Episode 5 - Ross Bryant From The Army

In this episode Ross Bryant talks about how the Army operated from when he joined in the late 1970s and onwards until his retirement.

Unknown Speaker 0:01
This is the American military Britt, shedding light on the realities of military life. Now, here's your host, US Air Force Staff Sergeant Christopher Clark. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the American military bread podcast. This is a podcast where we talk to different military members to figure out the full story about the military. And we don't just focus on the rumors such as the Marines being crazy, or the army being stupid. We actually figure out from the people themselves what the story is with the military. So I hope you enjoy this podcast that we have for you today. Hello, welcome to the American military Brett podcast. So for the podcast today, we've got a special guest. This is going to be our first army guest that we've had on the podcast. So I'm quite excited about this one. Ross here, he has a lot of army experience a lot of military experience. So just to kind of start off here, just kind of introduce yourself like who you are what you currently do right here. I'm

Unknown Speaker 1:00
honored to be here. My name is Ross Bryant and I am a retired Army Major. I served almost 25 years of service from 1979 When I enlisted out of high school to be a tank driver. And then went to ROTC during my career and was a career officer with my final assignment as the commander of the UNLV Army ROTC here in Las Vegas and I continue to work at UNLV as the director of the Veterans Center, serving about 1800 vets and military family members at UNLV.

Unknown Speaker 1:34
Okay, and as far as like getting into the army, was there a specific moment as far as like something that happened that made you want to get into the army? And you know, certainly, yes,

Unknown Speaker 1:45
that's glorious. It's sort of a funny story. I grew up in a very, very tight military Naval Academy family. My grandfather was Naval Academy 1924 and fought in World War Two in Asia, and I was raised by him as a young child after my father's divorce. My uncle was Naval Academy in 1948, was an aviator to 24 years. And then my father graduated from the Naval Academy in 1957. And was in the Submarine Force for 10 years active duty, and another 30 years working for the Navy Department writing nuclear missile launch manuals for the Navy, and work in the Pentagon, basically, my whole childhood in Virginia, where he would just transfer and drive to DC and in horrible commutes. So long story short, we lived on a farm, which I did not appreciate, I didn't get along with my stepmom. So my brilliant plan to be independent was to join the army. And in late 70s, it was the all volunteer military, they offered a $3,000 bonus, if you were to go into combat arms, so I signed up for tanks. That sounded cool. I had no idea what that was. And then I was enlisted. And I ended up going over to Germany during the Cold War, basically, where we were 500,000 troops in Europe staring down the Warsaw Pact of the Russians and East Germans back in those days. And I rose quickly through the ranks to be a tank commander at age 23 of the brand new M one tag that's now 40 years old. But I was in the second battalion to get that opportunity. And I had some great mentors who talked me into going into ROTC and becoming a career officer.

Unknown Speaker 3:33
So I'm curious now like, why did you join the army versus the Navy, because obviously, you had a rich kind of,

Unknown Speaker 3:39
you know, I've always been like a rebellious kind of guy. I was a middle child out of five. And I wouldn't say I was not a question of being anyone's favorite, but I was always fiercely independent. And I wanted to become 18 and be independent. And during the Vietnam War, I remember watching the news reels of soldiers in combat that was in the news, almost nightly, but I had a teacher I met, and I guess it was junior high. And this teacher had been a Vietnam vet, when back then being a vet was not a good thing. But he had a very nice demeanor. He was very professional, a very sharp guy that I really admired. And he had a class that he basically had us write a paper about what is you know, service to your country, and all those kinds of things. And he did it in such a way that you could tell he was conflicted by what happened in Vietnam, but he was very much a patriot. And I almost think he sort of inspired me to think, Hey, I'm gonna go join the army like that guy. He was such a great teacher and a mentor. And I was like, eighth grade, but still as a young kid. He was pretty phenomenal. So I never really considered the Navy I guess. And maybe I never wanted to join the Navy because I would have a job generational legacy stuff and how come you enlisted in the Navy, you didn't make it to the Naval Academy thing. Whereas in the army, I sort of had a fresh start.

