of the team.
But that's going to get fixed because what they didn't
realize was the Gentleman's school is not a gentleman's school
at all. It was basic training because after you've been
out of the military service, the Army requires you to
(13:25):
go through basic training if you've been lapsed by a
certain amount of time. So at forty something years old,
I'm going to put my body through the rigors of
basic training all over again, minus an obstacle course and
gas chamber, which I had already done many years before.
In the Navy, we were all prior enlisted, all branches.
(13:50):
I think the only thing we didn't have was Coastguard.
And I'm not going to hesitate to tell you that
the biggest cry baby we had was a marine was
I'm sure they didn't claim her anymore, but oh my goodness,
but she could shoot. She I don't know what the
secret sauces for Marines, but they can teach you to shoot.
(14:12):
Just amazing talent. But yes, it was basic training. It
was sun up, sundown, you know, yelling. I remember the
first time, you know, it's like, they give you the
task that they know you're going to fail at, so
they can, you know, get things started. So line up
your suitcases in a straight line, which of course you
fail at because they're not all alike. And then they
(14:35):
yelled get in the pit. And I just stood there
for a second and watch people go running over to
this sand pit. And I thought a pit. I don't
I don't get into the pit. There was a voice
in my head that said run. Took off for the pit.
(14:56):
I remember the first sergeant there, the first time he
laid eyes on me. We were running around a track
and they were kind of looking at all of us
prior service people, and he saw me and I overheard
him tell the guy next to him, dang, she's old,
And I thought, well, you ugly. I'm sorry, but you
(15:21):
know I might be old, but you're ugly. That was
just the way I had to get back at it.
I had to develop something that I had not been
challenged with yet, and that was my mind. That time
in basic training taught me that the mind and the
body will carry you further than anything you could ever imagine.
(15:41):
I mean, it's just amazing when you get your mind
wrapped around something and you're determined you're going to do it.
I was determined I was going to do this. The
first sergeant there was determined he was going to get
me out. The guys were returning from the first phase
of the operations over in the desert, and they thought
(16:02):
it would be a good thing to put them in
the training environment. So now you've got these prior service
guys who were getting back in the game, and you
got these guys coming back after they've been in the
sandboxes they were calling it, and they're not happy guys.
They want to be home with their families and they
(16:24):
should have been. Now we've got them working and it
just wasn't a good environment for them. And things happen
when things are not right. So one of the guys,
while waiting for the next class to start, decided to
(16:46):
have a relationship with one of the recruits. There was
a really bad thing. Unfortunately, as we get through the
training period, she get well, she got pregnant. As a rest,
he gave her some cash to go into town and
take care of things. We get through the training period
(17:07):
and at one point we're getting ready to hand out
weapons and she's just standing there in line shaking, and
I know for a fact she is not going to
make it, and you just don't want her to have
a weapon. I realized then that that you have to
be the adult doesn't really matter your rank anymore. So
(17:28):
I stepped forward and asked for permission to speak and said,
she can't have a weapon. And our cadre said, you
and her go into the office. So we went in
the office and he came in and he said, what's
going on? And I said, well, this is what I
(17:48):
understand happened before I got here, and this is who
had happened with, and she's in no condition to have
a weapon, especially a loaded weapon. So he called the
chaplain who came to get her, and she got the
help she needed. She got support she needed. I understand
that later she got to rejoin the class and move on,
(18:11):
which was really great that they were able to take
care of her the way they did. But in the meantime,
the cadre put his head down in his hands and
he rubbed his hands on his head in his face
and was looking down at the floor, and then finally
looked up at me and he goes, you, see, Lucas,
this is why I don't want women in my army,
(18:33):
And I thought, seriously, are we still having this conversation?
And I just kind of shook my head because, you know,
the last time I checked, it takes two. So neither
one was right. And it didn't have anything to do
with women in his army. It had to do with
(18:54):
his army taking care of his army. It had to
do with battle buddies looking after each other. It had
to do with where's your team and who separated you.
Now I'm starting to speak some army talk at this
point because I'm starting to see things that aren't quite right.
(19:14):
They're better than they were, but they're still not right.
There were a lot of things that happened during that period.
At the end of it, unfortunately, the Army was not
able to continue that training because it wasn't being done correctly,
and the training shut down at Fort Knox and was
(19:35):
moved to a different location as a result of some
of the things that were going on there that didn't
leave a great taste in my mouth. You know, I
wasn't really sure what I signed up for.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Now, can you tell me, you know, what was your
hardest day at Basics? Did you have a day where
you were like, I made a big mistake.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
We were doing trail run one day, and you have
had to run out and then you run back, and
there were some obstacles along the trail that you had
to overcome as well. We all went out. You had
to do it in a certain amount of time. If
you didn't, then you got it down time, and then
you had to go back out and do it again,
(20:14):
and it was a pass or fail situation. I went
out and I did it the first time, and as
I recall, I passed, but it was close, so several
of us had to go back and do it again.
It was fine, so I did second time. I did
very well and was pleased with myself and thought, okay, cool,
(20:36):
this is done. And that first sergeant came back to
me and said, no, you need to go do it again.
And I said no, I passed, and he said no,
you didn't. You have to go do it again. And
I really disliked him at this point, but I went
out and as I walked over to the start point,
(21:00):
I remember feeling real anger for the first time, I
mean real nasty anger, and I called him some names
in my head, and then I took off and I
used that anger and that's what powered it through. And
not only did I go the third time, but I
did most excellent that third time around. And I realized
(21:24):
that my feelings for that man were only going to
make me better. I set out to prove him wrong.
I remember the day we were again that dates me,
but we had the bayonets on the end of our weapons,
and we had the bayonet course and so, you you know,
(21:45):
stabbed the dummy and they had some new ones, so
they were nice and strong all that. And I went
up to that thing and he said in the training,
think of somebody or think of something. Well, you know
who I thought of. And I took after that dummy
like nobody's business. And it was that same first sergeant
(22:08):
who called everybody around, I'm just stabbing this dummy. And
he's standing there. I know he's standing there, and he
starts calling people around to watch me do this. This
is how this is done, this is the way you
do this, and I'm thinking. It just made me even
angrier that he was using me as an example, and
(22:29):
it was, you know, it was my anger for him
that was stabbing this dummy. But yeah, so if I
could do anything coming out of the Army. I know
I could stab a dummy.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Did people doubt you because of your age? Did it
eventually become a sergeant? Lucas at forty can do this?
Then I can do this.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
I never felt the age, but every now and then
you'd see someone who would look at me kind of like, oh,
you know. It was that kind of surprise. But I
used it as a motivator. So when we were out
running as a unit, I loved running out behind people yelling,
(23:13):
you know, forty one is behind you. If you don't
if I pass you, you're wrong, and then I would
pass them, and yeah, it was. It was a great motivator.
And then we got the first deployment orders and we
were going to go, and I could not have been
more excited. This was what it was all about. I
(23:33):
was I was going to go do something. And then
there's this thing called leadership. And some folks believe in leadership.
They pursue it like a passion. They want to be
the best leaders they can. They want to understand the
science behind leadership, they want to understand the empathy behind leadership.
They want to be good leaders. And then you have
(23:56):
some who don't know a good grade of apple butter.
I guess that's the nicest way I can say that.
And we unfortunately had our top dog in that deployment.
It was very unfortunate. The difficulties when your top leader
(24:21):
is not worthy of that job. Everyone has to shift
and you have to make a choice, and you don't
think about it at the time, but you're going to
make a choice. You're either going to hate that person
and make life miserable, or you're going to realize the
(24:42):
shortcoming of that individual and find a way to build
a team to make it right. Not to make that
person right, not to make that good, but to make
your life good, to make your battle buddies life good.
