Aaron O’Donovan: Today is August 10, 2010. My name is Aaron O’Donovan. I will be interviewing Sergeant Frank Faletic retired serviceman of the Ohio National Guard. The interview is being conducted at the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus, Ohio. The interview is being conducted as part of an oral history project by the Ohio Historical Society to preserve the stories and experiences of servicemen and their family members for future generations. Recordings will be used for scholarly and educational purposes as well as published on the Ohio Memory website. So Frank, basically what I'm going to do is ask you a little about your personal background just to see where you came from and how you got involved in the National Guard. First question to you is when is your birth date and where were you born and where did you grow up at?
Frank Faletic: My birthday June 16, 1940, and I was raised in Cleveland, Ohio.
O: To get a little bit more background on you—what did your parents do for a living?
F: God rest their souls. My mother was the housewife, and she also worked part-time for City Hall in Cleveland, Ohio. My father—he was a machinist. He spent about one day shy of 20 years working for Thompson Products in Cleveland and 30 years for the Clevite Corporation while my father was very big on the work ethic. He was a hardworking man.
O: So what was your life like in Cleveland before joining the military? Would you say your strictly middle class family?
F: Middle class.
O: Middle class family? Okay. What was your impression of the military before you joined?
F: I've always liked the idea of the military as far as me being part of it. I always thought that someday I would join the military. And as it turned out, that’s just what happened. When I was in high school, I was asked by one of my classmates, “Frank, what do you want to do? What do you want to do when you get out of high school?” and that sort of thing. I said, “What would I like to do? I’d like to become an Army Sergeant,” which kind of goes to show you better watch what you wish for ‘cause sometimes you get it.
O: So you considered the military all the way in high school and maybe even a little bit beforehand then?
F: Oh yeah, beforehand.
O: Why did you join? What were your reasons for doing so—joining? What prompted—?
F: Well, it was my golden opportunity to do what I always wanted to do, and that was at age 22.
O: So what was your family’s reaction when you decided to go ahead and do this?
F: Well, probably about the same kind of reaction you would expect out of anyone’s family. My mom and dad were a little on the sad side. They were going to miss me. Here I am, I'm going to leave the nest. And that’s what I did. When my father took me downtown to the train station, it’s probably one of the first times I ever seen him cry.
O: Why did you choose the National Guard and not the regular Army or some other branch service?
F: No, I did not choose the National Guard at that time. In 1962, I joined the regular Army, and I discharged in 1965. I then had a 12 year break in service. After that 12 year break, I was approached by a friend of mine who had asked me if I would like to join the National Guard, and I asked him had he hit his head on something that morning. I said, “Would you like to see my honorable discharge?” I said, “I don’t need to join the Army again.” And he talked me into it because the National Guard had a program called “Try One”; there was no obligation. In other words, no statutory obligation that you had to serve six or eight years. You try one. If you like it, you stay; if you don’t like it, go home. So I tried it. I liked it, and I stayed.
O: And what was your military occupational specialty there—your MOS [Military occupational speciality]?
F: To start with 1962 to 1965, I was a military policeman. I performed the duties of an MP [Military police] in both Fort Hood, Texas and in Southern France. Those duties and that of a Desk Sergeant, and then I discharged.
O: Do you remember anything particular about being an MP [Military police]? Any memorable experiences? Or how that differed from your normal desk time job?
F: I suppose about the one memorable experience I had -- I was first performing military police duties at Fort Hood, Texas, and inadvertently, I was assigned a job of accident investigator—never having investigating an accident in my life, and I tried to explain this to the First Sergeant. He said, “Never mind that Frank. We _____ know that you’re going to do a halfway decent job.” What had me concerned, it was the only car that was one man to a car. And it was the weekend, a Friday night, and I had received a call in my office that there was a fatality behind Fort Hood. And I was so scared that when I got to my sedan in the back of the post—the back of the MP [Military police] station—it took me five minutes to find the ignition of the car. That’s how concerned I was. And when I finally got there, everything worked out just fine. I mean, not fine for some people who were in that car. But the work and the responsibility fit me to a tee. I fell in love with that particular phase of my training. If I could have had a choice, I would have stayed in the MPs [Military police].
O: Do you remember your first experiences both in the Army and the National Guard? You could tell me maybe about the Army first. What do you remember about your boot camp and your basic training and all that kind of thing?
