Jon Hegwood and David Herring

[00:01] JON HEGWOOD: Hi, there. My name is John Haigwood. I am 30 years old. Today is Thursday, September 16. I am in western Washington with my husband, David.

[00:12] DAVID: Hello. My name is David, age 38. Today is Thursday, September 16, 2021. I am in the Olympia area. My partner's name is John, and he is my husband.

[00:30] JON HEGWOOD: So can you tell me what it was about, what it was like growing up in North Carolina?

[00:34] DAVID: Oh, boy. Growing up in North Carolina was. Honestly, it was. It was nice. Overall, when I was growing up as a young kid, there was a lot of things that I didn't really pay attention to, other than families really being part of the family, always having get togethers, barbecues, cooking. Cooking was definitely a big part of growing up in North Carolina, especially with my family.

[01:04] JON HEGWOOD: Is there any memories that stand out from your childhood?

[01:06] DAVID: Memories that stand out from my childhood? You know, honestly, I would say it's not necessarily the fondest memory, but it's actually a kind of funny memory. So we always went camping, and I always liked sitting by the lake and soaking in the sun rays. Well, I was so tired that I was sitting inside of the chair and I ended up falling asleep and nobody paid attention to me. And when I woke up, my entire face and my entire chest was completely burnt. So I wouldn't say it's a the best memory, but it's still something that I remember to this day. To wear sunblock and not fall asleep in the sun.

[01:54] JON HEGWOOD: Can you describe something you're proud of in your life?

[02:02] DAVID: I would say the proudest thing, or one of the proudest things that I'm proud of is after 911 joining the military and then following that, marrying you.

[02:22] JON HEGWOOD: Has your life been different than what you imagined?

[02:27] DAVID: Oh, God, yes. I actually thought that I was going to get stuck in small town USA. But, you know, I graduated high school my senior year. 911 happened. I joined the military immediately following that. I haven't looked back.

[02:52] JON HEGWOOD: Do you have any regrets?

[02:56] DAVID: My biggest regret is I'm doing college now. So I would say not doing college earlier in my life.

[03:09] JON HEGWOOD: When did you enlist?

[03:12] DAVID: I officially enlisted my 11th grade year of high school. 2001, I guess technically, I guess it would be. I don't know. It was my 11th grade year. I'm not sure on the exact year. And then I did the delayed entry program, and then I raised my hand the second time. Officially. Officially at meps on June 28, 2002.

[03:42] JON HEGWOOD: What do you remember about that day?

[03:44] DAVID: I remember the day before more than anything, waking up really early, having my recruiter drive me all the way to meps. He actually didn't drive me directly to Mets. He drove me to the hotel. It was basically a motel really close to the MEP center. They gave us dinner and breakfast vouchers. My oldest sister Felicia actually showed up with her husband Keith, and had dinner with me that night. And the funny thing is, the waitress actually thought that we were all there for Mets, and so she was treating us as such because of the vouchers, so. But my brother in law was like, I'm already in the military. I don't. I want to see a real menu, not this fake menu that you have for the maps.

[04:41] JON HEGWOOD: It was a set menu.

[04:42] DAVID: It was a set menu.

[04:44] JON HEGWOOD: Limited stuff.

[04:45] DAVID: It was.

[04:46] JON HEGWOOD: It's not the good stuff. No.

[04:49] DAVID: And then literally the very next day, woke up super early, went to meps and did all the things, including standing against the wall and being watched through. At people through a window as I peed in a cup and the doctor checking me out in all the interesting places.

[05:06] JON HEGWOOD: Did that include the dug walk?

[05:10] DAVID: You know what? I did have to do the dug walk.

[05:13] JON HEGWOOD: We can just explain. The duck walk is where they make you kind of squat down your legs and walk sideways a little bit to, I guess, like, check your hips and your feet, and you also have to kind of, like, bang your knees on the ground. It's not a good time. It's super awkward, but everybody has to do. And it's kind of a joke in the military. And what does stand for military entry.

[05:37] DAVID: Point, if I understand the acronym correctly?

[05:42] JON HEGWOOD: Yeah, it's like pointer processing system or station. Station. That one.

[05:46] DAVID: Oh, yeah. There's. There is an s. It's me. P s. Military entry processing station.

