State Group Learns a Little About the Army Life

Liz Hunt learned a lot about the Army and its people in just a couple days. That includes everything from the sacrifices that families make because of deployments to the economic impact of Fort Sill on the state. And that drill sergeants can be really, really intimidating when they want to be.

Hunt was one of 48 members of the Leadership Oklahoma class that visited post to learn just what the Army is doing at Fort Sill. Hunt, who runs her own public relations and marketing firm in Tulsa, said the visit had been full of surprises. She had no idea Fort Sill was so large, and she was impressed by the soldiers she met, from privates to generals. She got to share an MRE with a soldier in the field, and she learned the hardships that military families embrace.

The visit, she said, opened her eyes to things that most civilians don’t see and don’t think about.  “You value freedom,” she said, “but you don’t see the sacrifices people make on hour behalf,” she said. “It made me very proud to be an American.”   “I don’t think the average American thinks about the sacrifices that people make,” she said. “This experience certainly broadened my perspective.”

Leadership Oklahoma brings together young leaders, from across the state and from a variety of backgrounds, to learn more about their state during a year of classes. During the Fort Sill visit, the class members got a crash course in national security and the military, which included visits with basic trainees, as well as Fort Sill Commander Maj. Gen. Peter M. Vangjel. There were retreats and demonstrations and visits to training, as well as an evening enjoying the history of the post with tours of the Old Post Quadrangle and horse-drawn excursions.

And there were the drill sergeants, whose tender mercies reminded the class members — if only briefly — that the Army is different from civilian life. After the class was greeted warmly Thursday, it was handed over to the drill sergeants for a taste of life as a recruit.
“All of a sudden, they turned it on and they said ‘The party’s over. Now we’re going to your new home,’” said Chris Kenney, an attorney from Edmond whose father was at Fort Sill during the Korean War.

There was yelling, standing line. Some more standing in line. Confusion, disorientation — and don’t dare think of talking.  “My first reaction is this is all foreign to me,” Kenney said.
It wasn’t entirely foreign to Randy McDaniel, a stockbroker and state House member from Oklahoma City who went through the Field Artillery Officer Basic Course on post in 1990-91 and served 11 years in the National Guard.   The experience, he said, was pretty much as he remembered it.   “They did a great job,” he said.

Kenney knows that it was only a taste, if that, of real basic training. But it was enough to show that a soldier’s world is different from a civilian’s.  “It was a tremendous experience,” he said.