Unknown Speaker 5:08
Next, I just wanted to talk about your basic training and technical training school experience, or whatever you call it in the army specifically, but, you know, obviously, because you went, you know, I don't want to sound insulting or anything, but you went a very long time ago. So I'm just like, very curious as far as like, how it's how it's, you know, changed, as far as like, you know, from then to now. Because I feel like my training experience was probably a lot easier than yours. I feel like it was a lot more difficult back then. But, like, how was basic training for you in the army?

Unknown Speaker 5:40
You know, I think compared to today, it's much more demanding in the sense that in 1979, I was right out of high school when I joined. And two months after high school, I shipped out to Fort Knox, Kentucky, where all tank training took place. And back then, if you were combat arms in the army, artillery, tanks or infantry, they did what they had called one stop training. So you did basically eight weeks of basic training, and then another six weeks of individual training on how to be a tank driver or a tank loader, a crewman basically. Alright, so all at Fort Knox. So I was with the same platoon for those 14 weeks, and we had Sundays off, you will go to church and sort of hanging out with the rest of the time was pretty demanding. And a lot of the NCOs, if you think about Vietnam, had just ended four years earlier. So the senior NCOs, the captains, all the officers, were all Vietnam era, veterans that had gone to combat, who had seen combat, who were then training us and very serious about the training. And the Cold War was the big thing. 75% of the army was in Europe for the Air Force and the Army. And we were staring down, you know, a million troops on the East German border for the invasion that never happened. And so everyone was focused on making sure you knew your job and all those things. And what was interesting about it, the army was short people. And that didn't hit me until years later. So I ended up being top of my class and back then the quality of the recruits, unlike nowadays, where you take an ASVAB test, and you have to have a certain score, not everyone can serve nowadays. But back then if you were basically breathing in a good physical condition you were in, and we had some folks that it was just sort of interesting. And so I ended up being like one of the few high school graduates. And because of that I did very well in the training, and I was top of my class along with a couple of colleagues of mine. And what they did is at the end of our graduation, they held on to us for another cycle and they made us acting corporals with no pay. So all of a sudden, instant instantly, I'm from a private to a corporal. They gave us some training classes, and then we were acting tank commander holdovers is what they call this. And we also did training for the next iteration of students. And if you think of that I had no experience. So the good news is I learned even more detail because you had to learn like let's take an example the breech block is the back of the gun tube, there's a whole mechanical way of taking that breechblock down, it's very heavy, safety wise, taking it apart, cleaning it and putting it all back and you learned it as a private. But now if you have to teach it, you better know how to do it. So you would practice and practice and practice. So when I finally got to my unit, I had basically back to back tank training, got to my unit. And I knew more than the average private on how to be a tank crewman, which put me in good stead. But it was interesting, everyone was very professional, no one could put hands on you. But if you you know, if you irritated a drill sergeant, everyone did you know, 100 push ups until you couldn't do any more. If someone screwed up, we all get up in the middle of the night and do exercises. made it worth your while to be a team player. But not not a kind of Hollywood kind of violence kind of thing. But I think very demanding mentally very demanding, as far as the amount of hours and stuff that we were doing. And we ran everywhere. So like marching and running everywhere. And so it was pretty demanding when I look back at it.

Unknown Speaker 9:20
Yeah. It's It's funny, though, how you mentioned talking about kind of how in the army like anybody could get in pretty much because that's something that you heard when I came in as well. It was just like, oh, yeah, anybody can get in. So that is kind of a rumor, at least that it seems is pretty much true. I mean, you mentioned the ASVAB. And the funny thing with the ASVAB is like people think if they get a high score, they're so smart, like I was intelligence in the Air Force. So everyone who's in intelligence is like, Oh, I got such a high ASVAB score. But then when I went to technical training school, it was like some of the stupidest people I met. Were in technical training school. So I'm just like, well, it doesn't really make use Mark does it to be honest. But But no, that was that was interesting how you were just kind of talking about basic training there. And, you know, it's kind of seems like it's the same thing. Right? Well,

Unknown Speaker 10:10
there was also things were back then this happened. If you got in trouble with the law, and I'm talking like juvenile delinquent stuff, right? They would say, okay, Ross, you would have a choice between going to jail or join the army. Right? And obviously, the army doesn't do that today. Yeah, back then to fill numbers that was. So now you have a guy who was poor sort of shady to begin with right now. And your platoon doesn't want to be there. It's not like he really volunteered, take the lesser of two options.