And that's what happened. The team pulled together and we
made that work. We made that deployment happen so that
(25:05):
we do have some good memories of it. It took
us a while to get over the bad leadership. Bad
leadership and we talk about PTSD and stuff like that.
It can cost some serious issues and it did for some.
It was unfortunate the way it happened, but it did.
But we got through it and we come back and
(25:31):
realized that there's a new building and they forgot to
put us in it, so we have to carve a
way into an office space. When you're gone, you know,
holes get filled. And so anyway, we found a way
to make ourselves known again and work our way in,
(25:52):
do all the things you do, and then we get second, Well,
there's another deployment and this one's going to Afghanistan. It's
the two two sixth out of Mobile and I'm thinking, yeah,
that'd be a nice deployment. So I do my best
(26:14):
to get on there, and finally got on at the
last minute and did my tour in Afghanistan. I just wow,
what an amazing thing, meeting the people's, the locals, working
with some of the kids. Was one little girl that
grabbed hold of me and just didn't want to let go.
(26:38):
I taught her how to do some girl scout stuff
that I'd learned and thought i'd forgotten, and she took
a liking to me, And it just tears your heart
out when you have to let go. Behind the camera,
it's pretty easy because you just look at things and
take pictures and you don't really get that involved. When
I got home and I looked at pictures of one
(27:01):
in particular was a big trash heap and there was
a what looked like maybe a brother sister, young kids
maybe I don't know, eight nine at the most, and
a donkey, and the donkey was going through the trash
looking for food, and so were the two kids. And
it was just a shot that I took on the
(27:22):
side of the road, traveling at whatever speed, and when
I realized what I'd gotten, it just it breaks your heart.
Afghanistan was a good tour. It was a tough tour,
but it was even harder to watch what happened when
we finally walked out of there. That was tough. That
(27:42):
was really tough. Back again after the Afghanistan tour and
we go into you know, our usual thing, just the
Guard and what we do, and then I got what
would become my last tour, which was one toime of
Moe Big Cuba, and I got to go with a
(28:04):
really great team. We were small, we were mighty. We
didn't have enough to do so so we occasionally found
things to get into. But that was a that was
a really good tour. You get to a point where,
(28:24):
like I said earlier, you want people to be educated,
to have information, to make decisions, to to think about
what they're doing. And by this time I'm there, I'm thinking,
I'm very aware of what's going on. And you realize
that the military is is not just a place that
(28:46):
you sign up and go to because you love your
country or you want somebody to pay for your debt
or your college degree. It becomes so much more than that,
because it's not it's even being on the way of life.
It's a whole political system. It's how the political system
(29:08):
plays on the military, how they portray the military. You know,
they love us, they want to stand beside us and
take their picture while we're in uniform. And then well,
how much does it cost when you want something or
you need something? You know, we know all the stories.
We know at the beginning of the conflicts that we
(29:29):
didn't have armored up vehicles, you know, and then there
was a question of cost. Well, some soldiers, you know,
with some ingenuity, said no, we just weld this on
here and that'll you know, Oh, okay, there's a lot
there that doesn't get tapped into because we have to
(29:50):
do all the political correct things. Is there a base
that doesn't have a contractor doing grasswork and all that
other st stuff. Yeah, nobody likes to do it, but
it builds It builds a character when you have to
do that stuff. I still think we should do that stuff.
I know I'm old school, but I also think that
(30:14):
the military needs to capitalize on their best asset, which
is their sailors, soldiers, airmen. Get them the technology that
they need, listen to their ideas. There's so much talent
there that doesn't get used where it should. The great
(30:36):
thing is is that when these guys get out, you know,
they get to go into the private sector and use
that talent if they're not so jaded. And that's where
I'm at now and working in the State Veterans Affairs Office.
And one of the things that I really am struggling
(30:58):
with is when you get out, what is your next step.
It's a sad day when the only thing you want
to do is get your one hundred percent disability because
you've got so much more going for you. You've got
You've got all these opportunities. And as I start, I've
(31:22):
only been in a job about a year and a
half and I'm thinking, God, look at this job. If
I were an engineer, I jump at this job and
we can't fill it. Well, why can't we feel this job.
It pays super well, it's got just enough travel in it,
it's got great benefits. What's the deal. Well, the deal
(31:43):
is is the guy who would be great at that
job has been convinced that he should be working toward
one hundred percent disability instead of what the next thing is.
And we've got to change that mindset. We've got to
encourage our veterans to not Don't get me wrong, there
(32:04):
is healthcare. There are benefits. They've earned them, they have
a right to them, and they should have them. But
the great thing about being in the military and the
camaraderie is that we're all working to be the best
we can be. Nobody worked to be broken. We all
worked to be good. We chased each other, we ran.
(32:26):
You know, hey, I don't think there were very many
guys in the army who said I love running. They're
a handful, but not a lot. But you made it
a thing. Everybody got out there, you know, and you know,
you just died on the vine when the smoker waxed
all of you, you know, and you wondered how that
guy could smoke the way he does and yet outrun everybody.
(32:49):
So you tried a little harder next time to be
the one who came in. I was always striving for
three hundred. I hit it once, and I stayed above
two fifty most of the time. As later in my career,
I never went below two hundred, but it's after I
(33:10):
got fit. Before it was kind of a yeah, getting
there was an act. But my point is, when we're
working together to be the best we can be, we
do a lot of different things. We do things differently,
we think differently. We're healthier, we're better. So you know,
as you go through the military career, the one thing
(33:32):
I guess I'd really love to see is not how
do I get my one hundred percent disability? But let
me fill this paperwork out so I know that I
can take care of my family in the future. I
know my death isn't going to be a burden to
anybody because I know where I can be buried because
I've pre signed up for it. I know my child
(33:53):
has school money because I, you know, am eligible for
this scholarship and they're going to go to school. And
now I'm going to use their program to get a
really great job and do even more. Veterans don't die
We're not broken, we're not stupid. We're given information that
(34:16):
isn't really presented the way it needs to be done,
I think. And so if I had a message, it
would be keep on. We don't stop just because we
take the uniform off. In fact, my colleague sitting here
next to me is one who came up with a
T shirt logo for us that our service never stops.
(34:41):
And that doesn't mean to have to be working all
the time, but it does mean that you got a
lot more to give and we need that. We as
a country as a whole need you more now than
ever and all the values and all the talents that
you bring.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Thank you so much for Sartaint Lucas. She was my
first sergeant.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Was she really yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
When she was in So that was that was a
lot of fun to sit down and talk with her,
a little blash of the past for me. After that,
we decided to go talk to some real life recruiters
to get their take on some of the stuff happening
in the garden the recruiting world.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I'm actually really excited to go to this recruiting station
and talk to them because as like you know, an
ex recruiter I'm nervous.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
I hope they don't.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Ask us for leads and we go, but I guess
we'll see.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
All right. Yeah, So for this one, we're taking outside
of the studio and we're going to sit down and
talk with Staff Sergeant Reese Corvette Sarn't for his class
David Dennis, and Staff Sergeant jenebou Jallo.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Recruits.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
They teach, you know, there's only like five reasons that
somebody joins, but really there's a million reasons that people join.
