Hello and good morning.
I'm Robert Stewart, the Chief of Interpretation
at Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument.
I want to thank you for joining us today
as we embark on a special journey.
We're going to start our veterans podcast.
Honoring those who have served this nation
and are now serving in the National Park Service.
I'm joined today by Ranger Reginald Murray.
He's an NPS Ranger who works at the
William Howard Taft National Historic Site
and he also does Buffalo Soldier reenacting
and living history programs.
So I want to thank you, Ranger Murray,
for joining us today.
It's my pleasure.
Before we really jump into this interview,
can you tell us how you're feeling today
where you're from, things about your childhood,
anything you'd like to share with us?
I'm feeling pretty good.
Veterans Day is a special occasion.
It gives you a chance to reflect on individuals
that gave their life for freedom.
Being a young man from Anniston, Alabama,
I've traveled around the world with my family
growing up and also as a soldier.
So I've got a chance to look at the military
from a youth growing up to
actually serving in my country.
That's why Veterans Day is special to me, because
of my family members that have served
in the different wars and in non-conflicts.
Wonderful. With it being Veterans Day, you're going
to be our first person interview for the veterans podcast.
What influenced you?
Of course you just said your relatives, but
anything, was there anything else that influenced you?
One of the things that influenced me that I thought
about was another way to get the history
of the Buffalo Soldiers out, because they were
an extensive part...they served an intricate part
of the military that people don't know about
and it gives people a chance to see them in the light
that they should be displayed in.
That's why do the Buffalo Soldier programs.
Because it's my way of giving back to veterans,
especially from that period in time.
And their contributions, which people tend to forget.
I see you brought a photograph here today.
Would you mind letting us know what that's about?
This is, when you talk about influences,
you talk about the Buffalo Soldiers.
When I talk about influences, I think of Top Sergeant.
This was the First Sergeant of all units.
He was the first line, the first contact that the
new soldiers came in contact with.
He was the one that that basically instructed them
and gave them their chance to perform
above their abilities.
He was that driving force behind
esprit de corps and
duty, honor and country, to me.
So that's why I brought the photograph.
Just so that people can see
what Buffalo Soldiers meant to the country.
It's funny that you brought that photo
of the first person that will come in contact because
my next question was what is some of your
first memories of your time in the military?
One of my greatest times in the military
was being stationed in Germany.
And being stationed in a Cavalry unit.
Because, growing up you know like most kids,
you love to play cowboys and Indians.
Mine was always playing Cavalry and Indians.
Always the Cavalry is coming in to save the day.
I didn't grow up with black soldiers or
knowing about Buffalo Soldiers.
I just grew up learning about the white Cavalry
charging in to do everything
and I would always in my mind,
paint a picture that these were black soldiers
not knowing that there were really ever
black soldiers in the military,
except for my dad.
But that was a different time.
So when I was assigned to a Cavalry unit
and we would always, they would always say
"well, you know that we're riding for Custer."
And I'm just like "Riding for Custer, ok?"
when I was a stationed in Germany, but then
started learning more and more about the
Buffalo Soldiers and their history
and that's when I started collecting a lot of memorabilia
about the Buffalo Soldiers and from there it took off.
You spoke about your father,
and he served the military.
What were some of your early perceived notions
about the military when you were growing up?
Well, my father was in Nike missiles
and, you know, we were being moving around
the country, different states and other things,
I would always ask him, you know,
things about the military what his job was.
So one day, unknown to me, they had a
family day at the base.
So my father took me and we went to the base.
He took me to work with him, so to speak.
I got a chance to see the soldiers marching,
this is when they were wearing the all green fatigues.
I liked the way their boots were shiny
and everything was just like glistening on everybody.
They were just like motivated, and I just thought
"wow, that's I want to be one day,"
to be able to march and shine my shoes like that.
Look good, that snap.
And even the guy at the gate wearin' the MP uniform,
he was just like, you know, yeah Gung Ho,
keepin' people out, protecting the country
And that's all I saw was whenever I saw a soldier the
thing that popped in my mind was
"protecting the country."
"Making the bad guys pay" basically.
Always riding to the sound of, you know, the guns
if the enemy is attacking you, you know,
you got to keep moving forward.
And that's what I always used to play around with
pennies and nickels, you know.
The nickels were the officers,
and the pennies were the soldiers.
"laughter"
So, courage honor, and valor...
meant a lot to you with your family serving,
and you wanted to serve as well.
Father, uncles, cousins, everybody.
So you were overseas from from time to time,
did you ever serve in any military conflicts?
The only, well, Korea's considered a conflict
because we were still, it was an armistice.
Cease fire. But, you always had to look out for
those things that were going on.