Unknown Speaker 10:41
So I just want to get into the different assignments that you did in, in the army. So Well, first of all, let me ask one question. So have you been to an Air Force base before? I'm assuming? Yeah. So how do they compare to

Unknown Speaker 10:54
RS is much more luxurious, I would say, a sense of, you know, I think all the bases have the same facilities and services. But I think the Air Force does a great job of focusing on quality of life as best they can and taking care of people. And the Army less, the army used to always say, you know, Mission First People always put the soldiers would joke. Mission First People sometimes, yeah, and I've experienced way too much of that. But, uh, and was always about the mission all the time. And so I've been talking about my assignments, I was blessed. As this young guy who had this TC holdover experience, I really went through the ranks pretty quick when I got to my unit. And then I went, my first unit was nine months at Fort Knox to a Training Brigade, which is basically a collection of 50 tanks, with the shadow crew, that basically all the training units, sign out those tanks, drive them, break them, get them dirty, and then the shadow crew has to repair them, clean them, and get them ready for the next training iteration. So not a combat unit, not a training unit, but just taking care of tanks for other people to break. Now, I hated that job, because it wasn't a real mission, in the sense that you're on the front line. But I learned so much, because if you and I were the only two members on a four person crew, and our job is to take the broken tank, fix it, repair it, clean it and get it ready again, you and I learned everything that could go wrong, whether a tank got stuck in the mud and had to be retrieved or whatever it might be. So when I got to Germany, my first real unit with Third Infantry, it turned out to be the battalion, the second battalion in the army to get the one tank. And so we are on the front line with looking at East Germans, Russians Czech units from the Warsaw Pact reporting on them, doing drills and exercises and alerts and I was there for three years, I rose to the ranks. And at 23 years old, I got to go through em one tank training as a tank commander. And I had a captain who believed in me and said, in a 54 tank battalion, there's a colonel and a major who's the XO, and they all have tanks. And the major was actually an acquisition guy who helped field the tank. So when it came time for training, they had 54 Full crews, and he had me be the tank commander for the majors tank. So 23 years old, I had an 18 year old driver, a 19 year old loader and a 20 year old gunner. We were the youngest crew in the Third Infantry Division. And I ended up shooting high gunnery and being the number one tanking gunnery was because I was terrified of failing after giving the opportunity. And so that resulted in you know, a Commendation Medal and notoriety in the chain of command. And then I went to the first of five NCO academies, which was a brand new thing to train the NCO Corps. So as an E five in the army, I got sent to this academy and it was pretty intense, pretty harassing pretty, just, you know, cleaning bathrooms forever, to have attention to detail kinds of things. And I ended up being the honor grad, again, terrified of failing. And I got invited to a dinner at the base in Germany, by my colonel, Lieutenant Colonel, a captain in the Command Sergeant Major now when you're a young sergeant, you don't hang out with those people. All right. And when I got invited to dinner, I was very nervous. And I remember my wife saying, I don't think you're in trouble. They're buying you dinner on a Friday night. So I got dressed up, went to the dinner, very nervous. And what they did is they sat down me and said, and we've been watching you, you're a very sharp young man, with only three and a half years in the Army. We think you ought to consider the army being a career and not re enlisting. You need to get out and go what's called Green to Gold to Army ROTC and becoming an officer. And the fact that they invested their time of their busy schedules to invest in me to give me that advice. I took it all and I went to ROTC got my commission went back. So at the end of the day, I had three years in Germany for the premiere mission of training for World War Three if it was the breakout and this is during the era of Reagan, and missiles in Europe and all that stuff. Then I went to ROTC and came back in I got to go to Airborne School and learn how to be a paratrooper. And to tanker as a as an officer, which is hard to get very competitive. And then I went to first armored division. And again, I was in Germany for three years. And I spoke German after college. So I could, you know, articulate and speak and read and help my soldiers with rental contracts and everything. And I was on duty when the wall came down. So it was fascinating. When the Wall came down. The Army never had a plan for world peace to break out. And so everything got pulled off the border, East and West Germany united. And then all of a sudden, all the adventures in the Middle East happened right after that. Alright. And so those things resulted at the end of my career. I didn't I did not go to Iraq. I was not in Desert Storm. I was in Germany during Desert Storm. Were longtime before your generation. We sent troops to the Gulf for Desert Shield, which was a defensive action. And after nine months, Iraq would not leave Kuwait. And then we have what was called Desert Storm to push them out of Kuwait. And the punch power for the offensive came from Europe, were over 100,000 troops from Europe, were deployed with all their equipment from Germany, to the Middle East for the attack. That was as a storm. I was in Germany during that time. So as a German speaking guy, I worked all the railheads with the safety people got tanks out of there, worked around the clock with no days off the support, did all those things. And it was a tough time to be on the sidelines when the whole army went to war. And that war was very quick and over in 100 hours. And then after that, I went back to the states and I was stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia, which was the only rapid deployment heavy tank division in the army. And we put stuff on fast ships to Somalia, we put planes in the air to Somalia, with tanks. We did all those things from Fort Stewart. I deployed to Egypt, we deployed to Haiti. We did all these things after Haiti was supposed to be an overthrow of the government because they had had a coup that happened. And Cedrus took the money. But then we went down there for hurricane support.