You know, Health insurance is a big reason.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
When you deal with older people.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
You get kids that are out of high school, out
of college that are looking for something to do. You know,
maybe they just got married, maybe they found out they're
about to have their first baby or whatever. Health insurance
all of a sudden becomes important. They didn't care anything
about that six years ago. Student loan repayment's a huge
one right after college because coming out of high school,
you got this goal that you're going to go to
UA and party it up and you're gonna be in
(36:19):
this frat and it's gonna be the greatest time in
your life. And roll out of college. You get a
first job that you thought you were going to make
two hundred thousand dollars a year at and you make
sixty thousand dollars, which you got one hundred and ten
thousand dollars a student loan debt. We get a lot
of people that jump back over for that, but on unicorns,
because they don't exist. You might get one a year
that is like wants to join because he wants to
(36:42):
be in the military, no medical issues, no legal issues,
no education issues. Like you meet the dude on Monday Friday,
he signed a contract.
Speaker 6 (36:53):
But they don't.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
They really don't exist. And the only thing that makes
your creators good to recruiters is being able to find
out why you want to join, Like you can't stick
to those five things, it's fine, the reason that they
need the Guard, and then help them realize that they
do need the Guard to be successful in that form
or even if it's short term, right, help us help
(37:17):
you get back on your feet, and then you can
go do whatever you want. You live the life you
wanted to live. This could be a stepping stone for you.
It doesn't have to be a career.
Speaker 7 (37:23):
From my population, I have your high schoolers and immigrants,
and I had one applicant who's not a soldier. He
had just came from Africa, came with you know, green
card and everything, and back home in Africa, he has
a master's. He works at the pharmacy, like, he has
a good on there. So I'm like, why did you
(37:45):
come here?
Speaker 1 (37:46):
You know?
Speaker 7 (37:46):
But when he came here, he said, well he want
like a better opportunity is for his family. To support
his family. I'm like, okay, well let's see what we
could do for you. And one of the hiccups that
he had to encounter was was the education. So having
a master's there and compared to here, like getting that
(38:08):
transferred it was almost nothing like almost a bachelor's compared
to over there was masters and vice versa over here.
Having a master's here, that's everything back home in Africa.
So just like kind of like instead of him coming
as a specialist, came in as a E three. I'm like, well, hey,
if you know anyone like that wants to join, I
can help you get promoted just you know. So that
(38:30):
was just that little hiccup. But for him to join
and to be able to support his family financially with
health insurance because he has wife and kids and he's
also pretty older. But the positive change that that happened
to him, he was very grateful. And for me, that
was just like shocked to me because I'm like, you
(38:52):
have a good in Africa, where it's like cheaper, cost
of living is cheaper, you're pretty much ahead of your job.
But here he wanted something different and to explore that training,
that that support, and I was like to give back
to his country. And I also think this country in positive ways.
Speaker 6 (39:09):
So I've got I've got a soldier. It's actually my
first ever enlisted soldier. When I got this job. She
also came from Africa, mother of too. Her husband at
the time lived in Boston and she was down here
finishing her degree. We waited until she got her degree,
but I mean even I asked her, I was like,
you're about to get a degree. You know, you're about
to go into uh, you know, flight school. You're you
(39:34):
don't need this, Like why are you doing this? And
she's like, I feel like I owe it. That was
my first ever soldier. So then I was kind of
that was like my open, you know, eyes opening moment,
like whoa, you know, what we do really matters, Like
these people actually do want to to join for more
than just oh well, I want the money for school,
(39:55):
or I want the money for you know, I want
the extra income each month. Now, it's that there is
some people out there who really do have a calling.
Now in my high schools, you see, I guess a
lot of I need it to pay for college.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
You know.
Speaker 6 (40:10):
I don't want to go into debt. I saw my
parents have this debt. They talk to me about it.
Or it's the Hey, I want to do something cool,
you know. I don't want to just go in and
be you know, in a trade skill. I want to
you know, work on helicopters. I want to work on tanks.
I want to be able to go and like do
something that you don't get to do in the civilian world.
(40:31):
But the patriotism, you don't really see it, maybe much
as more, you know, because if you looked at this,
like from a high schooler's point of view, it's kind
of like a company, you know, the money, the benefits.
You know, you show up to work, then you go
back home. That's kind of how we view it. And
(40:51):
so I, you know, patriotism doesn't really fall into that.
There hasn't been a reason too maybe for a long time,
and that's kind of faded. I think we can all
kind of see that that's faded out of society a
little bit. But I've been incredibly humbled by some of
the immigrants that I've had the opportunity to work with,
almost like they feel a debt to America and this
(41:14):
is their way to pay it back. It's rare that
we find somebody who's like, look, my father joined, my grandfather,
my mom, my grandmom, they all join, I'm joining. This
is what I want to do. That's really, really, really rare.
A lot of the times they're just afraid to make
a commitment. I mean they see it. They hear six
(41:34):
years and they're like, I could be out of college
by that point, Like that's that's really scary. I mean,
I know it was for me too. I have a
brother and a sister, the Woodley twins. They're the same age,
out of my out of my largest school, Garden Dale
(41:56):
High School. They did not even talk with me when
I came to the school. The first time. I was
supposed to pull them out of class, and they told
their teacher they weren't going to go, so immediately I left.
Saw them at a lunch room display later on in
that in the school year, and was like, you know, hey,
you toue like, come and talk to me, Come get
a shirt, because they were the only two that had
(42:19):
been asking questions in a classroom presentation that I had
put on at the school. As of right now, they're
both at training in the in MP it up at
Fort Lennard Wood, so they're they're both going to be MPs.
But the moment I got them to actually sit down
and talk with me, they were like, you know, we
just don't know if we want to do this, Like
(42:41):
we both know we're going to get some scholarship money
and I was like, well, you're going to be able
to pay for everything. No, okay, Well look I have
a solution for that. It was probably seven months. I
mean you saw them here. They're they're great kids, both
really physically fit. I they were just afraid of the commitment. Now,
(43:03):
the fact that we had two open slots in the
same unit for the same job in which they were
both interested in because their father is a police officer
for Birmingham, that made their decision I think a lot
easier because we don't have the buddy system anymore. But
if you can find the same slot in a unit,
and there's multiple of them and two people know each other,
(43:25):
you can put them in that slot. So the fact
that they were able to kind of go with each
other I think helped. But I mean it was an
eight month process at least, you know, keeping them on
my funnel and constantly having to explain they're just not
ready yet. They're just not ready yet. They're just not ready.
You know, they're not ready to sign. You see that
a lot. I thank you, especially with high schoolers.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
Good rule with them. If a kid calls you and
wants to join, you probably can't. So that's the normal
circumstance that you see. Usually they've already talked to another recruiter,
they've already talked to another branch, they already know they
can enlist, and they're trying to bounce between the system
to see if there's a way they can get in.
Those are the unicorns that we're talking about earlier. You
(44:06):
will get a unicorn every once in a while that
wants to enlist, that's one hundred percent ready to go,
but usually they have a permanent disqualification and cannot get
in the card. Whether it's a testing. You know, maybe
they've already taken the test three times in the last
ninety days and didn't pass the ASVAB at a certain level.
When no, they have a six month wait, but they
(44:26):
don't think that we can see it because the Navy
tested them, but we can see all of it. Or
they have a medical condition that limits them completely. You know,
they're on medication that they can't come off of, but
the military won't let you to join on that medication,
and they hold it. They're really the most dangerous applicants
as like to a recruiter, because as they bounce between recruiters,
(44:48):
they learn what they can't say. You know, they learned
that like, oh, this guy was calling me every day
and we were going the right path until I told
him about this, So I won't tell this guy about it.
And then you get the map and you find out like, oh,
the reason that you know you worked with the airports
for six months, in the Navy for three months and
never joined was because when you got to this point,
they already knew. Very rarely do you see somebody that's like,
(45:13):
I really want to join. I got what it takes.
You know, I'm here, we can go Friday, and it's like, cool,
this guy's going Usually even your boss, you know, r E.
