Stacey Sebourn- Audio Clip

Stacey Sebourn Interview

Can you state your name and rank?

I am Specialist Anastasia Sebourn.

  What conflicts did you participate in?

 I have not yet participated in conflicts; I am getting ready to go over to Iraq in February.

  What branch of the military is this going to be in?

The Wisconsin Army National Guard.

Were you ever activated during wartime?

Not during wartime, I was fulltime in the army back in 92-96 I’ve been to Korea but not during Wartime.

  So when did you join the service and why?

Originally I joined the service because there wasn’t really anything around town that was going to allow me to get an apartment on my own, have my own car, that sort of thing I couldn’t afford anything. So that is when I joined the military. I originally got out to start a family because I was also married to a military guy and I just recently went back in because my ex-husband just retired and I kind of have been dying to go back in. It is amazing but you know you start to miss it.

  What kind of training did you receive?

I actually got a lot of training recently; I am a military intelligence analyst. So I have had that training. Basically I am supposed to be the expert on the enemy, what they do, how they do it. Keep up on all the changes how they do things so I can let my commander know so they can make the right decisions save the lives of the friendlies and counteract and kind of get these guys before they get us. I have also had recently completed training for the Raven B, which is an unmanned aerial vehicle, a UAV. It’s kind of a little radio control spy plane. So I have been certified to fly those now.

  What is an average day in the Military like?

It’s you know basically, it’s like every other job, you wake up go to work do what your supposed to do what you are tasked to do there are jobs that are set out every day so this is what we need to accomplish today you get that done and taken care of you work with others and go home at the end of the day. Whether that you know obviously when you are deployed home isn’t exactly where you want it to be but it’s still home.

  You were deployed but more in Peace keeping matters?

 Right.

   How was diversity accepted in your unit?

It’s accepted a lot more now. It used to be especially with gay/lesbian people that used to be a big taboo thing. People freaked out over that, they didn’t like they would beat people up but basically when you combine a bunch of people from different backgrounds and everything people have done training over the years and people have gotten more tolerant and really these are the people you are going to war with they are the ones who are going to have your back so you learn how to accept their differences. You learn just about in anything else you learn to get along with people. You learn what topics or what things you need to avoid with them so you can keep that integrity that I’ve got your back and don’t worry I won’t leave you alone.

  When you were stationed what did you do at your duty station?

I was, the job doesn’t exist anymore, in Signal. I was in the communication center and I monitored and made sure that all the message traffic got back and forth to whoever it needed to be to whether that were deployment orders or various intelligence information going back and forth to different units and sections.

  Where were you specifically stationed?

I was in Young San soul, Korea.

  How many years had you been prior to your stationing?

Korea was my very first duty assignment, so I had just finished basic training and AIT, which was, combined about 3 months.

  What kind of preparations did you make?

Basically the military made the preparations for me; they got me any immunizations I needed to have to protect against the various diseases that run rampant over there that we have gotten rid of in the states. Mad sure that all my bills, my bank account was taken care of and that someone here had access to it in case I couldn’t take care of something there was someone back here in the states that had the access and control to it so you know I could contact them and say this needs to be done.

  What kind of training did you receive before going over to Korea?

The basic training that is where you get your basic drills for being a soldier Everyone gets their basic ground this is how you fire your weapon this is how you throw a grenade this is how you run from the enemy, not run. This is how you hide, concealment cover, this is how you build a foxhole; this is how you survive in the field. Then my AIT which is my advanced individual training That was where I learned how to do my specific job, which was the message traffic, which I learned how to, It’s called KRYPTO, It’s kind of like keying the radios. You’ve got a certain, what word am I looking for, it’s secure so you’ve got to have a certain Key basically to talk on that channel. So I learned how to do all that, I learned how to keep all of that safe. I learned how to deal with the messages when they would go through the system so they wouldn’t stop and get lost.

  What was life like at your duty station?

It was surprisingly it was normal. I grew up watching MASH so when they told me I was going to Korea I started to cry because I thought I was going to live on a mountain in a tent, but that was far from the truth sol is the third largest city in the world I believe. Or it was at the time and they’ve got transit they have trains, shopping anything you would want, shopping, and restaurants. They don’t have beef so when you went to McDonalds you would eat Soy burgers, which are really disgusting. But other than that it was pretty much the same. The military base that I was on, every military base is setup like a small city in the United States it can sustain itself. Everything they need is right there on that base.

  What was the hardest thing about being there?

Being away from family. That was my first time being that far away from everybody, it was in a different country too which is really, I was only 20, and that was just very, I don’t know if I can even explain it. I felt safe but at the same time you don’t have your I’m in my country security safety net. 'Cuz their rules and their laws are completely different. We had to carry around a little sofa card. That if we did get in trouble in the economy. We’d have to show that to them and they were then supposed to call the military police and then they transferred us over whether that happened or not. I never got in trouble. So I couldn’t tell you how well that worked.

