Mark Graves, U.S. Air Force

2013-04-30T14:00:00

Mr. Graves recounts his Air Force basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, the only basic training facility for the Air Force. He relates that, as far as he knows, as a Recruiter he processed an application for a 57 year old dentist to join the Air Force as an active duty soldier. He also talks about being on the Diego Garcia atoll during the December 2004 tsunami.

Maverick Veterans' Voices

Special Collections

Transcript

Interviewee: Mr. Mark Graves
Interviewer: Melissa Gonzales
Date of Interview: April 30, 2013
Location of Interview: Arlington, Texas
Transcriber: Diane Saylors

Gonzales: This is Melissa Gonzales. Today is Tuesday, April 30, 2013. I am
interviewing Mr. Mark Graves for the first time. This interview is
taking place at the University of Texas at Arlington Central Library
located in Arlington, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the
College of Liberal Arts and is part of the Maverick Veterans’ Voices
Project.
So where are you originally from?
Graves: I’m originally from Norwich, New York. It’s upstate New York. We
like to call it the home of Pepto-Bismol. That’s where it was
founded.
Gonzales: Did you have family members who had been in the military?
Graves: I had. My father was in the air force. An uncle on my mother’s side
was also in the air force, and then I currently have a brother who is
at Fort Stewart, Georgia with the army.
Gonzales: Did you participate in the Air Force ROTC either in high school or
college?
Graves: No.
Gonzales: So was there a particular incident or person who influenced your
decision to join the air force?
Graves: My father was my biggest influence. When I was getting ready to
graduate from high school just coming up on graduation, I knew at
that time academically there was no way I could go to college. So I 
wanted to be a police officer, and my dad just told me, he says,
“Well, go in the air force.” We had other friends that had been in the
military that said the same thing. Go in the air force, get your basics
out of the way while you’re in. You got good experience when you
get out in four years, then you’ll be old enough to become a police
officer.
And with me it was kind of neat. It was the tail end of my
junior year in high school, and I spoke to a recruiter that day. I
came home and gave my father the sheet of paper and asked him
to sign it, and he says, “What’s this?” I said, “Well, it’s a permission
slip from you for me to test and take a physical for the air force.” He
looked up at me, he looked down at the sheet of paper and had a
tear in his eye and said, “This is what you really want to do?” I said,
“Yes, it is.” He immediately signed it.
Gonzales: So you had full support from your family?
Graves: Yes.
Gonzales: So you said you graduated from high school and then joined the air
force.
Graves: Yes.
Gonzales: Where did they send you to training?
Graves: Well—just to go back with what you just said. I graduated from high
school June 22, and I actually was sworn in on a delayed 
enlistment program June 19. So I was officially a member of the air
force before I graduated from high school, and then five months
later I went for active duty. I went to Lackland Air Force Base in
San Antonio, Texas, which is the only basic training base the air
force has. They used to have three many, many years ago, but now
Lackland is the only military training base.
Gonzales: So, what was a day like during training?
Graves: We’d get up, as they used to say, at 0 dark thirty. (laughs) It was
very rigorous. I mean, in the air force about 80 percent of your
training is academic. But we were up at four thirty every morning.
We had to get our dorm ready. They called them dorms. I was in a
barracks. I was still in one of the old two-story wooden clapboard
buildings. But we’d get up. We’d head over, have our breakfast,
and then we’d be off to class. Usually around midday just before
lunch we would have our exercise. That’s when we’d have our PT.
Then from there we’d have our lunch. There’d be other things
throughout the day besides academics. You know, like going to the
competence course, which is usually towards the end of basic
training. But, yeah, it’s primarily academic, you know, like I said,
with a lot of other things, shooting the rifle.
I did have a story that was really kind of neat for me. When I
was in basic training, my father and my uncle both told me, “When 
you go into basic training, do not volunteer for anything.” So I said,
“Okay.”