Yates that are on our team immediately are going to go,
what's wrong with it? What what what's going on? Because
something's going on and he's not telling us, and they're
ninety nine point nine suh at the time. They're right now,
(45:34):
we're going to find something that is a complete disqualifier.
And these kids are just bouncing around from recruiter to
recruiters seeing if they can skin by.
Speaker 4 (45:42):
Do you guys find like pride and watching the people
that you put in when they GRADUATEC T a T
or if they decide that they want.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
To go do like a special school or something like.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
You have a kid that goes and they're like, I
want to be an engineer, but then they, you know,
go to Savage School or something like do you hold
out with you or is it something where you're just
kind of.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Churn them on from afar?
Speaker 6 (46:07):
Well, you get an opportunity to kind of follow you know,
your soldier's careers, you know, and I know, you know,
we haven't been in it maybe quite long enough to
see like real trajectories for some of these soldiers, but
you know, like you put somebody in into an airborne unit,
and then they graduate airborne school and they come back
and they have that airborne patch on. You know, there's
a lot of pride with that. But that's the most
(46:29):
important part of this job, is the fact that what
we do matters and it will matter for a long time.
Like we all remember the day that we enlisted, you know,
and had that's you know, the swearing ceremony in that
red velvet room and all that.
Speaker 5 (46:42):
It was really cool.
Speaker 6 (46:44):
So to be able to see that and see other
kids do it and then see the reactions from their families.
Then you go to a ward's day and you get
to call them up on stage and you get to
hand them a certificate and the ovation that they get,
you know from you know, all the parents. You know,
it's just recognizing, you know, the decision that they made
(47:04):
and then seeing you know, the text messages after and saying, hey,
you know, I I really appreciate you helping me. And
you know, I didn't think that this was something I
wanted to do. I didn't think that this was something
that I could do. Because again, we faced a lot
of challenges putting some of these kids in you know,
I've got a girl right now at the University of Alabama.
(47:25):
She's gonna go be a lawyer. The only way she
could have paid for that was through the Guard. That
was it she had. She had no way. She made
good grades, but just not enough to get a full
ride there. So the fact that she did this now
and it's giving her the opportunity to go to school
and most likely end up being the first person in
their family with a degree, Yeah, there's a ton of
(47:45):
pride with that. I mean, that's the motivation. I think
a lot of us have to get up and put
the uniform on and go and sit down with all
these kids because it can be you know, stressful times,
difficult at times, but ultimately like you're not doing it
for you, You're doing it for them.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Thanks for listening to this episode of AGR Alabama Guard
Radio and feel free to follow us on social media
and let us know what you think about the episode.
You can find us at Alabama Guard on Instagram and
Alabama National Guard on Facebook.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
This is a fun episode to record. We really appreciate
everyone who's been sticking with us, and as always, we
want to thank everyone who sat down and talk with
us and thank Staff Sergeant Thomas Furlough for composing all
the music for this episode.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
And if you've heard some of the story shared and
you have a story that you'd like to share, slide
into our DMS on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Until next time. This has been agr
Hey, it's staff Sergeant Hearn and I'm Sergeant Megan Terry,
and welcome back to another episode of a g R
Alabama Guard Radio. Recruiting is down nationwide, if you read
(00:20):
the headlines, it's becoming more and more of a struggle
to get young people to join the military. And we
could kind of go back and forth all day and
why that may be. But the interesting thing is in
Alabama that's not the case. In fact, we're killing it
where our numbers are up and we're having one of
the best recruiting years ever in what is a nationwide drought.
So decided to talk to and recruiters find out what
(00:40):
we're doing different than everybody else. But a term came
up they kept saying, which was unicorns. Megan used to
be a recruiter. Can you tell me what that is?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I was a recruiter and I wished that I was
a recruiter in Alabama because they're doing so good. But
a unicorn is basically an applicant who comes into your office.
They want to join, they're ready to join, they have
everything taken care of that they need to have taken
care of, and they don't have any disqualifying factors. So,
for example, if you walked into a recruiting office, you
had no medical issues, you had all your education squared away,
(01:12):
and you didn't have any reservations or doubts, and everything
was cool, and you could enlist this in as possible,
you're a unicorn.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
So basically they don't exist, not anymore.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
They don't.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Well, they're changing some things though, because now you can
join with ADHD and other things. They are expanding. But yeah,
pretty much in today's day and age, post COVID, they
don't exist.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Well, I was really interested in the term. So today
me and Megan decide to go hunt down our own unicorn,
and we came across retired First Sergeant Sandra Lucas. She
was prior Navy. She joined the album National Guard at
forty one years old at a time where the military
wasn't really kind to women. She also had a very
successful civilian career going on, and she'd already done her time.
(01:55):
But we kind of wanted to know what made her
make this life decision.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Hi, I'm Sandra Lucas, retired first sergeant Army National Guarden
and started off in the Navy back in the late seventies.
I joined the Navy, I guess to see the world.
I was hoping to go to the West Coast. I
had a boyfriend out there, but things turned out that
(02:22):
I ended up on the East Coast in working at headquarters.
This young kid didn't know much. Really really kind of
a fun time. People were coming back from Vietnam. We
were in a peace state, if you will. We had
the Cold War going on. But as young as I was,
(02:43):
and given where my head was at, I really didn't
I didn't put all that together again until later in
life what that all meant. But we were still having
some protests around then. People would spit on you if
you had your uniform on and out in public. So
we wore uniforms once a week during that time period,
(03:05):
and you went to work and straight home. You didn't
stop for groceries or gas or any of that because
it just was too dangerous. It was a very different
time when I first started out. I spent four years
in the Navy, grew up there, really learned a lot
of discipline from some really great people, But we didn't
(03:27):
have a value system that we eventually would grow to
have in the military. I think people before us had
a really great value system. They were very honorable. You
look back to the Korean War in World War two
and Vietnam started to change things. In post Vietnam, you know,
(03:49):
things were really getting kind of weird in the military
while I was in. One of the big fiascos that
took place was something called When We Began. That really
does mark the day we began to look at sexual
harassment and the role of a woman in uniform and
(04:10):
how she gets treated. Although a lot of women had
broke through that glass ceiling and were doing great things
in the military, it was still a difficult time for women.
They were harassed, touched, threatened, and there was just no
place to report it because the mentality was if you joined,
(04:34):
because it was all volunteer, then you were asking for it,
and it just wasn't always a good place to be.
I was pre women at Sea while I was there.
One of the programs that Congress eventually would vote and
give to us was permission for women to go to sea,
(04:56):
And just toward the end of my enlistment, I was asked,
or actually I was given my next set of orders,
which would have been my first set of orders after
being in the mech Pond's office, and the Chief Naval
Personnel's office, and I was going to the USS Lexington,
which is now something everybody's using to shave with because
(05:17):
she's all scrap. But she was down in Pensacola and
the pilots would use her to do touch and goes
old aircraft carrier. I drove down to Pensacola and took
a look at it. It was a RUSS bucket. I
was going to be the first and probably the only
female for a little while to go on the ship,
(05:39):
and something in me just said, no, this just is
not the right thing for me to do. I had
read many cases that we processed about women at sea
and what was happening, and it was a tough transition.
It was hard. Today it's much better, and we have
things in place now for women to be able to
(06:01):
go to and talk to others to prevent that from happening.
We we have open discussions that old mindset is simply
not acceptable, and if anybody is out dealing with it,
then by all means say something, because that's just not today.
