Dan Snyder

              Betsy Hedler: Today is August 31, 2010, my name is Betsy Hedler, and I will be interviewing retired colonel Dan Snyder of the Ohio National Guard. The interviewing is being conducted in media room 2 at the Findlay Hancock County Public Library. It is part of an oral history project by the Ohio Historical Society to preserve the stories and experiences of service men and their family members for future generations. I do want to get on tape that you’ve read and signed the release forms and you know that we’re putting this stuff in the archives in Columbus. We’re hoping to make parts or maybe the whole interview available online at the Ohio Memory Website for the edification of future generations. Ok and this one is a little goofy but for the record would you say your full name?

Dan Snyder: Daniel M. Snyder. Martin is my middle name.

H: Do you like your middle name?

S: No

H: Could you tell me a little about your background, where and when you were born, that kind of thing?

S: I was born in Lima, Ohio and grew up in Ada, Ohio. My father was the editor and publisher of the Ada Harold for nearly forty-five to fifty years. As was his father and I was supposed to be pointed in that direction but I changed my mind in my career choice as I went through college. I graduated from Ada High School and played football for Jim Tressel’s father. He was the coach for Ada High School. Lee Tressel was his name; there’s a little historical point for interest maybe. 

H: And I noticed your tie is scarlet and gray, I love that. It’s probably not deliberate though. 

S: No

H: You get to notice those things when you live in Columbus. So do you remember what it was in college that made you decide to switch to law?

S: Yes. In my freshman and sophomore years at the college of Wooster, I liked political science. I determined that would be the major that I would love to continue, and I did. Political science of course as you know is acclimated somewhat towards the study of law so that headed me in the direction and I decided to go into law school. 

H: You finished law school before you decided to go into the guard, is that correct? 

S: Yes I went to Ohio State University Law School and like many at that time I got deferments from my local draft boards so that I could finish up my study at law school. 

H: So when and why did you join the guard? 

S: After I graduated from law school, I was returning to Ada. I had taken the Bar Exam and stopped at the draft board and was informed that I was the senior candidate to be drafted. That motivated me into weighing different branches of service. I called the local commander of the National Guard and he said that he had a slot for me so I went down and I signed up at the Ohio National Guard. 

H: So to some extent it was about not being drafted?

S: Yeah part of that, although my father was a Major in the First World War and went through the trenches over in France and Germany. I had a feeling of an obligation to serve my country to say the least.

H: What was your first experience or first memory of the Guard?

S: Well I remember basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. It was interesting because there were a lot of students and/or graduates like myself down there. The Sergeants down there had a great way of making us feel like humble people by making us do things like calling out the college graduates in the morning and explaining to the rest of the troops that, “The educated people today are going to teach the uneducated people how to clean latrines.” So we would be handed the appropriate mops and rags and sponges to show the other troops how to clean the latrines because of our education. There were several incidents like that because you’re kind of cocky when you graduate college. You’re ready to conquer the world but the army has a way of teaching you that you aren’t going to conquer the world you just need to get in line with everybody else. It was a good education for me. The other part of it is that I came from, not a wealthy home, but a middle class home and I never thought about people that didn’t have enough to eat or clothes. I remember we were eating in the mess hall one day and this Puerto Rican boy from New York City nudged me and said, “You know Dan, this is the best food I’ve ever eaten!” and I just thought, “Oh my.” That was a startling thing to someone who never thought about someone who didn’t have much to eat in their life early on.

H: Did the drill sergeant get you anything special because you were a law school graduate?

S: Yes, that came into play. They would sometimes have me stand up on a chair in the mess hall since I was so well educated and recite either one of the schedules for the day or something like that so that everybody could learn from me. Of course I got needled about that as you can imagine. That was all part of the adjustment that you make. 

H: Now did you pass the Bar when you went into the Guard?

S: I passed the Bar just as I went into the Guard. I think I joined in April of ’59 and I had just received word that I had passed the Bar. 

H: It’s good that you weren’t trying to study for the Bar and go through basic training at the same time. That might not have worked. 

S: That would not have worked for sure.

H: When did you decide you wanted to be an officer?

S: I worked my way up to Sergeant after about three years and I was head of the communications section of the company in Ada, Ohio. The Berlin Crisis occurred with the Russians rattling their sabers and I got a letter through the mail saying, “Your time is about up; however, we have decided you need to stay in a little longer.” At that point in time I went in to see the company commander and he said, “You know I think we’re going to be mobilized the way things are looking. You should perhaps think about going to officer school.” I was right at the borderline age of almost being too old so I went home and talked to my family and wife and decided that was the thing to do. I was married at that time. In fact my wife was awarded a degree that Ohio State Law School gives to wives for helping their husbands through and it’s called, “Putting Hubby through Degree.” She was awarded that at my graduation. It was kind of a neat thing. 

H: So what kind of things did you need to do to make it past Sergeant and into the commissioned ranks? 

S: Well you drill every weekend as do the regular guardsmen. But you do it usually in a different place with a class of guys going through at the same time. At that time our Officers Candidate School was located in Columbus but once a month we would gather and start through the instructional phases. We also did the physical training which was very tough, and the OCS. I was doing that for about a year and then finally we ended up at Camp Perry for the final two and a half week session. That ends up being your graduation when you’re done. It’s pretty rigorous schooling to go through but it’s well worth going through.

