1. Citation information:
   1. James Scarbrough Interview, History 150 Spring 2016, Conducted by Tyler Spence, From Marines to Air Force, March 12, 2016.
2. Transcription
   1. I conducted the interview in person using the Smart voice Recorder application on my Samsung Galaxy S5 phone. We used my room and everyone in the house was aware that we needed twenty minutes of complete silence. I think the recording turned out well with relatively little background noise if any at all. Having said this, there was no reason to edit the piece.
   2. My interviewee’s full name is James Etzel Scabrough Jr. He’s a former military child himself, and lived at over 10 different bases including Hawaii and Germany. His dad was a chef in the Air Force and even cooked for the White House when he was stationed at Langley Air Force base in Northern Virginia. His mom was a stay at home mom and raiser of five children of which he was the youngest. He joined the Marines directly out of high school when he was 17. He was a very active kid to say the least and participated in a multitude of varsity sports including cross country, track, baseball, football, basketball, and boxing. He played many of these at the same time and excelled in all of them. His dad retired right before he started high school and they moved to Beckley, West Virginia. He graduated from Shady Spring High School in 1996 (my birth year). He and my mom were high school sweethearts and they married when he got back from his last deployment with the Marines. I was six at the time and he loved me like I was his from the very beginning. We have been best friends ever since.
   3. I looked into how the military has changed over the last 20 years. From what I was able to find, many people feel the same way that my dad does. There is a common belief that the military has gotten “softer.” A lot of it has to do with how politically correct America as a country has become. The military used to be a no nonsense, no questions asked organization. If you didn’t agree with what a superior told you to do, you did it anyways. Now, they are much more open to deliberation in hopes of finding innovative ways to do things. The military is too worried about offending someone. I think knowing this helps to understand the interviewee better. He has spent several years in the military before and after it got “softer,” so he can think about it from a firsthand account.
   4. TS: Why did you join the Marines?

Mr. Scarbrough: It was just kind of like a family not really a tradition or anything, but my dad was in my brother was in. It was the only life I ever really knew. I didn’t really have any other interests growing up. It was just kind of something like I felt I had to do

 

TS: Where was your first deployment and how old were you?

 

Mr. Scarbrough: My first deployment I was with the Marine Expeditionary Unit 24 from Camp Lejeune. We didn’t really go to one location. It was kind of like the 911 force I guess you would say. You just get on a ship and you cruise around for six months, but the first time we actually went somewhere other than the ship, that wasn’t just training exercises was Kosovo. It was in 1998. I was eighteen or nineteen years old.

 

TS: What kind of impact do you think it had on you?

 

Mr. Scarbrough: As far as how it affected me?

 

TS: yeah.

 

Mr. Scarbrough: [Hesitates] Quite a big one. I mean as a teenage kid. I mean they try to train you for stuff like that, but you never know what’s going to happen until you actually get in a situation. It definitely opened my eyes I think I grew up pretty quick. You know, I never really I guess had that chance after to high school to kind of just enjoy myself. Right when I graduated high school, I went in the marines. That was two years into my enlistment. It was the first time I’d seen anything like that it was crazy.

 

TS: Ho was the culture different overseas as compared to here in the United States?

 

Mr. Scarbrough: While we were on ship, I mean we got to hit a whole bunch of different countries and everywhere we went you know the host nation was usually pretty good with like offering tours and what not of their countries and I tried to take advantage of most of that. [Thinks for a second] It was a lot different. You know you’re used to so much stuff over here. Some places, I mean, it’s like you’re in a little America, you know like Tel Aviv, Israel. That place was, I mean they rollercoasters in malls, McDonalds, Burger Kings, Pizza Huts, it was nuts. It was just like you were walking down the streets of New York or something, but places like Africa and Croatia was really cool. They had a, Croatia was probably my favorite place that we went. It was [Thinks of the right words.] very cultural, I mean Dubrovnik, Croatia they had, it was like an old kingdom. I remember that like a no crap castle was up on the top of a hill and like the village I guess you’d say back in the day, that was like where the stores and shops and stuff was. That was pretty awesome, but that was pretty fun. It was a good experience.

 

TS: How do you think other people viewed you as an American?

