When he joined the military, Larry Douglas was excited to have the opportunity to serve his country and be able to move around.
“I enjoyed my military career. I joined because there wasn’t anything to do in Quitman,” remembered Larry. “The only places you could really work in Quitman and make a decent salary were the knitting mill or Burlington. Going into the Army was my out.”
His family also maintains a strong military history, which is another reason he decided to join.
“We came from a military family,” added Larry. “My grandfather was in World War I. My dad was in World War II. I have two siblings that were in active duty. I retired, and I have a sister that retired as well. Then, we have a sister that only did like three years. My son was infantry and just got out in April.”
Once he joined, he took on a career in the military and proceeded to move to different bases and go out on deployments before he officially retired.
“I started out in 1977 in the Army National Guard here in the Quitman 786 transportation unit,” explained Larry. “In 1980, I went from there to active duty Army. I’ve been stationed in Quitman, Texas, Germany, Fort Jackson, and just different bases. I was in the air defense missile unit, and I did that from 1983 to 1989. I came back to quarter masters in 1989 and went to Desert Storm at the end of that year until sometime in 1990. Then, I went to a unit in Iowa and stayed in Iowa for about two years. Then I was in Chicago for about 22 years. I officially retired from the military in 2001.”
He can easily remember the different experiences he had on the occasions that he was deployed to fight in another country.
“My job in the Army was to shoot down any planes to protect the Air Force Base,” informed Larry. “In Germany, my responsibility was to defend the airspace over the airbase there. We were trying to fight the Russians, so there was always a threat that they were going to attack our bases. We were protecting all the bases from the Russian Air Force. Out of all the places I was stationed, Germany was probably my favorite. Europe was really nice. Before Reagan took out the Berlin Wall that divided East Germany and West Germany, we had a place called Checkpoint Charlie. It was about three kilometers from the west side. You couldn’t go past that point, or you were in enemy territory. The Russians controlled that area. We had West Germany. That was interesting. When they took the wall out and unified the east and west, our being there wasn’t as important. Their attitudes towards us changed a little because they were unified again and didn’t really need our protection anymore. I would do it all over again if I could.”
Of course, Germany isn’t the only area that he has served.
“We lost about eight people in the last deployment when we got hit by missiles,” continued Larry. “Before that, we were stationed in Saudi Arabia, so they kept trying to hit that compound. They tried to hit us the whole time we were there. When we left and deployed to Iraq, they ended up hitting the compound we just left.”
Despite the challenges he faced, he believes that the sacrifice was worth it.
“It was challenging but well worth it,” proclaimed Larry. “I think protecting someone is a big responsibility. You don’t think about your safety in the middle of that. You just think about how you have a mission to protect all these people from getting killed. That’s what keeps you going. The adrenaline kicks in. There are tough times and pleasant times.”
Naturally, there were things that occurred that were difficult for him.
“In Desert Storm, they had a scud missile that blew up in our compound,” described Larry. “I had a platoon sergeant, and we didn’t know he had a pacemaker. He would usually get up every morning and come around to make sure we were all good and check on everybody, and he didn’t show up that day. I went to the tent he stayed in, and I found him. He wasn’t dead, but he was only semi-conscious. They took him out and shipped him to Germany. That’s probably the toughest thing I did was finding him.”
By the time he came home from deployment, he was able to locate a job that made it a little easier for him to transition back into civilian life.
“It was hard at first, but I went to work for the railroad as a conductor for Union Pacific,” declared Larry. “They have a lot of discipline, so that kind of made up for not being in the Army. It had the same standards that you had to maintain in structure and being responsible and accountable. That kind of helped transition from coming back from combat to civilian life.”
Eventually, he decided the time had come to retire so that he could be with his family more instead of possibly being deployed again.
“I retired right after 9/11,” expressed Larry. “Everything was on high alert, and they shut down airports. I lived on the south side of Chicago, so the planes would fly right over the house. When it happened, everybody was scared because you didn’t know when you heard a plane if it was the Air Force or someone else. My oldest son was born in Germany, and my younger son grew up in Chicago. After 9/11, it made me think it was time to let it go for my son because I didn’t want to have to deploy again. That’s why I retired.”
His hard work was able to keep countless people safe, and people will forever be thankful for the sacrifices he made.