H: It says here you started out as a Second Lieutenant in 1963.

S: Yes, that’s correct. 

H: By 1988 you’d made Colonel. 

S: That’s true. 

H: Give me some idea about the steps between those two. I know it’s First Lieutenant then Captain but what else?

S: There are many steps in that process. You usually start out like I did as a Platoon leader, leading about forty young soldiers in an organization called a Platoon. After you’ve done that for about three years if you’re doing a good job they’ll promote you to a First Lieutenant. First Lieutenants usually end up being Company Executive Officers or staff officers. I elected to be a Company Executive Officer of the company I was in. Again that lasted for about a three or four year period. When I was promoted to Captain I became a company commander, which is about 160 young men. I held that for maybe five years before I was promoted to Major. Majors are located at what we call a Battalion headquarters. There are several Major slots, I think I held them all. I moved back and forth. There’s a Training Officer and an Executive Officer but I guess that’s all we had at Battalion level. Then of course the Battalion Commander is usually a Lieutenant Colonel but again I worked my way through that process and became a Lieutenant Colonel so I was eligible to command the Battalion, which I did for four or five years. Eventually they take you down to headquarters and if you’re lucky you become a Colonel. If you have four years as a Colonel then you either have to get promoted to General or you’re out. I was nip and tuck with another Colonel and he won and I was out. So that is kind of the progression through the various stages of officer promotion. 

H: So what is the difference between Executive Officer and Staff Officer? Back when a First Lieutenant has to pick to be Executive or go to Staff? 
S: He really doesn’t choose that but you are consulting with your Senior Officer, which is usually your Commander. And he asks, “Lieutenant what would you like to do? Would you like to stay in the line company or go to a headquarters company?” I always wanted to do something different on the weekends than I did during the week. That’s when I decided I liked being an Infantry Officer, which is what I made my career. I stayed within that rather than go over to be the JAG Officer which I certainly could have done but I decided not to. 

H: That was going to be one of my big questions. How did you civilian occupation and Guard occupation go together? Obviously you didn’t go for the JAG Officer. 

S: There are problems with it, you have to organize your time a little better, you usually know in advance when you’re going to annual training. You know that six or eight months in advance so you can organize your time as a lawyer and set the trial so you have your commitments handled by a partner at that time or do them when you get back. To get that schedule together all the time is hard but you do your best. Once in awhile I would go to the judge and say, “Judge, I’m going to be gone that Friday to Fort Knox for rifle training and I just can’t be here.” usually the judge would continue the case or the motions or whatever was pending. They cooperated really well. I got good cooperation from everybody about that. 

H: So were you actually the kind of lawyer that does trials? Because I know not everyone does. 

S: Yes that’s right I am not doing very much of that anymore, but I certainly spent the first forty-five years of my practice of law having trials. I did domestic relations, and personal injury and some criminal trials. Yes I did quite a bit of trials. 

H: Now when I asked for biographical information you sent me a list that you called Series of Duty. My basic plan at this point, cause I have this feeling that these are things you either talked about or have in your mind to talk about. So my plan is basically to go down the list and start with the tornado. 

S: Ok, the tornado is the first thing that I remember that stands out in my mind as an extra duty that I had. In the early ‘60s there was what we called the Palm Sunday Tornado. That’s the name we used because it obviously occurred on Palm Sunday. It tore through Ohio and it damaged many homes and many businesses and we were called to duty to secure areas where the tornado had gone through. We kept onlookers and looters and people that weren’t supposed to be there out. That way people that lived there could move back into their homes and clean up and work around the fallen down homes. That was a kind of interesting experience. I remember driving over to Kenton, Ohio and there as a huge mobile home park on the west end. We drove past that and there wasn’t a mobile home to be seen except for rows of toilets and rows of sinks. It gave you a weird feeling, where were all the mobile homes? Where were all the people? What happened here? In fact we found a baby lying in a field crying upon our first arrival. We got the baby hooked up with the parents eventually, but those were the kinds of things we did. It was a pretty unusual duty, but it was a duty we were trained to do. Secure places and secure things. That just stands out in my mind as one of the early contributions that the Guard was able to do in my career for the state of Ohio. 

H: Now what point in your career were you at that time?

S: I was a Lieutenant in Ada. It was the C company of the Ohio Army National Guard. 

H: As you know the next one is truckers’ strike. 

S: Yes, I had moved then to a unit in Ottawa, Ohio. The governor called out the National Guard because there had been some riotous incidents in Northeastern Ohio due to the truckers’ strike. I got my Company together and we drove through a snowstorm. I was nervous about us even getting there to Youngstown, Ohio. Our duty there was to secure the overpasses because that’s where they were throwing rocks at trucks and creating all kinds of problems. Plus I put a squad all around the trucker union hall so that if there was any trouble there we would know about it. That’s where they would frequently meet to plan and plot problems. That was an interesting duty to say the least, but again it was something we were trained to do, security stuff. It was tough work standing out in freezing cold weather, guarding overpasses, it was not an easy thing to do. 

H: I have to apologize at this point, I know pretty much nothing about the truckers’ strike.