 

Mr. Scarbrough: They, That was just depending on where we were. I know when we were in Spain they loved us, Croatia they were real nice. Then we went to places like Greece and Turkey [Pauses for a second] they weren’t big fans. [Chuckles] It just depends, Paris they just didn’t like us there. I don’t know why.

 

TS: So how long were you in the Marines?

 

Mr. Scarbrough: [No hesitation] Five years and three months.

 

TS: What made you switch to the Air Force?

 

Mr. Scarbrough: [Thinks for a second] Well my dad was in the Air Force, my brother was in the marines. I switched to the Air Force because I wanted to have a shot with you know a family. Have a family life, get an education, you can’t do that stuff in the marines. You’re always gone, always doing something. There was never any down time.

 

TS: How do you think it impacted you career when you switched?

 

Mr. Scarbrough: [Thinks hard] Well I don’t think that, I think that it helped my Air Force career because you’re trained a lot differently in the marines. You have a different mindset. I don’t think a lot of people in the Air Force are used to seeing and hearing somebody loud and obnoxious like a marine, so it’s you kind of standout which is a good think because in the Air Force it’s a professional type military, so when something comes in and you know ripples the water a little bit it makes you standout.

 

TS: What kind of values do you think that one branch stressed over the other? Like how were the values different from the Air Force to the Marines?

 

Mr. Scarbrough: Well the Marines it’s just a different world, it’s you know you do what your told when you’re told to do it because if you don’t somebody could die. You know so you chain of command, respect for authority, you know quick action that’s what they teach you. In the Air Force I mean it’s still like I said it’s a professional military. I don’t really know how to explain that other than it’s kind of like a job more so than a branch of service. Yeah there’s still rank structure and there’s still customs and curtesy and professionalism, military professionalism but it’s. You know just like that same scenario like in the Marines you do what you’re told or somebody could die, but in the Air Force, you still do what you’re told, but like if you think you have a better way, you know then they listen to it a lot more. It’s not my way or get out, it’s you know let’s figure out the best way to do this, which is on its own really good because it teaches younger people how to like think for themselves, take care of themselves. If you’re ever in a situation where you know you have to make the decision, then you’re kind of prepped for that, where as in the marines you always look for like your NCO’S and your senior NCO’S and your Officers to kind of guide you and tell you what to do.

 

TS: How do you think the military has changed over the duration that you’ve been in?

 

Mr. Scarbrough: It’s gotten a lot softer, a lot more politically correct I guess. I think all the branches are more that professional military now. Whereas before there was no tolerance for you know all the idiocrasy you see going on now, and I mean it’s, I guess it’s changing just like America has changed too, but it’s a lot easier now I think. Kids can get away with so much more now. Not you know like anything illegal or anything just like talking back you know does that make sense? Like when I was coming up I wouldn’t dare talk back to you know a NCO, you know and now you every other day you know it’s talking back. Just like kids talking back to their parents. You can’t spank them anymore because it’s frowned upon so it’s kind of like that in the military now too.

 

TS: Do you think that the changes are good?

 

Mr. Scarbrough: [Almost cuts me off] No! Absolutely not! No.

TS: Okay so let’s talk about the family structure a little bit more. You said you switched because you wanted something better for your family. Do you feel like that was your obligation as a man in the family?

 

Mr. Scarbrough: Yeah I mean you always want to provide for your family and it’s, I had, I was providing when I was in the Marines, but I never seen you guys. I never seen, I was driving home eight, nine hours every weekend just to come and visit you know. Because when we, when I was in the Marines you’re on a ship for what they say is six months, but I think my shortest time out was actually eight months, and then you come back and you get two weeks of leave, and then the second you come back off of leave you’re training for your next deployment. Even though it’s a year out, by the time you get back and you do your, you know just like your initial training and making sure all your stuff’s there you’re already back out on the filed getting ready for the next one. You know because even though you’re at home station, your still, we were still out in the field playing G.I. Joe out in the woods all the time, so there was a lot of weekends I couldn’t even come home. Just because we were out doing stuff.

 

TS: How do you think the quality of life differs from the Marines to the Air Force?