Unknown Speaker 17:29
It sounds like you have a lot of deployment experience. So we'll just kind of get into that. But you said you said you never went to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Unknown Speaker 17:38
All of that happened when I was the commander of ROTC. And this was my last assignment and I retired in 2005. Okay, and I commissioned 77 officers, who then went on to multiple deployments, right? The ones that are still serving our majors and Lieutenant Colonel's and we had our first guy we commissioned in 1999, our first Cadet he pinned on Oh, six Colonel this year and is now at the war college before he takes a brigade commander at Fort Bragg.

Unknown Speaker 18:09
Okay, so like, Germany was more like an assignment. So like, what was your I mean, as far as what you can actually talk about on classified? Like, what deployments have you

Unknown Speaker 18:19
done so in Germany, we back then you had your families and everyone's stationed there, and then they would have monthly alerts in case you had to get on your vehicle. And it's hard to picture now. But we used to do maneuvers across Germany in the wintertime. So like, if you were a German farmer, you would wake up and you had no say, and here's 10 tanks driving across your field, right? parked in your backyard doing training, you get on the highway to go to work. And there's a column of military vehicles in convoy blocking traffic. And it was just the norm and helicopters flying over all the time. And the other thing too, is back then, if you were on tanks with us, they were all combat loaded, all the ammunition in your tank was ready to go. And then you would pick up your machine gun ammunition and your firing pin for the main gun if they had the alert, and you would put your fill in your radio, and you had two hours to get out of a motor pool and get to your defensive position. Before World War Three were breakout. So that was routine. That when I was stationed stateside, got to deployed to Kuwait, it wasn't combat but after Desert Storm, we left the equipment in the Middle East ready to go. And Saddam was still in power. And he was testing the United States. I think it was around 1995. And he basically had all of his Republican Guards. Yeah, there on the border like he was going to invade again. And instantly we all flew over from Fort Stewart. And I was wanting one of the first planes and it was interesting. We had a lot of young privates who said Hey, are we going to war but a lot of people on the plane were Desert Storm. have veterans who said yeah, you know, it's not really a war until you see, Christianne. I'm gonna pour from CNN, who at that time had been the premier war correspondent. So when we landed in Kuwait, probably if you went to Kuwait, same airport stopped her loop and we got off the plane and there's cristiana move for. And the interesting thing is they had us get off the plane, reload on the plane, a bunch of times that from the distance, it looked like we had 3000 guys not 500 or they're trying to feed that to Saddam, so he would not invade what you did not. So we were there deployed for a couple of weeks, and we're ready on the border in case other stuff happened. Other units were alerted to come over. And then all that calmed down. Then when we're back at Fort Stewart, the Somalia thing happened, where the Rangers were shot up in Somalia. 10th Mountain was already deployed there from the United States. And for the first time ever, we flew M one tanks and Bradley's on these huge C five aircraft that were replaced by the C 17. And you could put two m one tanks combat loaded 60 ton vehicles on the back of one of those planes you probably seen. And you could throw a football in the air hanger and not anything. And that thing took off and landed and didn't crash. But we flew 17 tanks and 13 Bradley's and every see five in the fleet. I'm not sure how many there were, let's say there was 20 of those aircraft. They all arrived at Fort Stewart on the same day when President Clinton alerted tanks to go to Somalia. And back then in that conflict, it was a short conflict where our guys on the ground were surrounded by armed mobs of people that were angry and not turning back and a pilot got shot down and two Rangers were killed, and they got the Medal of Honor. But when the tanks arrived, everybody dissipated, because there was no other enemy that could combat the tanks and the tanks secured the area until we left. Alright, so when all those things happened, it was sort of a an interesting thing, because the rangers who lost their lives in Somalia, were