Well, we got there and it was probably around the fourth
week, and my basic training was six weeks long. And our drill
instructor, or TI as they called them, said, “Okay, I need twenty
volunteers for this evening.” Our flight commander, he steps up and
he says, “What are we volunteering for, Sir?” And he says, “You’ll
find out as soon as I get my twenty volunteers.” So guys were
slowly raising their hands, and the guy next to me says, “Come on,
Graves.” He says, “Go ahead, let’s volunteer. We’ll do it together,”
and I said, “No. I was told never to volunteer. I’m not volunteering.”
I kept that—
Finally, I was twentieth volunteer. I said, “All right. I’ll do it.” I
volunteered, and our TI said, “Okay. For those of you who showed
the enthusiasm to volunteer, make sure you have your blues in
order tonight because you will be getting on a bus around five
o’clock heading downtown to watch the San Antonio Spurs
basketball game. For those of you that did not have the enthusiasm
to volunteer, KP duty tonight. Be at the kitchen at six o’clock.”
(laughs)
Gonzales: So that’s—it worked out for you.
Graves: Yes, it worked out for me. 
Gonzales: Did you have any influential instructors or mentors during that time?
Graves: I had one instructor in basic training. Sgt. Carrot was his name. I
had three instructors throughout. Our main—what we called Team
Chief, I can’t remember his name, and we were his last flight
because he was retiring as soon as we graduated.
Then I had two others, Sgt. Garza and Sgt. Carrot. Sgt.
Carrot was more of a mentor to me at that time primarily because I
was going into the security forces curriculum and he was former
security forces. And he was a K-9 handler, and he chose to go into
TI duty, and so that’s how I got to know him.
We got to know each other pretty well with one incident
when I was standing outside of the PT field watching other guys do
their PT. Some of us were talking. We could—we could talk and
just say a few jokes or whatever. Somebody said something and I
kind of chuckled, and I looked over at the PT field. I’m squinting
because the sun’s right in my eyes, and the drill instructor from one
of those flights over there yelled. He said, “You get over here!” And
I didn’t know where he was looking, and he just says, “You!” And
we’re still looking—we don’t know who he’s talking to. “You, third
one in line.” So I run over and I do my usual. I said, “Sir! Yes, Sir!”
Says, “Were you laughing at my men?” I said, “No, Sir.” “Are you
calling me a liar?” “No, Sir.” “You were laughing at my men!” “No, 
Sir.” This went on for just a couple of minutes and finally he says,
“Get out of my face!” So I ran back to my place.
Well, my TI, Sgt. Carrot, he calls me over, and he starts
going up one side and down the other saying I’m embarrassing
him. And he says, “Give me a 341,” which is a small form that we
always kept in our pockets. It was basically a form that was to be
used for counseling if you did things bad that could also be used for
counseling if you did things really good. So I handed him my 341,
and he says, “I want to see you in my office when we get back.”
Well, we got back, and I went up there. When you would
knock on the door, you knock one time. You knock as hard as you
can and you try to splinter the wood if you can. So he calls me in
and tells me to close the door. I reported, “Airman Graves reports
as ordered, Sir.”
He looks at it and he says, “What happened?” And so I told
him, and he says, “I can’t believe that. Here’s your 341 back.” My
flight commander, he’s standing outside knocking on the door, and
he says, “Wait just a minute. I’ve really got to do this for him.” So he
yelled and cussed and told me to leave as quick as possible and he
didn’t want to see me in his office ever again. Well, then he read
the riot act to the flight commander, and I mean, I felt great.
(laughs) 
Gonzales: You mentioned security forces.
Graves: Um hmm.
Gonzales: Is that what you went into after training?
Graves: Yeah. After basic training, there is a technical school, which is
where you go to learn your particular job in the air force. And this is
the recruiter side of me talking because I was a recruiter for many
years, but everyone goes to basic training for us. At the end of
basic training, then they’re going to go into a career field. A lot of
jobs are guaranteed prior to people going into the air force. So they
know exactly where they’re going to go and what they’re going to
do, how long they’re going to be gone for training after the basic
training was completed. There’s others that they may have qualified
for certain jobs but they may not have been open at that time, so
they may have gone to what they called open general, open
mechanics or electronics.
