After his father, several uncles, and older brother, Tom Sager knew he was set in his ways of continuing the family legacy by serving his country. In March 1980, he made the courageous, life changing decision to join the Army National Guard at 19 years old. As Tom was signing his freedom away to protect the freedom of others, he had many thoughts and emotions racing through his mind. The most prominent one was, undoubtedly, that he just wanted to be in the Army; he was eager to serve his country. Anyone would think that there would be a sense of pride felt by the individual signing up for this job, but Tom felt none. He said it was his duty and right to do so. When he told his family he enlisted, they were very happy for him and glad about the decision. Tom’s parents were very supportive of him and the military in general, and those values were instilled in him as well. When asked why his parents were proud, Tom said, “Every boy should join. It builds structure and determination, and it gives you a little bit of ethics and teaches you how to work.” 

Obviously, Tom experienced many changes in the military world, as he now was not in control of his life. Two of the hardest changes he now had to adapt to was getting used to never being by yourself (you are always with at least one other person) and constantly having to do what you are told. You do not make any plans for yourself, and for this time of your life you go by someone else’s agenda. According to Tom, the time schedules were hard to get used to because everything was so structured and planned out to a T. Being with some people for so long is going to lead to relationships being formed, and when asked if he was still in contact with the people he served with his answer was, “None. Even though I formed some close friendships, I also formed strong dislike towards some people. No matter our relationship, we all worked together nonetheless.” 

Although Tom was never deployed, he spent his basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia. This is where he learned about all the other jobs in the military other than hand to hand combat. He knew he had all kinds of options, but he also knew he was supposed to carry a rifle. Tom was in the Rifle Platoon and his job for a good while was to be a machine gunner. While this was part of what he wanted to do, he did not like this job in particular. It required him to lug around a 26 lb machine gun and work with hot equipment. He wanted to change jobs, but he and the person in charge would butt heads often so just changing was not that easy so he started messing around and shooting single shots, which is not as effective. Doing this worked and allowed him to switch from that job to one he enjoyed more. 

In total, Tom served for 10 years, all of which were peace time. He did some training in Honduras and would often go to Alaska for other types of training with all the other branches of the military. Once Tom got out, he lived his life a bit more differently; He had more pride in his country. He now knew what it took to keep our country free, and that all he did the last 10 years to be done for a reason. “This country cannot live without it’s military.” The service either affects people for the better or worse and in Tom’s case, it was for the better. He said joining the Army National Guard was the best thing that ever happened to him. Another plus is that he went from a size 38 to 34 pants in such a short amount of time. Serving in a branch of the military, no matter which one, learning many lessons is a given. When asked what the biggest thing he learned from this experience was, Tom said, “Teamwork. You constantly have to depend on everyone else around you and they have to depend on you. You can only do things on your own as long as it helps everybody.” As the interview was wrapping up, Tom’s ending thoughts were, “I am definitely a different person for being in the service. You go to prove yourself, to you and others around you. A lot of people do it, but it’s not as easy as you think. It’s pretty cool how an army base is a world of its own. You do things you’d never do at home. I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything.”