(06:23):
Too many women fought hard to get that changed, and
I'd hate to see that anyone was suffering with that today.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
So Sandra's now out of the Navy, and she decides
to start working with this amazing new technology, which at
the time it was computers. And like Sandra says.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
That's a long time ago, but.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
She really had a knack for it though, and she
started training office workers in how to use word processors
and even spreadsheets.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
It was a wonderful time to train people to kind
of bring about this new change and to find efficiencies.
And that's really where I think I found nich was
one working with people to make them better and to
make them comfortable with the stress that the job was
bringing with the change. But two, just the ability to
(07:12):
create efficiencies and make something better just really excited me.
That took me to one job. You don't really plan
a career like the one I've had.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
She goes from teaching computers to working Navy finance, buying
engines for ships, and she ends up working her way
up into Navy Command of the Pentagon, working with them
to determine how they're going to shape and pay for
the future of the Navy.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
But anyway, so I made friends in the Pentagon, a
lot of friends, young people my age starting life, people
who had you real young families, just starting that kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
She stayed at the Pentagon learning, meeting people and making connections,
but never settling into her career.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, and eventually she caught the eyes of some congressman
on Capitol Hill and she started getting involved in politics,
working at their campaigns and helping behind the scenes. And
around this point she met her husband, who works for
the Air Force, and eventually they relocated to Alabama.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
And Alabama while she lived in Montgomery, she got involved
in state politics, even working with Senate campaigns and the
governor's office and officials in the Alabama National Guard. All
the while she starts getting this itch that she can
do more and that she's not quite finished with the military.
But at her age, I mean, that really wasn't an
option for her. But then something nobody expected to happen happened,
(08:35):
and that was ultimately her ticket back into the military.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
My friends, we had moved to Alabama by that time,
and my friends had said, you know, you just need
to calm down, stop watching the news so much, because
you know, getting national news all the time wasn't really happening.
You know, you get your pieces of it, and I'm
a news junkie, public fears news all that. So I
(09:03):
decided to listen to some friends I'd made my new
friends in Alabama and didn't turn not on. So I
called my friend Tracy and said, hey, you'd be so
proud of me. It's noon and I haven't turned on
the TV yet. And Tracy said, turn on the TV
(09:25):
and hung up. That was nine eleven. I did uh
call after the shock of it all, after you know,
you start to think, Okay, what am I going to do?
My husband was in lockdown over at Gunner and I had,
you know, it's like you got to do something. So
(09:47):
I called the congressman's office and they were shocked. They
didn't how did you get through because they couldn't get out.
The lines going out were all blocked. And I sat
there for about half an hour or so with a
cell phone and a landline connecting them so they could
talk to each other, putting the phones together, and then
(10:08):
you know, somebody else would get on the line, and
then I dialed their home and that way their loved
ones would know that they were okay, because it was
a concern that it was going to go to Capitol
Hill and might have had things not happened. With and
nine to eleven when the plane crashed into the Pentagon.
It took five of my friends out. And I couldn't.
(10:33):
I just I could volunteer, I could give blood, I
could donate, I could do lots of stuff. But I
just couldn't get whatever that thing is deep down inside.
I couldn't get that. I just couldn't get it to
go away. So we're sitting there with the Adjutant General
(10:56):
of the Army National Guard, of the National Guard and
having lunch, and he was talking about how difficult recruiting is,
and I said, well, you know, if you'd look around
you and look at the recruits, or look at the
potential recruits, maybe you wouldn't have such a hard time
finding them. And he said, what are you talking about?
And I said, well, you know, is there something wrong
(11:18):
with me? And he looked at my husband, who was
with us, and he said, is she serious. She's got
a job with the governor. By this time, I was
the deputy chief of staff. She's not serious. She wouldn't
leave the Governor's office to go to become She wouldn't
do that, would she. And John said, she is serious,
(11:39):
and she would do that if she was eligible, so
that was the question. Would she be eligible? It required
an age waiter by that time, and I had to
prove my physical fitness and I did. It was a
lot of fun. Some of the guys that found out
(11:59):
that I had been recruited and was going to become
public affairs thought, oh, no, we've got a prima donna
coming in from the Governor's office. You know what is
she going to know? And I could talk Navy, but
I couldn't talk army. That was a concern, and they said,
(12:19):
you know it's you. You'll go to a professional school's
a gentleman's school. You'll have the weekends and evenings off,
you'll wear civilian clothes. You know it'll be great. So
I did join, did get the age waiver approved. Didn't
think about a career that I just wanted to help.
(12:42):
So I was offered several opportunities, but what I wanted
was to start where I left off. So I insisted
that I be the same grade I was when I
got out of the Navy. So I went in as
an E five. That bothered some folks, but it didn't
bother me because I wanted to roll my sleeves up.
(13:02):
I wanted to do something. I wanted to be part
of the team. I wanted to be part of the team.
But that's going to get fixed because what they didn't
realize was the Gentleman's school is not a gentleman's school
at all. It was basic training because after you've been
out of the military service, the Army requires you to
(13:25):
go through basic training if you've been lapsed by a
certain amount of time. So at forty something years old,
I'm going to put my body through the rigors of
basic training all over again, minus an obstacle course and
gas chamber, which I had already done many years before.
In the Navy, we were all prior enlisted, all branches.
(13:50):
I think the only thing we didn't have was Coastguard.
And I'm not going to hesitate to tell you that
the biggest cry baby we had was a marine was
I'm sure they didn't claim her anymore, but oh my goodness,
but she could shoot. She I don't know what the
secret sauces for Marines, but they can teach you to shoot.
(14:12):
Just amazing talent. But yes, it was basic training. It
was sun up, sundown, you know, yelling. I remember the
first time, you know, it's like, they give you the
task that they know you're going to fail at, so
they can, you know, get things started. So line up
your suitcases in a straight line, which of course you
fail at because they're not all alike. And then they
(14:35):
yelled get in the pit. And I just stood there
for a second and watch people go running over to
this sand pit. And I thought a pit. I don't
I don't get into the pit. There was a voice
in my head that said run. Took off for the pit.
(14:56):
I remember the first sergeant there, the first time he
laid eyes on me. We were running around a track
and they were kind of looking at all of us
prior service people, and he saw me and I overheard
him tell the guy next to him, dang, she's old,
And I thought, well, you ugly. I'm sorry, but you
(15:21):
know I might be old, but you're ugly. That was
just the way I had to get back at it.
I had to develop something that I had not been
challenged with yet, and that was my mind. That time
in basic training taught me that the mind and the
body will carry you further than anything you could ever imagine.
(15:41):
I mean, it's just amazing when you get your mind
wrapped around something and you're determined you're going to do it.
I was determined I was going to do this. The
first sergeant there was determined he was going to get
me out. The guys were returning from the first phase
of the operations over in the desert, and they thought
(16:02):
it would be a good thing to put them in
the training environment. So now you've got these prior service
guys who were getting back in the game, and you
got these guys coming back after they've been in the
sandboxes they were calling it, and they're not happy guys.
They want to be home with their families and they
(16:24):
should have been. Now we've got them working and it
just wasn't a good environment for them. And things happen
when things are not right. So one of the guys,
while waiting for the next class to start, decided to
(16:46):
have a relationship with one of the recruits. There was
a really bad thing. Unfortunately, as we get through the
training period, she get well, she got pregnant. As a rest,
he gave her some cash to go into town and
take care of things. We get through the training period
(17:07):
and at one point we're getting ready to hand out
weapons and she's just standing there in line shaking, and
I know for a fact she is not going to
make it, and you just don't want her to have
a weapon. I realized then that that you have to
be the adult doesn't really matter your rank anymore. So
(17:28):
I stepped forward and asked for permission to speak and said,
she can't have a weapon. And our cadre said, you
and her go into the office. So we went in
the office and he came in and he said, what's
going on? And I said, well, this is what I
(17:48):
understand happened before I got here, and this is who
had happened with, and she's in no condition to have
a weapon, especially a loaded weapon. So he called the
chaplain who came to get her, and she got the
help she needed. She got support she needed. I understand
that later she got to rejoin the class and move on,
(18:11):
which was really great that they were able to take
care of her the way they did. But in the meantime,
the cadre put his head down in his hands and
he rubbed his hands on his head in his face
and was looking down at the floor, and then finally
looked up at me and he goes, you, see, Lucas,
this is why I don't want women in my army,
(18:33):
And I thought, seriously, are we still having this conversation?