I did go in open general trying to get into the air force. I’d
hurt my knee playing ice hockey while I was in high school. And
nothing happened. I mean, it was great, but the doctors at the
MEPS thought I had weak knees and they wouldn’t let me in
initially. A friend of my father’s who’s an orthopedic surgeon, he’s
also a retired air force doctor, he looked at my knees and he said,
“There’s nothing wrong with you.” Wrote a nice long letter to the 
people at the MEPS and to the air force, and they said, “Come on.”
But I went down there and I went and spoke to a counselor and my
first choice was to go into security forces. My second choice was to
go into the fire department. That’s what my father did in the air
force. He was in air crash rescue, and so I put that as my second
choice.
Well, I got security forces. Security forces my tech school
stayed there at Lackland Air Force Base, and we did a lot of our
training there and then we went out to Camp Bullis because it was
the tail end of the Vietnam War. So a lot of what people were still
worried about was jungle warfare, so I was trained in jungle
warfare. We’d go out into the woods and be playing war games.
Gonzales: You mentioned that your job recruiting depended upon
qualifications. How did they determine those qualifications?
Graves: In the air force, there’s lots of different qualifications. I mean, the
first is you have to take what they call the ASVAB test. It’s just a
written test. It’s, I believe, fifteen different sections. It’s a timed test.
Your overall scores on that test determine academically what jobs
you can go into.
And then you take the physical examination, and there may
be certain things in your physical that will qualify you for some jobs
but may not qualify you for others. For instance, if you’re colorblind, 
there’s very few jobs you can go into. I had a young kid when I was
a recruiter that was colorblind. Based on test scores alone, he
qualified for every job in the air force. When they determined that
he was colorblind, he qualified for three. So it’s little things like that.
Gonzales: So what were your responsibilities as part of the security forces?
So they trained you for jungle warfare, but what were your
responsibilities?
Graves: My primary responsibilities—when I left Lackland Air Force Base,
my first base was Castle Air Force Base, California. We liked to call
it, “The gateway to SAC,” which is Strategic Air Command. It no
longer exists, but that base was the training base for pilots and
navigators for B-52s and KC-135 tankers. And the tankers also had
what they call a boom operator, which is one __________ the
planes in the air. And it was a training base for them.
Our job then was either patrol of the flight line area where
the planes were or in some cases we had to actually stand out in
front of an airplane and guard the airplane. Jokingly, we used to
say, “I know many rivets are on the B-52,” because that’s all you
could really do. We had entrance gates to the flight line area that
were also patrolled by personnel—myself. I would do the—they
called it entry controller. 
We had a weapons storage area where all the bombs and
munitions and bullets were kept, and that was heavily guarded too.
We even had signs right on them that said, “Warning! Deadly force
authorized,” if you decide to enter it unauthorized.
But that was primarily—it was patrolling those areas. There’s
a lot of other jobs that came about. At one point I was asked by one
of our people in the head office, he said, “You look very good. I’d
like to put you on the main gate,” and it was a temporary duty
assignment. So for three months my job was working at the main
gate waving people through.
And then while I was there also—1976, when the nation was
celebrating its two hundredth birthday, the World Bank of London
had the Magna Carta or a copy of the Magna Carta flown over, and
it was going to be on display at the World Bank of London in San
Francisco.
We were only about an hour and a half from San Francisco,
and so it flew in on a Vulcan bomber, and I was asked if I would like
to guard the Magna Carta while it was on base before it left for San
Francisco, and I said, “Yes.”
And a month later when it came back to Castle Air Force
Base on its way back, I was asked again if I would like to guard it,
so I did. I never actually got to see it but just the idea of knowing 
that I was there on guard duty for the Magna Carta was something
special for me especially as a nineteen-year-old.
Gonzales: Can you describe what Strategic Air Command is?
Graves: In the air force, there were a lot of different commands. Strategic
Air Command, they were primarily a bombing command. Your
bombers—long range bombers, that’s Strategic Air Command.