S: If they saw a fellow trucker coming down the road they would do anything they could to throw rocks through the windshields. They would do anything to stop someone who was a scab in their opinion driving a truck. That was the kind of problem we had but people had to get food and everything else they needed from trucks so of course there were truckers that didn’t participate in the strike and we had to be there to take care of that problem. I guess I made that list for you for the purpose of showing people in the future that the Ohio National Guard isn’t just a weekend warrior group; they’re people who are ready at the drop of a bucket to go to a disaster or problem in the state of Ohio and solve it. That’s an important educational thing that is not generally known by the public. 

H: Tell me about the snowstorm.

S: The snowstorm. Oh my, that was again a little bit of a terrifying experience because we had people snowed in six to eight feet of snow that couldn’t get out. How were they staying warm? So we would fly in our helicopters and if we didn’t see tracks leading from farm homes we would drop down and have someone knock on the door and see if there was a problem of any kind. We would have to deliver workers to the hospitals because they couldn’t get there. With a list of who the nurses and doctors were we would go around and pick them up to make sure they got to the hospitals. We went up and down the highways and we would find cars that were snowed over and had people in them. We had to get the snow out of the way and get those people out of the vehicles so they could get into warmth and get something to eat. I’d say Ohio was very lucky and certainly part of that was due to the Guard and how fast the Guard moved. We saved a lot of lives in that snowstorm. I’ll bet we saved 100 lives in that storm. There were only a couple deaths in all of Northwestern Ohio because of that storm. 

H: That was the storm of ’73?

S: Yeah that was an amazing thing. Let’s hope we don’t ever have that problem again. 

H: Let’s hope the Guard is here if we do. 

S: Yes

H: Now the OSU thing, we talked a little bit about, you showed me the letter that you had written after it, but this was a student protest around the same time as the one we’re familiar with at Kent State?

S: We were there immediately at the Kent State problem. We reported to Ohio State and there was a brigade of soldiers down there. In a battalion there’s probably 360-400 and in a brigade there are probably three or four battalions so you can see how many people were there. We had the capability of preventing any problems at Ohio State, but the powers that be on campus were just so nervous and concerned about the Kent State thing being right behind that they really didn’t utilize us the way they should have. I had a company that consisted of a dozen Vietnam veterans who would shoot at a bush when they saw it move, they were still of that mentality. It was difficult for them when someone would come up and grab their rifle, for them to maintain their ability to keep calm, cool, and collected in a situation like that. It was again the ability of our people knowing about Kent State to be very conservative in our actions and our activities. We did that and tried to stay away from crowds unless the crowds were breaking windows and doing things they weren’t supposed to be doing, then we’d sometimes have to go in and do something to push them away. Every morning I would take my company in front of the big library down on campus and would wait until maybe there would be a couple hundred students gathered. At that time I would yell, “Lock and load fifteen shells,” or whatever it was. And the troops would do that. I did that because for some reason they would say because of Kent State we were not having any ammunition in our weapons. It was necessary that that word spread that we did have ammunition and there would have been a possibility of a situation occurring. There wasn’t thank God. I recall the students coming up sometimes and trying to grab our weapons. That was a no no. you read that I wrote about the ROTC graduation which was just terrible. It brought tears to my eyes because these senior co-eds with these beautiful uniforms were marching up to get their degrees and they were harassed and pestered. I kept saying, “Sir let me go down there and solve that problem.” But we never got the word to do that. That was a great experience and I’m sure that it was about the last significant student riot that occurred in the United States of America. If you stop and think about it we really haven’t had anything like that again, thank God. They had to close the university and I thought that was a mistake, that let loose 40,000 students with nothing to do. Why would you close the university and let them run around? That was wrong, but I wasn’t in charge of making those decisions. But that was a great experience for our troops. We were there for three to four weeks and one Saturday night I remember we were over in St. Johns and that’s where we stayed with our cots. 

H: St. John’s Arena?

S: Yes, I saw one of the Ohio State assistant coaches go by and I grabbed him and I said, “Hey we’ve got troops here and we can’t do anything, we’re stuck for the weekend. Might you have some football films that I could show the troops?” At seven ‘o’clock that evening, in walked Woody Hayes with some films under his arms. He put on these films and the troops just cheered and loved every minute of it. It was a little insignificant thing but it was significant to them. It was a big thing and it was a morale booster for my troops that were stuck there with nothing to do. I couldn’t let them out and I had to keep them there. It was a great contribution that Woody Hayes made to the Ohio National Guard. 

H: So you guys actually had to stay after they let the students home? 

S: Oh sure, we had to stay and secure the buildings. Their security people didn’t have the ability that we had to move around in military vehicles. We had all kinds of routes around the campus that we ran all the time. I was going down High Street in my quarter ton and I heard a “ping” and sure enough, someone across the street had fired at my quarter ton. That wakes you up too by the way. You say, “Oh I didn’t plan on this.” We tried to find out who did it but we never did find out. I still had a hole in my quarter ton for the rest of the time I was Commander over there.  It was quite an experience we had over there. 

H: It couldn’t have been a very significant hole in a quarter ton though. So were there incidents of facing down students? What did you do? You said that you didn’t really get to react to stuff.