F: Nothing memorable about basic training. You're talking to a kid who’s from Cleveland who had never been to Fort Jackson, South Carolina in his life. In July. Not a pleasant place to be. It was hot. It was one of those textbook scenarios. You’re standing in a formation; in the front, rank, and all of a sudden you hear people passing out behind you falling over. Boom. You hear the thud on the grass. They were okay, once they were treated by the first aid people, they were fine. It just goes to show you, that kind of temperature was strange to a fellow like me. And basic was, you did what you were told. A lot of classroom training. A lot of practical exercises, weapons training. Basic infantry type stuff. Good experience—lasted eight weeks.
O: You’re first go round in the Army, when you enlisted—what did you do in the Army as far as day to day life? How was that for you? What was your basic day like in the regular Army?
F: Oh, when I first got in ’62-’65?
O: Yeah.
F: Well, Fort Hood, Texas was the very last post. At that time, it had 75 thousand troops and 25 thousand dependents. I covered accidents and investigated those things there as well. And in those days, we had barracks—first floor and a second floor. And maybe 15 people on one side; 15 on the other, and the same down below. Today it’s different. You don’t normally stay in barracks—they’re normally two man rooms in Active Duty today. Unless there’s some place that exists that still have barrack facilities. An interesting note is that at Fort Hood, Texas, there was a service club for enlisted men. It was called Fiddler’s Green. It was built in the early ‘60s [1960s]. And it was built by Elvis Presley when he was there.
O: Interesting. After you left the Army, obviously, you went back to the National Guard you said. You had a span there. I’m not in the military, so once you’re in the Army and you go back to join the National Guard, did you do basic training again or do they consider it a done deal when you’ve already done it?
F: What happened was, I had a 12 year break in service. I then joined the National Guard. I didn’t have to attend basic training again; that was waived because of my experience. That was at a Combat Engineer unit. The difference between Combat Engineers and regular ones is we didn’t put together roads or large bridges so to speak and build building. Combat Engineering focuses on bridges that serve military units during combat operations. And it also handles things as antitank ditches, in placing minefields, and various things like that—installing triple standard concertina wire. That’s what we did as a Combat Engineer unit. That was in Norwalk, Ohio. Between Norwalk and Walbridge, which was the headquarters of the 612th engineer battalion, that’s where I spent my six years—between one location and the other as a Combat Engineer and as a chemical specialist because they really needed one, and I took an instant liking to the chemical field. And I went to school for a few weeks at Camp Perry [Ohio] training site and the rest was on-the-job training. And that’s what I did between the both units.
O: Obviously, you jumped around a lot, and you did several things in the Army and the National Guard. Can you tell me a little about some of the influences or mentors in your military career—anyone who sticks out as being—?
F: It’s really hard to pick on those people who influenced me. There’s quite a few of them—people who influenced me in the Guard and later on when I went Active Duty in the Guard. The people I worked with, the people I worked for, and many of my subordinates. You learn a little bit of everything from everyone. And I found it interesting, and it was challenging. What I like to do is basically focus on motivating people if I could because there was a time during my six years in Norwalk, Ohio when I was promoted a Staff Sergeant; I became a squad leader. I had an interesting situation—a thing occurred to me: one of the people in my squad was a soldier. He was a good man. He was young, but he really, I think, lacked a little bit of motivation. He would do what he was told, and about the same period of time, I was told that we were getting a new piece of equipment in our platoon, and it was going to go in my squad. It was called a Pioneer Electric Tool Trailer—about 45 thousand dollars’ worth of equipment to include generators and mechanical tools. I took this man that I was speaking of. I took him outside, and I said, “Look, this is what I want you to do. I want you to look this piece of equipment over,” and I opened the door so this electric trailer, and his eyes just bugged out ‘cause that was his thing. “And I want you to account for everything, and I want you to secure everything,” I said, “This piece of equipment, from here on out, belongs to you.” It changed his life in my unit. That’s all I had to do. It changed his life. And as I checked on him later on in the years, I heard he retired. He retired as a Platoon Sergeant with that same company. I was very proud of him.
O: Obviously you have accomplishments in the National Guard, but I also want to know, what were your biggest challenges to overcome being in the National Guard?