They had what they called the Air Tactical Command, which
was your fighters, you know. They had Air Training Command,
which is like all your training bases, things like that. Mobility
Command, that’s your airlift, if you’re going to ship somebody
somewhere or ship supplies, that’s how. Those were the
commands. They’ve consolidated a lot of those now. Now it’s Air
Education and Training Command, which is all your training, your
colleges because the air force is the only branch that has its own
university, Air University, and then Community College of the Air
Force.
The Strategic Air Command and Air Training Command
were consolidated into the Air Combat Command. Then the Air
Mobility Command, that’s as an—well, I think it was Military Airlift
Command at that point, and now it’s the Air Mobility Command.
Gonzales: Do you recall your first days in the service, that transition from
civilian to military? 
Graves: That was a long, long time ago. Yeah, it was scary at first. I mean,
fear of the unknown, just like anything. It was probably not as
frightful as my first day on the job here at the University, but yeah,
you never know what to expect. No matter how many horror stories
my father and my uncle tried to tell me about what to do to prepare
for basic training, nothing’s going to prepare you for that.
As a recruiter, one of the things I tried to do with the young
troops that I was bringing—both male and female—I would try to
prepare them as best that I could on what to look for, and I even
had one of my young airmen, after he graduated from tech school,
he came home on leave and spent a week with me in my recruiting
office. And as parents came in with their son, I remember on one
instance, when I was trying to tell them what it was like in basic
training, he said, “Listen to Sgt. Graves. He told me exactly what to
expect, and I got exactly what I expected based on what he told
me.” He says, “He is an honest recruiter, and you don’t see that or
hear that a lot, but he’s an honest recruiter.”
Gonzales: So I read that you cross-trained into munitions systems.
Graves: Right.
Gonzales: Can you describe what the class training entailed to prepare you for
that role? 
Graves: There wasn’t really anything to tell. What had happened is after my
first four years in the air force, I got out and I was in a reserve
status because my job—I was looking and hoping to become a
police officer. And during a Fourth of July service at our church, I
was asked to wear my uniform. So I put it on, and I’d been out of
the air force about two years at that point. So I put it on and it felt
good and it still fit.
So I started contemplating because I hadn’t heard anything
from the police departments or fire departments about being—so I
started talking to a recruiter. And he says, “Well, we can get you
back in the air force, but there are no open positions for security
forces. Is there anything else that you would like to go into?” and I
said, “What do you have available?” He told me that radar
technician, and I thought that sounded interesting. I even went to a
base and talked to people about radar. And I asked them, I said,
“What is the chance of me getting stationed on some mountaintop
out in the middle of nowhere?” and he says, “About ninety to one.”
So then I walked down to munitions and before I even
walked through the gate, I said, “I’ll take this job.”
But now, my brother was in the air force at that time, and he
was in munitions. He loved it. And I had some interaction with some
munitions troops when I was in security forces because I used to 
guard the weapons storage area. So I knew a little bit about it, and I
said, “Sure.”
Luckily for me, what I was able to do was I joined the Air
National Guard and I went to a base, and that’s how I learned my
munitions. I didn’t have to go to a tech school or anything like that.
After nine months, I came back onto active duty. And I was in the
munitions career group.
Gonzales: So what was your assignment as part of munitions?
Graves: My first assignment, they sent me to Cannon Air Force Base, New
Mexico, which is just about ten miles inside of the New Mexico
border from Texas in Clovis. I spent fourteen months there. About
six months in, I received the orders to go to Misawa, Japan, which
is in the very northern part of Japan, so I was looking forward to
that. And I thought I had lots of snow in New York. I got to Japan, I
found out they average two hundred forty inches of snow a year. So
I loved it. I spent four years there.
Gonzales: Was that your first time overseas?
Graves: That was my first time overseas at that point, and I got to see the
whole Pacific Theater up to Guam; Okinawa; Jakarta, Japan; the
Philippines. I went to Korea two or three times, went to Malaysia.
That was a lot of fun. 
Gonzales: Did the air force provide any cultural training to prepare you for
that?