S: Well it was interesting because normally we kind of kept our distance from them and they kept their distance. The students also knew about Kent State but they also knew that we had bullets because I was making them aware of them each morning, so most of the time they didn’t get very close to us. I remember one incident; however, we were backed up against our vehicles getting ready to leave when there was a surge of students that were almost face to face with my troops and grabbing weapons. Finally I yelled for my troops to drop their weapons into the aiming position. As a matter of fact we cut a couple of students with our bayonets and they backed away. I don’t know what we would have done if they would have kept pushing us, we didn’t have anywhere to go because we were backed against our trucks. It was not a good feeling knowing that I had Vietnam veterans in my unit that would not have hesitated to deal some serious blows to the student population.

H: Did the Guard actually go to Vietnam or did they join after they came home? How did you get Vietnam veterans?

S: Like we are getting Iraq veterans now, frequently what will happen is that we’ll get segments of soldiers that will go on tours like Vietnam and they actually either enjoy it, or they have no family to go back to. Some of them, when you’re reaching about ten years in the service, they can come to the Guard and finish out another ten years for their retirement, which is a pretty good income for a young person to have at the end of twenty years of service to your country. That would be another source of veterans. If you’re an officer and you get rift out of the regular service, but you are a capable soldier then the Guard may pick you up and let you finish out until your retirement. That’s not unusual to have veterans. We’re getting a lot of Iraq veterans now and I’m sure we’ll be getting a lot from Afghanistan in the near future as that is winding down. It’s amazing the caliber of Guardsmen as opposed to the caliber of regular army people. Let me give you an example of that. When I was a battalion commander in Michigan we were being evaluated by a Colonel of the 101st Airborne. I met him one morning at 0700 and he said, “Colonel take me around and show me your troops and what they’re doing.” So I said, “Yes sir.” So the Findlay unit was right there handy and he went up and he the first troop he saw was a sergeant and he said, “Sergeant, what do you do in civilian life?” and he says, “Sir, I’m a layer.” That shook him a little and he went over to the next sergeant he saw and he said, “Sergeant, what do you do in civilian life?” and he says, “Well I’m a history professor at the University of Findlay.” And he went to my next sergeant and he said, “I’m a service director for a city in Coshocton.” Finally he turned to me and he said, “You know you’re the luckiest officer in the whole world. I would give my right arm to have these guys in the regular army. It’s amazing the talent you have. I don’t think that’s unusual either.”  Maybe I’m just lucky he was asking the right guys. But like I said, the calibers of the people in the Guard are of a much higher level of intelligence and practicality than those in a regular service. It makes the Guard special. 

H: Now I’ve been waiting to get to this one for several weeks. Cause the next one on your list says: exotic dancer/South Carolina. Let me back up though, was this the first duty that was outside of Ohio, or is this list in no particular order?

S: No, we have trained at Fort Campbell, we have trained at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, we have trained at Fort Ripley in Minnesota, and the point is that we vary where we go for our training for obvious reasons. If you go to the same place every time then eventually you don’t even need a map you already know where to turn right because of habit, you’ve done it a hundred times. But if you go to a new place you force the soldiers to get their maps out and study their maps as for how to get from point A to point B and that’s good training for them. It’s rough to get to some of those places, because you have to convoy your vehicles. In McCoy you have to go around Chicago, now picture that with 3 or 4 hundred trucks. I remember we were going through those quarter deals where you have to put a quarter in for every vehicle. We had passes for most of those but we came to one where they had just changed shifts and this gal came out and said, “Sir you can’t do that.” I said, “Yes I can.” She said, “Who are you and why are you doing this?” I said, “Well behind me is 50 vehicles, and we’re going through here.” She said, “No I have to call my supervisor.” I said, “Lady, these vehicles are moving, if you stop these vehicles you’re going to have some of the worst traffic jams that you’ve ever had in Chicago in the history of mankind!” She almost stood in my way but finally I just waved my quarter ton on and went to the vehicles behind me and said, “Just keep going through and don’t stop no matter what.” So she was over there waving her arms and we were going right through this deal. We of course had permission from the governor and the whole deal to do this but she just was one that didn’t get the word. It’s a struggle to get all those vehicles to a place to train. You have to usually leave a day or so earlier to get the vehicles there when you get the troops there. You need the mechanics there to get them working and in good shape. It’s just a side thing. But your question was, “Do we go to other places to train?” and the answer is yes, we do quite frequently. 

H: Now you’re not going to get out of telling me about the exotic dancers in South Carolina that easily. Unless you really want to. 

