| Summary: | (4:29) Mr. Kephart tells about his family history of military service and the military today.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Robert Kephart
July 13, 2011
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 5
Rhonda Haygood: What influenced you to go into the ROTC and the National Guard when you were younger? Did you have ancestors that were in the military, or was it just—
Bob Kephart: Oh, yeah.
RH: ―an interest?
BK: Yeah, I had, my mother was the oldest of thirteen children and she had seven brothers and all seven of those brothers went into service, all seven of them went overseas, all seven of them was in action, all seven of them came home. She had a wreath on her door with seven wreaths, you know, it was a seven-thing wreath and the President of the United States sent her letters and sent her all this stuff. Normally you don’t send the, the last child of a family, you don’t put them in there, and, but all seven of these people went. Three of them went back during the Korean War. They were in the Second World War. All of those were in the Second World War and three of them went back into the Korean War. One of them was a warrant officer in the Marines and he went back as a warrant officer in the Army. And then I had a uncle that was a [??]. Like I said, I had a large family of military people. I, I reckon we just came up with it during our period of time. It was something you did. It was just something you did. You, ah, my dad was never in service because his age was never, put him in the right position. My son has never been in service cause he’s in the, you know this is the volunteer type service time, he’s never volunteered, so. That don’t bother me but back in my early years that’s what you would do. In fact, I used that money to date on. That’s where we’d always get our movie money. We’d, ah, cost us a quarter to go to the movie and ten cents for two cokes. Bag of popcorn was a nickel. But I used my Guard money, my ROTC money to date on back in those days and used some of it in college, too.
Clint Alley: When they went to an all volunteer force, would, that would’ve been in the mid-seventies? Is that right? Late seventies? Was that, could you notice, was there, was there a lot of strong opinion against that or for that in the military?
BK: Yeah, there was a, there was quite a bit of opinion given out on that. I think that the majority of the people didn’t think that there would be enough volunteers to, to, take it. And I’m surprised. I really didn’t think they would either.
CA: Um-hm.
BK: Because the military was not the thing for a lot of people, but early on it was a job for some people.
CA: Um-hm.
BK: You know, they had, that was, that was, a lot of people found a, way they would find work with the Guard, I mean with the military, not the Guard but the military. And now they’re still doing it though. You know I keep thinking that it’s not gonna work long, that they’re gonna have to put the draft back into service but they’re continuing to get people that’s volunteering for active duty but I think a lot of it is because of the economy. I think a lot of people are going on active duty because they can—now, you know I told you a while ago when I had to, when they sent me my letter cause I’d got out of ROTC, you couldn’t draw money from both entities but, you can now. In fact they, while I was doing recruiting work that was one of the things we did. We went to the ROTC and we recruited those boys into the Guard and we sent people from RO—from the Guard into ROTC. You drew money from both of them, was not a problem. And then the Guard starting offering ten thousand dollars for scholarship money. You want to, you know if you go and stay four years in the Guard, in the military you get scholarship. Ah, stuff like that. And it’s, ah, that’s still a big enticement.
CA: Um-hm.
BK: They have things now where you take a, someone that’s a nursing field or a doctor’s field and they’ll give you twenty-five thousand dollars just to join. So, those incentives has caused a lot of people to keep going into service. So the, so volunteer is working right now. Ah, the generations, and I’m not knocking your type generation, but they’re not as patriotic as we were back then. They, you know, it’s just a different story. If something came up I think you’d find the majority them, but I, I, ah, you had some that would not go if you had, you know, whatever. But you’ve got some that would be willing to take off and go in a minute, to a heartbeat.
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