We were always being called to the border on alerts.
When I was stationed in Germany, we had to go up
and guard a particular part of the border,
and we, we encountered something that occurred
while someone was trying to defect
from the Czech border, and we were all,
all the units were called on alert
and we were at a checkpoint
that the incident was taking...the incident occurred
and the first time I ever really stared down
the barrel of anything, was a Hind D helicopter
was looking at us because they thought we
were going to try to help the individual
that was trying to escape through the
concertina wire in the minefield.
And so, our Lieutenant, being the
calm cool cucumber he was,
he called in for another chopper
so we had two...helicopters...
the Apaches and the Hind D's looking at each other
thinking, you know, "we're not going to survive this"
because we were right in the middle.
But, everything subsided and, you know, everything was
back to normal.
There was nothing we could do for that individual
because he was on the Czech side of the border.
But that was the only real conflict
that we were involved in except for
gearing up and getting ready to go to Desert Storm.
Being overseas, how did you adapt
to being in another country,
being in the midst of possibly a war zone,
being the midst of a conflict?
What did you do to prepare yourself mentally?
Mentally, it's just like anything else you go into.
You learn about the country,
you make sure you follow the rules and regulations
that are put forth to you.
You just gotta make sure that, you know,
when they tell you "don't walk alone, walk in groups"
because things can still happen to you,
whether you know you incite them or not.
And, you know, my thing was with growing up
I learned that at early age traveling with my father
overseas and then when I joined the military,
it was much the same.
You're given orders for a reason,
and somebody else has probably encountered
that same thing you're going to encounter
and it's best to stay out of those situations
because you're here for one reason
and that is to defend the
Constitution of the United States
against all powers, foreign and domestic.
And so that was what my job was.
I see you have a prisoner of war, mission in action
bracelet on.
Can you tell us what that means to you?
Being a part of the American Legion,
there are soldiers that are still unaccounted for.
And we have to make sure people don't forget.
If you go to any American Legion meeting,
there's always a missing man chair there
for POW's and MIA's, and so we we take that to heart
because we are built...we're a nation that...that does not
want to leave any man behind.
So those soldiers that are unaccounted for from
the Vietnam War or any wars,
even during the Korean War, that are still missing,
we don't rest until they come home
because that makes us an incomplete country
because those individuals are not buried
on the sovereign soil in the United States of America.
When you were overseas,
when you were serving in the military,
when you were defending the country,
did it ever occurred to you that you were making history
or paving the way for others?
Personally, I didn't see it as that.
I mean, it was it was my job, it was my duty.
I took an oath and that oath I had to stand by.
A man's word is important.
When you break that confidence, you know,
then everything is out the door.
My ability to do my job well and learn
to teach others how to do their job well
is what the mission was.
That's the mission that was put forth to us and
that was the mission that had to be carried out.
Everything else was secondary because
anything that you did that was wrong was a blemish to
America's coat of arms.
My opinion, I mean, I may have been
the lowest man on the totem pole
from an NCO standpoint but I made sure
my soldiers, these young men, knew that they were
there to train to be better than their foes
and, I mean, it takes a lot of work
nobody's perfect but as long as you can hold your own
and you have your friend, your buddies back then,
that's what life was about then, during that period.
So, all-in-all, how many years did you serve?
I served 16 years, faithfully.
I loved doin' what I was doin'.
I was a tanker, just riding around in 56.6 tons of steel,
lobbing rounds downrange was was something else.
Along the way, I was a tank gunner,
I was on command tracks my whole time
because I knew how to pick up targets
and how to keep these points that they
give you and I've helped quite a few Lieutenants
in my lifetime to beat the Colonel.
And that was all it was about,
was beat the the commanding officer and
beat the colonel on tank table eight
and get the most points and so I've got
enough medals and things in my in my back pocket
that I know I was a good gunner.
So, I didn't really have to worry about too much.
I had excellent crews, they listened and
we worked cohesively as a unit, as a team
which was very important.
So I made sure the tank was ready to go
so all the commanding officer had to do
is just jump on and let's keep going.
How were you treated during that timeframe?
It was a different time.
My crews that I worked with we had black/white,
different nationalities. It was, everybody got along.
We wore green.
There was no black and white, it was green.
Our tank was camouflaged, so you, to be a part of
that crew no matter what background you came from,
the mission was most important.
There was really no time for the discrimination
that we talk about today.
It wasn't as rampant, people, most of the soldiers
knew how to keep their opinions to themselves.
When they were on that crew
you were part of that crew, that was your family.
That was your home
when you were going to the field training.
I mean, we we had a good time.
