Welcome to Brazos Matters.

I'm Jay Socol, and I have a co-host today.

Gracie Dolan is a senior journalism and sports management major from Godley, Texas.

And you might be seeing Gracie throughout the semester.

So, Gracie, thanks for being here.

Thanks for letting me be here.

Of course, this is going to be fun.

So military service and appreciation for military service are among the things that make Texas A&M University and the Twin Cities and surrounding area special and welcoming.

Well, today we're going to visit with a guy who spent decades as a sports journalist or in athletics related communications roles.

But his greatest legacy in this community, at least doesn't involve sports at all.

Tom Turbiville has now spent well over 20 years profiling local veterans, helping them tell their own fascinating stories to a very grateful community.

So if you've lived here for a while, you know Tom's name and you know his voice.

Tom and I worked together on the WTAW morning show.

We are two of the three original Infomaniacs.

When he first began feeling a restlessness in his soul, that's what I recall.

And so that feels like a good place to start.

Hey, Tom.

Jay, Gracie.

Hey, how are you?

Glad you're here.

So let's go back to what I think was the late 1990s when all this sort of happened.

The restlessness happened.

Tell me then with the veterans.

Yes part.

Yeah.

Well, like you said, we were on K on WTAW together.

The Infomaniacs in the morning.

Scott, Jay and Tom.

Yep.

And oh wait, Scott Tom and Jay.

It was really Scott Tom and Jay Right.

I'll take it.

Forgot my own pecking order down there.

And I had always had had an interest in veterans because I was not a veteran myself.

I did not serve in uniform.

So in some ways I felt sort of an obligation to make up for that, if you will.

I was of the Vietnam era.

As a matter of fact, when they had the very first lottery for to see who would go and they drew the birthdays out in 1970, I believe that was I was actually in college and I was A-1 my draft status because I had dropped out of college and I was coming back.

But my draft had it hadn't changed.

So I was a nervous young man that day.

And they were drawing birthdays.

bet.

Well, fortunately for me, they draw they drew August 13th, number 300 and something.

So I didn't get drafted because of my draft number, but so I never served in uniform.

Quick story that I always tell when people ask me about this is that my my mother's first husband did serve in uniform.

He was a Navy pilot and he was killed in World War Two in a training mission.

This was in in 1944.

And in sort of a weird sort of way, had he not died in in service of his country and my mother had not four years later remarried my father.

Then, you know, I wouldn't have been here.

So I always look at that as a a happening that resulted in my birth.

It was that, you know, that marriage ended because of his death.

So there's all kinds of reasons that I wanted to honor veterans.

I was doing a daily show on the radio called Bravo Brazos Valley.

That happened every five, five days a week.

It was a daily show.

And it would just sort of put a spotlight on things and Bryan College Station do gooders and things like that.

But let me call a time out because because here's what I remember.

You tell me if.

Right.

I remember when you started Bravo, Brazos Valley, which was a very cool addition to our programing, and you did it really well.

But I remember at the beginning of that asking you what you know, why?

And you said something along the lines of, Look, I am tired of spending all day, every day focusing on the actions and decisions of 17 and 18 year old kids, athletes.

Right.

There has to be more than this for me.

And that's why you started focusing more on the community.

Exactly.

Which then saw an increased number of profiles of veterans.

That's what I remember that.

Well, you remember absolutely correctly.

Good catch there, because you're right.

I mean, I loved my my sports work, but essentially it was you know, it was the coffee break.

That's what sports is.

And I didn't feel like I was really making a difference in my radio career.

And I thought, well, this is a great way to to make a difference.

So I got to know some veterans and I'll tell you about that and a little bit where I got I got well, I got to know them on the on the back porch of a fellow named Al Hansen, who lived near the corner of Villa Maria and Texas Avenue, right across the street from the Dairy Queen in Bryan.

Yeah, lived in an old house.

And every morning he would have a meeting on his back porch and where things were imbibed that normally is not your morning fare.

And he would have his veteran friends over there before they went to work, before they just to hang out and tell stories.