[05:54] JON HEGWOOD: How did you tell your family that you were joined the military?

[06:02] DAVID: I actually told my mom first because when I initially signed all the paperwork, I wasn't 18 yet when I joined the delayed entry program, and then everybody else wasn't surprised. I would say at least a good 10% of the people from my high school joined, especially all of us seniors.

[06:26] JON HEGWOOD: This is right after 911.

[06:27] DAVID: This was literally right after 911.

[06:31] JON HEGWOOD: How did your perceptions change after you were serving or after you got in?

[06:36] DAVID: You know, I always looked at the military as ultra high speed. Always have the really, really cool gear. Traveling the world, going to different locations. There is really cool gear in the military. There are a lot of high speed soldiers out there. I try to be one. I'm not necessarily one. I didn't go special forces or Ranger or anything else like that. But the possibilities are there if you apply yourself.

[07:17] JON HEGWOOD: Do you recall any funny stories from boot camp, or basic, as us in the military call it.

[07:26] DAVID: You know, I literally was that soldier that on the very last day, when we were walking across the stage, my recruiter or not my recruiter, my drill sergeant looked right at me, and as he was handing me my, you know, diploma, which was a certificate of completion, he looked literally at my face, and he was like, who are you? And I was like, I don't remember my platoon or my battalion or anything else. That was so long ago, but I do remember that. And I told him, this was at Fort Sill, right? This was at Fort Hill. And I told him, and he was like, you know what? Good job for not standing out where you got in trouble. Yeah.

[08:17] JON HEGWOOD: You don't want to be that guy. If the drill sergeant knows your name, it's probably not a good time for you.

[08:21] DAVID: Correct.

[08:22] JON HEGWOOD: So you flew under the radar?

[08:23] DAVID: I flew way under the radar.

[08:27] JON HEGWOOD: So what did you serve overseas?

[08:30] DAVID: I deployed to Iraq November of zero three to November of zero four.

[08:37] JON HEGWOOD: How did you tell your mom and your family you were getting deployed?

[08:40] DAVID: I was actually. I would say I was kind of smart about it. I used my sister and my brother in law as my points of contact to give the rest of the family the information so I didn't have to deal with the emotional impact of telling my mom or anybody else. I did receive a few phone calls, and this was, oh, God, I'm going to age myself. Already did at the beginning. But, you know, this was. Cell phones were just a beginning type thing, so I would have had to use a pay phone to call home or use the phone inside of the. What is that room? The day room, to let them know. So my sister Felicia, she actually let the family know, and then lots of family would send me letters, and I called home. And then.

[09:37] JON HEGWOOD: Because you were stationed across the country in Washington, right? Yes. And your family's back in North Carolina and Florida?

[09:42] DAVID: Yep.

[09:45] JON HEGWOOD: So did they write you letters where you were deployed also?

[09:49] DAVID: You know, I got a few letters from home. I didn't get as many as I wanted, honest. I was able to call home on a satellite phone, I think, twice in my year there, but I wrote home a lot. Okay. Just letting people know what was going on.

[10:15] JON HEGWOOD: What are some things that you remember most about your deployment? It's okay. Take your time.

[10:37] DAVID: I would say my deployment overall was a standard deployment to Iraq. You know, we were in Mosul, Tal Afar, Baghdad, just to name a few, a very small little outpost in a small town on the border of Syria called Rubiyah. So we traveled a lot and our brigade, third brigade, two id, we were the very first striker brigade and very first striker brigade combat team to ever be established. So we were the testing grounds, so to speak, for the military, to test the vehicles out in a combat area. All the military leadership from the very top down was looking at us, making sure that we were doing what we were supposed to do and how well that we were operating. I would say the biggest thing that stood out for me is that the locals actually called us the ghost brigade because they were so used. We replaced the hundred and first, and they were so used to their very loud vehicles, Bradley's tanks, etc. Etc. And our strikers were quiet, you know.

[12:12] JON HEGWOOD: Compared to a giant tank.

[12:13] DAVID: Yes. So when we were rolling through this sound like, you know, maybe a loud semi truck was rolling in. And that's something that they, the locals didn't pay attention to. And so we were able to get into areas and operate in the middle of night without being noticed until we were literally there doing our job.

