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you're going to find it informative. We want
to welcome to Veterans Radio a couple of Army
veterans, a couple of Western Michigan University
alumni and Broncos and a couple of guys who went
through the ROTC program and had a fantastic
project they recently completed preserving the
75 -year history of ROTC at Western Michigan
University. Tom Vance, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Thank you, Jim. And Mike Evans, welcome to Veterans
Radio. Thank you very much. Well, you both graduated
from Western Michigan University in the same
year. You were in the same ROTC classes, but
let's start with that. Mike, why ROTC? To be
honest, I felt it was the best way to get a commission.
I'd done some research. You know, there's basically
three ways to get a commission, either through
Officer Candidate School, through West Point.
or through ROTC. And as it turned out, it was
an opportunity when I went to Western to get
involved, and it worked out well. I was definitely
offered a scholarship. You clearly did. Tom,
why ROTC for you? Well, I'd always wanted to
be in the Army. Probably ever since middle school,
if someone asked me what I wanted to do, I would
say I'm going to go to college and be in the
Army. So I knew about ROTC for a long time. And
I didn't have a scholarship initially, but I
ended up getting a scholarship my last year that
guaranteed me getting active duty. Because at
the time that Mike and I were getting commissioned,
it was very competitive to get active duty as
opposed to just people who went into the reserve
right after college. And so I did end up with
a one -year scholarship that guaranteed me active
duty after graduation. Well, you know, that's
one of the things you and most people don't know
and the rules change You have to know what the
rules are both to get an initial scholarship
with ROTC You can get one before you go in but
a lot of folks get one after that first year
or after that second year So there's a lot of
ways the program works to help students Get into
and pay for college, but also learn about leadership
learn about teamwork. Mike, talk about some of
the things you learned in ROTC that maybe as
a young guy, maybe you were still in the learning
stage. Well, like Tom, I wanted to be in the
Army. My dad had served, and so it was an opportunity
for me to serve the country. But the biggest
thing I learned, and I think it distinguishes
people in leadership positions is the leadership
itself. There are managers out there that are
in charge of people, but truly ROTC taught us
how to lead by example and through a lot of different
ways of showing one, that you were focused on
the mission, but two, that you cared about the
people and they were equally important to me.
And so it really was an eye -opening experience.
Well, you know, when you're in that position
as a college kid, you know, you're pretty young,
you're pretty green. So part of what ROTC teaches
you in the leadership skills, Tom, kind of advances
you above others of your same age and experience,
doesn't it? Well, it builds a lot of confidence.
The program is designed to, you know, train you
as a team, you know, we're besides the physical
fitness part of it, we were trained in small
unit tactics. And we had FTX's field training
exercises each semester where we'd go out at
Fort Custer and go out in the field and train.
And it was really great training. One thing Mike
didn't mention about himself was that Mike was
the cadet battalion commander. Senior year, so
Mike was in charge of the cadet corps senior
year at ROTC Well, there's speaking of a position
of leadership Mike, how long did you serve in
the army? A little over four years. I was on
active duty in Germany and stateside I was part
of the Berlin Brigade back when the wall was
up. So that was a real great experience in and
of itself but yeah, I put in I had a put in at
least four years when I accepted a scholarship.
I wasn't sure I wanted to make it a career so
I got an educational delay to get my graduate
degree at the University of Michigan and after
the four years I moved on and actually went into
trust work which I did for 37 and a half years.
Well you know one of the things you learned too
Tom in that period and Maybe I'll go back to
Mike on this because he went to Germany for part
of his time. Again, you're a young guy. You haven't
seen the world yet. You haven't had a paycheck
that you could spend yet. Makes you grow up and
shows you the rest of the world, doesn't it?
It does, yeah. Now, where did you spend your
time, Tom, and how long were you in the Army?
Well, I spent 10 years on active duty. Started
off in New York City. uh, which is a interesting
place to be in the army. Uh, and then actually
went to Germany for three years. My wife and
I went there and Mike was already in Germany.
And so we were able to visit a couple of times
while we were both over there. Uh, and then came
back and was at Fort Knox for four years. Um,
so I had 10 years active duty. Then I went into
the reserve and I spent, um, 12 years in the
reserve, 10 of those years I was teaching at
ROTC at nighttime. I didn't get paid for it,
but I got retirement points. So I was back at
Western teaching an ROTC class at night. And
then I had a gig where every summer for two weeks,
I go to Washington and do a public affairs job.