I can honestly say we had a good time,
and I enjoyed doing what I was doing.
The guys you were in the tank with,
how many altogether?
Four men, four man crew.
You had a driver, loader, the gunner and tank commander.
So you feel like, a special closeness with those guys?
Yes, we breathed the same air
we sniffed the same smoke,
whenever we had to go into a nuclear biological area,
we all wore the same, but we wore our own gas masks.
We were all huddled in there together,
so if one man fails, we all fail.
Somebody doesn't do their job, people die.
And that was what, you know,
everybody went in knowing that so
communication inside that team was key.
You can't have one person off on their own,
upset, because if something happened
and then, that's three other people that are going
to lose their lives.
So, you had to work as a crew,
you had to work together.
A good experience...
we were broke down on Reforger in Germany
And, all we were eating was MRE's.
One of our...my driver, he was, he said in his past life
he was a food connoisseur.
And I was like "okay, well let's see what you can
can cook up with these MRE's."
So he, everybody threw their MRE's in the pack.
We had like two cases on the tank,
just in case you broke down
and nobody was going to get to you anytime soon.
So he goes out, he puts everything together,
he makes this little fire on the tank,
he had his little cooking stove and he put
all these different mixtures of food together
squeezed out of these little packets
and it was pretty good!
And then my...my loader was like
"Sergeant Murray, why are we eating MRE's
when there's a guest house right there?"
laughter
I'm like "you are right!"
I said "who's got money?"
Everybody throwing in, "Well Sergeant Murray,
they take American money too."
I was like, "okay!"
So, we had three of 'em went over to the guest house
brought back sandwiches, and meat, and Coca-Cola,
that was one of big things over there.
So, because they went and bought this food,
the next morning we were out there again
and the people in the town saw us out in the field
and they brought all this food over to us, already cooked
so we didn't have to eat MRE's until the M88's and
everything came over to get us back on track.
Okay, okay.
Sounds a good memory to me, yes?
laughter
Earlier you mentioned that you
were part of a Cavalry unit.
Yes.
And, Colonel Young, whose site I'm from,
he was, of course, a cavalry officer.
Yes, he most definitely was.
I want to ask you about Colonel Young's legacy.
How does that legacy impact you today?
Well, Colonel Young was was a man of vision.
He was, he had a tenacity to not let things
get him down in adversity.
To me, he was the epitome of a black officer.
Because he would not let his men down.
He tried to teach them the right way.
And he showed leadership in everything he did.
And when it came to personal issues to him,
he thought of ways to rectify that, to you know,
prove beyond a shadow of a doubt of his abilities
to be a good leader.
And today, I would use that
if I was training any soldier.
And with him being the third graduate from West Point,
you know...who does that?!
I mean, you've got all these white soldiers
that are training doing the same thing you're doing,
but they have enough time to take out of their busy,
out of their their duties,
to shun this man and to try to keep him down.
But that goes to show, you know, you
can't keep a good man down,
especially a good officer down.
And he showed that, I mean his ride to Washington
just letting them know "Hey, I'm still combat ready."
"You can't keep me down. Give me any task and
I'll, I can improve on that task or make it better.
Being the highest ranking black officer
during his period, you know, I look back at that
and I say, you know, if he had just been given a chance
he could have been as good
as any officer during World War One.
But if you don't get a chance,
you know, what can you prove and what can you do?
But he didn't let that keep him down.
And then two; to be the first black officer to be buried
at Arlington National Cemetery
hands down, no better man.
We've had great leaders in the past but,
if you look at the early days,
three men go into West Point
during that, that conflict time and are able to emerge
on top of the world.
So, I know we spoke about your time
in the, in the military, and in the Army.
And you've been out of the Army for
how many years now?
Just a few?
Many moons.
laughter
About 17 - 18 years.
Well, I'd like to know how your time in the Army
prepared you for being outside of the Army?
Working in the civilian sector,
working for the federal government.
Well, it was kind of different.
I mean, they try to prepare you,
give you a job skill but,
I found that there was no job skill for a Tanker.
I'm not driving anything or
shooting any big guns anywhere,
but they gave you training,
they had a GI Bill,
I went to college even when I was in the military
they allowed you to go to college.
So all that time I had credit hours
that I had collected in the military
helped on the outside.
So they also let you go to trade school.
I decided that I wanted to go ahead
and finish up my college and so,
being stationed in Kansas,
was where I got out of the military yet,
I was attending Kansas State University
and it was sort of like, something was still,
I had that that love of serving...
being a Buffalo Soldier, I felt I was a
Buffalo Soldier. I just wasn't a soldier
during that period.