Graves: Nothing prior to going over. The Misawa Air Base had a program in
place for new people coming in. They went through basically a twoweek orientation to learn about Japan, learn about the culture,
about the base’s relationship and the air force’s relationship to the
Japanese Air Force, and that was pretty much it.
We had civilian wives that were over there. A lot of the
military wives taught classes because they’d been there for a while.
A lot of the Japanese would come in and actually teach us because
the Japanese education programs, you learn a lot of English, so it
gave them an opportunity to come on base and speak English. But
that was pretty much it. Everything was done right there at the base
for us.
Gonzales: How long were you overseas?
Graves: I was over there four years.
Gonzales: So other than guarding the Magna Carta, (Graves laughs) which is
amazing, what are some of your other memorable experiences?
Graves: Well, I guess going to Malaysia was quite an experience. We got to
see a lot of culture. It was shortly after the Libya bombing when we
got there, and we were driving on base and somebody there had a
black flag—they knew we were coming—they had a black flag 
hanging over their banner, said, “Welcome to Libya,” but nothing
happened.
And we just had a good time there, got to see lots of sights
over in Pulau Karang. Lots of jellyfish. It was the first time I’d ever
seen a jellyfish.
I deployed to Diego Garcia and I was there when the
tsunami hit just a few years ago. But luckily, the island is the top of
a volcano, and it sits on what they call a plateau, and all tsunamis
travel in the same direction, and it hit that plateau and went right on
around us. We never even knew. It wasn’t until my wife called in
tears wanting to know if I was okay, and we’re like, yeah. Why?
And she told us. She found out in church that a major tsunami hit
the Indian Ocean, and she said my pastor took one look at her and
thought, Oh, no. What did I just say? because she and Neely got up
and ran out, and that’s when she called to find out. And like I said,
none of us knew anything about it until the next day.
I think one of my most memorable stories was as a recruiter.
I had a young gentleman—which I’ll get to that age part here in a
minute—wanted to go in the air force. He was a fully qualified
dentist. He’d been in practice for twenty-nine years and sold his
practice and wanted to go to England and initially wanted to go into
the reserve. 
Well, when he called our number I said, “Well, we’re not
reserves. We’re active duty. Would you be willing to go into the air
force on active duty?” he said, “I’m fifty-six years old,” and I said,
“Okay. Would you like to go on active duty?” and we did a whole
package, put everything together, and he was accepted. So as far
as I know, I still hold the record of putting the oldest member into
the air force, and at the time he went on active duty, he was fiftyseven years old. And he went to England just like he wanted to.
Gonzales: I was always under the impression that there was an age limit.
Graves: There is, but for medical professionals there is always exceptions
because medical professionals with lots of experience are needed.
And most of them, in order to be able to retire, like, as a doctor—in
order to be able to retire, you have to be in prior to age forty
because in order to do twenty years to qualify for retirement, they
want you to be able to retire by age sixty. You can go by—past the
age sixty, but then it’s on a year-by-year basis, and it’s based on
whether you’re still qualified both physically and mentally.
Gonzales: You mentioned that you were a recruiter. When did you take on that
role?
Graves: When I was in Japan, I received what we call a RIP, and it was
asking if I would like to go into recruiting duty. I’d never really given
it much thought before because my recruiters didn’t really prepare 
me for the air—my first one especially didn’t really prepare me for a
life in the air force. My second one because I already knew what
the air force was like, he didn’t need to prepare me for anything.
But I said I thought that would be a good unique experience
for me. And so I volunteered, and I put down my list of assignments
and it came back and said, “Yes. Unanimous you have been
selected but none of your assignments are available.” Well, being in
Japan and being there’s a twelve-hour difference, I decided to call
San Antonio where the headquarters for recruiting service is, and I
told them, I said, “Well, these are assignments that I would like.” He
said, “Well, let me tell you what we have available,” and he went
through a couple and he says, “We have Garland, Texas,” and I
said, “I’m a volunteer for Texas.” He says, “You are? Just a
minute.” Comes back and he says, “You are! You want the job?” I
said, “Yes. You said there wasn’t anything available.” He said, “It
came open yesterday.” And I said, “Yes, I’ll take the assignment,
and he says, “Good. You’ll have the RIP in ten days.”