[12:37] JON HEGWOOD: Can you describe how it felt coming home from combat?

[12:44] DAVID: Different. Overall, the biggest thing that stood out to me was when I finally went home to North Carolina to visit family, and my oldest sister literally looked me in the face and she was like, you're. You've changed. You're no longer David you're David.

[13:18] JON HEGWOOD: Is there any that you served with the military that you remember fondly? Can you tell me about them?

[13:27] DAVID: I would say there's a lot of people that I remember fondly and I actually keep in contact with a lot of them. And one of my closest friends actually still lives here in Washington as well. And then another close friend lives in Oregon. Fred lives up in Lakewood still. Then Michael. Everybody called him Oreo because his last name was Aristotle and nobody could actually pronounce that. So we all just called him Oreo for short. And the name still sticks because we literally call him Oreo to this day. He lives down in, I want to say Eugene, Oregon. I would say those are the two biggest people in my lives that I still talk to to this day on a regular basis.

[14:18] JON HEGWOOD: What are some of the fun things that you and those friends did while you were deployed?

[14:25] DAVID: Fun? Well, when we weren't sitting inside of an op in what's an op? Observation point. So if we weren't sitting inside of one of the towers doing an op job, gate security or anything like that, you know, we try to go to, when they finally came in, we would try to go to the MWR's areas. So we can, you know, watch television, watch movie, try to sit there and play some cards. I actually learned spades while deploying anything. Anything basically passed the time. And I played bones as well. Dominoes. Dominoes. And, you know, it's funny, you know, the spades people were typically people from the south, various cultural backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds. But the most fun that I had was with are African American because they really, really got into it. And I learned the most from them of how to play the games.

[15:48] JON HEGWOOD: Did you ever learn anything about any of your fellow service members that surprised you?

[15:56] DAVID: Yes. Without going into too much detail about multiple people, I would say the biggest surprise was how everybody basically came together before we left. We were, you know, we were all roommates or two mates or troop mates, and we all knew that we were getting ready for a mission. And then, you know, everybody was trying to. We were always spending so much time with each other that when we had our free time, we tried to stay away from each other. But the biggest thing is, when we deployed, we could never get away from each other. And we. I was surprised by some of the people that were so close before we left. They opened up a lot more, and we all became brothers to each other. Yep.

[16:57] JON HEGWOOD: What were the first few months out.

[16:58] DAVID: Of the service like? You know, I got out of the military in 2005, the first time. And, you know, it was right after our deployment to Iraq. And the first 1st few months were difficult. Honestly, I. I don't think that the military had enough classes or anything else that got us to the point where we were ready to exit. And now looking at how everybody is getting out in the classes that they go to, it's more in depth of, you know, how to do a resume, how to have an interview. You know, for us, it. It was very baseline, and it was, here, do this, and you were done in a week. And then you turn in all your gear to CIF, central issue, central issuing facility, where you get all of your, like, flat vest, your flick your canteens, all that stuff. So it was difficult for me. It was hard to find a job at first. I did a lot of one day jobs working for, like, companies like worksource and stuff like that.

[18:25] JON HEGWOOD: Do you have any advice for any others that are transitioning out of the military?

[18:29] DAVID: Yes. The military has lots and lots of opportunities for you to get certifications in your particular career field now. So if you're it, you know, you're doing information technologies or if you are a medic or anything like that, you can go and get civilian certifications to help you get a job afterwards. And also something that I didn't utilize while I was in the military because I felt like I didn't have enough time. But there's always enough time to at least do a class a semester or quarter ta, you know, tuition assistance. Use that and they'll pay for. Pay for your college. And hopefully, by the time you get done with that, you'll at least get out of the military on your first term if you're only doing the first three to six years with an associate's degree at a minimum. Yeah.

[19:33] JON HEGWOOD: How do you think your time in the military has affected you?

[19:37] DAVID: Oh, boy. I would say the military has affected me in a multitude of different facets. I've always been very clean, very OCD, like, everything needs to be in its place. I actually think the military has intensified that mainly with my deployment and getting injured while deployed. And, yeah, it's also changed me in more ways than I would like to discuss.

[20:24] JON HEGWOOD: Is there anything you wish that civilians understood about military service?