S: I had probably the best rifle company in the state of Ohio. I’m not bragging but it was a fact. Word came through our general in Columbus that the 101st and the 82nd airborne had an exercise down at Fort Brag or around the Fort Brag are and they needed some aggressor enemy guys and they wondered if the general had a company that would like to do that. So the call went through the chain of command and my phone rang and the battalion commander said, “Say, what do you think about taking the battalion and your company down to Fort Brag for your summertime?” It was three week total I think. I said, “Sir, we’d love to do that.” So we went down to Wright-Patterson airport base and loaded all the troops on these big C1A planes that are monstrous things, and we flew down to Fort Brag. The name of the exercise, which I didn’t choose, was The Exotic Dancer. We ended up being the enemy for the 101st and the 82nd. We got very good at that to the point where there people were getting reprimanded because we seemed to have a hunch as to where their helicopters were going to land. We’d pick out the fields the night before and thought, “If I were them then this is what I’d do,” so we got our troops around an area that I was fairly convince that they were going to land the helicopters, so of course when they landed we’d fire our blank ammo at them and the commanders would get eaten out pretty bad for not checking out the area before they landed those helicopters. It was a great experience. The bad part about it was that it must have rained everyday while we were there. I remember one time I wanted to check on one of my companies and here were troops sound asleep on their air mattresses floating out of their tents. Now that’s bad. Even though it was miserable weather it was a great experience. We had a wonderful time with that exercise. I suppose some frustrated general named that the exotic dancer. I don’t know where that name came from but it certainly didn’t come from my level. It was a wonderful experience though.  

H: Now I feel all cheated.

S: But you know they name everything the military does as some named exercise. You’ve probably never heard exotic dancer though.

H: No I guess they don’t use those kinds of names for the big things like the Invasion of Normandy. 

S: That’s true. Anyway it was a wonderful experience that we had. We got all kinds of accommodations from the 101st and 82nd, and even our own general for the job we did. My troops loved that. You always love to outsmart the kind of people that you’re against, and when you can do that then that’s a feather in your cap. It worked out wonderful. 

H: When it’s that kind of unit that you can outsmart you must feel particularly good. 

S: Yes, last weekend one of the officers that I had at that time is now a general and we had a reunion last weekend. He brought that up, saying, “Sir that was one of the greatest experiences that I have ever had in my entire life. Exotic Dancers.” It’s interesting that a guy who has made it to a general now still remembers that exercise with a great name. One of the things I left off in there was that we went down for the Olympics in Atlanta as security people. That was a great experience for my troops. We went down there and kind of were watch dogs of strange activities that we would report back to the policemen and the sheriffs that would come and check on things. That was again an interesting duty that the Guardsmen get involved in. After the hurricane in New Orleans, the first ones to clear the building where all the problems were that you kept hearing about on TV…

H: Oh either the Superdome or the Convention Center. 

S: Oh yes, it was the Superdome that was the name of it! Well the Ohio Guardsmen were the first ones there to help clear the building. So again, examples of what we do and I don’t think people know these things. The average citizens aren’t aware of all the missions that the Guard gets and that we complete well. 

H: Now when you were in Atlanta do you know if it was part of the original plan for the Olympic security or were you called down after? Because there was a bomb at the Atlanta Olympics. 

S: No, we were there when the bomb went off so it was a planned security that the Olympic people knew that they didn’t have the ability to secure an area that large with the people they had so they called on the Guard and besides the                        Guard, they were there in full force. That was another good exercise that the Guard was involved in that I was proud to be a part of. 

H: Now I’m off on a personal interest here if I’m wondering then other people probably will at some point. Do you actually have loaded weapons when you’re doing that kind of security detail?

S: Yes we do.

H: Ok because I had heard rumors that you didn’t.

S: Well my granddad said a question that you never want to ask, “Is the gun loaded?” Don’t ever ask that question. 
 
H: Good point. Now you were going to tell me about Fort Campbell, or had you already talked about that? 

S: Well a little bit. We went down to Fort Campbell and were there for about two and half weeks. It was in the middle of summer and it was hot. I mean 100 degree type weather daily. One of the days I was training my troops and the officer of the day at Fort Campbell came out and said, “Sir, I’m supposed to tell you that they cancelled all the training at Fort Campbell because we have guys passing out from the heat and all that.” And I said, “Well that might be true but we’re just here for two weeks and we’re going to keep training, not hard, but we’re going to keep training because we have to accomplish so many things while we’re here.” One of the missions we accomplished then was beach defense. 

H: I’m sorry but when was this? 

S: I want to say the early ‘80s. And so we had to clear an area and make it like a beach and all these soldiers that were at Fort Campbell came out to see some wild commander that was working on making a beach in the middle of the hills and dales where there isn’t any water in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. So it was a great exercise. We made a heck of a beach there and it’s still there because we cut down trees and we scraped land until we had a sandy beach, we literally had to do that. We set up our defenses around that beach area. The only bad thing about it, and I felt bad about it was the heat. Scraping these areas clear like we had to, our troops got into poison ivy, and I saw bubbles of poison ivy wheals on troops. We sent some of them to the hospital, I felt bad. That part was not very much fun. 

H: I can’t imagine the heat was either.

S: No, that’s terrible heat down there, it’s dry heat. It’s awful, it’s like Arizona I think. 

H: That’s Fort Campbell, Kentucky isn’t it?