And so between ROTC and the two week public affairs
gigs, cobbled together enough to retire from
the reserve. Oh, that's great. Again, it's not
one of those things you necessarily plan. But
as you say, you're able to cobble it together
and build a career that gives you some retirement.
And obviously, it was something you enjoy doing.
Otherwise, you don't stick with it. And then
you came out, I think, and went into public relations
and community relations at a couple of spots
over in West Michigan. Right, working at the
Upjohn company, the pharmaceutical, which became
part of Pfizer now, and a public school district,
and then a community foundation doing public
affairs for all those organizations. But along
the way, neither of you guys, now you've both
picked up at Western, I think degrees in history,
BA in history, you never lost the enthusiasm
apparently for the ROTC program at Western Michigan
University, because you took on what reads like
an insurmountable project of, passion project
really of, hey, let's put a comprehensive 75
year history together of this program. What the
heck were you thinking? maybe feel similarly,
for me it was more a labor of love. You know,
I helped Tom with the history. He did most of
the narrative and I worked on biographies of
former cadets and professors of military science
and was able to put together at this point about
1 ,200. Yeah, this is amazing. Each of you talk
about, like, one of you concentrated on oral
histories and somebody else concentrated on narrative
histories. Tom, go ahead, talk about your component
of this. I've got a chart of the numbers. And
unless you're an accountant, it'll make your
eyes bleed. It's really amazing. The volume of
work. Well, and it was interesting how it all
developed because, you know, Mike and I, it was
a two year project, basically. And, and we just
sort of kept it kept evolving and getting more
and more in depth. I don't think either one of
us envisioned that we'd end up where we ended
up after two years of research. So initially,
I was focusing on, well, Mike and I both started
at the archives at Western Michigan University,
and the archives had just tons of great materials
that we started with. And I started assembling
a narrative decade by decade of how the program
was developing. And Mike was capturing photos
from the yearbooks and the photo archives at
Western. And so I focused on the narrative, which
included some oral histories with alumni from
several decades, from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s,
we've got alumni talking about their experience.
And that information got sprinkled into the narrative.
And then And then Mike was focusing on all these
biographies. Well, and yeah, probably if you
knew how much work this was going to take, you'd
never start the project. That's the only way
these things really go, because it ended up being
a 10 -volume series. You wrote 58 pages on the
history, Tom. And Mike, did you talk to 1 ,200
people? No, it was a combination. We did post
online through the department a series of questions
for alumni to answer and then in most cases I
followed up with those alumni to create a biography
on them. In other cases I found information independently
from, you know, obituaries and other means of
identifying these people, LinkedIn, Facebook,
you name it. And so, in a lot of cases, I did
talk to the alums, but in a lot of cases, I didn't,
and many had passed. And some weren't interested
in talking. Not everybody's experience was a
positive one, as much as I think the vast majority.
was. Yeah, when you start going down that road
with biographies and I'm working on a project
that's getting me in that same realm, you find
out there are people who would just go back to
private life and that's their whole point. They
just want to be private and there's nothing wrong
with that. Talk a little bit, either of you,
about There was a demographic change in who was
in ROTC over the decades, the 75 years. What
did you learn from your research that sort of,
yeah, we can see this demographic change going
on? Well, I think at least from my perspective,
and Tom also did research on this, each decade
had an interesting mix of individuals. The program
initially in the 50s started out as a quartermaster
school. And so, you know, most cadets that got
into the program came out quartermaster officers.
And following the Korean War, there was a lot
of people that did volunteer because there was
a great deal of interest in serving. In the 60s,
when Vietnam came up, we had even more cadets,
but that was in large part because the draft
existed and ROTC was a way to, one, avoid the
draft initially and come out with a different
branch perhaps that maybe didn't require you
to go to Vietnam, although a number. of the graduates
did end up in Vietnam and served very well. You
got into the 70s post -Vietnam and that was kind
of the lean period for the program. And then
I think if you look at the 80s, 90s, 2010, 2020s,
you had the introduction of women in the program
and really a more vast array, not just of people
in the program, but the opportunities that existed
Say, for example, at Western, they had a lot
of flight students and people that went into
aviation. And so we had a pretty good contingency
of officers that served in that area. So yeah,
I think things definitely, you could see each
decade changing in terms of the type of people
and the reasons for which they joined. Yeah,
from the outside, it might look static. From
the inside, it's not static. As you mentioned,
Western has this great aviation program. And
I'm sure that that grew people. I think I read
that there have been something like 1 ,700 cadets
commissioned out of the program since it began.