  While you were over there did you see any combat?

No, but I did go up to the DMZ which is the Demilitarized Zone, which is the border between North and South Korea and that was the whole Korean Conflict. That was where they were fighting. They still, every once in a while there will be skirmishes up there. They are still, when you go up there you hear propaganda so it’s all in Hangul, which is the language and that gets radio broadcast and you can hear it as you go up there so the South Koreans can hear it and they understand it, but it’s apparently trying to get them to come over to their side. Kind of like our modern day Psyop.

  Did your station ever get Mortared or anything like that?

No. However there are tunnels and they found tunnels going from North Korea to South Korea and that was part of our drill was we had to they said if they ever infiltrate these tunnels and attack this is what you have to do. And we had to destroy all the equipment in my specific section, and we went through drills. This is how we destroy the equipment and we were not to leave until we destroyed all the equipment and if that meant we got captured then that ‘s what that meant because we were in a top secret facility so we didn’t really have the option of leaving the stuff and running.

  Did you get to interact with any locals? Are there any memorable moments?

Yes. I took the train down to downtown into the markets and it was funny because I was on the train and because I’m blonde, apparently they don’t see blondes all that much, but I was on the train and people would just reach up and start stroking my hair. Like Oh wow this is amazing! So that was a little strange but it was funny because you would turn around and they would be smiling and they were really friendly and it wasn’t meant to be anything disrespectful or anything.

   How long were you over there?

I was over there for just over a year. 

 They say that the current war is an urban war. What is meant by urban war?

It’s more of the city. It isn’t out in the jungle so much anymore. It’s right in the city where people are living; you have a lot of civilians it makes it a lot more difficult to fight.

   How does today’s fighting style vary from the warfare of the past?

It’s varies a lot there’s, like I said back then we were fighting in jungles and open fields and things so and there were definite enemies. You could see a tank and say yep that’s the Germans or that’s the Koreans or those are the bad guys. Now you see women, children, normal civilians and you don’t know if they are the good guy or the bad guy. Because that is how they do it. That’s how they are fighting this war. They’re not from any certain country they’re not from any certain family, they don’t look any different than anybody else and that’s how they work.

  How did technology affect your experience?

The new technology coming up like the aircraft I was telling you about is just a little radio control airplane that you throw into the air, but it’s got cameras. And those are to go out and collect information on what’s out there. Some people have used them for Convoys. So they fly them out over the convoys in front to make sure that there isn’t anything out front that is going to hinder them or anything. They’ve used them for, you can use them for, and it’s called target acquisition. So you fly them out and find your target and then you call in the fire and say ok this is where it is this is your grid coordinate. Then once they throw the bombs or whatever you can say well you missed it by this much so turn this way by this many degrees, or do this, and it’s actually quite accurate. And it’s a lot cheaper than losing soldiers.

   What kind of stress did you endure when over in Korea and how does it differ from everyday stress?

In Korea it was, like I said I was young and away from my family in a completely different country and that was a little stressful. Another thing was they had riots. A lot of the college kids, there was a university right next to the base and a lot of the college kids would start riots and things so if you were outside the gate, the guards would start to close the gates so you would have to run quick and get in there or find someplace where people didn’t notice you because people, the riots themselves got pretty violent. Which is why they closed the gates which was kind of stressful too being young and why do these people hate us I don’t understand it. So that’s a little different than what we see here. People here in the United States will voice their opinion and say “Oh I don’t like bush oh I don’t like Clinton oh I don’t like, this is horrible this sucks,” but in other countries they’ll take some action.

  What equipment did you have while at your duty station?

We had our full TA50, which is all your gear for camping outside the shovels your weapon and all that stuff. Generally it was thrown into a wall locker because it was peace time there wasn’t really a need for it unless we got some messages in saying we are heightening up our security. You know this is what’s going to happen so then you would have to start moving things around, but generally it’s a pretty peaceful situation.

  What personal items were you allowed to bring to your duty station?

A lot more than I took because like I said, I thought I was going to live in a tent. We brought civilian clothes, like clothes you would wear every day a lot of people brought T V’s and video games and video game systems?  We had a Christmas tree in our barrack room we decorated all that, we had frying pans all the things you would normally take we were able to take to Korea. 

What specifically did you take?

Specifically, I took a couple changes of clothes; I really didn’t take much of anything. I didn’t know anybody over there; I didn’t know what we were allowed to take. They didn’t give you a packing list, they didn’t say well maybe you should take a computer or anything like that so I ended up buying everything over there. Which was fine because it was cheaper over there.

  What did you miss most from back home?

Burgers. Real beef burgers.

  What did you do on your free time?

We went to the club. They had a little, at the NCO club they had a little, no at the Dragon Hill Lodge they had nickel slots or something so you could, it was gambling but it was Nickels so we would do that. We would go into E Ta Wan and go shopping because it was just a big shopping area it was pretty awesome you would have loved it. I went site seeing, like I said I went downtown to the markets and there were little palaces like Korean palaces and things. There was also a running group, it was called Hash Runners, so that was a running group that would, they would mark out a place to run and it was all mountainous up there so anywhere you ran it was tough, but it was a running group so we’d do that too.