S: Yes. The other experience that we got down there that you didn’t ask me about is that I took a unit over to England. We trained at Wales. The interesting part of that was that we trained with a Scot battalion from Scotland. It was a very educational process because my troops learned about the different priorities that a military overseas has compared to the way we operate. An example of that is the English and Scot armies rely much more on their NCOs which are sergeants, than we do. We rely on our lieutenants more to do the tough work and lead the units. Over there it’s the sergeants that do that. I got in the rover with my rover-driver that was assigned to me. We went out to the mortar range and I was walking along and I looked over and I saw white stuff flying up out of the hill. I went over to one of the soldiers and I asked if I could use his binoculars because I wanted to see what that was. So I looked and here there was a herd of sheep on this hill about a half mile away and they were firing the mortars and of course they’d hit one and they’d clap. So I said, “I don’t understand, over where we come from we don’t shoot sheep you know? That’s a no no.” They said, “Well the deal is that we have open ranges and the farmers’ sheep just wander around where ever because they have no fences. So sorry if they happen to get on the mortar range then they’re gone!” I thought that was weird but then they got me and said, “Major, what are you doing here on the range? We never have officers on the range.” And I said, “What?” and they said, “The NCOs run this range and you’re distracting my troops would you please go?” and I said, “Yes, I certainly will.” And I got in my rover and left. Again, a lesson about how if that had been one of our ranges it would have been covered with lieutenants at every position doing that kind of thing, but not so over there. My troops got tired however of eating mutton. The Scots like to eat mutton and they have gravy with biscuits for breakfast and at lunch they have mutton burgers and stewed tomatoes and for supper they have mutton steaks. And if you don’t like mutton then you’re in deep doo doo over there because that’s the main course. Like hamburgers are over here, that’s how they eat over there. So on the weekend that they had off I took my troops into London to look around and we got within high range of McDonalds and one of my troops said, “Sir if you don’t stop and let us get a McDonald’s hamburger then you’re in deep trouble.” They wanted a variance from that mutton that they’d been eating. 

H: As long as they weren’t getting that mutton that they were shooting from the mortar range. 

S: No, I don’t think that’s where it was coming from. 

H: Now this was in about the ‘80s right? So you were a Major by that point? 

S: I was a Major so rather than being the direct commander I was the guy in charge of all the coordination and anytime we had somebody injured I was the guy that had to take them to the hospital and get clearances for everybody and everything. But it was very interesting the tradition of the Scot armed forces is a fascinating thing. For example they had a banquet before we left. They opened up these trunks and everything was sterling silver that they put on the tables and it was just fascinating that each piece had been presented to them by a general or a colonel in the name of the Huschbra family or whatever you know. It was a fascinating thing, another example would be that in four ‘o’clock in the afternoon the first afternoon I was there I feel a tug on my uniform. My driver says, “Sir, you’re supposed to meet the Colonel this afternoon at four ‘o’clock.” Well that’s the middle of my training time, I don’t go meet people at that time but I said, “Ok” because we’re with foreign people so I better do that. So I go and the Colonel says, “Four ’o’clock everyday all my officers gather and we do toasts to our Scottish ancestors.” Ok, and drinking warm scotch at four ‘o’clock in the afternoon is not something I recommend for anyone. I don’t know how the Scots do that but they do.

H: It probably helps with the fact that the NCOs do most of the work.

S: I think it was an eye-opening experience for our NCOs to take more responsibility. I think that was a lesson learned, an important lesson learned. I’ll bet you that carried over in that unit and the result was that they felt more important and that they felt they should be more aggressive. I think that was a great lesson learned. Take the responsibility and not take over the lieutenant’s job but at least do a lot more than they had been doing. A lot of them tend to rely on their lieutenants to do things that they should have been doing so I think it was a good lesson learned. So that was a great great experience and I’m sure today that every one of those troops still talks about on Saturday night their experience in Wales with Major Snyder. So I don’t know what else I had on the list.

H: Well I have Fort Ripley.

S: Oh yeah, that was winter training. We went up there in February and we had to teach the troops to ski on snow and use snow shoes and winter equipment and learn how to operate our equipment in snowy conditions which we have some around here yes, but nothing like they have up there. Helping us train was the 10th Mountain Division, which was the New York Snow Division. Those guys train in the Alps and do all kinds of crazy things. They’re accustomed and they helped train us in snow tactics and cold weather tactics and it was another great experience that the troops had by doing a different type of training that they needed to do at that point in time we were still concerned about the Russians that we might have to do some work over in the Russian area. 

H: Help me out, where is Fort Ripley?

S: Minnesota. Northern Minnesota.  

H: Oh there would be more snow there then.

S: It was really snowy. It was interesting that I guess I didn’t know but the 10th Mountain Division at that point in time were issued white uniforms. It was amazing you could not see them when they were half to ¾ a mile away. You would think they would stand out but they didn’t, they had the appropriate uniforms that blended right in with that snow.  

H: There you are in the jungle camouflage and you’re standing right out. 

S: Yeah our troops looked kind of funny in those jungle deals. But it still was another great experience. 

H: Now one of the last things chronologically that you would have done was Joint Task Force Aleutians?