F: My biggest challenge of being in the National Guard—when I completed my six years of traditional National Guard training, I had the opportunity to go fulltime. I was selected, and thus began, 17 year odyssey from that point to the time I retired. The greatest challenge was, because of the fact I was Combat Engineer, I was at that time a Sergeant First Class, and I was also the Operation Sergeant. And assuming the role as the Operation Sergeant was the toughest thing I ever had to do. ‘Cause you had to have technical and tactical expertise. And you had to know how to handle people. Sometimes people really didn’t take favor with some of the things we had to do. But they eventually got accomplished. My first annual training period as a fulltime National Guard was the most difficult of my career. That was extremely tough to do because we were being evaluated, we were being inspected, and I didn’t have the full understanding that I really needed to have as a season professional. That came later on as I built my expertise.
O: You said you were stationed in France outside of the United States.
F: You’re going back to my first three years.
O: Right, this is kind of a question overseas experience. So we want to go back to that for a little bit.
F: Sure.
O: Can you reiterate why you went to France and what you did there?
F: The reason, when I was joining the Army to start with, the recruiter asked me where would I go if I had a chance to go in the United States. I says “Texas.” He said, “Where would you go if you had a chance to go if it was overseas?” I says, “France.” I wound up going to both places.
O: Nice. What preparations did you have to make before you went over there as far as you know prior to your family maybe or getting a different mindset of being overseas. Was there any—were you scared or happy?
F: Apprehensive, of course. Scared? No. At that time, I was 23 years old. Probably 23 to 24 as I was getting ready to go to Southern France, and all I had to do was sell the car, and load up and move out. You know, I had to get on the bus. Well, my father took me to the train station. I simply had to get on a bus. I think we took a long trip; it took us to Fort Dix —not that long—New Jersey, and from there we took an eight-day boat trip to France. At the end of that period, it was another eight-day boat trip coming back.
O: What was your first impression about France when you first got there?
F: A different country. Different customs. Different language. I had to learn some of the language as quickly as I can. I wanted to; that was my choice. I enjoyed the people. It was kind of nice work—I was an MP [Military police] at that time, so it was also kind of nice working on occasion with their MPs [Military police]. They’re a little more on the strict side. They’re referred to as gendarmes, and they are a little bit more strict with the people they apprehend. They’re not as gentle as we are.
O: Did you rough them up a little bit?
F: Well they had a different—they had a technique for stopping speeders. I know it seems to this day we do these wild chases when we’re trying to pursue somebody in law enforcement. They didn’t pursue anybody. What they did was radio ahead, and somebody would park his police vehicle under a grove of a tree, so it wouldn’t be spotted, and then they’d walk out into the middle of the street, and he’d lay out boards with nails sticking out of them. Then he’d get 50 to 100 feet behind the boards, and he would cradle a submachine gun. I can’t think of anything that would get anybody to stop quicker than that.
O: Sounds like it.
F: Yeah.
O: Probably would stop pretty quickly.
F: It worked.
O: Do you remember the local food there, and can you tell me a little about food in France?
F: Food is outstanding. It is all true what they say about French pastry. A friend of mine and myself had one time gone to a French restaurant, and we were there at the wrong time of the day. We were there around 2:30, three o’ clock. You don’t eat during that time of the day, not even on the economy. Their lunch is served from 12 to two. Everything shuts down. Stores close. Gas stations close. And we were there a little on the late side, and they were wondering why we were in their restaurant. And we tried to explain why. They finally showed us to the basement—that’s where the restaurant was, and it was this little old lady who was serving dinner. And she agreed to serve us dinner. And it was the most delicious I’ve ever had. Delicious food. The food is great.
O: So when you were over in France, how did you stay in touch with your family? This was obviously before internet, computers. How often were you able to call home?
F: If there was an emergency, there was a way to call home if you had to. But mostly it was done by letter writing.
O: Did you do a lot of letter writing and receive a lot of letters when you were over there?
F: Oh yeah. I was married at that time. My wife and I wrote back and forth constantly. Then for six months, she joined me. And that’s how we kept in track with the parents of both sides. They wrote back and forth—sent us little goody things in the mail, that kind of stuff.
O: I'm going to fast forward a little bit back to your time in the National Guard and your more recent military history. You said your inner leadership roles at Rickenbacker and some other places. Can you tell me a little about—did you envision yourself being a leader? I know you said you wanted to be an Army Sergeant when you first joined. After you left the Army and went back to the National Guard, did you see yourself in that leadership position?
