Ft. Bragg Stories Podcast

This year, after more than a decade of service as a linguist and a paratrooper, Jay Huwieler made the decision to leave the military. “It was a combination of feeling like I’d served my purpose, and at the same time feeling like there had been too many times when I was too far away from my wife,” he said. Huwieler recalled his sergeant major telling him: “One day you’re not going to be in the Army. When it’s over, there needs to be a family there because you didn’t leave them behind.” He came to

Jeremy Moore was on a night patrol in Afghanistan in 2012 when he fell nearly 60 feet down an open well. He suffered serious injuries to his legs, spine, and head. He returned to Fort Bragg, determined to stay in the Army and keep working, even while he recovered from trauma that made routine activities difficult.

Military service is the thread that weaves Bobby and Alexia Fields’ family life together. He’s on active duty at Fort Bragg, she serves in the Army Reserve. Together, they balance the demands of the Army with the responsibility of raising three young children.

From 1942 until 1978, women who wanted to join the Army served in the Women’s Army Corps. Former Specialist Victoria Landes spent six years as a WAC during the 1960s, training to be a dental assistant at Fort Bragg. “When I graduated at 18, I really didn’t have any significant plans,” said Landes. “Going to college really wasn’t going to be an option.”

As a young man in the late 1960s, Hal Noyes faced the prospect of being drafted to fight in Vietnam. He was opposed to the war, but decided to enlist, hoping to avoid combat. By 1969, he found himself stationed at Fort Bragg, working in the s upply room in the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center. He and a group of fellow soldiers decided to join G.I.’s United Against the War in Vietnam and began publishing Bragg Briefs, which became one of the longest running G.I. anti-war newspapers of the

Growing up on his family’s farm in southern Alabama, Private First Class Tyler Dunn thought his future lay in agriculture. “Our family farm, we’ve got roughly 3,000 acres that we row crop, we have chicken houses, and we have close to 3,000 head of cattle,” he said. “We’re a fairly large operation compared to those around us. I started physical labor [on the farm] around eight years old. I just enjoyed being in the field with my grandad and my father.”

Lynn and Steve Newsom spent five years as co- directors of Fayetteville’s Quaker House. During their tenure, they advocated for better mental health care for incarcerated veterans, organizing a petition and vigil in A pril 2016 to draw attention to the plight of former Staff Sergeant Josh Eisenhauer . Eisenhauer was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder following two deployments to Afghanistan. When emergency responders came to a small fire at his Fayetteville apartment in 2012, Josh

Sergeant First Class Kelly Rodriguez deployed more than five times in the course of her 21-year military career, serving as an Army Combat Medic in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and twice in Afghanistan. She loved her work, but it exposed her to some of the worst realities of war.

Retired Major Ivan Castro’s life was forever changed September 2, 2006, when a mortar landed near him in Iraq. Two of the men in his unit were killed and Castro was gravely injured. The attack left him completely blind, facing a long road to recovery.

In 2008, Armando Nunez and a friend decided on a whim to try their hand at ghost-hunting by taking pictures in a local cemetery. His wife Joanna and friend Tom Kuntz soon joined in and together they founded the Paranormal Research Organization of Fayetteville, or PROOF.