![]() ![]() SPRAGUE: It's got to be, when you started thinking about it, maybe 2009? 2008? Somewhere in there?īECKEL: Yep, so, I graduated in 2010. Serve stateside, get that training and then do whatever other schooling I wanted to do, also. Being National Guard I would be able to serve more stateside, yes, still could have been deployed. Instead of going to school, I could join and get my training that way and serve our country with it. Started talking to the National Guard one-knew a couple people that had graduated previously to me that had joined the National Guard and heard about 00:06:00the school benefits and just the on the job training of I knew I wanted to go into the medical field at that point. And one day I stopped and started talking to a few of them. Recruiters sitting out there giving seniors their options. What was the kernel of that beginning?īECKEL: So, all the different branches used to have tables set up around the lunch area, you know, once or twice a week. In going through the high school, at some point you're thinking about the military or joining it. ![]() It's been fought a little bit, but they are still the Rebels right now. So, I was the first class to go all four years through the high school, called Central High School. Once it hit high school, which was freshmen year in Colorado, we had a brand new high school to go through. 00:05:00īECKEL: Junior high school and high school. So, first year for freshmen through-not junior year. Cardinal Community Academy, went there through elementary school, until junior high which was one central junior and senior high school, until which would have been my junior year. ![]() Okay, you're in Colorado, tell me about going to school there, grade school, high school?īECKEL: I went to Keenesburg Elementary School until a charter school opened up, which my mom actually helped, you know, start the committee and all that kind of stuff to open the school. SPRAGUE: Okay, cool, that we have him going forward and at least know of this person and their service. If you are okay with it, would be okay with mentioning his name for the record? Or not? SPRAGUE: Yeah, that happens with veterans. Not something that he talks about a lot, so. Not a lot of conversations I've had with him with about his time serving. He's got to be, he's almost eighty now, and he was twenties or thirties.īECKEL: I think probably, let's see, if he's eighty, and it's sixty years ago, so probably fifties.īECKEL: 1950s. He was in the Air Force as a photographer.īECKEL: I don't know the years that he served. SPRAGUE: Okay, so in thinking about this, did you have grandparents, grandmothers, or grandfathers that served in the military or?īECKEL: One of my grandparents did, my mom's dad. So, it was a pretty-I remember clearly the day that our last tractor left when we sold it, and it was the Versatile, one we had forever and ever, and me and brother we stood in the yard and cried as we watched the last tractor go. Hit some harder times-farming is not guaranteed that your crops are going to be profitable. SPRAGUE: Was that a big transition when you went from farming to those other roles, they were the same time but, selling the farm?īECKEL: It was a huge transition, 'cause that's what my family, my great grandparents, everybody before that all farmed in Colorado. Grandpa works for Union Pacific, retired from Union Pacific now. My mom was a pre-school teacher, she is now a special ed 00:02:00aid. When I was about ten or elven, sold the farming part, but my dad was a diesel mechanic for Caterpillar-still is. Some were dry, some were watered, you know, sprinklers or ditches, that kind of stuff. So, if you don't mind what did your family do in Colorado?īECKEL: When I was young my family we did farm. Very flat, you could see for much farther than you can here in Wisconsin. Everything out there, way down in the plains, not in the mountains. So, cornfields, was it like Wisconsin at all, with 00:01:00cornfields or? Tell me about it.īECKEL: It was very different, it was very flat. Very country town, I always joked that our high school was in the middle of cornfields. Okay, Laura, tell me a little about where you grew up.īECKEL: I grew up in a small rural town in Colorado called Keenesburg. This interview is being conducted by Luke Sprague at the public library in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, as part of the I Am Not Invisibile Project for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Program. This is an interview with Laura Beckel, who served the United States Army National Guard from 2010 to 2015. Today is highlighted.SPRAGUE: Today is July 7, 2022. Dates are based on the Gregorian calendar. Business Date to Date (exclude holidays). ![]()
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