And I just kind of shook my head because, you know,
the last time I checked, it takes two. So neither
one was right. And it didn't have anything to do
with women in his army. It had to do with
(18:54):
his army taking care of his army. It had to
do with battle buddies looking after each other. It had
to do with where's your team and who separated you.
Now I'm starting to speak some army talk at this
point because I'm starting to see things that aren't quite right.
(19:14):
They're better than they were, but they're still not right.
There were a lot of things that happened during that period.
At the end of it, unfortunately, the Army was not
able to continue that training because it wasn't being done correctly,
and the training shut down at Fort Knox and was
(19:35):
moved to a different location as a result of some
of the things that were going on there that didn't
leave a great taste in my mouth. You know, I
wasn't really sure what I signed up for.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Now, can you tell me, you know, what was your
hardest day at Basics? Did you have a day where
you were like, I made a big mistake.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
We were doing trail run one day, and you have
had to run out and then you run back, and
there were some obstacles along the trail that you had
to overcome as well. We all went out. You had
to do it in a certain amount of time. If
you didn't, then you got it down time, and then
you had to go back out and do it again,
(20:14):
and it was a pass or fail situation. I went
out and I did it the first time, and as
I recall, I passed, but it was close, so several
of us had to go back and do it again.
It was fine, so I did second time. I did
very well and was pleased with myself and thought, okay, cool,
(20:36):
this is done. And that first sergeant came back to
me and said, no, you need to go do it again.
And I said no, I passed, and he said no,
you didn't. You have to go do it again. And
I really disliked him at this point, but I went
out and as I walked over to the start point,
(21:00):
I remember feeling real anger for the first time, I
mean real nasty anger, and I called him some names
in my head, and then I took off and I
used that anger and that's what powered it through. And
not only did I go the third time, but I
did most excellent that third time around. And I realized
(21:24):
that my feelings for that man were only going to
make me better. I set out to prove him wrong.
I remember the day we were again that dates me,
but we had the bayonets on the end of our weapons,
and we had the bayonet course and so, you you know,
(21:45):
stabbed the dummy and they had some new ones, so
they were nice and strong all that. And I went
up to that thing and he said in the training,
think of somebody or think of something. Well, you know
who I thought of. And I took after that dummy
like nobody's business. And it was that same first sergeant
(22:08):
who called everybody around, I'm just stabbing this dummy. And
he's standing there. I know he's standing there, and he
starts calling people around to watch me do this. This
is how this is done, this is the way you
do this, and I'm thinking. It just made me even
angrier that he was using me as an example, and
(22:29):
it was, you know, it was my anger for him
that was stabbing this dummy. But yeah, so if I
could do anything coming out of the Army. I know
I could stab a dummy.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Did people doubt you because of your age? Did it
eventually become a sergeant? Lucas at forty can do this?
Then I can do this.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
I never felt the age, but every now and then
you'd see someone who would look at me kind of like, oh,
you know. It was that kind of surprise. But I
used it as a motivator. So when we were out
running as a unit, I loved running out behind people yelling,
(23:13):
you know, forty one is behind you. If you don't
if I pass you, you're wrong, and then I would
pass them, and yeah, it was. It was a great motivator.
And then we got the first deployment orders and we
were going to go, and I could not have been
more excited. This was what it was all about. I
(23:33):
was I was going to go do something. And then
there's this thing called leadership. And some folks believe in leadership.
They pursue it like a passion. They want to be
the best leaders they can. They want to understand the
science behind leadership, they want to understand the empathy behind leadership.
They want to be good leaders. And then you have
(23:56):
some who don't know a good grade of apple butter.
I guess that's the nicest way I can say that.
And we unfortunately had our top dog in that deployment.
It was very unfortunate. The difficulties when your top leader
(24:21):
is not worthy of that job. Everyone has to shift
and you have to make a choice, and you don't
think about it at the time, but you're going to
make a choice. You're either going to hate that person
and make life miserable, or you're going to realize the
(24:42):
shortcoming of that individual and find a way to build
a team to make it right. Not to make that
person right, not to make that good, but to make
your life good, to make your battle buddies life good.
And that's what happened. The team pulled together and we
made that work. We made that deployment happen so that
(25:05):
we do have some good memories of it. It took
us a while to get over the bad leadership. Bad
leadership and we talk about PTSD and stuff like that.
It can cost some serious issues and it did for some.
It was unfortunate the way it happened, but it did.
But we got through it and we come back and
(25:31):
realized that there's a new building and they forgot to
put us in it, so we have to carve a
way into an office space. When you're gone, you know,
holes get filled. And so anyway, we found a way
to make ourselves known again and work our way in,
(25:52):
do all the things you do, and then we get second, Well,
there's another deployment and this one's going to Afghanistan. It's
the two two sixth out of Mobile and I'm thinking, yeah,
that'd be a nice deployment. So I do my best
(26:14):
to get on there, and finally got on at the
last minute and did my tour in Afghanistan. I just wow,
what an amazing thing, meeting the people's, the locals, working
with some of the kids. Was one little girl that
grabbed hold of me and just didn't want to let go.
(26:38):
I taught her how to do some girl scout stuff
that I'd learned and thought i'd forgotten, and she took
a liking to me, And it just tears your heart
out when you have to let go. Behind the camera,
it's pretty easy because you just look at things and
take pictures and you don't really get that involved. When
I got home and I looked at pictures of one
(27:01):
in particular was a big trash heap and there was
a what looked like maybe a brother sister, young kids
maybe I don't know, eight nine at the most, and
a donkey, and the donkey was going through the trash
looking for food, and so were the two kids. And
it was just a shot that I took on the
(27:22):
side of the road, traveling at whatever speed, and when
I realized what I'd gotten, it just it breaks your heart.
Afghanistan was a good tour. It was a tough tour,
but it was even harder to watch what happened when
we finally walked out of there. That was tough. That
(27:42):
was really tough. Back again after the Afghanistan tour and
we go into you know, our usual thing, just the
Guard and what we do, and then I got what
would become my last tour, which was one toime of
Moe Big Cuba, and I got to go with a
(28:04):
really great team. We were small, we were mighty. We
didn't have enough to do so so we occasionally found
things to get into. But that was a that was
a really good tour. You get to a point where,
(28:24):
like I said earlier, you want people to be educated,
to have information, to make decisions, to to think about
what they're doing. And by this time I'm there, I'm thinking,
I'm very aware of what's going on. And you realize
that the military is is not just a place that
(28:46):
you sign up and go to because you love your
country or you want somebody to pay for your debt
or your college degree. It becomes so much more than that,
because it's not it's even being on the way of life.
It's a whole political system. It's how the political system
(29:08):
plays on the military, how they portray the military. You know,
they love us, they want to stand beside us and
take their picture while we're in uniform. And then well,
how much does it cost when you want something or
you need something? You know, we know all the stories.