S: Yes. That didn’t involve a lot of troops but in my career that was one of the most fascinating things I did. I got assigned to this Task Force Aleutian, and its mission was to plan the solution of this island. And I was the planning officer. So I would work with the army, the navy, the air force, the marines, and the coast guard on how we would defend those islands. At that time those islands had some very high level secret things on them and they had to be defended at all costs. The question was how we were going to do it. For example I went out to the farthest island which was Attou, as you land on Attou Island, you look over and there’s Russia. That’s how close you are. It’s not a very big island, it is now, and has been occupied by a unit of the coast guard. I said, “Why are you here?” in fact I accused the commander of the coast guard that was there of doing some bad things because no one would ever get assigned to the end of the Aleutian Islands, unless they’d really messed up someplace. But anyways they were running this signal station there and that also bothered me, I said, “Hey this is 1980 something, why in the world would you have a signal station here?” and they said, “Well Russia had convinced the United Nations that this is a key point and their ships were running off of our signal station at the end of the Aleutian Islands.” I thought that was kind of weird because we were at that time doing the satellite signals. But anyways, those people that were assigned there, let me give you an example. I went into the recreation room and the checkerboards were all worn off. They had played checkers for so long on those checkerboards that they wore off the blocks. You don’t have anything to do and in the worst of weather you’re not allowed outside. This library is five times bigger than the building they were confined to. They had a little kitchen, a little rec room, and they had a dormitory for 35 guys and that was it. They couldn’t leave. So when the weather was nice they would go outside but they were in charge of running this signal station there and that’s all they did. I remember the commander said that they rotate those guys in and out of there annually because you couldn’t stand much more than a year of being confined there. But I also spent a lot of time on Adack Island which is in the middle of the Aleutians. It’s run by the navy. I worked with them. There’s an air force base on Shemya, which was another nearby island and so I spent a lot of time on there. Kodiak Island is where the coast guard headquarters and I spent a lot of time there. It was fascinating to me, I’m kind of an outdoors guy anyway so I enjoyed seeing the wildlife and the different activities on Adack Isalnd. Before I had gotten there I read a book on how desolate it was. They have about a three month window to get their food for the rest of the year. I thought, “This is going to be fascinating.” So we land on Adack Island in one of the coast guard planes and I got out and walked underneath one of the building areas and then I come out and look up and there is a McDonalds on Adack Island in the middle of the Aleutians. I thought, “What was this author trying to tell me that wrote this book on how desolate this place is, when McDonalds is here?” Well the story there is that on Adack there were quite a few families. It was good to have a place for some of the families to work and keep busy because there wasn’t much there. I remember talking to the baker of the mess hall who was a civilian and I said, “What in the world are you doing here?” and he said, “Well I’ll tell you sir, they pay me 90,000 dollars a year to be a baker. There’s no place to spend my money. I’m going to do this for another two years and then go and buy myself a lodge in Alaska and not work for the rest of my life.” So he had that pretty well figured out except that he only got to go back to mainland Alaska twice a year. That’s all they would let him go because those planes that carry people back to the mainland were really restricted. You’d still have to think a long time to not be around your family except for a couple weeks a year. But it was just a side story. Anyways, I really enjoyed that duty, it was a really a fascinating duty. 

H: So you probably don’t want to tell me the details and the plans of the Aleutian Islands? 

S: I don’t think I should talk about those. It was fascinating though, the things that we did develop that I guess I can tell you. One of the officers that I would have supper with on Adack Island said, “Sir do you know that we know where every submarine in the world is?” I said, “C’mon, you’re kidding me.” And he said, “That building over there can tell you that.” Sensitive information or not, that’s an example of what we had up there. I remember they announced the President when he played that conversation of the Korean pilots shooting down one of our planes, that conversation was recorded on Adack Island. That’s the kind of equipment we had up there.

H: I find it interesting that the National Guard was part of the defense plan. The fact that they had National Guard people involved tends me to think that there’s Guard involvement everywhere. 

S: Well you know our Air Guard is even more intertwined with the air force than the Army Guard is with the army. They exchange planes and pilots and for example, all the refueling done by the military in the world is done by Air National Guard planes. Isn’t that interesting? That’s the kind of work that they do and the Army Guard hasn’t reached that level yet and probably never will. It’s fascinating to hear the pilots talk about their experiences. We work with them also. 

H: I wanted to ask you how your involvement with the Guard has impacted your life here, professionally or personally. Can you think of anything?

S: Well, I had regrets of not being around my family for years, literally. I worked til Friday at 4pm and jump in the car and be gone, and come back Sunday night and be whipped. Then get up Monday and go to work. I regret not having spent more time with my children when they were growing up. And things that I couldn’t do that an average lawyer would do, like playing golf on weekends and taking family trips and so forth, I just couldn’t do those kinds of things because I had my duty with the Guard. So the impact that it had on my family was a big impact and that’s still true today, these officers are being deployed for a year to Iraq and they’re missing their kids growing up and things that the ordinary people do that they can’t do. But on the other hand I think they feel like I did that that was a sacrifice that I had to make for my country. I felt strongly about that. 

H: I’m wondering about the Ohio National Guard Association that you’ve been involved in. You’re a past president I believe.