[20:29] DAVID: Yes. Not every movie that you see is the military. I literally watch movies and sitting next to a civilian, so to speak, and they're like, oh, my God, that is so cool. Or I was like, yeah, that is really cool, but that's not how they actually do it. Or I nitpick at those movies, and I'm looking literally at their uniforms and I'm like, why is their uniform wrong? Why is that upside down? And actually, I found out why. There's, like, a certain rule whenever people are playing that they can't have a 100% complete, proper uniform. Something has to be wrong on the uniform.

[21:23] JON HEGWOOD: How did we meet?

[21:27] DAVID: That's actually a funny story. And I'm actually glad that we did meet because I was stuck in traffic. So we originally met online and we.

[21:42] JON HEGWOOD: Yeah, this was during the dynasty days, right. We were both in the military and just. Just talking about having a date. I guess we were actually risking our careers.

[21:52] DAVID: So we met online and I told.

[22:00] JON HEGWOOD: You, and you were late.

[22:02] DAVID: You wanted me to meet you at the spa in Tacoma. Wonderful place. Good, good breakfast. And I was running really, really late. Like, I left on time to make it on time for our date. However, I five traffic. I was driving north and I was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, and you messaged me and was asking me, what? Where are you at? What's taking you so long? I told you and you didn't believe me, but. So you left the sparce, literally drove south, and we. You went to Madigan Gate shop at. But when you got to Madigan Gate. You were driving over the overpass and you looked at the traffic and you were like, oh, my God. He wasn't lying to me. So, yeah, that's where we met. How we met and the start of our life together.

[23:11] JON HEGWOOD: And I've been making you wait on me ever since.

[23:14] DAVID: Yes. Oh, my God. Yes. I'm like, I want to leave 15 minutes before we're supposed to. We need to arrive ten to 15 minutes early. Let's go. And still to this day, you're like, nope, we're going to leave it this time or, I'm not ready yet. So now. Now we're always, oh, God. A lot of our friends actually changed the arrival date or arrival time for us so that John could literally, or so we could literally be on time.

[23:48] JON HEGWOOD: They know we like to be fashionably late.

[23:49] DAVID: Yeah, no, you like to be fashionably late. I like to be early.

[23:54] JON HEGWOOD: What are some of the best times in our relationship so far in this last ten years?

[23:58] DAVID: Oh, my God.

[24:01] JON HEGWOOD: We don't talk about all of them. Okay. I know there's a lot.

[24:05] DAVID: There is a lot of really good times. I will say the most recent one is our ten year anniversary and our honeymoon all wrapped together. It was a really good time. We went. We ended up going to Hawaii, but before we got to Hawaii, a few things happened and we were delayed by a day. So dealing with all of that was craziness, but it was pretty stressful. You. It worked out, though, working on your end and me working on my end. We ended up getting to our destination together. And it shows that to me that you and I do everything in our power to be together and to make sure things work out.

[25:00] JON HEGWOOD: We had a good time. We were able to salvage everything and we did just fine. What are some of the difficult times? I know there's been a lot of those, too.

[25:11] DAVID: There has. I would say the first difficult time that we both encountered was dealing with your ex and my ex. Probably about three weeks into our relationship, I called you and I said I needed help. I told my ex we were still living together at the time only because we needed to wait for the lease to end. And my ex did not like the fact that I was seeing somebody else. And we've already not been together at that point for at least a good eight months to a year. And our lease for the house was almost up. So I was like, well, let's just ride it through so we don't lose any money. They agreed to it. And then I met you because I moved along with my life, and they ended up, like, destroying a lot of my stuff. You and I went for our very first long weekend together. Memorial weekend. And we still do those trips to this date.

[26:35] JON HEGWOOD: Labor day.

[26:36] DAVID: Labor day. Yeah, sorry. Labor day weekend. And we still do those trips to this date. But that long four day weekend, you and I went down or over, technically, I guess down and over to Toklin.

[26:51] JON HEGWOOD: Went to the beach.

[26:51] DAVID: Yeah. And we went to the beach, and we had a really good time, and we connected more. And I went back home, and my ex wasn't there. A lot of their stuff was gone. The dogs were gone. And I went up to my room and I found my uniforms, and they had, you know, pee and urine all over them. Yeah, they were destroyed. My clothes were all in the back of my ex's truck. Charged because they burned them. What else did you burn? I burned a lot of my awards for the military. For the military pictures. Broke a few of my memory bracelets for a few soldiers that we lost for my unit. You know, the list just went on and on.