And your good friend and and the community's good friend, Bubba Moore, was one of the people who who was there.

And and Bubba invited me actually over to come over to Uncle Al's back porch.

And that's where I met three or four World War two veterans who were among the first three or four that of the 140, so that I interviewed for veterans of the Valley on KAMU.

So every Thursday during the Bravo Brazos Valley, I would highlight a veteran that would be my Veterans Day or Thursday.

I remember Thursday sort of Thursdays were Veterans Day.

Yeah.

And that's how it started on the radio.

And then one day the the manager of KAMU.

Jon Bennett, called me on the phone and said, Tom, what if we take what you do on the radio and put it in front of cameras and put these veterans in front of cameras?

Well, Jon and I went and had lunch about 30 minutes.

We we, we hatched it and it became a reality.

And I started the very first doctor, Dr.

Cooper was our very first guest.

And he and then we did one week and kept doing one week and one a week and one a week.

And eventually over the years, we ended up doing about 136 shows, probably involving about 125 veterans, because some of those shows were two partners.

Yeah.

And so that's sort of how it all got born.

So how would you as this thing started gaining speed and popularity, how did you identify the veterans you would profile and what was the whole process of researching and and so forth?

Well, obviously, I wanted to go after World War Two veterans first because that was back when people were saying, we're losing them at a thousand a day.

And now there's probably not many more left to be lost.

Right?

Quite frankly, yeah.

I was looking it up today.

And this year we will observe the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two.

The 80th.

So you think if kids were 20 years old, they're now 100 years old.

And those men, if they if they are still alive, they turn 100 this year.

If they were 20 at the end of World War two, which means that they were 16 at the beginning of World War two on on Pearl Harbor Day.

So, yeah, most if not, you know, 99% of them are gone.

So that's where I identified first.

And quite frankly, back to Uncle Al's back porch.

He was a member of the VFW and some of his friends were members of the American Legion and I go to his house and he said, you know who you ought to get on the show?

And I'd say, Great, give me his phone number.

Give me his contact there.

Well, I'll just invite him over here tomorrow.

You can talk to him.

And I said, Great.

So I met my first, a couple of dozen veterans on Uncle Al's back porch.

And then and then it just became a thing.

People would call me, would email me and tell me, you know, here's this guy's story, Here's this guy's story.

And again, World War Two veterans were the original pool that I drew from.

And then and Korean War veterans.

And then we got to Vietnam.

And that was sort of a whole different story because those were different kinds of cats and different kind of interviews to.

But actually it was just really word of mouth.

When the show became popular and people realized that it was really a thing, then the the, the, the, the people to interview just sort of funneled their way to me.

Yeah.

Well, one thing I like to say about this community as a whole is you don't know what kind of and I'll be polite in my description, rock stars.

We have all around us.

man.

People who have performed research or have developed some kind of a breakthrough or technology or something that has changed the world.

Or who are military heroes or who have very distinguished military service.

Right.

Or went, you know, into space, whatever.

And I think some of the people on your list, some of the people who you have interview have had amazing experiences during their military service.

And I'm sure there was huge humility in it that you probably aren't.

everyone, I'm going to say I'm not a hero because I returned.

But.

Right.

You, I'm sure, ran into some folks who made you say, wow.

yeah, I cannot believe this.

Yeah, exactly.

And when I sent you the list, I highlighted a few that were the wows.

And some of them that I highlighted aren't.

Wow.

As I just think that they had have great stories.

Like, there's a guy named Larry Stewart who was a city councilman, City College Station, when I was working in the city, Right?

Yeah.

And, you know, Larry used to go and look for Russian submarines and and and so his story, while he wouldn't call himself a hero, it was still interesting.

And here's this guy sitting on the City of College Station.

He and he had no idea that he was going to be elected.

He was the most surprised guy in the room when he won election.

That was really a funny story.

I only knew him as a councilman, but I'll be honest with you.

Right, Right.

But but, you know, he had a great veteran story and very sadly, he passed away very unexpectedly while he was still on the city council.

Yeah.