S: Ok that’s an association of Air Guard officers and Army Guard officers and retired officers, and they meet annually for a conference, usually in the spring. For some reason they always manage to meet about the time that Ohio State plays their spring game. I think that’s a coincidence but they do a lot of hard legislative work. For example, we worked real hard to get a new veterans allowance which just passed. We didn’t have all the World War II veterans or Korean veterans, we didn’t have anything for any of these recent veterans and that was wrong. So we legislated hard to get that changed. We have a big legislative company that consists of many retired officers that like to do that kind of stuff and have time on their hands. Then, at the national level they have an annual conference. Also, there’s a National Guard Association building off of Washington D.C. that we use and spend time at to get organized, to go around to see our Congressmen and chat with them about the problems we have and what equipment and funding we need, if any. It really has paid off. For example, last weekend I’m at Camp Perry, and they just got a real nice allotment to build a couple new buildings up there which they needed for our troops to stay when they’re being trained. The units that are up there this weekend are going to be deployed in about eleven months so they’re starting to train up for that deployment, and they need buildings to stay in. They shouldn’t be sleeping out in tents, at least in this stage of their training. So that gives you an idea of why those associations exist and what they do. They’re very important and they have brought to us a lot of things. A new GI Bill came about because of the hard work of the Guard Associations. They’re the ones that put the arm on Congress. See the active folk can’t do that, they’re not allowed to become involved in politics, but the retired officers through this association are allowed to do that so we get a lot of jealousy from the regular Army and the regular Air Force because we get funds that they think they should get. But they don’t have the ability to go around and twist the arms of Congressmen and Senators to get the job done. But on the other hand, they frequently take funds that we think we should get. So maybe it balances out I guess. But that should answer your question. They have social activities too, we have a dance in February, the Ohio Guard does and it’s always well attended, in addition to the Annual Conference. Then that legislative committee meets all the time, monthly almost. It’s an active group. 

H: I was talking to a fellow on Saturday who came back from deployment and had to get the lawyers involved to get his civilian employer to sort it out properly. As you know there are laws on the book, you know you can’t lose your job because you’re away in the Guard. Have you been involved in that at all?

S: Sure, I had a guy in the area that gets fed these issues, both active and Guard and we have a lot of questions that will pop up, some good, some not so good but questions that you’re pointing out, the employer requirements, not of the employers are aware of that, especially some of the small businesses don’t understand about that. About the time I get the issue I can call up the boss or the employer and say, “Hey, this isn’t right.” I had a Guardsman who worked for one of the utility companies, I don’t want to mention the name but when he would go away on weekends for his duty, he’d be slipped back down at the bottom for overtime. So he was always losing his overtime. So he said something to his commander about that and his commander called me and says, “Dan, this is not right. This guy should not be losing his overtime because he’s on drill weekend with the Guard.” So it just took one letter from me on my letterhead and the utility company straightened that out in a hurry. It was at a low level and I’m sure the upper people knew about it but you know this guy’s foreman who kept track of his time didn’t know about the law. That’s an example of calls I get. We get a lot of other disability calls and I have to direct people this way or that way. I’m by the way, also the National Judge Advocate for the AMVETs, the American Veterans Organization. That’s also another one of my duties. My wife says, “Why don’t you quit some of those things.” She looks in my calendar book and she just shakes her head. But hey that keeps me active and that’s important. 

H: What are some of the most significant changes you’ve seen in the Guard since you’ve come into it?

S: Equipment. We were talking about mortars awhile ago, it used to be that the mortars were fired on a plotting board that one of the members of the mortar crew would have and would figure out the angle of the fire and the distance of the round and so on and then adjust the tube to fire. Now that’s all on computer so no one has to do any of that figuring anymore, and that’s an example of the modern equipment that has changed all of those things, and of course night vision devices.  At a higher level, the ability to keep track of everybody which we couldn’t do before. We used to pick up the phone and say, “Where are you?” “Well I don’t know, where are you?” it used to be a fairly common conversation but not anymore. We know where everyone is and can keep track of everyone with the modern computers. That’s really changed warfare completely, now we have the use of drones. We just don’t expose our troops in this day and age except for the IED’s you read about, we don’t expose our troops in that way anymore. But you’re hearing about IED’s we have all kinds of robots run up and down the roads to detect these things and once in awhile they’ll miss one but they save a lot of lives, if it wasn’t for that kind of thing then it would be even worse in the way of loss of life. So that’s an example. 

H: Well is there anything that I haven’t asked you about today that you would like to talk about? Is there anything that I haven’t given you the opportunity for? 

S: I don’t think so, I feel like I convinced the viewers that the National Guard are just not weekend warriors, they’re something bigger than that. They don’t just go and sit around in armories and drink beer and coffee, they do a lot of very important things and they’re constantly prepared to go to all of these places that I’ve told you about that people don’t normally know about. But they’re there and just now there’s a call for some Ohio Guardsmen to go down to the border with Mexico and Arizona because they don’t have enough people down there. One of our units is going to end up down there undoubtedly. Again, we know that the 73rd Brigade which is the largest military unit in Ohio has received deployment so they’re twelve months away from going to Afghanistan. That’s 3700 troops from the state of Ohio. That’s a big element, and all their equipment and so forth; it’s going to be fascinating to watch them gear up to do that. We hope and pray that all 3700 of them go over there and come back. There isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t get a bulletin of the losses we’ve had in the Guard. I’m not sure that’s publicized at all, I mean they say, “American soldiers,” but I think they should be saying, “A member of the Illinois National Guard was among the seven troops that got killed today.” But you can’t change the newspapers and TVs to do that.  But we should be getting more recognition for what we do, for a lot of reasons, if nothing else to keep the Guard the finest American boys that we have. And girls I should say. By the way, in almost all our units now we have more female Guardsmen than we’ve ever had. That’s a good sign. 

H: Well thank you again for being interviewed today.