Big numbers. And some of the information that
I found interesting was like how many women,
what percentage of women in different decades
as it went from zero to I think the high maybe
is around 32%. That's kind of interesting. You
captured data on folks who made grade at Lieutenant
Colonels and above. about 9 % of that group made
it a career and achieved that kind of rank. Again,
really kind of interesting data when you start
analyzing it. Tom, what surprised you as you
were putting it together? Well, I was going to
use the example of when Mike and I were in ROTC
is an interesting point in the history because
you know, the Vietnam War ended in 73, and that's
when the draft ended. So Mike and I and everyone
that joined in 1974, we were like in this, I
think those are like the smallest numbers that
the program had seen since it started. And we
were, our experience was really impacted by the
Vietnam War, because there were a few of us,
but the cadre had all had combat experience in
the Vietnam. So that really created an intensity
to the training we got. that was just very inspiring
to us. And I think we were sort of in awe of
the cadre that we had. And the same thing had
happened with people who joined the program when
it started. You know, the in Korea, the Korean
War started in 1950, and our program started
in 1950. And so during the first couple years
of ROTC, the cadets had combat veterans assigned
to ROTC as cadre. And so the Korean War impacted
training a lot and the Vietnam War impacted training,
beginning with like our year groups. So, I mean,
I think that made a lasting impression on both
of us that the kind of training we got and hearing
our cadre talk about their experience in war,
it made it very serious business. Well, and,
you know, we just have come out of a 20 -year
war a couple of years ago, Iraq and Afghanistan,
or global war on terror. Did you have an opportunity,
Mike, to hear from those folks, those more recent
graduates who had found themselves over in the
sandbox? Yes. In fact, one of them had written
a book about her experience. And yeah, several
had been in Iraq and part of the 91 venture,
92 as well as later, both in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So it, you know, again, war is not fun. And the
people that served really in a lot of cases,
made great sacrifices to serve and do their duty.
Yeah, you really have to have a commitment to
the service and the country to go through not
only ROTC program, but then meet your commitment
those four years afterwards or stick around either.
Through more of that as you did time and certainly
over the last 20 years the tempo of the op tempo
of Cycling back into combat for a lot of our
guys in the army Was at a level nobody nobody
ever envisioned so I'm curious is are all of
the ROTC Scholarships at Western Army or is there
also Navy component or Air Force component? It's
mainly just Army ROTC. The Western has recently
affiliated with Michigan State University who
has Air Force ROTC in addition to Army ROTC.
So if you're a Western aviation student, let's
say, and you want to become an Air Force officer,
you can... study at Western, but then cross -enroll
with Michigan State, and then you'd end up being
commissioned as an Air Force officer. Not that
everyone in the Air Force has to be a pilot,
you know, that's not the case, but because Western
does have a great aviation program, I think that's
a recent thing within the last couple years.
But basically, it's just Army ROTC at Western.
One of the things that you... Go ahead, Mike.
Yeah, the other part of that is, you know, you
do have the option of going into aviation in
the Army to the extent you're flying helicopters
or combat support. The other thing I was going
to mention, we talked about the aviation school.
You know, we had a very strong nursing school.
And so we had a lot of cadets that were commissioned
in the medical corps field who served as well.
So Western. is a pretty progressive institution
and has always been very supportive of ROTC.
And we produce some very, very good officers
over the years. Well, this kind of project, you
know, labor of love, takes a lot of time doing
research and being in the archives. And I want
One of you to talk about the help you got from
the University Archives curator, because it can't
be done without that kind of support. Take it
away, Tom. Well, like I said, Mike and I both
started there. And then as we went our sort of
two different ways on the focus of the project,
I know we both kept using the archives at Western.
Boy, the information that they had, like they've
got commencement programs that informed us who
was being commissioned every year. And Mike did
a lot of work with that. I'll let Mike can talk
to you all day about the data that he collected
about the alumni. But yearbooks and course catalogs,
because each decade the curriculum would adjust
a little bit throughout the history and we we
use those photos like I mentioned. Mike did a
lot with photos. In fact, I think Mike there's
what you've got like 2000 photos that are represented
in the the nine binders that some of his one
page bios that he did Jim will have two or three
photos on each of those. pages and so it's a
great and then Mike also illustrated the narrative
that I wrote. Mike went in and illustrated it
with photos and laid the whole thing out and
it really makes it more appealing when you can
read decade by decade and see photos of the cadets.