[27:40] JON HEGWOOD: And your purple heart, too.

[27:42] DAVID: He did. He destroyed a lot of my purple heart stuff.

[27:45] JON HEGWOOD: Your citation was lost, if I recall.

[27:47] DAVID: Yep.

[27:47] JON HEGWOOD: But the metal didn't burn.

[27:50] DAVID: Correct.

[27:50] JON HEGWOOD: Or the ribbon.

[27:52] DAVID: And the ribbon in the metal to this day is nice and secure in the nice, wonderful picture that you got me. Well, I got the picture. I have the. You got me the frame. So you framed everything for me? I did.

[28:05] JON HEGWOOD: Do you have any advice for the military couples?

[28:10] DAVID: I would say advice for other military couples is, you know, if both of you are in the military, both of you understand, just be flexible. Trust that your partner is doing their job. Trust that, you know, they're coming home late because of work and spend as much time that you can together, but at the same time, still give yourself your own personal free time. You know, like with us, I like to call it vegging out where you'll be up here, actually in the office, and you'll be gaming, and I'll be downstairs watching tv or playing on my phone and also gaming. Or we can literally be in the same room together and we're gaming, but we're not, like, talking with each other. We're vegging and doing our own personal stuff. And I think that's healthy. But at the same time, we go to a lot of places together, we do a lot of things together. And I. I think we push each other, you know, to do more things. And everything else, I will say you do more of the pushing because I wouldn't. I'm I'm definitely the homebody. You know, I'm out. You work from home? Currently, I actually go into my office. So when I get home, I want to be home. I don't want to be away. I want to actually sit back and relax and spend time with you and our son.

[29:54] JON HEGWOOD: You were like this before COVID and I was working remotely, though. You've always been a home buddy.

[29:58] DAVID: It's true.

[29:59] JON HEGWOOD: Don't play my room. We're working.

[30:01] DAVID: But you do. I will say this. You do talk me into going places.

[30:06] JON HEGWOOD: I'm very persuasive.

[30:07] DAVID: You are persuasive. You actually have the capabilities of planting the seeds, so to speak. You'll bring something up to me a week or two or more in advance. And then, as you say, I have the council of David. So when I'm driving to work, where I'm driving home, I'm literally going through all these thought processes in my 20 to 40 minutes drive, depending on traffic. And I'm sitting there, and I was like, hey, you know what? This actually sounds like a really good idea. And then I come home and I bring up the idea to you, and you just look at me and smile, and you're like, well, when do you want to go? Because. And then when we leave, finally to go to said location, you bring up and be like, you know, I already told you about this place, and I let it be that it was your idea, so. But I don't remember that it was my idea until we got there, so.

[31:07] JON HEGWOOD: That'S about right that, you know.

[31:09] DAVID: You know, council of David works out very, very well.

[31:14] JON HEGWOOD: All right, so you mentioned earlier that you were injured while you were downrange, and we talked about your purple heart.

[31:23] DAVID: Yes.

[31:23] JON HEGWOOD: Did you want to talk about that?

[31:25] DAVID: You know, I'll try.

[31:29] JON HEGWOOD: Okay.