And then I was able to, in one of my classes
at Kansas State University, one of the alumni
came back looking for someone to do the
Buffalo Soldier at Fort Larned National Historic Site,
where the buffalo soldiers served,
protecting the Santa Fe Trail.
And so, Tony Ciphers, he was like,
well, he talked to my professor,
so, you know what, well we've got a black student
that is interested and loves talking about the
Buffalo Soldiers, that's all he does,
he's always wearing these shirts and hats and
different things.
So I talked to the alumni and he, the alumnus,
and he said "okay, well we're looking for
an african-american to portray the Buffalo Soldier
at Fort Larned because the gentleman that we had,
he moved on to Carlsbad Caverns."
So we're still talking about military,
the National Park Service
since, the Buffalo Soldiers were the first
Park Rangers in the National Parks.
So, you know, we, we had in common and so
I went to Fort Larned, they gave me, I did everything
I had to do, so they said "well we want you to become
part of, be a zero-nine-nine.
I was like "what is that?"
And it was, sort of like a seasonal ranger.
So I started off doing that every summer.
I would go out and do the Buffalo Soldier reenactments,
and that gave me a chance to read up more
and I even got a chance to talk to one of the tribes
that claim they gave the Buffalo Soldiers their name.
And then they taught us how to live off the land,
different things with youth groups,
and it just escalated from there and so
I did that for a while and then a
national park opened up, called Nicodemus.
So, I was the first park ranger at Nicodemus
to set up and work there.
And then I come to find out that
some of the descendants of Nicodemus
were also Buffalo Soldiers.
So it was a connection amongst the three parks.
And then Fort Scott and Brown versus Board,
so all those things played into it but
the Park Service for former military, veterans
is a great place to start after your time in the military.
A lot of things you do are different,
but then there's some things that go back,
that you can fall back on your training for,
especially in leadership, associating your job to people.
Because veterans at times are forgotten but,
you always have those people that bring back history.
It's interesting how kind of like the theme of
the Buffalo Soldiers and military history and services
kind of guide you all throughout your life from
being in the Army to now of the National Park Service.
I want to ask, is there is there like one person you could
think of, that unsung hero in your life,
that's kind of been that mentor for you?
Well, my father.
My father was, I mean, he,
he came from humble beginnings just like
anybody else's father.
He played for a black baseball team that never got a
chance to do the things they wanted to do.
Negro League.
My father was, he was always, he would
tell you, he'd tell you to do something,
but then he'd tell you why he wanted you to do it
so you had an understanding of why
you were doing what you were doing.
And, he would always tell us, you know,
no matter the color of your skin, you are somebody.
and those things were instilled in him
from my grandmother, from my great-grandmother.
Because he's named after her, and and it was, you know,
the things that he went through are the things that,
you know, that went on in his life and he was,
he was living in a time of turmoil in the south.
But he managed to break through that
and he would teach.
People were drawn to him, even when he
before he died he was working the at the post office.
And you go to work, you go to,
my mother tell me, you need to go make sure
you get this to your father he needs it, blah, blah, blah.
When I would go there,
the first thing, when I walked in the door, I said
"can I speak to John Murray?"
"John, Big John, your son is here."
And it was like, everybody knew who he was,
even when he was out on the routes
everybody called him John, you know,
called him by his first name,
"John, how's it going...how's the family?"
And I mean, it was like, you know,
they were drawn to him,
there was that aura about him that people liked.
And so, that's what I strive to be for my, you know,
just like my dad because, you know,
he served in the military, he served 20 years
and you know he never had a
bad thing to say about the military.
So, you know, and he would also say, you know,
you're having a bad day, and you're complaining
who's gonna change it?
Nobody can change it but you.
And the way you view the world,
and the way you put forth your first step
to make sure everybody else around you
is having a good day.
Wow, so Mr. John Murray.
Yep. John Willie Murray because
his grandmother's name was Willie.
"laughter"
Anniston, Alabama and pecans!
Ok, ok!
Wow. You shared a lot today,
you shared a lot of yourself,
and I thank you for this for this time here.
And I always like to end the conversations
with asking is there anything that you'd like to share
with the youth of today?
All I can say is get a hobby.
Join a youth group that is going to help you
open up doors that you never thought you could open.
There are different organizations around the country.
I work with a couple of them.
But you have to you have to take that first step
because people are watching you, you're the future.
And if every time you turn around,
you're making the wrong decisions,
before you make that decision,
think about the good decisions that you can make
to help somebody else.
Wonderful, wonderful.
Thank you for joining us today.
Once again, I'm Robert Stewart from the
Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument
and I was joined by
Reginald Murray, Buffalo Soldier.
Hooah, young rangers!
Alright, thank you.