Well and I think the other part of that too is
the archive staff and answered your question
were very supportive. They would sit down with
us anytime we had questions or, you know, they
had ideas of where we could check to find information.
So yeah, the staff there was very supportive,
very helpful throughout the process. But yeah.
I saw that you ultimately presented this nine
volume or 10 volume body of work. to the university,
to the archives. Are they going to digitize it?
Do you know what the plans are for folks to be
able to, hey, I want to check out what grandpa
or what my aunt did. You know, you guys have
done work that I'm sure there are families don't
know this history of their relatives. Good point.
The archives obviously has a copy and they've
preserved it, taking into account. preservation
methods for keeping the information intact. The
Department of Military Science and Leadership
at Western has a copy and they have attempted
or are in the process of putting together those
biographies online so people can click in to
see the biographies. They haven't been able to
institute adding the pictures, which is disappointing.
But I think, again, you know, we're starting
at one point, we're making some progress towards,
you know, demonstrating information that basically
it's like dormant for years. And it's going to
be a process to get it out to availability to
everybody to click on. But certainly, that's
our intent to get it out as much as we can. I
put as this time put information on biographies,
for example, on PDF. Tom's done it with the history.
So there are ways we can communicate that information
to individuals who have an interest. But yeah,
it's a lot of information. So the idea of publishing
it, you know, doesn't make a lot of sense because
it just is so much. But if we can electronically
and through the benefit of technology, get the
information out to people, then yeah, that's
very much what we hope to do. Well, that certainly
sounds like a project the department should be
able to fundraise off of and help do, because
as I say, and we've been doing Veterans Radio
now for 20 years, we do a lot of writing in this
area, and you often run into somebody who says,
boy, I heard that story, I never knew that about
my uncle. He never talked about his time in Germany
or Laos or South America. And so I do think it's
important that all that work that you guys put
together becomes available for no other reason
than those family members can search for their
loved one and learn something from it. That's
a great opportunity. So Tom, what's the... You
know, jeez, just finish this. You two got another
big project you're going to take on, or are you
no longer accepting Mike's calls? Oh, well, it's
funny. Mike and I both serve on Western's history
department alumni advisory. Council, I think
that is it and we've been on that for a number
of years and they ask us the same thing with
the last meeting that we attended and Mike and
I just sort of looked at each other and No, because
this is it was really a very intense two years
worth of Worth of work and like I said when we
started this We had no idea that we would end
up with this body of work That's great. Mike,
have you blocked Tom's calls? It sounds like
he didn't block yours. No, but we have spent
a lot of time together and so there is that,
which both Tom and I know it has been a challenge
for sure, and a good challenge I think, but neither
of us anticipated how big this would become.
But as an example to me, the takeaway I see,
the positive takeaway is, you know, a number
of the graduates, former cadets, you know, that
I spoke to, a lot of them said, well, I hadn't
heard from the department since I graduated 40
years ago. So it told me that, you know, Even
though there's an open door, there's information
out there for former cadets, former commissionees
to reach out to Western ROTC. Western has a lot
on its plate training these people. So there
isn't always a lot of outreach to those that
have graduated. And I think Tom and I both discovered
that that was something we could hopefully help
with. Well, in 50 % of the folks responded, that
number is actually much higher when you realize
something like 23 % of the folks are deceased.
So it shows people are willing to connect and
tell their story given the opportunity. Both
of you have done great work on this. It's really
pretty amazing. Hopefully they will find a way
to digitize it all and make it available to the
general public. maybe you started something here,
maybe somebody else will pick up the next piece
of it. And we really appreciate the time you've
given to Veterans Radio today, Tom Vance and
Mike Evans, Army Vets, Western Michigan University
alum. graduates with history degrees, one kind
of used it, one went into trust work. So that's
a whole other story for another day, isn't it,
Mike? There you go. I really appreciate your
time, guys. Thank you. Thank you. And I want
to thank everybody for listening to Veterans
Radio today. I am Jim Fossone. It's been a pleasure
to be your host. I'm a veterans disability lawyer
at Legal Help for Veterans. And you can reach
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