from my community. So you would be in a civilian suburb of the base. And down the street. A couple Ranger families lost people over there. So it became sort of a personal thing on the base when everybody went over. So I did not deploy, but I had been trained in loadmaster Ng, for I went down to the school of Florida. And I was the army guy who would prep equipment to be put on the plane. And of course, a chief in the Air Force was the guy who would decide if the balance was right. So I got called to be at the airfield for all of that, to get all those vehicles out of there. And it was fascinating to watch, a national alert, where when the President said Go, all those planes flew from all over the all over the world, to land at one base and load up and get out of there. And it's fascinating to watch.

Unknown Speaker 22:59
Correct me if I'm wrong, I believe you, didn't you you retired from the army. That's why you separated? Yeah, because I just just just like, kind of talk about how, I guess you were forced to separate then, in a sense, because you retired. But like, was that the reason that you got up? Or could you have gotten longer?

Unknown Speaker 23:15
You know, I would say that when you're a young soldier, you're not decided if you're gonna be a career soldier. Let's say you have less than 10 years and you watch all these senior folks who are acclimated to the culture. And let's say you're up at 4am for an operation, you're like, am I the only one who realized that we got up at 4am. And all sudden, you become that guy when you're used to the culture. But like many careers, I remember a guy saying, you'll know when it's time to retire. So I did not have to retire. But because I was enlisted five years, I had close to 25 years of service. I'm a Senior Major. And I just had seven years here, training cadet, so I stood up the program, I was asked by the army to extend twice. We had reservists that we trained to help train cadets. It was a test program that did very well. And then I had some opportunities after 911 I had a master's in counterterrorism and national security stays at 95 that the army paid for to be a Ukrainian foreign area officer. That did not happen. Interesting all the Ukrainian stuff going on. But back then they had negotiated Ukraine to get rid of nuclear weapons. And everyone guaranteed their sovereignty over Russian invasion. And now here we are. Anyway, I had opportunities to work at an institute here that did homeland security training for the strip on counterterrorism. What are suspicious indicators? Not people? Like if you parked a car, what would things you'd be looking for? If you're a housekeeping? What are suspicious indicators that are room not people? And then what would you do with those things? So long story short, I had this job lined up and I said, you know, I think it's time to retire. I And personally, my personal life, I met a beautiful young woman in California, her husband had died in Desert Storm. We met at an event, giving out scholarships and his name. His name is Major Thompson and he was killed in Desert Storm did not know him, but I had his job at Cal State training cadets, his last assignment. We were an item. We were exclusive, we were engaged. We knew I had four years left in the deal was when you're done playing army, because I'm not going to be married to the army. I'm not going to go through that again. And so we made the deal. And then we're all set to get out, get married, and I had a homeland security job. And when I put in my retirement packet, one year out, the army came back and said, You're on the lieutenant Colonel's list, which they had told me, I would never make things that changed. And I said, Well, where am I going? Can I deploy with the unit? They're like, nope, you've been off of tanks for seven years. We need you at the Pentagon, basically, in operations, which is a thankless job, but the people who do it, hats off to him, but he worked like 70 hours a week and you're making briefings for generals and a lieutenant colonel at the Pentagon is like a private in the army. Yeah, that's what I've heard. And, you know, living there, it's expensive. And commuting. There is crazy. And I just didn't want any part of that. So I turned down Lieutenant Colonel, which a lot of my peers and said, Why God, you turn down Lieutenant Colonel, why would you do that? Well, I wasn't going to be with troops again. And I had just had seven years of training troops here and preparing them for really the real world in the war that was going on, that we did very successful at. So I felt like it was time.