[31:31] DAVID: Especially after talking about a funny moment, I could probably get through it a little bit easier. I am a Purple Heart recipient. It was one of those medals that I never wanted in my career. We were actually in. We were in Mosul, and we were out doing observations. What they like to call for us was over overwatch. We would. Our platoon, which was the fires platoon. It consisted of me and my team of 13 foxes, Ford observers, and our two infantry teams. And they were mortar men, eleven Charlie's. And we were out, you know, doing. Just patrolling around, showing our presence. And the big part was we would go to some of the tallest hills in the city and look into the city or look into the outskirts of the city. And so we were doing all of that, and then it was getting late, so it was time for us to come back. And as we were coming back, there was really only two major thoroughfares, main roads going into our base. And as we were driving down, my vehicle was the lead vehicle and my section sergeant, staff sergeant Han, or actually Han, H a N. He was on R and R. He went back to the states. And I was the senior person in charge other than the Ltd. So I moved from the gunner position in the middle of the vehicle to the rear left sentry hatch position. And it was my job to make sure that I led our convoy back to keep in communication with the gate guards, letting them know that we were coming back. And so as we were driving down this nice, wonderful, long road, I had 3155 millimeter artillery shells that were buried under the sidewalk blow up next to my vehicle. I received shrapnel to the face, to my forearm. My weapon got hit as well, my m four. My vest took a lot. And, you know, to the credit of the driver, which he's a really good friend of mine. Now, still, Fred, he wasn't following sop. And I literally, right before the explosion, I told him to get away from the edge and move closer to the middle of the road. He heard me, but he hadn't started moving yet. And luckily he didn't. After we received contact, the explosion, we actually started getting shot at. Our vehicle lost. I know I'm jumping around a little bit, but our vehicle lost all of its power, or at least all of its auxiliary power. Our brake lines were cut, our fluids were cut and everything else. But the shock and the explosion knocked me out a little bit. It, like, knocked me down and dazed me. So I fell into my hatch. I caught my. I caught my guard and surroundings. I woke up. My. Lt was shaking me. He was bleeding a little bit from his face. Our gunner, he was leaning over our 50 cow. And I was worried that he was dead because he sits up the highest. So I went under inside of the vehicle, and I was checking on him, and he was fine, but bleeding a little bit myself. And the vehicle actually caught the most and were the most damaged. But I stood back up and I grabbed my m four. And communications inside of vehicle were completely, completely out. But going back to Fred, not being in the middle of the road and driving per sop, if Fred was driving in the middle of the road and the explosion happened the way it happened, the explosion would have had the opportunity to actually expand completely out. And at the very least, I would have been extremely mean or dead. I didn't know that. That's my Purple Heart.

[37:15] JON HEGWOOD: Do you have any traditions to honor the people that you guys lost down there?

[37:19] DAVID: Um, I would say overall traditions is, you know, you and I actually, every memorial day we go to base. I'm going to let you talk about our tradition.

[37:38] JON HEGWOOD: We'll take a break. Do you have any traditions to honor those that you guys lost in Iraq?

[37:48] DAVID: We do, actually, you and I do. Every memorial day weekend we go to base, we go to the cemetery, we do the ceremony where we participate and watch and view the ceremony on, at the cemetery on joint basalism cord. And then there's also a area that is dedicated from like all the units across base have put memorial statues or memorial objects and memorial base actually named it now Memorial park. And we typically sit there and watch one of the units go through all of their stuff and name off people's names. Everything that unit does that every single year. This past year, we actually stayed the entire time and we had our son Ryan with us and so he could have a better understanding of all of it. And then you and I grab a small little cigar and we share it at the memorial to.

[39:09] JON HEGWOOD: Tasted awful.

[39:10] DAVID: It did taste awful. Um, but we, it's something we still do. We light it, um, have a puff. Have a puff. And uh, yeah, so I go through and I read all the names and I recognize the names of, uh, a few soldiers that we lost from my troop when, uh, we were over there. We lost several in our squadron, but those two we lost in our troop directly.

[39:43] JON HEGWOOD: What do you want Ryan to know about your military service?

[39:46] DAVID: What do I want Ryan to know? Um, you know, our son, our, you know, our kid wants to join the military. He wants to join the air force.

[39:56] JON HEGWOOD: Smart kid.

[39:57] DAVID: Smart. Definitely smart. We've been talking to him about college and going the officer realm and everything else, you know, to this day, I still bring it up to him every once in a while. I tell him, you know, do your best in school now, pay attention to what's going on and then try to get a little bit more organized. The military is all about its paperwork. It's all about being organized, listening to directions that people are giving you. There's always somebody above you that's going to give you an order and just deal with it and go through it. Not everything is a needs a conversation afterwards.

[40:43] JON HEGWOOD: Do you have a message for future Ryan? Like for me here?

[40:50] DAVID: It's going to make me cry, but I would say future adult Ryan, we are proud of you, we love you and just continue growing into a wonderful human being.

[41:15] JON HEGWOOD: Thanks for sitting with me. That was a ride, wasn't it?

[41:20] DAVID: It was. And thank you for asking questions.

[41:25] JON HEGWOOD: I love you.

[41:25] DAVID: I love.