F: I think that sooner or later, the leadership position would occur. ‘Cause I was pretty forthright about what I did. I paid attention to orders, and I carried out missions the way they were instructed to be carried out. I enjoyed acting as a capacity of a leader in a unit. It was the same when I was a Combat Engineer as my next move. I was a Chemical Operation Specialist for the chemical unit for the 107th Armored Cav. [Cavalry], and I was also the OPS [Operations] Sergeant there—same kind of a function. Right around that same period, I was a supervisor for a personal administration outfit, which supported the 107th Armored Cav. [Cavalry]. When those jobs are completed, that’s when I wound up at the Rickenbacker National Guard base. I was a training Sergeant, Sergeant First Class. I was a training Sergeant, and responsibilities were for the unit, training plans, programs, organizing different kinds of training, organizing transportation, and in addition that, I supported the OCS [Officer candidate school] program, provided tack officers and instructors everything they needed to do: to do their job, to get these young men and women commission as Second Lieutenants, and I provided these kids also with the same kind of tools for them to get their job done and to become Lieutenants in the Army National Guard.
O: What do you think best prepared you to become a leader? Was it something that happened over the years, or any one particular assignment or mission that made you feel like you were prepared to be a leader?
F: Leadership awareness—one occasion. I mean the start. I had been a leader for a time being, and I was at annual training with the National Guard unit and Combat Engineering. Two things were happening at that time. One of the platoons had to select a soldier of the camp, have an award made for the soldier they thought exemplified leadership and do whatnot and you know. Of course, I was being a _____ full timer; that wasn’t my function. Being part of that—that was one of the jobs they had to do. But one of the other functions they were doing at the same time—they had to put in an M60 machine gun position, and they were trying to put it in, and they weren’t putting it in correctly, and I've had experience along with that gun, and I showed them exactly how to put a machine gun position in: how the gun should aim, whether to put right or left limiting stakes, and I spent a lot of time in that hole digging it out and whatnot. And it really worked out well. They learn from it. And much to my shock, at the end of camp, they called me in front of the formation and presented me with the award. And I asked after, “Why me? What about one of the people in your platoon?” They said, “Sergeant Faletic, because you exemplified the position of leadership.” And I never gave it a thought. Never gave it a thought. Leadership is not something you think about; you do it.
O: So what was your leadership style? Would you say you were hard on the guys or easy on the guys, in between?
F: I was fair with the guys, but one of the things I liked to do was give a soldier a fraction of the action. And a good example of that is when I was at the battalion headquarters in Toledo. There was a drill weekend where we had an arrangement with high schools—the high school could send people down there who were interested in joining—it was a pre-Guard program. In other words, you see what goes on in the Guard because they were interested in the near future to join the Guard. Each high school student had came through would be there for the weekend. They’d come Saturday morning, work with the guardsmen, and come again on Sunday. Well it was a Saturday, and I had approached one of them, and I had asked him how it was going, and he said, “Fine.” I said, “What are you learning today?” He said, “I'm learning how to assemble and disassemble an M60 machine gun.” I said, “You are? That’s great,” I said, “What do you think? You enjoy it?” He says, “Yeah.” I called a National Guard person over to talk to him with this gentleman, and I said, to this National Guard person, “What I would like you to do this afternoon is spend more time with this young man, teaching him disassembly and assembly until he actually has it down cold.” He said, “Okay.” I turned to the high school student; I says, “You got classes tomorrow, right?” He said, “Yes.” I says, “We got machine gun classes also, right?” He said, “Yes.” I says, “How would you like to teach it?” He says, “Me?” I says, “Yeah, you. I want you to learn what you can today, and tomorrow, you’re going to teach that subject to the other high school students.” When I thought about that when I went home that night, I can’t imagine what that kid did when he hit the front door of his house and said to his mom and dad what he was going to do tomorrow. If nothing makes an impression on a young person in the military, nothing will. That, to me, meant a whole lot. I like to work with young people.
O: All in all, how do you think your soldiers performed under you and your different leadership positions—do you think the soldiers performed well?
F: Yes, he did. Yes, he did. Looked like a professional—he’d do the best he could. And I'm sure he felt great about what he was doing.
O: This might be different, depending on what capacity you’re talking about here, but what issues, events, or responsibilities consumed most of your time in the National Guard? For instance, at Rickenbacker, what would you do most of the time when you were there?
F: In addition on the training and operations and preparing for all these things to do, I was heavily involved with the Military Academy—that’s what we did. The regional training institute is the schoolhouse for the state of Ohio in the Army National Guard. Every National Guard in every state has a schoolhouse, and this is it for Ohio. And I spent a lot of time working with the young folks attending that school where I could. Doing stuff like that and arranging transportation for the places they had to go to. Between working with the staff and working with the instructors, it took my time up—that’s what it did.