And, you know, Sonny Franzi, who helped liberate Buchenwald, these are historical things that kids read in history books, and they don't become real until you actually are they?

They do become real to me when you're actually sitting right next to a person who saw it, who experienced it, who did it.

Yeah.

And, you know, Ray Aiken is a Hall of Fame high school football coach from Gregory Portland.

And I was totally shocked when we were doing the story when we were live.

I mean, when we were tape tape was rolling, he told me a story about how he in a foxhole, somebody came over the edge of the foxhole and he fired and shot killed the form coming over.

And it was one of our own.

It was a friendly fire thing.

And I thought, boy, how personal this must be.

But it was like it was, like, cathartic for him to be able to get that out.

Wow.

I don't even know if all of his family knew about that.

But Ray Aiken, by the way, is the the grandfather of my mind's gone blank of the New Orleans Saints football player.

yes.

Drew Brees.

Drew Brees.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah, he was in my head, but there you go.

Come up with it.

Yeah.

Ray Aiken was.

Drew Brees is granddad.

Okay.

Yeah.

So.

So these are these are the ones that I just highlighted as secondary people.

We're going to talk about the ones I highlighted in blue a little bit later.

Yeah.

A good time to do a reintroduction here if you just tune in.

I'm Jay Socol joined by Gracie Dolan.

You're listening to Brazos Matters.

And our guest today is Tom Turbiville who is chronicled the stories of 140 local military veterans over the course of many years.

You were talking about actually what it was just about 1999.

And I did my last one right before I retired and went away in 2012.

So it's really over about a 12 year period.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

I haven't done an interview since 2012.

So do you ever get the urge to to do some more?

No.

Okay.

And I'll tell you why.

Because I was asked when I came back from three years in Nebraska with grandkids in 2015, I was asked to bring it back and I said no because of the veterans we're talking about now.

And those are mostly Vietnam veterans.

Yeah, the World War Two veterans who were still left ten years ago when I returned, they were getting up there and really, you know, weren't in a in a condition to tell the stories anymore.

Yeah.

So what we were left with were mainly Vietnam veterans.

And their story just is, is as as powerful as their stories are.

First off, it would not have been a sustainable show because there's not enough of them.

Didn't want to talk about it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And secondly, it's not it's not the same story as World War Two veterans.

Well, and I didn't want to do a weekly story about about people coming home and getting spit on.

Right.

You know, I didn't I didn't want to do that for them.

I didn't want to do it for our audience because it's well chronicled.

People know about it.

And plus, you have a little connection with your father, right?

So.

Right.

Yeah, It was so and it was so.

World War two was were the main ones that I did.

What kind of you talked about the the gentleman who maybe revealed a story that he hadn't even perhaps revealed to some of his own family members.

Did you ever did you ever experience or see a veteran experience, an emotional response to telling their stories?

Yeah.

Yeah.

yeah.

Yeah.

There were there were times that we almost, you know, quit taping.

But then, you know, you and I, being in radio, we sort of have our little tricks and our little ways to to do a nod or something like that, to sort of bring them back out of it.

So I used those skills a little bit.

But yeah, there were, especially in the Vietnam ones, one of the people that we will that will go and talk about them now are the is Wilson, Dickey, Wilson and Frank Dickey are both veterans.

Frank Dickey was a ground soldier in Vietnam.

He was just a guy with it, painted his face and went through the bushes and tried not to step on landmines and just fought the Viet Cong.

He was just a ground soldier in Vietnam.

And people don't know that Frank is you know, he's Doctor Dickey's husband.

And so a lot of people don't know what kind of war experience that Frank had.

Well, their son, Nancy and Frank's son, Wilson Dickey was an American sniper.

People know about the American Sniper.

Saw the movie.

Yeah.

Or read the book.

And that was who Wilson Dickey was.

He did that job.

Wow.

He spent in Baghdad and in Afghanistan.

He did two tours and his job was to go up into the third floor of civilians houses, take over the third floor of their houses, and plant his rifle and take out the bad guys who were planning roadside bombs.

There were where he was stationed.

That was his job.