 

Mr. Scarbrough: It’s definitely a lot better like the only time in the Air Force that I don’t go without like a roof over my head and I’m not sleeping in a tent is like when I’m doing my little classes to get ready for Air Force deployments, which is few and far in between, but I mean you can, when we were in Fort Lee just look at the area that we were in like the, I’m saying like the base housing we were in, the buildings on the base compared to when we’re on an Air Force Base. You know what I mean? We, just stuff like that, like the quality of life in the Air Force is just always better. I think it’s because it’s like the, like I said it’s like the richest branch I guess. They treat their people a little bit better than any other branch of service.

 

TS: How do you think moving around has affected the stability of your family?

 

Mr. Scarbrough: Well when I was growing up, it was, my dad was in the Air Force and it was a lot different time back then, but I think the longest we were actually in a place was four years and that’s when he was stationed in Hawaii because it was a four year tour when you brought your family. Other than that, like every two or three years we were up and moving, so it wasn’t like you really put down roots anywhere. I think that’s what kind of got me a little stir crazy, another reason why I think I felt like I had to join the military is because I was used to that lifestyle. Where like now-a-days we go back into how the military is changing. Now whenever you get stationed at a stateside or aconus (overseas) base its five years minimum you know before you can even think about moving. I think that helps out with you know families in general because the children and the spouses man or woman, they can get a job and get involved in the community. The kids can get used to schools. It’s a lot easier to stay in one place than it was before and I think that’s just because a lot of our time is spent deployed now too. You know when my dad was in, it was still the Cold War era, so I mean they had to keep constantly moving. It was the only way they were going anywhere, [chuckles] and then now-a-days we deploy you know at least once a year you’re going out, so I don’t think the military is really that much, that concerned with spending the money on moving their people and their assets around, as they are just trying to keep them because we are spending all this money on deployments, and sending everything overseas.

 

TS: How do you think the military is for women that join? Do you see a difference in how they are treated as opposed to the men?

 

Mr. Scarbrough: Yeah I think you’ll, but that’s just human nature I think. [Thinks for a second] You know the females make up a huge part of the military, and they are getting kore and more opportunities, but yeah they are always going to be treated differently, there’s no way around it. I mean when I was in the Marines on the MEU, (Marine Expeditionary Unit) we were the first MEU that allowed females to deploy. It was the very first time and we had [Thinks for a second] four of them in our platoon. Even just like that small little step changed the whole dynamic of the deployment. Like they had to be on what we called the big deck, it was our carrier. They had to be on the one because that was the only one that had you know separate female birthing areas, which are like bedrooms you know. [Takes long pause] Then when we go, I mean think about some of the physical stuff we had to do while we were out. There was this thing we called forced marching, You know it’s, you just put on a really heavy backpack kind of and you walk as fast as you can for like twenty miles, and a lot of time the females would be picked to you know drive the medical vehicles. You know, and I don’t think it’s anything bad it’s just, you know they are always going to get kind of pampered I guess you can say.

 

TS: So they allow women in combat, and do you think that changes the dynamics at all of war in general.

 

Mr. Scarbrough: Yeah I think it changes a lot when it comes to like actual boots on the ground fighting because you, like I said you always want to try and protect females. You know as a man that’s, I mean that’s just kind of human nature, and you know not just to protect them from like bullets or anything like that flying, but protect them from seeing some of the stuff that you see while you’re over there doing that kind of stuff. You know [Thinks of the right words] I have no problem with women in combat. I have no problem with women in the military. I just, I think that if they’re in situations where you know we’re sending rounds down range and people are dying and blowing up, I mean yeah it’s going to effect the men that are standing next to them because they, they’re going to try to protect them. You know, but on the flip side I’m sure the females are thinking the same thing like if they see their fellow you know servicemen get hurt, they are going to try and protect them, but that’s just the way it is in general. Like a lot of time just walking down the street, normally if it’s a decent human being, You see a female getting you know hit or you know bullied or whatever you’re going to step up and do something. You know where if it was another man, you know you’re like he can fend for himself sometimes not all the times, but that’s kind of the general mentality, and besides I think women have an easier time keeping their cool when it comes to stuff like that, so I think they should be more in positions of like making decisions during combat and not being boots on the ground, but that’s just my opinion

 

TS: Thank you for your time and I appreciate you doing this interview.

 

I think the interview went really well and I’m satisfied with the results that I got. I think it flowed nicely and their wasn’t really any awkward silences. We pretty much stayed to script, but the divergences were all steps in the right direction. I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I don’t think any changes really need to be made and I take a lot of pride in my interview.