Unknown Speaker 26:43
For those who don't know, that's actually how I met Ross was through the military veterans services center here on UNLV. So just wanted to kind of throw that plug in. But I did want to really quickly talk about like, kind of DUIs and the fact that DUIs are an issue in the military. So I had a lot of couple of friends who were forced to separate or they like, you know, just got like, some serious like actions against them just because of DUIs. But I remember talking to you before, and you were talking about how you add a couple of troops, like have DUIs and stuff like that.

Unknown Speaker 27:22
So DUIs became a problem for the Army always. And in the 90s, they did a study that some 600 Soldiers a year were killed in DUIs, not counting the people they killed. So it became a big focus that if you got a DUI, you were out of the service. And so, in my one tank unit I was in command for I think I had 510 days of command. And I have a streamer that says, No DUIs for 510 days, and we did briefings, we did things above and beyond saying, Hey, don't drink and drive. What I did one time was, I took one of the most popular junior soldiers. Everyone liked this guy's name was Chris. And I had him not coming to work one day. And I got in front of the formation and said, Hey, I literally told the story and said, regrettably, Chris was killed in a DUI last night. And everyone was shocked. And then I had him walk in. And I'd said to everyone, now the way you felt when I told you that I apologize for lying to you. But I want to hammer down that I could tell you every day it just becomes rhetoric. But the feeling you had that Oh, my God, Chris died. That feeling is real. I've had way too many times in other units, where we lost somebody. One story that sticks with me that was so tragic, is we deployed to Egypt for a training exercise for five weeks, I didn't bring that up. And we're in the Egyptian desert on tanks for like five weeks straight. And the chaplain came to see me and one of my young soldiers, his, his wife, who had been pregnant and their child had been killed in a DUI back at the base, from a drunk soldier from another unit. So the impact on that young man where we had to literally send him home emergency leave with a tank commander, to look after him, because we were concerned about his own mental health and well being. And so the impact of those things are serious. And it was always impact on those days, too. There was a lot of cultural drinking was sort of the norm. I mean, you would go to the officer's club on a Friday and, you know, get hammered and take a cab home. But everyone was really focused on DUIs. And even with all the deployments and all the war that's gone on. For 20 times, there's many stories of vets that come to the Vet Center, where they came back from a deployment and we're letting off steam and celebrating their survival, so to speak, and then a party night turned into a tragic DUI that you resulted in someone's career being over. Worse yet somebody's injured. And so, DUIs are always a big thing. And it's always about taking care of each other. And, hey, look, if you're gonna go have a good time, call me and I'll come pick you up. You know what I mean? And so yeah, and going to someone's funeral over something like that is always just devastating. Because all of that's very preventable. You know what I mean?

Unknown Speaker 30:23
Yeah, I mean, fortunately for me, I've never known anybody who's passed away during one but yeah, I mean, I'm just glad I just wanted to speak about that just so that people realize how serious it is. But yeah, just want to thank you, Ross for coming on the podcast today because that was some great insight.

Unknown Speaker 30:40
Chris, you were supposed to say that used to work for me. You were one of our top employees, right?

Unknown Speaker 30:45
I mean, sure, you can throw that in. But yeah, thank you very much for

Unknown Speaker 30:51
Thank you, sir.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Episode 5 - Ross Bryant From The Army
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