And that was tough for him to to recount.

But he did it.

But that's just one example.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I know we're going to talk about some very specific folks who you interviewed, and we're even going to talk about one of your side hustles on the Brazos Valley Veterans Memorial and what that's about.

Yeah, I'd like you, but I want to go over to Gracie and see, based on what you're hearing so far, thoughts, impressions, questions for Tom.

My only big question for you is I was looking at, of course, all of the interviews I was doing a look through.

I just wanted to I was curious about how it evolved when you first started.

Obviously, you did it for many years, you said.

Right.

How did it.

I know the episodes used to be longer.

Lots of two partners.

How did you kind of decipher how would you how you would move about for each specific person?

Well, very good question.

First off, something that needs to be said.

Everyone of these 130 something interviews that we did on KAMU every single one of them, I went and visited with that veteran in their home two days before or one day before we were going to record because I wanted to get the story.

I didn't want to just come in, call to the studio and say, Well, hi there, veteran.

Tell me about everything that you did in the war.

I wanted to know their story so that I could lead them along and get the meat of the story done in 28 minutes.

So?

So I went to their homes.

So I actually had two interviews with each one of these hundreds, 30 something veterans, a long form interview in their homes, which, by the way, I put a audio recorder down.

I recorded all of those informal interviews and and I have those are most of them.

I have some of them got the cassette got eaten or something like that.

But so I would know their story before we sat down to tape.

So to answer your question, that's what gave me a guide during each individual interview where to go, how to get to the to the to the meat of the story of their of their service.

And I didn't want and I wasn't necessarily trying to pull out the heroics of their service, you know, one like So tell me how many how many Purple Hearts did you win or or how did you do that?

Or were you ever afraid?

Did you ever think you were going to die?

I didn't want to pull those stories out exclusively at all.

I wanted to know just the everyday type of stuff.

The the the cook who who cooked for the people who were following Patton's Third army and.

And the guy who who strung telephone line.

That was a matter of fact, Sonny Franzi, who later helped liberate Buchenwald.

So I wanted to get the everyday stories also.

So that's sort of how I guided each each interview.

And I also wanted a mix of young and old, not just World War Two, but Vietnam, who are old now.

They're my age in their seventies, but also when the Iraqi freedom started, we got we got people who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Matter of fact, the first person that we interviewed that had was at in Iraq was Dave South's Son.

Oh, Randy?

Yeah.

Was Randy South?

That was the first one that we interviewed that had fought in it had served in Afghanistan.

So we had several of those also.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But anyway, I don't know if that answered your question, but that's that's what came into my mind when you ask it anyway.

So.

Yeah.

So I'm going to pivot here because I want to make sure we get this stuff here.

You are a member of the the board for the Brazos Valley Veterans Memorial.

Yes, sir.

And for people who don't know about that, that treasure, this tucked back in the woods over a Veterans Park.

Right.

Can you talk about what that is and why it's pecial?

Yeah.

We got another hour here.

I know.

I know.

So?

So do what you can.

Well, I'm just telling you, if you don't know about it, or even if you do know about it and you just been meaning to get over there and just hadn't gotten around to it, shame on you.

Go, go, go do it.

The Brazos Valley Veterans Memorial, if you go into Veteran's Park and you go on the on the course to be the South side.

Yeah, the south side.

Not the university, but the other street.

Harvey.

Harvey, thank you.

You go on that Harvey entrance and then right there to your right park and put your walking shoes on and walk through the 12 acres and the pathway, the Lynne Stewart pathway, because there is a, a monument or a statue that depicts every conflict that Americans have fought in, starting with the American Revolution.

And matter of fact, we have four new statues that are still to be installed.

We have spaces for them and there are stories.

They're storyboards, they're about them.

But we've got four more still to go before where our job is done there.

But it's just a magnificent place to walk through.

When I do my walking, I go over there just to walk, just around there.

It's a place just to sit on a bench, just have a great and just just history.

And don't you go, but take your kids and your grandkids also.

And of course, the main wall of honor, which is there in the plaza right there now, has nearly 9000 names on it.