We know at the beginning of the conflicts that we
(29:29):
didn't have armored up vehicles, you know, and then there
was a question of cost. Well, some soldiers, you know,
with some ingenuity, said no, we just weld this on
here and that'll you know, Oh, okay, there's a lot
there that doesn't get tapped into because we have to
(29:50):
do all the political correct things. Is there a base
that doesn't have a contractor doing grasswork and all that
other st stuff. Yeah, nobody likes to do it, but
it builds It builds a character when you have to
do that stuff. I still think we should do that stuff.
I know I'm old school, but I also think that
(30:14):
the military needs to capitalize on their best asset, which
is their sailors, soldiers, airmen. Get them the technology that
they need, listen to their ideas. There's so much talent
there that doesn't get used where it should. The great
(30:36):
thing is is that when these guys get out, you know,
they get to go into the private sector and use
that talent if they're not so jaded. And that's where
I'm at now and working in the State Veterans Affairs Office.
And one of the things that I really am struggling
(30:58):
with is when you get out, what is your next step.
It's a sad day when the only thing you want
to do is get your one hundred percent disability because
you've got so much more going for you. You've got
You've got all these opportunities. And as I start, I've
(31:22):
only been in a job about a year and a
half and I'm thinking, God, look at this job. If
I were an engineer, I jump at this job and
we can't fill it. Well, why can't we feel this job.
It pays super well, it's got just enough travel in it,
it's got great benefits. What's the deal. Well, the deal
(31:43):
is is the guy who would be great at that
job has been convinced that he should be working toward
one hundred percent disability instead of what the next thing is.
And we've got to change that mindset. We've got to
encourage our veterans to not Don't get me wrong, there
(32:04):
is healthcare. There are benefits. They've earned them, they have
a right to them, and they should have them. But
the great thing about being in the military and the
camaraderie is that we're all working to be the best
we can be. Nobody worked to be broken. We all
worked to be good. We chased each other, we ran.
(32:26):
You know, hey, I don't think there were very many
guys in the army who said I love running. They're
a handful, but not a lot. But you made it
a thing. Everybody got out there, you know, and you know,
you just died on the vine when the smoker waxed
all of you, you know, and you wondered how that
guy could smoke the way he does and yet outrun everybody.
(32:49):
So you tried a little harder next time to be
the one who came in. I was always striving for
three hundred. I hit it once, and I stayed above
two fifty most of the time. As later in my career,
I never went below two hundred, but it's after I
(33:10):
got fit. Before it was kind of a yeah, getting
there was an act. But my point is, when we're
working together to be the best we can be, we
do a lot of different things. We do things differently,
we think differently. We're healthier, we're better. So you know,
as you go through the military career, the one thing
(33:32):
I guess I'd really love to see is not how
do I get my one hundred percent disability? But let
me fill this paperwork out so I know that I
can take care of my family in the future. I
know my death isn't going to be a burden to
anybody because I know where I can be buried because
I've pre signed up for it. I know my child
(33:53):
has school money because I, you know, am eligible for
this scholarship and they're going to go to school. And
now I'm going to use their program to get a
really great job and do even more. Veterans don't die
We're not broken, we're not stupid. We're given information that
(34:16):
isn't really presented the way it needs to be done,
I think. And so if I had a message, it
would be keep on. We don't stop just because we
take the uniform off. In fact, my colleague sitting here
next to me is one who came up with a
T shirt logo for us that our service never stops.
(34:41):
And that doesn't mean to have to be working all
the time, but it does mean that you got a
lot more to give and we need that. We as
a country as a whole need you more now than
ever and all the values and all the talents that
you bring.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Thank you so much for Sartaint Lucas. She was my
first sergeant.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Was she really yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
When she was in So that was that was a
lot of fun to sit down and talk with her,
a little blash of the past for me. After that,
we decided to go talk to some real life recruiters
to get their take on some of the stuff happening
in the garden the recruiting world.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I'm actually really excited to go to this recruiting station
and talk to them because as like you know, an
ex recruiter I'm nervous.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
I hope they don't.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Ask us for leads and we go, but I guess
we'll see.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
All right. Yeah, So for this one, we're taking outside
of the studio and we're going to sit down and
talk with Staff Sergeant Reese Corvette Sarn't for his class
David Dennis, and Staff Sergeant jenebou Jallo.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Recruits.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
They teach, you know, there's only like five reasons that
somebody joins, but really there's a million reasons that people join.
You know, Health insurance is a big reason.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
When you deal with older people.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
You get kids that are out of high school, out
of college that are looking for something to do. You know,
maybe they just got married, maybe they found out they're
about to have their first baby or whatever. Health insurance
all of a sudden becomes important. They didn't care anything
about that six years ago. Student loan repayment's a huge
one right after college because coming out of high school,
you got this goal that you're going to go to
UA and party it up and you're gonna be in
(36:19):
this frat and it's gonna be the greatest time in
your life. And roll out of college. You get a
first job that you thought you were going to make
two hundred thousand dollars a year at and you make
sixty thousand dollars, which you got one hundred and ten
thousand dollars a student loan debt. We get a lot
of people that jump back over for that, but on unicorns,
because they don't exist. You might get one a year
that is like wants to join because he wants to
(36:42):
be in the military, no medical issues, no legal issues,
no education issues. Like you meet the dude on Monday Friday,
he signed a contract.
Speaker 6 (36:53):
But they don't.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
They really don't exist. And the only thing that makes
your creators good to recruiters is being able to find
out why you want to join, Like you can't stick
to those five things, it's fine, the reason that they
need the Guard, and then help them realize that they
do need the Guard to be successful in that form
or even if it's short term, right, help us help
(37:17):
you get back on your feet, and then you can
go do whatever you want. You live the life you
wanted to live. This could be a stepping stone for you.
It doesn't have to be a career.
Speaker 7 (37:23):
From my population, I have your high schoolers and immigrants,
and I had one applicant who's not a soldier. He
had just came from Africa, came with you know, green
card and everything, and back home in Africa, he has
a master's. He works at the pharmacy, like, he has
a good on there. So I'm like, why did you
(37:45):
come here?
Speaker 1 (37:46):
You know?
Speaker 7 (37:46):
But when he came here, he said, well he want
like a better opportunity is for his family. To support
his family. I'm like, okay, well let's see what we
could do for you. And one of the hiccups that
he had to encounter was was the education. So having
a master's there and compared to here, like getting that
(38:08):
transferred it was almost nothing like almost a bachelor's compared
to over there was masters and vice versa over here.
Having a master's here, that's everything back home in Africa.
So just like kind of like instead of him coming
as a specialist, came in as a E three. I'm like, well, hey,
if you know anyone like that wants to join, I
can help you get promoted just you know. So that
(38:30):
was just that little hiccup. But for him to join
and to be able to support his family financially with
health insurance because he has wife and kids and he's
also pretty older. But the positive change that that happened
to him, he was very grateful. And for me, that
was just like shocked to me because I'm like, you
(38:52):
have a good in Africa, where it's like cheaper, cost
of living is cheaper, you're pretty much ahead of your job.
But here he wanted something different and to explore that training,
that that support, and I was like to give back
to his country. And I also think this country in positive ways.
Speaker 6 (39:09):
So I've got I've got a soldier. It's actually my
first ever enlisted soldier. When I got this job. She
also came from Africa, mother of too. Her husband at
the time lived in Boston and she was down here
finishing her degree. We waited until she got her degree,
but I mean even I asked her, I was like,
you're about to get a degree. You know, you're about
to go into uh, you know, flight school. You're you
(39:34):
don't need this, Like why are you doing this? And
she's like, I feel like I owe it. That was
my first ever soldier. So then I was kind of
that was like my open, you know, eyes opening moment,
like whoa, you know, what we do really matters, Like
these people actually do want to to join for more
than just oh well, I want the money for school,
(39:55):
or I want the money for you know, I want
the extra income each month. Now, it's that there is
some people out there who really do have a calling.