O: This project is about preserving your history and your experience. Are you doing anything to preserve your experience for your descendants—your children, your grandchildren? Other than this, do you keep scrapbooks; do you relay stories?
F: For my daughter and granddaughter, I’ve got tons of awards. I received a lot of awards when I was in military service. My granddaughter—she’s 21, and she’s always wanted a military saber, and I presented her with the one that was given to me when I left the chemical company. It’s an engraved Civil War saber—it’s very nice. And I gave it to her. And of course, if she wants to know more about what grandpa did, she’ll have my 201 file [Official military personnel file], and she’ll have awards, and she’ll have them forever.
O: To get back to the military a little bit, we talked about food in France, but how was everyday food in the Army? From the ‘60s [1960s] to the new millennium, did the food change much?
F: Oh yeah. A lot of basic things—one thing that doesn’t change is performing duties. Duties may change, but the performance remains the same. You’ve got to perform it to the best of your best ability. Leadership. Times change, weapons change, units change, designations, you change missions, which causes training to change. You go with the change. Because the change is gradual, over a period of time. It isn’t too hard. What’s hard is coming down here and trying to tell you the difference between 1962 and 2000 because there’s a lot of changes made.
O: And what about how people entertain themselves or what people did in recreational activities? How different was it from what kind of facilities you had available to you and what kind of options you had in the ‘60s [1960s] to—was there more to do later on?
F: On the military base, you always have sports, movie theatres; you could also go to town. It was the same thing in Europe as it was stateside.
O: Did you have anything particular that you liked to do? Did you like going to the movies, or did you play any sports, or—?
F: I never got heavily involved in sports, but I always had an appreciation for firearms and for knives—I made a few of my own—and photography.
O: So, how was your impression of the military changed from the first time you got in until now after you retired? Has is changed at all?
F: It’s been a great change. The places you go and the things that you do. The change is different—some of the training philosophy changes. Well, like I said, all this stuff has to change in order to—you have to suit today’s needs. Scenarios change, and you read about it every day in the paper—how many people are serving, like I mentioned before, in the state of Ohio. By next year, it’ll be 20 thousand Guardsmen in the state of Ohio will soon go overseas.
O: The Guard itself—since when you joined in the ‘60s to now, do you think it’s changed in a different manor. I know deployments are a little bit different than they were in the ‘60s [1960s] to today.
F: Training is different.
O: Training is different.
F: Training is different, and some of the methods that are used to employ that training. The training devices have changed. We don’t have any of the old things that I trained on when I was in service in the ‘60s [1960s]. It’s all changed.
O: Do you think for the better?
F: Absolutely, absolutely. The equipment, the vehicles, the trucks, the equipment, armored vehicles, tanks, personal carriers, weapons; we devote a lot of serious time to training soldiers today. We have to today, and unfortunately if you can’t, when can’t, when you are training, you have to stimulate a lot of what you do until you get to where you’re going. But I guess that’s the way it is. We train them with as much realism as we can today.
O: Can you tell me a little about friendships formed in the service? People that you met in the service, do you still talk to any of them?
F: Yeah, in the National Guard, I see a few from time to time. I used to stop in and say, “Hello,” a lot. Things have changed since 9/11 [September 11, 2001]. You used to be able to just wander into a military post and say hi. Any more, it’s tough today. You have to be inspected. Your vehicle is normally checked out, and you’ve got to be announced—that kind of thing, you know. And things change people are in the middle of flux. People go on Active Duty and whatnot, and after a lot of time being retired, the faces changed. The faces I knew are no longer there. Transferred, retired, and unfortunately, at least one of the faces that I remember well, no longer with us. He was killed in Iraq.
O: Is there anything I haven’t asked you that you’d like to talk about or thought I’d ask maybe?
F: No, I can’t think of anything; you covered pretty much all of it. It’s hard to remember an awful lot of stuff, but to the best of my knowledge, I think I pretty much told it just the way it is. I try not to embellish anything because about embellishment: you’ll find that over a period of time, old soldiers, besides fading away, they tend to embellish their stories. What I told you today is pretty much what happened the way it was.
O: Okay, I think we can conclude the interview. Thank you very much for talking today.
F: Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.
O: Thank you.