And then after my four years in Japan, I left for recruiting
duty down in San Antonio, and that’s an experience just going
through the recruiting school because you’re being taught how to
sell the air force, not only to the seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds, 
but also to their parents, especially those parents that don’t have
any experience where the military is concerned.
And my time in recruiting, I was very successful primarily—I
spent ten years total in recruiting, and seven of those ten years
were in medical recruiting. I recruited doctors, I recruited everything
in the medical field with the exception of nurses.
Gonzales: And that was the title of health professions recruiting?
Graves: Yes.
Gonzales: Okay. And so how long did you do both?
Graves: I started off three years in enlisted recruiting because I was in
recruiting actually twice. The first time I was in recruiting, I was
recruiting high school kids for about eighteen months—no, let me
take that back. It was thirteen months and they normally wanted
you in high school recruiting for thirty-six months or three years. But
because I had some background in medical because I was a firstaid instructor, I was a CPR instructor, and because I was a little
older at that time as well, they thought it’d be good to put me into
health professions recruiting. So I did that.
When I came back into the air force the second time, I
started off in recruiting, and they went ahead and—no, well,
actually, I take that back. When I was in munitions—we’d talked
about that—I had transferred over to the reserve in munitions. Well, 
then an opportunity presented itself for me to come back on active
duty, so I did and went into recruiting.
And I had to go through recruiting school again, but I knew
what to expect. So it was a lot easier for me, and I came back here
to this area, and I was over in Mesquite. From there I moved to
Terrell, and I only did that for about eleven months when they said,
“We want you back in the health professions recruiting. We’re short.
We need people. You’ve got experience.” Like I said, in my ten
years I did three years in enlisted recruiting and did seven years in
officer recruiting or health professions.
Gonzales: So while you were overseas, how did you stay in touch with your
family?
Graves: Well, my wife was with me when I was overseas, but it was
primarily phone calls and letters. That’s pretty much it. A couple of
times I was able to come back on temporary duty back here to the
States. I wasn’t able to get close enough to home but I was able to
call and that’s when I talked to them for the most part. It wasn’t
easy calling back in the early to mid-‘80s home like it is today. But
that’s how I got in touch with them.
Gonzales: Were you able to go on leave at all?
Graves: Oh. Oh, yeah. You know, you’re authorized thirty days of leave a
year in any branch of the military. And when I was in Japan, we 
would take what they call environmental morale leave, and we
didn’t actually come back home. It was just too expensive, and,
yeah, you can fly military aircraft from Japan to one base here, but
then you have to take the civilian aircraft and fly that to go all the
way back to New York, but, like I said, I kept in good contact with
the family. So I took leave and lots of our leaves we went to Korea
a couple of times, went to Okinawa, went to Guam and spent a
couple of weeks in Hawaii. That was nice.
Gonzales: So when you returned from being overseas, what did you do to kind
of, I guess, get back into being in the States?
Graves: Well, you know, just had to kind of reorient myself because I was
gone four years and, again, when I came back I was as a recruiter
at that point, and so I kind of had to learn our culture all over again
because of the Japanese culture.
And I did make one minor mistake one time. Luckily, nothing
tragic happened. In Japan, your steering wheel is on the right side
of the car, and you drive on the left side of the road. And I knew
that when I came back that everything was back to normal and that
I shouldn’t have a problem. And it wasn’t for my first two weeks I
was home, and then one day I pulled on the road, and I
immediately just pulled right out to the left side of the road and kept
on going. And finally my sister who was with me says, “Mark, you’re 
driving on the wrong side of the road,” and I said, “Oh. I forgot!” and
I moved back over to the right side. About that time a car comes
around the hill and we got over just in time, but still, it’s just the
idea. And I’ve never had a problem since. (Both laugh)
Gonzales: Were you awarded any medals or citations, and if so how did you
receive them?