   Are there any memorable moments that you would like to share from when you were over in Korea?

Yeah there was an Old guy that, he was in the E Ta wan markets but he would sit and he would whittle, wooden carvings, I actually have a couple things from him. He would sit there and tell stories and he was just amazing because he was an older man and he remembered the Korean Conflict and he would sit there and talk to us and just say thank you so much for helping out and I really appreciate it and I would do anything to help Which of course was completely different from the college kids who absolutely hated our guts. It was kind of like Whoa What? That was pretty memorable. There was also a group of guys that would play these little games on the streets so you would walk down the little markets you know with your octopuses and all this other sea food stuff and in the middle of it there would be these two old guys playing their board games almost like mancala and stuff and they’d sit there and just tell you stories, it was really neat.

  Did you ever eat any of the octopus or the seafood?

I ate everything except the octopus. I wasn’t real brave with the Octopus, I ate, they had squid and scallops and different fried things, I don’t remember what they were but I was like hey it’s a different country why not.

  Don’t you think the squid and octopus would be about the same?

Yeah, but I’m a visual person and the octopus just didn’t look good.

How did you feel after you returned home?

You’re going to laugh at this but I kissed the ground. I did It was amazing. I didn’t come home on the midterm leave that we were allowed to have because I knew that if I did I would never get back on the plane back to Korea. When I got back into the United States I just dropped down and kissed the ground. I was just ecstatically happy.

   What kind of reception did you get when you came back?

It wasn’t bad. We came back in and Ken’s Mom and brother picked us up from the airport because I had gotten married over in Korea so that was interesting meeting the in-laws for the very first time, but it was very nice because they were very happy to see us and then when we came back up here everybody was just really happy.

  What lessons did you learn during your experiences over in Korea?

Don’t drink too much Soju.

  What is Soju?

Soju is a Korean liquor, which is the equivalent of formaldehyde, which they put in your body to preserve it. Yeah Koreans drink that a lot and the danger in that is that you don’t feel the effects until you have been drinking it all night and then you stand up and then you just fall down. Yeah be careful with the Soju.

  What did serving your country mean to you while on active duty?

It’s really, really important to me, I can’t even explain, I used to tell people when you first join the military you go into basic training and they break you down into absolutely nothing and then they build you back up and make you this amazing, loyal, proud to be an American, kind of person.

 Is there a message about the war today that you have for people?

Don’t believe everything that is on the T.V. news media’s are there to sensationalize what they want you to do is to sway your opinion one way or another. It’s not all doom and gloom there are so many people just like in Korea that were there that appreciate it so much there are still people there that hate our guts. That is going to be in any conflict that’s going to be in anything. It’s like that in our own country; look at our president there’s so many people who hate him and so many people who love him and that is just going to happen. So don’t take everything at face value. It’s all, well let me not say all, most of it is opinionated. A lot of it is they are going to report what they want to report. Then the people coming back, there are a lot of good things going on over there and there are some bad things too and I’m not, we’ve done plenty of bad, horrible things over there to those people, but at the same time we’ve done a heck of a lot of good too.

  When our occupation leaves the Middle East, what state do you believe the Middle East will be in?

I’m kind of iffy on that one. They’ve got the means to carry on and they’ve got a lot of… they want to have their democracy. They want to rule, they want themselves. They don’t want outside occupation they want to be able to be their country and to run it the way they want to run it. The problem with that are the terrorists come in and they infiltrate into different things and they hurt innocent people and then people start to panic. I think they are on a very, very good track and I think they will do well. I think it will be a bit shaky but I think they can do it. I think they can stand on their own two feet.

  What will this mean for the US?

This will definitely mean different relations It always, it’s kind of like networking in any kind of job field and anything we do it, we’ve got our ties there we’ve got the people. The whole concept of this is to win the hearts and the minds of the people and that is the lasting effects that it will be because that’s going to be something that they know they can rely on us. They know that we went in there with good intentions regardless of what happened or how things turned out or whatever, we do care about what happens to them. For the most part we should have and ally.

  Do you feel some things should have been done differently with the current conflict?

I’m sure there are, I don’t know specifically what it would be, and anybody else should be able to tell you too, stuff happens and you look back and say oh we should have done this or we should have done that, unfortunately you don’t get the actual results until you get the results and then you work from that. I think we’ve learned a lot of things, we’ve made good decisions based on how the turn of events has come about and I think that we’ve learned so that when we go into our next situation, conflict, whatever it may be I think that we’ve taken a lot from this conflict.

  Is there anything else you would like to add about anything?

No not really. I’m just very excited about being able to do my part whether that’s going to be in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever. If something turns up, you’re in the military and you go where they send you and I am just happy to be a part of it.