Wow.

And so every Veteran's Day, we call out the names of new people on that list.

And if you want to add your name to that wall of honor, the deadline every year is August the 15th, so that it will be etched by November 11th.

And you can go to the v m dot org and find out how to put your name.

There it is.

When you walk back into those through the trees.

Right.

And to the big centerpiece monument.

I think it'll take your breath away.

You have no idea what's back there, Right?

And if you're the kind who's who.

You know, Gracie, if you're.

If your family comes to visit you and you're like, what am I going to take these people to?

Right?

That's a place to take them.

And that's right down the road from my house.

I live right there.

I don't know how I haven't been yet.

It it is among the I'm just going to go ahead and say it is among probably the ten best veterans memorials in the country.

Yeah, without a doubt.

I think that's right.

And again, it this is an example of the commitment we have to our veterans in this community.

Right.

So we've got a couple of minutes left here.

I want I want you to do a little lightning round of some of the veterans who you profiled and just a little little something about why they stand out.

You're going to call out their names.

You want me to help you hit you hit.

Go ahead.

I'm ready.

Like some of the names already you hit, you know, talked about the Dickies already.

Okay, Al Hansen, you referenced, right, because he was local Al with them on his back porch.

Yes.

Yes.

Sonny Franzi, Sonny Franzi, Ray Aiken, you mentioned.

Yes, I did.

Larry Stewart You mention, right?

What about Speck Gellman?

Speck Gellman was the longtime sports information director at Texas A&M.

As a matter of fact, I took his place when I came to A&M in his job in 1984.

I remember Speck Right, Right.

Speck is mainly known in this community as the SID for Texas A&M Athletics.

But he also fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and he was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge also.

So, you know, there's a guy that, you know, yeah, I remember back I used to go have a drink with him, play golf every day at Bryan Muni and yeah, he did what?

Yeah, he was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge.

Wow.

Really?

Yeah.

Well, what are some other names that stand out?

Alma Al Meyer.

Okay.

Alma, Our Air Force Vietnam P.O.W.

for six years.

A&M Class of 1960.

He was at the Hanoi Hilton for six years.

He was a P.O.W.

in Vietnam, and he was shot down in his f105 shot out of the sky.

And he the when the Vietnam when the the P.O.W.s were released, a lot of people remember seeing on television, then being greeted, coming down the steps out of the airplanes.

He was one of those.

And Alma, he's passed away now, but he was one of the ones that is always highlighted.

Bob Pardo We lost Bob just about four or five months ago, as a matter of fact, at Air Force Vietnam.

Go Google this Pardo's Push.

Google it.

You'll know everything that you need to know.

He in his F-4, he actually pushed a another F-4 out of North Vietnam into South Vietnam, pushed it with his plane with a with a tailhook assembly on his windshield.

On his windshield, Yes, that's right.

Ed Eyre.

Ed Eyre, he's the only veteran that I had that was at Iwo Jima that was there at on the Sands of Iwo Jima.

Based on what I've read, I don't know how anybody survived Iwo Jima.

Right.

Period.

Right.

But but he was there and I asked him, I said, so did you see him raise the flag?

And he said, no.

And I'll tell you, 99% of the people who claimed that they did see the flag raised are lying because it just he said he said it happened.

It just happened way in the distance somewhere.

Probably maybe 100 people saw it.

But probably there's still 5000 people that claim they saw it.

So here we are.

We knew 28 minutes would go by too fast because we're out of time.

But quick, do you remember the Web site where people can find your archived interviews?

Say it if you I'll tell you one thing.

If you if you Google Veterans of the Valley.

Yeah.

And and do that, it'll go right to the KAMU, I mean excuse me to the Cushing library website and thank you to Cushing library.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Because they put every one of these interviews online long after you and I are gone, they'll be there.

Thank you to the Cushing library and their website.

And thank you, Tom.

Thank you, Gracie.

Folks, thank you for listening to us matters.

We appreciate it very much.

Hope you have a wonderful day.

And thanks for listening to KAMU.