Graves: Nothing for, like, heroism or bravery or anything like that. So I
received five commendation medals while I was in, and primarily
that was for my service at certain assignments that—I kept my nose
clean, I did my job, went above and beyond in a lot of cases, and I
received the commendation medal for that.
Gonzales: Did you retire?
Graves: Yes. Yeah, with active duty and reserve time, I was a month shy of
thirty years when I retired.
Gonzales: How would you say serving in the air force affected your life?
Graves: Greatly. I believe my service contributed a lot to who I am today.
I’m very structured in a lot of the things that I do, and it’s the
structure of the air force that has helped me be who I am today. I
try to be very respectful of everybody, and I think that comes with
the diversity that you come across in the military.
I still stay in contact with lots of friends that I was stationed
with while in munitions, while in recruiting even today. 
Gonzales: Did you join any veterans’ organizations?
Graves: Not really, I mean, I’m a part of the Veterans Administration only by
virtue of being a disabled vet, but other than that, no. I’ve gotten
invitations to join the American Legion and the VFW, but I haven’t. I
don’t really see a need for me right now at this point in time. So, no.
Gonzales: Do you ever see those old buddies of yours from your time in the
air force?
Graves: I see some of the recruiters that are still in the local area, and like I
said, I keep in contact with a lot of them through Facebook. And
I’ve still kept in contact with quite a few at Dyess Air Force Base,
which was my last base before I retired. And I’ve got a good friend
who worked for me when I was at Dyess, and he’s getting ready to
retire the first week of June, and I’m going to his retirement
ceremony.
Gonzales: So what did you do after you retired?
Graves: After I retired, I took a month off, and then I got a job with Dr.
Pepper as a sales representative. And while I was a sales rep, I’d
go around to different stores, and one of the stores I went to was
Walgreen’s that was one of my customers. And I started talking to
an assistant manager, and they said, You need to become a
manager with us. So I interviewed for a job as an assistant
manager of Walgreen’s and got the job. And it was while I was at 
Walgreen’s that my wife, who’s been here at the University for over
twenty years, told me of an opening here, and so I applied and got
hired here at the University and have been here ever since. It’s
been a little over three years I’ve been here at the University.
Gonzales: And what’s your official title here?
Graves: I’m the administrative assistant in the department of sociology and
anthropology.
Gonzales: So how would you say your military experience influenced your
career or civilian work?
Graves: Greatly, especially in my latter years. In recruiting you’re not just
talking with students, but you’re talking with parents. We do that in
our departments here at the University.
My job deals a lot with the budgets. And when I was in the
air force, one of the jobs that I had in my squadron at Dyess Air
Force Base was the resource manager. I was in charge of credit
cards and the squadron budget. So those particular jobs is what
really prepared me for my work here.
Gonzales: What advice would you give current cadets here at UTA or the
students that would like to join the military?
Graves: I think I’d give them the same advice that I gave during my little
retirement speech, and it was very short. But I would let them know
to, first off, follow your dreams, okay, and what you want to do 
whether it be in the military or not. But as young troops going in,
listen to your supervisors, listen to your commanders because
there’s a lot of insight and a lot of knowledge that they have that
they can give you.
But then I would also tell those supervisors and
commanders, listen to your young troops. There’s a lot of changes
coming. Listen to them and together you can make this a better
service, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s air force, navy, army,
marine corps. I believe that they have to work together, but they
both need to listen to each other.
Gonzales: Is there anything that you would like to contribute to the interview
that I haven’t mentioned?
Graves: No, other than, I mean, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time in the
service. This is the second chapter in my life, and I thoroughly
enjoy it now, and I plan to live it the same way I lived my life in the
air force with all the gusto I can. (Both laugh)
Gonzales: I want to thank you, Mr. Graves, for participating in our Project.
You’ve been very informative and helpful, and I want to thank you
for your service and, again, for your contribution to the Maverick
Veterans’ Voices Project.
Graves: Thank you.
Gonzales: Thank you. 

(end of interview)