Now in my high schools, you see, I guess a
lot of I need it to pay for college.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
You know.
Speaker 6 (40:10):
I don't want to go into debt. I saw my
parents have this debt. They talk to me about it.
Or it's the Hey, I want to do something cool,
you know. I don't want to just go in and
be you know, in a trade skill. I want to
you know, work on helicopters. I want to work on tanks.
I want to be able to go and like do
something that you don't get to do in the civilian world.
(40:31):
But the patriotism, you don't really see it, maybe much
as more, you know, because if you looked at this,
like from a high schooler's point of view, it's kind
of like a company, you know, the money, the benefits.
You know, you show up to work, then you go
back home. That's kind of how we view it. And
(40:51):
so I, you know, patriotism doesn't really fall into that.
There hasn't been a reason too maybe for a long time,
and that's kind of faded. I think we can all
kind of see that that's faded out of society a
little bit. But I've been incredibly humbled by some of
the immigrants that I've had the opportunity to work with,
almost like they feel a debt to America and this
(41:14):
is their way to pay it back. It's rare that
we find somebody who's like, look, my father joined, my grandfather,
my mom, my grandmom, they all join, I'm joining. This
is what I want to do. That's really, really, really rare.
A lot of the times they're just afraid to make
a commitment. I mean they see it. They hear six
(41:34):
years and they're like, I could be out of college
by that point, Like that's that's really scary. I mean,
I know it was for me too. I have a
brother and a sister, the Woodley twins. They're the same age,
out of my out of my largest school, Garden Dale
(41:56):
High School. They did not even talk with me when
I came to the school. The first time. I was
supposed to pull them out of class, and they told
their teacher they weren't going to go, so immediately I left.
Saw them at a lunch room display later on in
that in the school year, and was like, you know, hey,
you toue like, come and talk to me, Come get
a shirt, because they were the only two that had
(42:19):
been asking questions in a classroom presentation that I had
put on at the school. As of right now, they're
both at training in the in MP it up at
Fort Lennard Wood, so they're they're both going to be MPs.
But the moment I got them to actually sit down
and talk with me, they were like, you know, we
just don't know if we want to do this, Like
(42:41):
we both know we're going to get some scholarship money
and I was like, well, you're going to be able
to pay for everything. No, okay, Well look I have
a solution for that. It was probably seven months. I
mean you saw them here. They're they're great kids, both
really physically fit. I they were just afraid of the commitment. Now,
(43:03):
the fact that we had two open slots in the
same unit for the same job in which they were
both interested in because their father is a police officer
for Birmingham, that made their decision I think a lot
easier because we don't have the buddy system anymore. But
if you can find the same slot in a unit,
and there's multiple of them and two people know each other,
(43:25):
you can put them in that slot. So the fact
that they were able to kind of go with each
other I think helped. But I mean it was an
eight month process at least, you know, keeping them on
my funnel and constantly having to explain they're just not
ready yet. They're just not ready yet. They're just not ready.
You know, they're not ready to sign. You see that
a lot. I thank you, especially with high schoolers.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
Good rule with them. If a kid calls you and
wants to join, you probably can't. So that's the normal
circumstance that you see. Usually they've already talked to another recruiter,
they've already talked to another branch, they already know they
can enlist, and they're trying to bounce between the system
to see if there's a way they can get in.
Those are the unicorns that we're talking about earlier. You
(44:06):
will get a unicorn every once in a while that
wants to enlist, that's one hundred percent ready to go,
but usually they have a permanent disqualification and cannot get
in the card. Whether it's a testing. You know, maybe
they've already taken the test three times in the last
ninety days and didn't pass the ASVAB at a certain level.
When no, they have a six month wait, but they
(44:26):
don't think that we can see it because the Navy
tested them, but we can see all of it. Or
they have a medical condition that limits them completely. You know,
they're on medication that they can't come off of, but
the military won't let you to join on that medication,
and they hold it. They're really the most dangerous applicants
as like to a recruiter, because as they bounce between recruiters,
(44:48):
they learn what they can't say. You know, they learned
that like, oh, this guy was calling me every day
and we were going the right path until I told
him about this, So I won't tell this guy about it.
And then you get the map and you find out like, oh,
the reason that you know you worked with the airports
for six months, in the Navy for three months and
never joined was because when you got to this point,
they already knew. Very rarely do you see somebody that's like,
(45:13):
I really want to join. I got what it takes.
You know, I'm here, we can go Friday, and it's like, cool,
this guy's going Usually even your boss, you know, r E.
Yates that are on our team immediately are going to go,
what's wrong with it? What what what's going on? Because
something's going on and he's not telling us, and they're
ninety nine point nine suh at the time. They're right now,
(45:34):
we're going to find something that is a complete disqualifier.
And these kids are just bouncing around from recruiter to
recruiters seeing if they can skin by.
Speaker 4 (45:42):
Do you guys find like pride and watching the people
that you put in when they GRADUATEC T a T
or if they decide that they want.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
To go do like a special school or something like.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
You have a kid that goes and they're like, I
want to be an engineer, but then they, you know,
go to Savage School or something like do you hold
out with you or is it something where you're just
kind of.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Churn them on from afar?
Speaker 6 (46:07):
Well, you get an opportunity to kind of follow you know,
your soldier's careers, you know, and I know, you know,
we haven't been in it maybe quite long enough to
see like real trajectories for some of these soldiers, but
you know, like you put somebody in into an airborne unit,
and then they graduate airborne school and they come back
and they have that airborne patch on. You know, there's
a lot of pride with that. But that's the most
(46:29):
important part of this job, is the fact that what
we do matters and it will matter for a long time.
Like we all remember the day that we enlisted, you know,
and had that's you know, the swearing ceremony in that
red velvet room and all that.
Speaker 5 (46:42):
It was really cool.
Speaker 6 (46:44):
So to be able to see that and see other
kids do it and then see the reactions from their families.
Then you go to a ward's day and you get
to call them up on stage and you get to
hand them a certificate and the ovation that they get,
you know from you know, all the parents. You know,
it's just recognizing, you know, the decision that they made
(47:04):
and then seeing you know, the text messages after and saying, hey,
you know, I I really appreciate you helping me. And
you know, I didn't think that this was something I
wanted to do. I didn't think that this was something
that I could do. Because again, we faced a lot
of challenges putting some of these kids in you know,
I've got a girl right now at the University of Alabama.
(47:25):
She's gonna go be a lawyer. The only way she
could have paid for that was through the Guard. That
was it she had. She had no way. She made
good grades, but just not enough to get a full
ride there. So the fact that she did this now
and it's giving her the opportunity to go to school
and most likely end up being the first person in
their family with a degree, Yeah, there's a ton of
(47:45):
pride with that. I mean, that's the motivation. I think
a lot of us have to get up and put
the uniform on and go and sit down with all
these kids because it can be you know, stressful times,
difficult at times, but ultimately like you're not doing it
for you, You're doing it for them.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Thanks for listening to this episode of AGR Alabama Guard
Radio and feel free to follow us on social media
and let us know what you think about the episode.
You can find us at Alabama Guard on Instagram and
Alabama National Guard on Facebook.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
This is a fun episode to record. We really appreciate
everyone who's been sticking with us, and as always, we
want to thank everyone who sat down and talk with
us and thank Staff Sergeant Thomas Furlough for composing all
the music for this episode.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
And if you've heard some of the story shared and
you have a story that you'd like to share, slide
into our DMS on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Until next time. This has been agr
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